SEO Metrics: What Is Beyond Rank Tracking?

Ever found yourself tracking your website rank every day and obsessing over it?

Breathe.

Rank tracking is not all you have got to measure your SEO success.

Keyword ranking is one of the metrics that are overemphasized when measuring the success of an SEO campaign.  Yes, you must ensure that keywords are regularly tracked for website positions, but getting obsessed can cut other important factors down.

Challenges with Rank Tracking

The very first thing search engine optimization tries is to rank your website in the top position on Google’s search engine result page. However, putting too much emphasis on this metric to rate the success of the entire SEO campaign is too risky.

The search results aren’t always consistent because of many reasons. One of the key reasons is the regular updates to the underlying searching algorithms, which consider many things before ranking a keyword. Most important among them are:

1. Location of Search

The location from where you are searching decides the results you will see on the result page. Not only does it play a crucial role in local searches, but it also affects the organic ranking as well.

An Example:

Let’s say you are searching for “shopping malls” in a city; the search results will display the mall in the local region, and if you search for the same in the city you have just traveled to, the results will be malls in that city or town.

2. Intelligent Search Results

Every search engine continuously refines your searches to make them more relevant to you. It means these algorithms are busy learning your search preferences and delivering the results based on this intelligence.

3. Competitive Keywords Vs Long Tail Keywords

Most of the time, the optimization effort goes in ranking those keywords that are high in competition. Is such an obsession required, given that most of the searches are long-tail keywords?

Ranking these long-tail keywords is easier, and they drive more accurate traffic to the website. So, it is worthwhile to have a strategy that involves a variety of long-tail keywords and leads to more genuine and relevant web traffic.

• Design Changes

If you are making any design changes to the website, in all probability, you can expect the rankings to go down regardless of how good-looking the new website is. Although the rankings can improve, you’ll have to ensure that the new site is optimized even before you launch it.

Also Read: SEO Services USA Is A Predomination In Increasing Website Rankings

• Loss of Good Links

The rankings may also suffer if you lose some of the quality backlinks. It may happen that the pages you linked to no longer exist or the link to your website was removed. Some high-quality, engaging content can bring the required traffic and lead to improvement in the ranking as well.

• Hosting Isn’t Good

If you recently changed your hosting, it may be a reason for the search engines to rank another website before you. Your website must be able to give a high-quality experience to the visitors who may be looking for a fast page load speed.

These factors alone are capable of altering the ranks significantly. Many more factors are behind the ranking, but going after each of them can consume too much time. If you are obsessive about the ranks only, other areas will start to suffer. Can you ignore an engaging blog or an article that can drive relevant traffic to your website?

Focusing Where It Matters the Most!

So, what should you do to avoid getting obsessed with keyword rankings? The answer is simple. Focus where it matters the most. Try to get the traffic that can be converted into a sale or a successful business transaction.

For this, you have to think about which keywords (long-tail ones) can drive more relevant traffic to the website. As the volume of these target users increases, it will also reflect in the analytics. Many analytics tools can tell where the users are coming from and how your site is performing in the search.

Going For Keyword Indexes

Although keyword rankings do not accurately indicate website success, they must be tracked to find the key trends. An extension of this idea is the use of Keyword Rank Indexes.

In this, instead of reporting on particular keywords, a query class’s rank is considered. So, what is a query class? It aggregates all the keywords that belong to the same idea, the product or service, to form a coherent group.

For Example:

If you optimize for an online store, every product will have a query class. In this, you are indicating one number. This figure is the average rank of the keyword bundle. The way this figure varies states where your web traffic is being directed.

Average Rank of Bundle

So, while drafting an SEO strategy for the website, you must not only be obsessed with the ranks. As more and more online users are becoming aware, they are looking for products or services which can perfectly meet their needs. This implies that you should consider emphasizing the quality of the product and services, which will enhance the customers’ overall experience. Happy customers may write good reviews for your product and recommend your website to their social circle. It may bring additional traffic to your site.  To build a successful online business, you must go beyond SEO and use other digital marketing ideas.

Also Read: How to Create an Effective SEO Marketing Strategy for 2024