SEO Analytics Reporting That Empower Clients to Make Better Business Decisions

There are a few reasons why clients might be confused about their SEO reports. First, SEO is a technical field with its own jargon, which can be confusing to non-technical people. Second, the way that SEO metrics are visualized can also be confusing. Third, clients may not understand the relationship between SEO metrics and their business goals.

Some common ways that clients misinterpret SEO data include:

Overemphasis on a single metric. For example, a client might focus on increasing their website’s traffic without considering other important metrics, such as engaged sessions or conversion rate.

Confusing correlation with causation. For example, a client might see that their website’s traffic decreased at the same time that their bounce rate increased, and conclude that the traffic decrease caused the higher bounce rate. However, it’s also possible that the traffic decrease was caused by something else, such as a change in Google’s algorithm.

Ignoring the big picture. Clients may focus on individual metrics without considering how they fit into the overall SEO strategy. For example, a client might be happy with their website’s traffic, but if that traffic is not converting into leads or sales, then the SEO strategy is not working.

Metrics are any measurable values that can be used to track the performance of an SEO campaign. Click-through rate (CTR), average sessions, and Page load time are some of the examples of SEO metrics.

KPIs (key performance indicators) are specific metrics that are most important to achieving the goals of an SEO campaign. increasing CTR, decreasing page load time, and increasing average session duration are some of the examples of SEO KPIs.

Goals are the desired outcomes of an SEO campaign. They should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

‘Increasing website conversion rate by 1% in the next 3 months’ is an example of SEO goal. To achieve this goal, we need to focus on specific metrics such as average session duration and set its KPI i.e. increase average session duration so that people spend more time on website that can improve the likelihood to convert them.

It’s important to tie metrics to goals because it helps you track your progress and make sure that your SEO efforts are actually helping you achieve your desired results and impacting your bottom line. For example, if your goal is to increase leads by a certain percentage in a specific in the US region, then you would want to track metrics such as organic search traffic from the US, bounce rate, and conversion rate.

Some common SEO metrics that you should track include:

• Organic search traffic
• Bounce rate
• Conversion rate
• Click-through rate (CTR)
• Keyword rankings
• Backlinks
• Domain authority
• Page speed

There are a few ways to visualize SEO data in a way that is easy to understand. One way is to use pie charts or bar graphs. Another way is to use tables or dashboards. You can also use heatmaps to visualize the click-through rate of different pages on your website.

The frequency with which we send SEO reports to our clients will depend on the specific needs of our client and the goals of our SEO campaign. However, we usually send reports at least once a month.

Here are some tips for writing effective SEO reports:

• Keep the reports concise and easy to understand.
• Use clear and concise language.
• Avoid jargon.
• Use visuals to help illustrate your points.
• Focus on the metrics that are most important to your client’s goals.
• Be transparent about your methods and process.
• Ask for feedback from your client.

Vanity metrics are SEO metrics that are not directly related to business goals and objectives. For example, keyword rankings are often considered vanity metrics because they do not necessarily indicate that a website is getting more traffic or conversions and impacting bottom line.

Some common misconceptions about keyword rankings include:

• Thinking that a higher ranking is always better.
• Focusing too much on a few specific keywords.
• Not tracking the search volume for keywords.
• Not considering the competition for keywords.

Some common misconceptions about organic traffic include:

• Thinking that more traffic is always better.
• Not considering seasonality when interpreting traffic data.
• Comparing organic traffic to paid traffic.

Some common misconceptions about organic CTR include:

• Thinking there are objective “good” and “bad” CTRs.
• Thinking that improving the search result snippet or SEO Title will automatically improve CTR.

Some common misconceptions about bounce rate include:

• Assuming a high bounce rate is always a bad thing.
• Assuming all visitors who bounce dislike the page.
• Assuming there are objective categories of “high” and “low” bounce rates.

To keep things simple while explaining their keyword rankings, we ask our clients to:

• Focus on the overall visibility of the website, rather than individual rankings.
• Focus on tracking keywords that are relevant to their business website’s target audience.
• Focus on the SERP features for the keywords they are targeting.

We explain the concept of organic traffic to our clients by asking them to:

• Connect traffic growth to an increase in conversions.
• Prepare clients ahead of time for anticipated changes in traffic due to seasonality.

DA/PA stands for Domain Authority and Page Authority. They are metrics created by Moz to predict how well a website will rank in search results. DA is a measure of a website’s overall strength, while PA is a measure of a page’s strength within a website.

Some common misconceptions about DA/PA include:

• There are “good” and “bad” DA and PA scores.
• DA/PA are ranking signals.
• DA/PA are like Google’s PageRank.
• The 0-100 scale of DA/PA is like an F-A grading on a test, meaning you want to get 90-100% for an A.

Our SEO experts explain DA/PA to clients by saying that they are metrics that can help predict how well a website will rank in search results. However, it is important to emphasize that DA/PA are not ranking signals, and that there is no such thing as a “perfect” DA/PA score. The most important thing is to focus on improving your DA/PA relative to your competitors.

Backlinks are links from other websites to your website. Referring domains are the domains that are linking to your website. The more relevant backlinks and referring domains linking back to your website, the better your chances of ranking high in search results.

Some common misconceptions about backlinks and referring domains include:

• The more backlinks the better.
• Ignoring referring domains and focusing exclusively on inbound link quantity.
• Ignoring “follow” and “nofollow” attributes.
• Ignoring how much referral traffic a backlink is sending to your site.

The reality is that the quality of backlinks is more important than the quantity. You should focus on getting backlinks from high-quality websites, and avoid getting backlinks from spammy websites. You should also pay attention to the “follow” and “nofollow” attributes of backlinks. Follow links pass PageRank from the referring domain to the destination domain, while nofollow links do not pass PageRank. Finally, you should consider how much referral traffic a backlink is sending to your site. A backlink that is sending a lot of traffic is more valuable than a backlink that is sending very little traffic.

Conversions are actions that a visitor takes on your website that you have defined as valuable. For example, a conversion could be a form fill, a purchase, or a phone call.

Some common misconceptions about conversions include:

• Only paying attention to “last click” or the campaign that initiated the session in which a visitor converted.

Some common misconceptions about conversions include:

• Only paying attention to “last click” or the campaign that initiated the session in which a visitor converted.

The reality is that assisted conversions are also valuable, and important especially for the organic channel. SEO can target searchers at many different phases of the marketing funnel, so it’s important to pay attention to which conversions organic channel assisted. Even if PPC converted the visitor, it may have been organic that first captured their attention and won their trust.

Some common misconceptions about conversions include:

• Only paying attention to “last click” or the campaign that initiated the session in which a visitor converted.

The reality is that assisted conversions are also valuable, and important especially for the organic channel. SEO can target searchers at many different phases of the marketing funnel, so it’s important to pay attention to which conversions organic channel assisted. Even if PPC converted the visitor, it may have been organic that first captured their attention and won their trust.