A complete list of the most important SEO Metrics you need to track to rank high!
No one can deny that Search Engine Optimization is a complex process. The number of metrics involved in SEO is almost infinite, and on top of that, some of them may vary according to the updates of Google algorithms. Fortunately, we know that many of them remain relevant to Google’s eyes over time.
Here we share a list with some of the most relevant metrics you should keep an eye on.
Web usability
UX (User experience) is another key factor that search engines take into account for indexation. When a visitor comes across with an error page, its experience is damaged, but besides from that, Google also considers metrics that may affect your web speed. An example of this is the redirections. Although you may not realize it, they make it take you longer to get to the information you’re looking for. This is another reason why Google likes your content to be found mainly in the first three levels of depth.
- Page not found (404)
- Pages with Server Error
- Pages with Error 410
- % Server error pages
- % Client Error pages
- Redirects 301
- Redirects 302
- % Redirected pages
- % Pages in the three first levels
- Speed performance
Web Crawlability
Although it may seem obvious, when it comes to optimizing your web for search engines, something crucial is that bots can access the pages you want them to visit without effort. Another point to highlight, which is almost as important, is to provide guidelines for the pages you don’t want them to access. This way, you’ll avoid wasting your crawling budget and bots will use their time effectively to crawl and index the relevant pages.
In this sense, it is essential that you have a good knowledge about which pages search engines have access to and which they do not.
- Total crawled pages
- Pages blocked by robots.txt
- % Blocked pages by robots.txt
- Crawl budget
What is indexed and what is not
You’ve been working on your website to appear in SERPs for some time now, but do you know exactly which pages Google has decided to index and which not? Sometimes your preferences may not match those of search engines. It’s vital that you know which pages are being indexed and which are not, so you can take the necessary steps to make the important ones appear in search engines.
- % Index Pages
- % Noindex Pages
Security
Google, as it could not be otherwise, takes user safety very seriously. Having a website that guarantees the security of users is something essential if you want to rank high in search engines.
- HTTPS Links not secure
- HTTPS JS/ CSS not secure
Content Quality
The following metrics are considered by Google to know if your content is of high value. This is extremely important since Google will always give priority to those pages with higher quality content and may not even index those with poor value. Correct use of canonical tags is also important not to show duplicate content to search engines and thus improve the appearance of our website towards them.
- Duplicate titles
- Empty Titles
- Thin content
- Duplicate Hs
- Empty Hs
- Canonicalized Pages
- % Canonicalized Pages
CTR metrics
Although meta-data are not directly considered by search engines to rank your web, they do have a significant influence on your traffic. It’s like a display window that you can use to catch the visitors’ eye. In other words, if you write an attractive meta title and meta description, you’ll increase the chance of improving your CTR.
- Duplicate Metadescription
- Empty Metadescription
Having a tool such as FandangoSEO that allows you to monitor multiple metrics at once is extremely useful if you want to efficiently spend your resources and time, and become competitive in SEO. The system automatically monitors more than 250 SEO metrics that affect your web performance.
We would love to know if you found this article useful and/or if you would add any relevant metrics to this list. We will also be happy to answer any questions you may have about SEO metrics. Please comment below. 🙂
Last Updated on June 25, 2020 by Hannah Dango