With over 1.8 billion websites on the internet, getting more visitors to your site than your competitors is essential to your success. However, with so many websites, you may feel like nothing you do is enough.

Luckily, there’s one step you can take to ensure your site’s moving in the right direction. Looking into SEO metrics to track helps you assess what areas of your website are strong and what spots need work.

If you’re unsure what the most important SEO metrics are, keep reading. You’ll learn what they are, how they impact your site, and how to improve them.

1. Organic Traffic

The single most crucial metric to track is your organic traffic. If this is trending upward, you can breathe easy knowing your SEO efforts are paying off, as internet users are visiting your site.

Organic traffic originates from your page appearing on search engines like Google or Bing without having to pay for placement on the page.

If you’re struggling to increase organic traffic to your site, you can look into professional digital marketing services to help your page get more visitors.

2. Keyword Rankings

If you want your website to get visitors, creating pages with interesting content is crucial. Part of this content includes incorporating keywords, which are terms that rank highly on google when users search them.

However, including keywords in your content isn’t enough. Ensuring you place them strategically is crucial, as it affects the overall SEO of your content. You’ll want to use the keyword in the title, description, in the first few paragraphs of the blog post, and naturally throughout the article.

There are plenty of keyword analyzers available to help you find the most effective terms and phrases to include in your content. You’ll also track the viability of these words.

3. Click-Through Rate

Another metric to keep in mind is your click-through rate. This measures how many people are choosing your site over the others listed on the same search result page.

If your click-through rate is low, it means enough people aren’t finding your content as it’s appearing on engines interesting. You can track the performance of your pages by using different consoles that track performance.

To combat this, use more engaging titles and meta descriptions. These factors influence how likely a user is to choose your website over others on the page.

4. Backlinks

Looking into backlinks is another essential SEO tactic to keep track of, as it shows that your website is high quality.

If you have a lot of backlinks, this means other websites frequently link to yours. While this is not only great, as users who visit the sites that your links appear on are more likely to make their way to your site, it helps your search engine ranking.

The more backlinks you have, the higher your content will appear on results pages. This is because having your site featured on high-quality domains shows the importance of your content.

Tracking what sites frequently link to yours is essential. You’ll want to know what sites are linking, what pages they link to, and the domain rating which can influence your overall SEO rankings.

5. Exit Rate

When it comes time to check SEO metrics, some say that exit rate isn’t necessary. However, reviewing this stat every once in a while can provide valuable insight into the informativity of your site.

Many think a high exit rate is a negative trend, as it’s the last page people visit before leaving your site. This could indicate that users find the content uninteresting and thus leave your page.

However, exit rates can be positive SEO performance metrics. If many people are leaving your blog after looking at one specific page, this could point to the fact that your content is informative and users found what they were looking for on the page.

It can’t hurt to look into the quality of the content ranking high on the exit rate metric. If it’s low quality, this indicates that the page needs work. However, if it’s excellent, it could be that the page is effective.

6. Mobile Traffic

It’s no secret that most of the world is glued to their phones. Ensuring your site is mobile-friendly is crucial for your performance. One of the biggest mistakes website owners make is only building their site for desktop use, as mobile traffic is one of the most important metrics for SEO.

Ensuring your mobile analytics are up to par is crucial to your SEO success. You’ll want to make sure that your site is mobile-friendly. Many websites fail to consider this when setting up a site!

If your page isn’t mobile user-friendly, it won’t perform as well. Though your regular traffic may increase, if you notice that your mobile usage isn’t changing, it’s indicative of a more substantial issue at hand with your mobile site.

You should also look into keyword performance, as many mobile users tend to use shorter, less intricate search terms when using various engines.

Keep the Most Essential SEO Metrics to Track in Mind

Though running your site may seem as simple as occasionally posting new content, ensuring your SEO tactics are up to par is essential to standing out amongst the millions of other websites on the internet.

If you’re ready to improve your website, thanks to this guide on the top SEO metrics to track, you’ll want to check out the rest of our website. You’ll discover more of the best tech tips to help keep your site in great shape.