When I talk to people about SEO, there’s one sentence that comes up repeatedly:
“I’m measuring my search engine rankings, isn’t that enough?”
Search engine rankings are just the peak of the SEO iceberg. Beneath the surface lies a whole foundation of metrics, strategies, and best practices for creating content that converts.
Today, I’ll be sharing my seven steps to effectively (and efficiently) evaluate the SEO value of your content so that you can start making SEO your most competitive asset.
There’s so much that goes into content creation, from intellectual property management, brand tone of voice, and last but not least, SEO. Creating quality content that ranks is essential for improving the visibility of your brand online.
However, the markers of ‘quality’ aren’t always as obvious as you might think. There are so many factors against which we can measure up our content: everything from search rankings to engagement – so it’s essential that we regularly evaluate the SEO value of our content.
Measuring SEO effectiveness is important for many reasons:
By measuring SEO, we do more than rise up the SERPs (although that’s part of it). We also ensure that we are providing helpful, relevant, and authoritative content to our readers. In other words, SEO is a marker of user experience. Every SEO strategy should include an evaluative component to ensure content measures up for the reader and the SERPs.
Measuring search engine rankings is an essential part of any SEO evaluation – but it’s not the only part. Far too many businesses (albeit with good intent) focus too heavily on search engine rankings at the expense of quality content.
The result? Content that appeals to algorithms but not to readers.
The solution? Factoring a wider range of performance metrics into our SEO evaluations to cover more touch points along the customer journey.
Next up, I’ll be sharing seven steps that will help you effectively and efficiently evaluate the SEO value of your content. These seven steps will help you dive deeper, beneath the tip of the SEO iceberg, to assess the fundamental foundations of your content strategy and its effectiveness.
Evaluating the SEO value of your content requires a 360-degree approach looking at everything from technical SEO performance and attribution models to the tools you’re using to help you garner those insights. These seven steps are designed to help you cover all bases and give your SEO content strategy that all-important competitive edge. So, without further ado, let’s dive in.
When we think of SEO, the first thing that comes to mind is technical SEO metrics, which includes things such as search visibility, organic rank, and traffic. Tracking these metrics is absolutely essential for keeping on top of page performance, so, which metrics should we be monitoring? Let’s unpack.
Another way brands and publishers can assess SEO value is to use something called an attribution model. Attribution models are based on a set of rules to figure out how sales correspond to particular conversion touchpoints.
Using this method, brands can work out things like which blog post is most likely to result in readers signing up for a trial or upgrading to a paid subscription. For example, if your objective is to get businesses to switch from traditional landlines to a VoIP phone number, writing a blog post that answers the question “What’s a VoIP phone number?” is a great way to engage prospective customers.
In other words, attribution models help us determine which pieces of content make the most impact.
Brands can then isolate the factors that seem to lead readers to make desirable decisions (e.g., signing up for that paid subscription), and capitalize on that. Instead of measuring digital marketing efforts solely on technical metrics like organic rankings, attribution helps marketing teams measure their campaigns based on specific goals.
Common attribution models include:
Content is not a monolith. It comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes, from blog posts to social media posts, to videos. What works best for one business might not work best for another and so it’s important that we assess which types of content have the biggest impact on conversions.
Distinct types of content work better for various stages along the customer journey. For example, marketers trying to build engagement during the awareness stage might want to focus on creating high-quality, informative video content to educate users.
On the other hand, marketers trying to build engagement during the interest stage might want to start a blog and produce high-ranking, topical blog content. Marketers trying to build engagement at the decision-making stage might find that social-media posts and offers generate best results.
When it comes to the content itself, to generate qualified leads you’ll want to make sure you’re consistently evaluating the following core components:
As well as technical SEO metrics, it’s important to introduce website engagement metrics into the melting pot too. Website engagement metrics bridge the gap between search optimization and user engagement.
What’s the use of a top tier ranking if nobody wants to read your content? Engagement metrics give us a way to measure how readers experience and interact with our content.
Common website engagement metrics include:
Branding and awareness metrics are all too often left out of SEO evaluations, but they can be a huge asset and help us better understand content performance. Impressions, share of voice, and comparative search traffic metrics are super useful for improving SEO strategies.
Every SEO audit should be rounded off with an assessment of revenue metrics. Metrics like page value and, of course, ROI are essential. After all, our marketing campaigns are designed to fortify our bottom lines, right? In many ways, these are the most crucial metrics as they communicate the link between content and revenue.
In simple terms, the ROI of your SEO strategy is the difference between gains made from SEO investment and the cost of SEO investment as a factor of the overall cost of investment.
Last, but certainly not least, there’s a lot to say for using the right tools. Evaluating the SEO value of your content isn’t something you can do manually, so it’s important to pick the best tools for the job. This will be integral to the effectiveness of your evaluations.
There are lots of tools to choose from, including the likes of Google Analytics, TruPresence, and WooRank which will help you evaluate your SEO, identify high-performing keywords, determine how people are arriving at your site, measure your ROI, and create SEO reports. Alternatively, once you know how to install PySpark, you’ll be able to create your very own content optimizer.
Evaluating the SEO value of your content is about much more than search rankings alone. Quality leads are just as important as volume. SEO performance is dictated by a wide range of highly changeable factors, so it’s important that marketing teams conduct regular SEO evaluations to keep user engagement up and maintain a competitive advantage online.
By Jessica Day