KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), or in French, key performance indicators, are indicators that make it possible to measure the achievement of previously set objectives. They are very important for the analysis of your SEO strategy. Google Analytics provides us with a few that are essential to know and master in order to analyze and adjust your marketing strategy. Here are the main.
The Different Acquisition Channels: Definitions
What is commonly referred to as “acquisition channels” are actually nothing more or less than how your traffic is directed to your site. There are several acquisition channels, which Google Analytics allows you to identify and analyze. To find them, go to your Google Analytics interface, tab “Acquisition channels”, “all traffic”, then click on “Channels”. You will then have the details of the different acquisition channels, which we present to you below.
Organic Search or SEO
The “Organic Search” channel corresponds to the traffic brought by your natural referencing or SEO. When someone clicks directly on your site link after performing a Google search, that visit counts as coming from your SEO.
Paid search: SEA
SEO TOOLS – Google Adwords The “Paid Search” channel collects all the visits to your site that are
made through your Google AdWords ads. When a user performs a search on Google, your ad appears in the SERPs as a sponsored link: if the user clicks on this link, then their visit will be counted by Google as coming from paid referencing or SEA.
Referral: traffic from third-party sites
The “Referral” channel shows you the number of visitors from third-party sites. If you have a backlink strategy, your number of referral visits will therefore be higher than if you are not referenced on other sites. For example, if you are listed in directories, every time a user clicks on your site’s link in the directory and is redirected to your page, then their visit will be counted as a “referral”. Add users from Google Images to this traffic.
Social: traffic from social networks
Like the “Referral” channel, the “Social” channel counts visits from third-party sites, with the difference that these sites are essentially social networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.). Concretely, this means that each time a user clicks on the link of a page of your site shared on social networks, their visit will be counted as “social”.
Direct or direct access
The “direct” channel is often the weakest because it counts the users who directly typed the address of your site in their search bar, and thus arrived directly on your site, without going through the social networks or the results of google search. It, therefore, implies that users must have prior knowledge of your site: a site with a low reputation will thus have few visitors through this channel.
What is SEO KPIs and How To Analyze Them?
If the sources of traffic are very important to analyze the ROI in your SEO strategies, Backlinking, or presence on social networks; Google Analytics offers other valuable KPIs that will give you clues on what to do to improve your SEO. Here are the main ones.
The bounce rate
The bounce rate measures the percentage of visitors who have viewed only one page of your site before quickly leaving it, either by typing another URL into its search engine, or by closing the page, either by clicking on “Previous” or by clicking on an external link. A high bounce rate can thus reveal dissatisfaction among Internet users, and therefore a poor web marketing strategy. Several strategic flaws can increase your bounce rate:
- Poor internal networking: rather than clicking on other pages to find out more, the user will leave the site directly and look for additional information elsewhere;
- Poor quality content: If your content is of poor quality or if it is not suited to what the user thought they would find on your page when reading your metadata in the SERPs, they will not want to ‘go see your site in depth.
- An unattractive layout (paragraphs that are too long and too compact, a lack of images and illustrations …)
- Too long loading time
To lower your bounce rate, you will therefore need to focus on the quality of your content, the implementation of a logical internal mesh, or an attractive layout.
The number of sessions
The number of sessions resulting from SEO corresponds to the total number of visits to your site. A session refers to the period between the user’s arrival at your site and the page closing. If a user visits your site twice a day, then Google Analytics will count two sessions, but only one unique session.
The number of users
The number of SEO users is the number of visitors who initiated at least one session from search engines. Users are distinguished from new users, who are visiting your site for the first time. Unlike sessions, each user is only counted once in the selected analysis period, regardless of the number of sessions initiated.
The average time per session
The average time per natural session is an average of the time spent by users during a session on any page on your site. A high time is a good sign, as it shows that your visitor has taken the time to read and engage with your content.
If your average time is low, the SEO consultant will orient the strategy towards a customer retention strategy, through interesting content, UX work of the pages, and conversion elements.
The number of pages per session
The number of pages per organic session corresponds to the average number of pages visited by Internet users during their session. The higher it is, the more effective your strategy is because it indicates that the user is interested in your content and wants to go further.
If you notice a drop in this indicator, it is important to check the quality (and functioning) of your internal networking, the quality of your content, and to refresh the layout of your site so that the user does not get bored. not too fast!