Six Ways to Measure SEO Success - 1. Establish Your Benchmark Positioning (ranking)
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The most obvious way to measure your SEO success is to monitor your site's ranking in the top Internet search engines. comScore Media Metrix listed Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Excite and Ask Jeeves as the top U.S. search sites (in that order) based on the number of searches performed in December 2004. When you consider that some sites don't use their own technology (e.g., AOL gets its search results from Google), the pool of search engines becomes even smaller. In fact, according to comScore results, there were only four search providers (a "search provider" provides search results to various "search engines") responsible for 98 percent of searches in the U.S. in December 2004 - Google (48 percent), Yahoo (32 percent), MSN (16 percent) and Ask Jeeves (2 percent). This information will help you justify to your boss or client why you only need to track your results in a handful of search engines.
Many search engine optimization specialists (SEOs) monitor the top 30-50 positions in the above-mentioned search engines for positioning changes. Arguably, the first page of search engine results (SERPs) is the only page that matters, since many searchers never click beyond this page. However, it is important for reporting purposes to track your site's positioning beyond the top ten so that you can see for yourself (and demonstrate to your client) that whatever site you're monitoring is gradually moving up in the SERPs. If you are just starting to monitor your search positioning, you may even want to monitor the top 100-200 results. Yes, appearing down at position 100 is a website no-man's land, but once your site starts showing up in a search engine, it is a big win for you and/or your client, and should absolutely be reported.
There are many automated position checking tools, but some search engines such as Google frown on them. If you're just checking a few engines, the best way to monitor positioning is by hand. Perform manual searches by entering your keywords into the search field without quotes. You can adjust the number of sites displayed in the search results by clicking on "Advanced Search" in Google and Yahoo, then setting the number of results to be displayed at 100. MSN lets you view up to 50 results by clicking on the "Settings" link to get to the advanced search features. You can then do a search for your domain by selecting "Edit" and "Find" in IE or just hitting Ctrl-N and typing in your domain.
If you really want to automate the process (and who would blame you?), a great inexpensive tool is Advanced Web Ranking, which gives you the option of using a Google API key to perform searches. There are many other tools out there, including free Web-based tools. One of my favorite free online rank-checking tools is MarketLeap's Keyword Verification tool, which checks your ranking in seven search engines for one keyword at a time. The catch is that it only looks at the top three pages of results in each engine, and it only reports the actual page your listing appears on, not the exact position.
It is safe to assume that the higher your site is listed in the search engines, the more traffic it will get, with the coveted #1 position delivering the most clicks. Atlas Solutions, the corporate parent of a suite of digital marketing agencies that include Avenue A and Razorfish, released two reports that support this assumption. These reports, titled "The Atlas Rank Report: How Search Engine Rank Impacts Traffic" and "The Atlas Rank Report, Part 2: How Search Engine Rank Impacts Conversions" show that lower positioning in ad placement for pay-per-click ads on Google and Overture translated to lower clickthrough and conversion rates. This data supposedly translates to organic search listings as well, although my advice is to really look at your own data (Atlas gives this advice too) and determine the reality of your clickthrough and conversion rates based on your site's position in the SERPs.
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