The best search engine optimization (SEO) strategies incorporate technical SEO and content so that your website reaches your target audience with messages that matter to them. Measuring SEO performance for your website, however, is not as simple as counting website visitors. There are many important SEO key performance indicators that you must review to assess your SEO strategies.

Popular SEO Performance Tracking Tools for Websites

Before you measure SEO performance, you must set up the appropriate tracking for your website. Many free and paid performance tools are available.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics, a free tool from Google, is one of the most widely used SEO performance tools. Analytics provides detailed data and information about your website visitors. You can view website sessions and users by channel (organic, paid, referral, etc.) and by webpage. Analytics also includes audience information like location, device type, and browser type.

In addition to user and session information, Google Analytics tracks common website events like pageviews, file downloads, and clicks. You can also create custom events to measure website conversions or other important actions.

Google Analytics reports snapshot

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is another free tool that shows technical and keyword performance for your website. For technical SEO, you can view how Google crawls and indexes your webpages. For keywords, Search Console lists all keywords for which your website receives impressions and clicks in Google organic search.

SEO Keyword Tools

Since Search Console’s keyword reports are limited, you must choose an SEO keyword tool for detailed performance. While free tools are available, the best keyword tools are paid versions of SEMrush and Moz.

These paid keyword tools allow you to track keyword rankings, identify content gaps, and conduct competitor research. You can also use these tools to research and find target keywords for website content.

Website Crawlers

For advanced technical website analysis, you can use a website crawler like Screaming Frog. These tools can crawl your website and identify all technical components, including URLs, redirects, meta tags, schema markup, and so on. Crawlers also help you find and fix broken links or other technical errors.

Website Heatmapping Tools

Heatmapping tools like Hotjar and Microsoft Clarity are mainly for conversion rate optimization efforts, but you can use them for SEO performance as well. These tools show you exactly how website visitors engage with webpages and content. You can even view actual website sessions from organic search.

Heatmap of homepage

SEO Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Websites

Once you have the right tools available, you can review the most important KPIskey performance indicators to measure SEO performance.

Keyword Visibility and Rankings

Although the online landscape continues to evolve, SEO is still all about keywords. You must review all keywords for which your website ranks in organic search. While it is important to track all your keywords, you should prioritize keywords in the top 10 of organic search results. This is because studies suggest that most organic clicks occur in the top 10 (or first page) of Google search results.

In addition to keyword rankings, you should also track your website’s Google search features. Keyword tools like SEMrush show your website’s featured snippets, AI overviews, local packs, and other features. These search features continue to appear more and more in search results.

Impressions and Clicks

Organic impressions and clicks, which are available in Search Console, provide an overview of website visibility in Google organic search. Organic impressions are how many times your website appears in organic search results. Organic clicks are how many times somebody clicks on one of your organic listings.

Impressions are becoming increasingly important with the rise of zero-click searches in Google. Google often answers queries directly in search results, so you do not always receive clicks even with top keyword rankings. In these cases, impressions nonetheless indicate how frequently your audience sees your website in organic search.

Google Search Console report

Website Traffic

Website traffic remains one of the default performance measures for SEO. There are two common metrics in Google Analytics for traffic: users and sessions.

• Users: unique visitors to your website
• Sessions: individual website visits to your website

Sessions are usually greater than users because one user can have multiple sessions.

To assess SEO performance, you should filter website traffic by organic channels. The most common organic channel is organic search, but there are others like organic social, organic YouTube, and Google Business. You can also filter traffic by page to identify top-performing content.

Branded vs Nonbranded Website Traffic

Another consideration with website traffic is whether it comes from branded or nonbranded keywords. Branded keywords include your brand name, business name, or any other terms and even acronyms that directly relate to your brand. In general, nonbranded traffic is a better measure of SEO performance. An increase in nonbranded traffic likely indicates that your SEO efforts are helping you increase your online audience. Branded traffic is not as important because you will almost always rank for branded keywords – regardless of your SEO strategies.

A simple way to measure nonbranded vs branded performance is to filter out branded keywords in your reporting.

Website Engagement and Events

Keyword visibility, impressions, clicks, and traffic measure how people get to your website. Engagement metrics show what they do after they visit your website. Popular engagement metrics in Google Analytics are:

• Session duration: how long do sessions last
• Pages per session: how many pages visitors view per session
• Bounce rate: percentage of visitors who leave without taking another action (such as viewing another page)

For more advanced website engagement reports, you can use a tool like Hotjar to create heatmaps, scrollmaps, and clickmaps for priority webpages.

Website Conversions

The most important engagement metric is conversion. Common website conversion actions are contact submissions and requests for more information. However, you can set up additional conversions for button clicks, link clicks, file downloads, and so on. Not only should you track conversion amounts; but you should also track conversion rate (conversions divided by users or sessions).

Tracking conversion rate by channel and page is important because it gives you an idea how your SEO efforts relate to actual business performance. For example, you may find that certain website content is more likely to generate conversions than others. Conversion also helps you calculate an estimated return on investment (ROI) for SEO.

Google Analytics events report

Domain Authority and Backlinks to Website

A backlink is any link from an external website to your website. Backlinks have historically been one of the most significant measures of SEO performance. In fact, Google’s original PageRank algorithm prioritized backlinks to rank websites. While the algorithm has significantly changed since then, backlinks remain a critical SEO measure. A simple way to view backlinks is as votes to your website content. When somebody links to your website, it is as if they vote that your content is valuable. That said, backlink quality is more important than quantity. A backlink from a popular, highly-regarded website is usually more valuable than one (or even two) from a less popular website.

Many keyword tools use a metric called domain authority to measure backlink profiles. Domain authority factors in the quantity and quality of backlinks, spam, and among other factors, to give your website an authority score. The higher the score, the more likely you are to rank in relevant search results. Domain authority scores range from 1-100, with 100 being the highest authority. An example of a high-authority website is coursera.org. Coursera’s Moz domain authority score is 92 because it has quality website content, 400,000 ranked organic keywords, backlinks from over 240,000 domains, and a 1% spam score.

CloudControlMedia and SEO Agency Services

Researching, planning, implementing, and measuring SEO strategies can be daunting for business owners and website managers. Fortunately, CloudControlMedia is here to help. We offer SEO services that align traditional SEO best practices with your unique business goals. Our analytics and reporting team can also create custom reports to track all your SEO performance data in one place. Contact us today to learn more.

Most performance marketing strategies feature paid services like search engine marketing (SEM) and social media advertising. But marketers often exclude organic services like search engine optimization (SEO) from performance marketing. While SEO is clearly different than performance marketing, SEO can and should function alongside performance marketing strategies.

What Is SEO?

SEO is the process of updating your website, as well as other business properties like Google Business, to increase visibility in organic search engine results. The goal of SEO is for your website to show up when and where your target audience searches.

SEO strategies generally include services such as keyword research, technical website optimization, on-page website optimization, content optimization, and local SEO.

What Is Performance Marketing?

Performance marketing is a strategy by which you only pay for digital marketing services when they result in specific goals. For example, with a performance SEM campaign, you pay when somebody clicks on the ad – not whenever the ad appears in search results. The goal of performance marketing is to increase metrics like clicks, leads, and sales.

Common performance marketing channels are SEM, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, and email marketing.

Differences Between SEO and Performance Marketing

Most digital marketing separate SEO and performance marketing. Each has different goals, timeframes, marketing funnel applications, and return on investment (ROI) calculations.

Short-Term vs Long-Term Digital Marketing Goals

Performance marketing campaigns have short-term objectives. The idea is to generate a specific number of clicks or leads every month. SEO, however, has a longer-term focus. Rather than focusing on the next month, the best SEO strategies prioritize increased keyword visibility and organic traffic throughout the year.

SEO Is More Sustainable than Performance Marketing

Given its longer-term focus, SEO is more sustainable than performance marketing. Optimizing on-page content or fixing technical website errors in September can improve performance in September, October, November, and so on. On the other hand, performance marketing is not as sustainable because of its “pay-to-play” model. If you pay $1,000 for 100 clicks in September, you will almost certainly need to pay $1,000 for another 100 clicks in October.

Marketing Funnel Applications for SEO and Performance Marketing

Like all marketing activities, SEO and performance marketing play roles in the traditional marketing funnel. That said, their respective roles are at different stages of the funnel. SEO is more useful higher up in the marketing funnel because it generates awareness and increases visibility. At these stages, the audience seeks information and is not quite ready to convert. Performance marketing occurs lower in the funnel when the audience is closer to conversion.

Measurable Performance and Direct ROI with Performance Marketing

Digital marketers love performance marketing because it is totally transparent and measurable. You can see exact values for spend, impressions, clicks, leads, and even sales. As such, performance marketing campaigns show direct ROI. For the most part, SEO strategies are not as measurable. While you can measure keyword rankings and organic traffic, it is nearly impossible to connect these to specific SEO activities.

Similarities Between SEO and Performance Marketing

While SEO and performance marketing represent different activities, they share important similarities. SEO and performance marketing involve the same digital metrics, and they also function in platforms such as Google and Meta.

Digital Marketing Metrics Are the Same

Performance marketing and SEO share the same core set of digital marketing metrics. Key performance metrics include impressions, clicks, and click-through rate. The application of these metrics is different (impressions, for example, are more relevant to SEO than performance marketing), but the calculations and analysis remain pretty much the same.

Ultimate Marketing Goal Is Increased Leads

The ultimate goal of performance marketing is to drive leads. You can pay for leads directly or pay for clicks that potentially become leads. SEO lead performance is not as direct, but increased leads are the ultimate goal for SEO as well. The whole point of improving keyword visibility and traffic is so they can increase leads somewhere down the line – even if this increase is more difficult to measure.

Performance Marketing and SEO and Digital Marketing Channels

SEO and performance marketing both are digital marketing strategies. This means that they function in the same digital platforms. Google search results pages include ads (performance marketing), affiliate sites (performance marketing), local listings (SEO) and business websites (SEO). Social media platforms like Meta contain performance marketing and SEO listings as well.

How SEO Can Help Performance Marketing

SEO is not included in any performance marketing campaign – but quality SEO services can still improve performance marketing.

SEO Can Improve Brand Visibility

Performance marketing is all about driving clicks and leads from an audience that already knows your business (to a certain extent). But what about people who have yet to encounter your business? SEO can act as a branding tool and fill in these gaps with performance marketing. Publishing optimized blog content or updating your Google Business listing are good ways to get your business name in front of your audience.

SEO Can Increase Flow into Marketing Funnel

As a branding tool, SEO can increase flow into and even through the marketing funnel. Effective SEO can increase the number of people who make their way to the later stages of the funnel. This results in a larger and more engaged audience for your performance marketing campaigns. A larger audience means more impressions, more clicks, and more leads.

More Efficient Keyword Spending with SEO

Performance SEM and social media campaigns target branded and nonbranded search terms. Nonbranded search terms are generally more competitive and therefore more expensive than branded. What if you targeted some of these expensive nonbranded terms with SEO? Then you would have more budget with your performance marketing campaigns to spend on the most valuable nonbranded terms.

CloudControlMedia (CCM) offers a full suite of performance marketing services like SEM, programmatic advertising, social media advertising, and email marketing. We bolster our performance marketing services with SEO and content marketing.

Contact us today to further explore our services.

By Joseph Colarusso, Director of SEO Services

Ask any search engine optimization (SEO) professional or business owner about the goal of SEO, and you will receive the same response: to rank on the first page of Google. Why worry about other search results if Google still accounts for over 90% of all online searches?

Nevertheless, even with Google’s dominance, new technologies continue to emerge and change the way people search for information. Gone are the days of people relying on Google’s 10 blue organic links. Now, people search on their computers, tablets, phones, and other smart devices, all of which provide unique search experiences. Successful SEO strategies in 2024 and beyond must incorporate these new experiences. The most important experiences relate to artificial intelligence, local search directories, and social and community platforms.

Artificial Intelligence in Google and Bing Search Engines Results

Artificial intelligence (AI) is at the top of everybody’s mind in 2024. AI impacts all forms of technology, including search engines. Both Google and Bing now leverage AI applications to create more dynamic search experiences.

• Google Search Generative Experience (SGE): Google launched the test version of SGE, its AI-powered search update, in the middle of 2023. SGE expanded over the next few months, and a November 2023 study suggested that more than 75% of Google searches showed AI results. Google’s SGE provides concise and visual topic overviews directly in the search results. It even uses AI to predict and answer follow-up queries. As such, a single search query may provide users with the same level of information they used to get with three to four queries.
• Bing Copilot: Microsoft announced Copilot, an AI chat platform, in November 2023. Copilot integrates with Microsoft’s suite of applications, including Bing. With Copilot’s AI capabilities, Bing’s new search experience is like Google’s SGE. Bing results will often include a new sidebar that shows additional information related to the search query. However, what sets Bing apart are the new chat features. Users can directly chat with an automated assistant that helps them refine searches with more details.

How Google and Bing Artificial Intelligence Impacts SEO

New AI search engine capabilities change the search landscape, but they do not impact SEO strategies or best practices all that much. Publishing well-researched and relevant content remains the best way to rank in organic search. If anything, AI search only reinforces the importance of great content. First-page search results almost always showcase relevant content from reputable sources.

What AI search does, however, is limit the organic traffic that websites receive. Google and Bing continue to answer queries directly in search results, so there often is no reason for users to click on organic listings. Most business owners and marketers should expect less traffic to their websites moving forward. That said, less traffic does not necessarily mean less visibility. Businesses that publish quality content can reach their audiences in new AI research results, even if the level of reach is difficult to track.

Local Search with Apple Business Connect

Local SEO updates and optimizations are the best ways for businesses to connect with their local audiences. However, changes to the local search landscape mean that businesses must look beyond their location pages and prioritize offsite platforms. Google Business remains the dominant local search platform, but Apple Business Connect is primed to grow in 2024.

Apple introduced Apple Business Connect in January 2023. The tool looks and feels like Google Business. Businesses can create profiles, add contact information, upload photos, and publish updates. The main difference is that Apple Business Connect integrates with Apple Maps instead of Google Maps. There are two reasons why Apple Business Connect will emerge as a realistic alternative to Google Business:

• Apple Maps market share: While Google Maps remains the dominant maps platform for smartphone users, Apple Maps continues to make strides toward second place. Near Media estimated that Apple Maps’ market share on iPhones grew to 37% in 2023. It is no coincidence that this market share growth occurred after the Apple Business Connect launch.
• Apple Siri integration: Siri, Apple’s voice assistant, integrates with every Apple operating system and device. In the past, Siri provided users with basic information like directions and phone number. Now, Siri shares more detailed information from Apple Business Connect. Businesses now can connect with customers directly in Siri results.

How Apple Business Connect Impacts SEO

Business owners and SEO professionals must incorporate Apple Business Connect in their local search strategies. The easiest action to take is to treat Apple Business Connect like Google Business: claim business listings, update information, add URL tracking, optimize with relevant keywords, and publish content. Apple Business Connect does not quite have Google Business’s user base, but it will only grow in importance moving forward.

Social and Community Search Engines

While traditional search engines like Google and Bing still dominate the search landscape, they are not the only places people search. The truth is that people now go beyond search engines to find businesses and products. For example, social media platforms and community forums function as search engine for certain audiences.

• Social media: Marketers and business owners already know the importance of social media platforms like Facebook. These platforms have search engine capabilities because users can search for businesses, products, images, people, business reviews, and so on.
• Community forums: Many people do not realize that community forums like Reddit are search engines. Reddit alone has more than 45 million searches every day. Beyond that, Reddit posts appear in Google and Bing organic searches. More niche community forums exist in other markets and industries.
• Video: People spend more and more time watching videos on platforms like YouTube. As such, YouTube receives more searches than any platform other than Google. People often research businesses and products on YouTube to hear from experts. And newer platforms like TikTok become increasingly important for younger audiences who want more visual search results.

How Social and Community Search Engines Impact SEO

Google and other traditional search engines remain the focus of SEO strategies and plans. However, the best SEO strategies incorporate social and community platforms as well. Business owners should prioritize the social platforms that matter the most to their audiences. Even something as simple as reviewing relevant Reddit threads may provide valuable information. Above all, businesses must reach existing and potential customers whenever and wherever they search.

CloudControlMedia and SEO

CloudControlMedia’s SEO and content marketing teams can help you plan, design, and write location pages for your website. Visit our agency services page to explore our digital marketing offerings.

Joseph Colarusso is our Director of SEO Services. With nearly a decade of digital marketing experience, Joseph uses his expertise to design, develop, implement, and manage SEO strategies that improve visibility in organic search for our clients.

Keywords are at the core of any search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. Choose the right target keywords, and you will have an inside track toward reaching your audience in Google search. Choose the wrong target keywords, and you will find yourself struggling to stand out in the search results.

Follow these tips to identify the best keywords for SEO:

1. Align Your SEO Keywords with Your Brand

The first step for choosing keywords for SEO is to align your brand identity with your keyword research. The simplest way to do this is to ask yourself which types of questions should your brand answer. This is based on your areas of expertise and authority. Be as specific as possible when coming up with your authority topics.

A school’s website is almost certainly a top authority for topics related to its programs and higher education in general. However, even if the school offers career services, it is not likely a top authority for career topics. Instead, career and job websites have more authority with these career-related topics and keywords. Therefore, if you manage a school’s website, it is a good idea to prioritize SEO keywords that closely relate to your programs.

2. SEO Keyword Research Starts with Your Target Audience

Every marketing plan revolves around a target audience. SEO is no different. You must understand the people in your audience and incorporate them into your keyword research. What words do they use to describe your products or services? Focus your research on these specific terms instead of industry jargon. Do not call something a “business solution” when your audience simply refers to it as “software.” It might be helpful to come up with a list of negative keywords like you usually do for paid search.

Location is another important factor that relates to keywords and your target audience. If your audience is local, then consider adding specific locations to your keywords.

After you conduct an audience analysis, group common traits and characteristics to create personas. These personas are examples of your target customers. You can use to personas to improve keyword targeting.

3. Understand Search Intent with SEO

Search intent describes the purpose of an online search. Think of it as the reason why somebody searched on Google. The most basic conception of search intent is transactional vs. informational.

• Transactional search: The intention is to make a purchase. An example is “kids running shoes.” Whoever does that search most likely wants to buy running shoes for a kid.
• Informational search: The intention is to research or find information. An example is “kids vs adult running shoes.” Whoever does that search might want to buy running shoes at some point, but right now the goal is to learn how they compare to adult running shoes.

As a first step, you must figure out whether your target keywords are transactional or informational. Then, go into more detail and determine what exactly your audience wants to know. If you identify your keywords as informational, try to understand what type of information is most relevant.

4. Find SEO Keywords with Search Volume or Interest

You can probably come up with a list of relevant keywords for a particular topic without much effort. But these keywords, regardless of how closely they align with your topic, are not useful unless people search for them. Popular SEO tools such as SEMrush give you estimates of the monthly search volume for keywords. You want to find keywords with search volume greater than zero to make sure there is an actual audience to capture. Otherwise, you might produce great content that nobody will find.

That said, search volume is relative, so you do not want to simply choose the keywords with the most monthly searches. A keyword such as “business ethics” gets around 15,000 searches every month, but it is probably too broad for your blog post. Something like “what does ethics mean in business,” which gets 170 monthly searches, is a better option because you have a realistic chance to rank for it.

5. Compare Yourself to the Competition in Google Search

What is another reason to avoid broad keywords such as “business ethics”? The search results are usually competitive. There are probably a lot of big, high-authority websites that target that keyword phrase. If you manage a smaller website, you will find it difficult, or even impossible, to carve out a piece of the search results. Size is not the only factor that impacts competition; relevancy matters as well. If your website is for a school, only target business-related keywords if the school offers business programs. And to go a step further: identify queries that a business school should answer.

The quickest way to understand competition in Google search is to perform the searches yourself. See what types of websites show up on the first page. If those sites are like yours, then that keyword is likely a good target.

6. Assess AI and Other Google Search Features for Your SEO Keywords

Competition also relates to the types of search results. Anybody who uses Google knows that the 10 blue organic links are a thing of the past. Now, Google shows a handful of dynamic search features that change based on keyword. Examples are featured snippets, people also ask questions, local packs, image packs, and knowledge panels.

Let us use the local pack, which includes Google My Business listings, as an example. If Google shows a local pack in the results, then you might want to avoid targeting that keyword with a blog post. Instead, target that keyword with your Google My Business listing. And for your blog, identify keywords that have blog posts in the search results.

In 2024, Google launched AI Overviews, which totally changed the organic search landscape. AI Overviews pull information from a variety of web sources and provide detailed answers to search queries. As such, searchers do not need to click and visit and websites to get answers to their questions. Our research suggests that AI Overviews appear in 20-50% of search results, so it is important to incorporate them into your SEO efforts. For example, if your goal is to increase website traffic, you may want to target SEO keywords that do not feature an AI Overview. However, if brand visibility is your goal, then targeting AI Overviews is a good strategt.

7. Match SEO Keywords with Paid Search

Many Google search engine results pages feature paid advertisements above the organic results. As such, it makes sense to consider paid search when you choose target keywords for SEO. If, for example, a specific search query results in three to four advertisements, then it might not make sense to focus on that as a target keyword. Even the top organic listing will be the fourth or fifth listing overall. Instead, try to find search queries that do not include advertisements. Long-tail keywords that are more question-and-answer by nature typically do not have advertisements.

In addition, pay attention to your own paid advertising campaigns to find keyword gaps. Which keywords perform exceptionally well in Google Ads? Avoid cannibalizing any of that paid performance with organic search. Are there relevant keywords that are too expensive for your campaigns? Consider those as target keywords to generate value from organic search.

If choosing keywords for SEO sounds like a daunting process, contact the experts at CloudControlMedia. Our SEO team can help you integrate the right keywords into your online marketing strategies to get the most out of organic search.