There are a lot of SEO metrics that you could be monitoring, but not all of them are important. In fact, some of them can actually waste your time and lead you down the wrong path. In this article, you’re going to learn the SEO metrics you should avoid, and why they aren’t as useful as others.
Overall Number of Backlinks
To start, let’s talk about backlinks. Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors for SEO, but that doesn’t mean that you should be monitoring the overall number of backlinks that your site has. Why? Because not all backlinks are created equal. Some backlinks are from high-quality websites, while others are from low-quality websites. So, if you’re just monitoring the overall number of backlinks, you don’t get an accurate picture of what’s going on.
As an example, let’s say that you have ten backlinks, and nine of them are from high-quality websites. That’s great. But if the tenth backlink is from a low-quality website, that could hurt your rankings. So, you’re better off monitoring the quality of your backlinks, rather than the quantity.
Overall Traffic
Similarly, you shouldn’t focus on the overall traffic that your site is getting. Instead, you should focus on the quality of the traffic and where the traffic is dispersed around your website. There’s a difference between someone who visits your site because they’re looking for what you have to offer and someone who just stumbles upon your site by accident. Of course, the former is going to be much more likely to convert into a paying customer than the latter.
Additionally, what if 90% of all website traffic is on the wrong pages? You could have a million visitors to your website, but if they’re all on the wrong pages (i.e., pages that don’t convert or that are low quality), then those visitors aren’t going to do you much good.
Bounce Rate
Now, this once will come as a surprise but hear us out. A high bounce rate might not be such a bad thing after all. If someone visits your website and then immediately leaves (i.e., they “bounce”), it could mean that they found exactly what they were looking for on your site. Just because somebody leaves after visiting one page (Google’s definition of ‘bounce rate’) doesn’t mean that you’re doing something wrong. What if people are leaving after one page because they have converted?
If you’re not ready to throw in the towel on this metric just yet, try to compare your bounce rate with that of other websites in your industry. Also, don’t make decisions based on bounce rate alone because it could be that a high percentage of those counted in the bounce rate statistic also convert. As a side note, the bounce rate also doesn’t consider pages with an infinite scroll.
With a local SEO agency in Hilo, you can effectively utilize the bounce rate rather than falling into a common trap.
Why Metrics are Important
With all this focus on poor metrics, you might be wondering why they’re important in the first place. The answer is that, when used correctly, metrics give you a clear picture of what’s working on your website and what needs to be improved. For example, if you see a sudden drop in traffic after implementing a new design, that’s an indication that something is wrong and needs to be fixed.
On the other hand, if you see a steady increase in traffic over time, that’s a good sign that your SEO efforts are paying off. Use metrics in the right way and improve your SEO in 2022 and beyond!
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