What One SEO Metric Would You Choose?
-
If you had to choose one SEO metric to measure a site's SEO performance what would it be? I know you shouldn't use one metric, but lets say you had 10 seconds to assess how well a site was probably doing from an SEO perspective. What metric would it be?
*I also asked this question on the inbound forms.
-
Cool thanks, I didn't catch that one. Apparently my title wasn't that original
-
There was an article on Moz not that long ago that attempted to answer this same question:
http://moz.com/blog/one-metric
It's a good read - probably too complex to use in an agency/bulk setting but pretty useful overall.
-
I author articles for Adsense revenue and my metric is
income from the article / cost of article production
Cost of article production includes my time, webmaster, photography, graphics, etc.
This metric begins at zero and when it gets to 1 then you have broken even. The metric will improve as long as the article is on the web and being viewed.
If you want a slightly different metric that is probably more valuable then ....
cost of article production / average monthly income from the article over past 12 months
... because it gives you an estimate of how many months it will take at current income rate to recover your cost.
I think that it is more valuable to measure your performance article-by-article because then you know what types of content are performing the best - and that can inform future content development.
This type of metric is based upon the assumption that you are creating evergreen content that will be on the web for years rather than creating newsy content that will be consumed and outdated in a week - but similar shorter term metric could be used there.
I also have retail sites and write lots of product-related content. This content is written to drive traffic to sales pages and to display adsense. I keep an eye on how many sales each of these articles are producing and that also informs the development of future content.
-
Hard to say, my first reaction would be the amount of traffic generated organically. I am tempted to say the number of key terms on page one, however, you can have 100 words on page one and get no clicks if your SEO is bad. You need good snippets, HTML data and engaging data. If your site is generating organic traffic in high percentages, and generating traffic consistently organically, I would say that can be a very top level metric.
-
Quality UGC - comments, threads, reviews, etc.
This means that the site 1) gets REAL traffic (cause its hard to fake) 2) impresses visitors enough so that they take the time to engage with the content (which means the site is high quality).
Everything else can be faked and you wouldn't catch it in 10 seconds.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
SEO ranking question
Hey, If a site for had a series of articles, and had the privilege of guest posting on several sites, such as mashable, entrepreuner.com, inc.com, and a few other not as big sites. and let us also say that this site is new and currently has pagerank of 0. How would the above benefit the site and the visibility of the articles on google? Also, with guest-posting, is it problematic to have the exact article also on your site? thanks in advance!
Competitive Research | | Raz.0 -
Do unindexed pages affect SEO?
Been looking at a couple of sites recently. I've seen that they contain a couple of 'default' pages from the build process. These pages aren't of any significance to the main site and as such aren't actually linked in anywhere.
Competitive Research | | Kal-SEO
I did a site:www.example.com search on google and as expected the pages aren't indexed. Could these page be have a negative affect on SEO in the future?
Even though they aren't indexed or linked in anywhere. I look forward to you responses...0 -
Choosing an SEO agency
Is this the place to find an SEO agency?
Competitive Research | | Johnnyh
We are a car leasing company based in the UK and need an SEO agency to help us rank in a very competitive market. We have a relatively small budget of £2500 - £4000 per month. I appreciate this not a massive budget but that is where we are at. Any input would be much appreciated. Regards
John0 -
SEO Keyword Research
Hi, We are SEO beginners so please bear with us! We are trying to promote "Web based Invoicing Software". The SEO company we have signed with offer us 5 keywords for the package we are on with them. They have suggested\offered us: 1. Invoicing Software - Fine
Competitive Research | | Studio33
2. Online Invoicing - Fine
3. Online Invoicing Software - Covered by 1 and 2
4. Small Business Invoicing Software - Covered by 1
5. Invoice Template - Fine. Will Invoice templateS be covered on this one too? My question is does number 3 cover number 1,2 & 4 anyway? If so I am thinking to not go for 1,2, & 4 just keep 3 and choose three other new keywords. Would this be a better strategy and "more for our money?" Or, keep 1 and 2 and lose 3 and 4, would that be a good option. So, in summary options are (all assuming keeping number 5) 1. Keep all
2. Keep 1 & 2 - Lose 3 & 4
3. Keep 3 - Lose 1,2 & 4 4. Any other combo you can suggest? Any advice welcomed Thanks nutnut0 -
How to track seo campaign success fully?
Hi All, What are the best ways to track a seo campaign successfully, other or including Google Analytic?
Competitive Research | | ITRIX0 -
Sending autmated queries to Google hurting SEO?
Anyone have any ideas whether there could be a chance that a site might get penalized if it is sending automated queries to Google (ie, to check rankings)? I was reading the recently updated Google Webmaster Guidelines and saw on the section - "Quality guidelines - specific guidelines" that mentioned about sending automated queries to Google... Just wondering what are the chances that Google will actually penalize a site that sends automated queries (if they are able to identify which site is doing so in the first place)..
Competitive Research | | globalsources.com0 -
Ahrefs or Majestic SEO
Hi Guys, I'm looking to purchase 1 of the above services and I'm just wondering which one you guys think is best? Looking a ahrefs they seem to update there index more often. Thanks, Scott
Competitive Research | | ScottBaxterWW0