to measure SEO metrics that are important //

Have you ever had a client or boss question the value of SEO because they cannot see the direct revenue generated?

Are you concerned that some stakeholders are influenced by vanity metrics and their strategic direction?

All of us have been there.

This article will show you how to move away from vanity metrics, and instead determine the metrics which are important.

We know this because:

You need to review your search strategy in order to set metrics that are important.

Understanding and defining your audience

Your audience should be the basis of any strategy.

You should strive to “outside-in”, rather than “inside out” as an organization.

A business that is a true insider will say what it wants to.

Many decisions are based on assumptions, such as the language they use, how they plan customer journeys and what assumptions they make.

The opposite is true of organizations that are led from the outside.

Listen to your audience, then craft your language. Then base the customer journey and decisions on what you learn.

You need to understand your audience before you can develop a measurement strategy.

No matter what method you choose, it must be tailored to the client’s needs, the data available, the audience, etc.

Here are some ideas.

Surveys

Surveys that incorporate behavioral science are best. You should not direct respondents to answers that you want.

Create the survey in such a way that they can express their feelings.

You can send these surveys to your existing customers or your email marketing database.

A market research firm can help you find an audience. You can also combine the two.

Social listening

Social listening tools allow you to find out what people are saying online.

You can help by:

Also, they provide valuable insights into competitors, partners and publications.

Desk Research

It’s likely that you are not the first to ask for audience insight. You can explore existing studies for valuable information.

Workshops on client persona

You’ll find colleagues in your company who work directly with clients, such as sales or customer service.

Persona workshops use their knowledge to test hypotheses and validate findings.

Interviews 1-2-1

As with workshops, one-on-one conversations can be a powerful way to gain insights when you talk to the right person.

It’s only a sample. Your entire strategy is not based on it. They can be used to validate or generate hypotheses.

Align them with your customer-centric strategies for success.

Existing data analysis/CRM analysis

Untapped data can be a valuable resource for businesses. This research reveals practical uses, ranging from quantitative data on timelines of customer journeys to qualitative trend analysis.

After choosing research methods, and completing them, data must be analyzed to align with personas. These personas focus on more than just demographic information.

Search for daily newsletters that marketers use.

“> “> “>

Processing…Please wait.


Terms.

Channel research

You can now look for additional learning channels.

You may have some other ideas about channels that you would like to validate.

It is important to collect as many quantitative data points as possible in order to determine the potential audience size on each channel. Your goal should be to include:

In most cases, determining how customers search (and matching this with the funnel based upon keyword intent) is an important puzzle piece.

Consider the following trends:

Google AdWords and Microsoft Advertising are the obvious places to start. Think beyond Google and Microsoft Advertising when you think about where people search (e.g. hashtags on YouTube, social media, etc.).

These data points will help you prioritize your strategy in terms of impact.

Targeting and audience insights

Can you gain any insight from the use of different social and search channels in order to better understand your audience?

What are the different audience bucket sizes? What are the different stages of their journey that you could target?

Competitor / partner / retailer reviews

When planning your strategy, it is important to know what your competitors are doing and their performance.

It is the same when it comes to audiences.

You can learn a lot by comparing your approach to that of your competitors or peers.

It is powerful to look at what content has been popular in the past and see how it relates to you.

Influencers, social media audiences or publishing companies all have a high level of influence.

This is an important angle to include in your research.

Current performance audit

After all this research, it is time to evaluate your performance.

It is impossible to plan your future without knowing where you stand now.

This performance audit can also help you manage your expectations and prioritize actions.

Building your customer journey map

What now, now that you have a wealth of data on your customers’ key touchpoints and their buying patterns?

This is your customer journey map. Here you’ll see the KPIs.

You can create the map in any way you like. Miro is our tool of choice because it allows information to be moved around easily.

The customer journey should be covered on the board. I prefer the following stages:

These are standard. You can split them differently depending on the customer journey.

It is important to create a map of each persona. I know it is a lot work but it is worth it.

You should map out the following stages for each persona:

Your research should be the basis for all of this information. In many cases you will also have data to support your claims.

Focus on the size of the opportunity from a strategic perspective, such as understanding Google’s search volume for a certain audience at a particular phase in their journey.

Assess your performance and prioritize tactical actions.

Use a map that has colored dots (red amber green) to indicate performance and stars to show major opportunities.

It’s not important to choose the right way to represent your customer journey. It is important that you find it useful for your business and yourself.

Here is a nice example of a neatly designed journey. A neat and tidy version is useful for me to present to my business.

This is not how it looks when in motion.

The version I use most often (covered with colored dots and stars), is my work-in progress version.

This article will help you to set up the framework for measuring your strategy.

You may not have noticed, but we just did that.

You can gain a better understanding of the actions they take or want to take by mapping their journey stages, their touchpoints and their thoughts, emotions and actions. You want to track these actions.

These are the leading indicators of your strategy. These indicators can be used to gauge the audience’s engagement with content and, over time, they can help predict money metrics.

You should be able, at a high-level, to create a map to describe the roles and purposes of each channel within your strategy.

Awareness Metrics include

Consideration metrics include

Measurement of purchase/inquiry include

Retention metrics include

Customer research is the basis of our strategy.

Motivational factors can be used to inform the personas of customers’ buying habits, preferences and journeys.

It identifies key channels and actions that can be tracked to form a customer-centric approach.

Next, you need to make sure that you share this information with your colleagues and gain their buy-in. You want them all on board with your strategy.

Socializing metrics that matter to your business

You need to make sure that you guide your business through the journey on which you have worked for several weeks, if not months.

Make sure they know that the customers are responsible for shaping this strategy. This will have a huge impact on future decisions.

Transparency is provided by the strategy before conversion.

Clear data points show why performance is lacking. You can also test and learn to improve performance.

Use psychological nudging in order to help this information stick.

Your SEO strategy must be driven by the customer journey

Even within channels, research involving customers, desired audiences, and even channels themselves can reveal customer priorities.

What’s important for your customers is also important to you. This helps you select metrics for the different stages of your journey and audiences.

This is the key to unleashing digital performance.

Leading indicators help you improve your strategy along the way, instead of relying on only big money metrics that don’t provide insight into successes or failures.

To achieve success, ensure that everyone in the business understands and accepts the key metrics.

The post How do you determine SEO metrics that are important first appeared on Search Engine Land.

Tagged

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *