In the era of Google, web analytics data is plentiful, and pulling ranking reports is a no-brainer. As Google's Chief Economist put it, data is cheap and ubiquitous, but the analytic ability to utilize that data is scarce. When it comes to analyzing SEO data, the key to gaining actionable insights is segmentation. By segmenting and analyzing your rankings, traffic, content, competitors, and links, you can start to understand what's working and where to focus your efforts next.
Actionable ranking reports
Rankings are by no means the end-all-be-all of SEO analysis, but the first (and easiest) step in tracking the effectiveness of your SEO efforts is setting a rankings benchmark before you start optimizing a site. There are many programs available that will let you check your rankings in the SERPs (search engine results pages) across the three major engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) for a given set of keyword phrases. The best programs will tell you which of your target keywords the site ranks for, and what specific pages are ranking. Leading ranking software programs such as Raven Tools, Authority Labs, and Advanced Web Ranking will do the trick.
You'll want to track rankings down to the page level for several reasons:
- Knowing which pages rank for which keywords will help you understand where your quickest opportunities for improvement are. If a page is already ranking well, moving it up a few more spots is likely to result in a nice traffic spike.
- Finding pages that are ranking where there is a better (higher converting) alternative page you'd rather rank is useful. You may even consider putting a 301 redirect in place from the ranking page to the alternative page. Although you'll want to perform a risk/reward analysis before doing that.
- Identifying keywords where you have one page in the top 10 Google results and another on the second page of the SERPs is also very useful. In these cases, you can attempt to parlay your rankings into an indented listing in Google. Essentially, all you need to do is get the second web page into the No. 10 position and it will hopscotch into the position directly below your top positioned page.
Once you set a benchmark for rankings, you'll want to continue to track your progress over time. Running a ranking report once per month should be sufficient. As you analyze these reports, you'll want to analyze which of your pages are ranking in the top 20 for one (or more) of your keywords. These pages/keywords represent your quickest opportunities for big traffic gains, since roughly 90 percent of search engine users never make it past the first page of the SERPs. For instance, if you move from page two of the SERPs to page one, you could see as much as 1000 percent increase in traffic and moving from position No. 10 to the top spot could get you as much as 1400 percent more visits.
Improving your position within the top 20 can be challenging because this is where the stiffest competition resides. To improve your top 20 rankings, focus your efforts on building links to the ranking page. Inbound links from third-party sites with keywords in the anchor text are most effective, but internal links from other pages on your site can help too. For pages that are outside of the top 20 search results, you probably still need to focus on basic on-page SEO. Make sure the keyword is in your page title and that it is used sufficiently in the body content.
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