SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is the process of getting a website to rank organically. This means that when you enter a keyword or phrase into Google, or another search engine, you see a result for that search.
Most people know that the process of SEO takes time and is not an instant way to be visible online unlike Google AdWords. So, how do you know that yours or an SEO agency’s efforts are working? Well, just like with any form of marketing you should monitor the results of your campaign. Otherwise, how do you know that the strategy is working, starting to get results and is value for money?
The answer is Google Analytics. This piece of software is free from Google and can easily be added to a website to allow it to start recording the traffic (visitors) to your website.
It is reasonably easy to add the code to your website and there are lots of instructions available as guides. Google explain how to add the code here. If you have a WordPress website, then there are plugins that make the process even easier. When the code is added to your website you will start seeing results, however you probably need a full month to get a better understanding of your traffic. Once you have a good month’s worth of data then you can begin to start digging in and find out how people are using your website.
One of the first things you can do when your Analytics campaign has been running for a while is to compare your traffic by week to week, month to month or year to year. This is a good starting point as you can begin to see how your traffic is increasing. This would be a good indication that the SEO work is starting to take effect.
The example below shows a year on year comparison for the month of November. As the image shows, there has been an increase in sessions on the website of 230%. This relates to almost an extra 400 visits to the website.
There are many ways that you can use Google Analytics to measure the effectiveness of SEO. Another example could be that you aren’t sure which social media platform is best for you. Maybe you are focussing on Twitter and less on Facebook. How do you know this is the best strategy for you? Once you start looking at your stats you can evaluate if there is more engagement in one social media platform to another. So, if you begin to see that there is more engagement in one then you can concentrate your efforts there.
This really is the tip of the iceberg of what you can do to help you understand where SEO is or isn’t working.
If you are struggling to implement Google Analytics or SEO in Bristol, and would like further help with it or creating a strategy, then please get in touch. We will be delighted to help so call us on 0117 933 0570 or fill in our contact form and we will get back to you.