Story Based Question
You’ve just finished conducting a comprehensive technical SEO audit on a website, identifying and fixing issues related to page speed, broken links, mobile optimization, and crawlability. After making all the improvements, you’re eager to see the results. But how do you actually measure if these changes have worked? How can you know for sure that the technical SEO improvements you made are helping the website perform better on search engines?
Exact Answer
To measure the success of technical SEO improvements, track metrics such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, crawl errors, page speed, and indexing status. Use tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Ahrefs to monitor these metrics over time.
Explanation
Measuring the success of your technical SEO improvements is crucial to understanding whether your efforts are actually paying off. After implementing changes to your website, it’s important to keep an eye on key metrics to track the impact. Here’s how to measure the effectiveness of your SEO improvements:
- Organic Traffic:
One of the first metrics you’ll want to track is organic traffic. This shows the number of visitors arriving at your website from search engines. After implementing technical SEO changes, if your traffic increases, it’s a good sign that the improvements are working. Look at tools like Google Analytics to track traffic trends and compare periods before and after your optimizations. - Keyword Rankings:
Track your keyword rankings to see if the pages you optimized start ranking higher in search engine results. Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to track the positions of your target keywords. If your rankings improve, it means your technical SEO improvements have likely addressed issues affecting search visibility. - Crawl Errors:
After fixing crawl issues, regularly check Google Search Console to see if crawl errors (like 404s or server errors) have decreased. A reduction in crawl errors means that search engines are now able to index your pages more efficiently. This improvement can directly lead to better rankings and higher traffic. - Page Speed:
Page speed is a crucial factor for both user experience and SEO. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to monitor the load times of your pages before and after optimization. If page speed improves, it can positively impact your rankings, especially with Google’s Core Web Vitals becoming more important. - Indexing Status:
Use Google Search Console to monitor how many of your pages are being indexed. After fixing technical issues like noindex tags or blocking certain pages with robots.txt, you should see an increase in the number of pages being indexed. A higher indexing rate means that your site is now more accessible to search engines, improving its chances of ranking higher.
Example
Let’s say you’re working on the technical SEO of an online bookstore. You’ve just fixed several issues, including improving page speed, removing broken links, and optimizing mobile responsiveness. After a month, here’s how you’d measure the success of your improvements:
- Organic Traffic:
You notice a 15% increase in traffic compared to the month before. This is a clear sign that your website is attracting more visitors from search engines, which suggests that your technical SEO improvements have had a positive impact. - Keyword Rankings:
Your Ahrefs ranking tool shows that several of your key book categories are now ranking higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). This improvement indicates that the SEO changes are driving better visibility. - Crawl Errors:
In Google Search Console, you see that the number of 404 errors on your site has dropped from 20 to just a few. This shows that search engines can now crawl and index your site more effectively. - Page Speed:
You use GTmetrix to analyze your site’s page speed and find that your homepage load time has decreased by 2 seconds. This is a great improvement, especially since Google rewards fast-loading pages with higher rankings. - Indexing Status:
After resolving issues with noindex tags and duplicate content, you check Google Search Console again and see that more pages are now indexed. Previously, only 80% of your pages were indexed, but now it’s up to 95%.
Through these metrics, you can confidently say that the technical SEO improvements you made are driving positive results for the website.
To measure the success of your technical SEO improvements, focus on monitoring metrics such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, crawl errors, page speed, and indexing status. Tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Ahrefs, and GTmetrix will give you valuable data to assess the impact of your efforts. By tracking these metrics over time, you can ensure that your technical SEO fixes are paying off.