When you are trying to break down a site’s analytics, what is the first thing everyone looks at? Chances are most people will say ‘Total Visits’. This is probably the reaction that most people will have, and it is generally a good way to get a quick snapshot of how your site is doing.
However, if you look at total visits alone in a vacuum you’re not allowing yourself to see the whole picture – and potentially doing yourself a tremendous disservice. You can look at the cover of a book and still probably be able to dechiper what it might be about; but you can’t possibly understand all of the intricate plot twists and turns without leafing through it – right?
Repeat after me:
“Total visits aren’t the only SEO traffic measure that matters.”
Say it three times, or until it sticks in your head.
Stop Now!
If you’re breaking down your traffic without having developed a baseline assessment, then you need to hit yourself in the face and splash some cold water on your wounds…..I’ll wait.
If you don’t have a data set to compare your current results to, how will you ever be able to determine how the needle has moved?
Breaking it Down
When breaking down your site’s traffic and trying to correlate the relative success or failure of your SEO campaign, it is extremely important to look at many aspects and how they tie together rather than just one general metric – total visits. Reviewing other areas of your traffic will help you see the big picture.
Here are the things you should be breaking down (in no specific order):
1. Percentage of New Visits vs. Returning (Non-paid)
- What percent of your visitors who are seeing the site for the first time? A solid SEO campaign should be able to increase this number; although the long-term goal would be to create a nice base of recurring traffic.
2. Search Engines Traffic Percentage & Total Visits (Non-paid)
- What percentage of your site’s non-paid traffic is being driven by search engines? Typically, you’d like to see this increase over time as your Search Engine Optimization campaign evolves.
- How many of your site’s total visits are accounted for by search engines? Again, this should be going up over time.
- Which search engines are driving the highest percentages of traffic (i.e. Google 60%, Bing 20%, Yahoo 10%, Other 10%)? Google will typically generate the most traffic. After that it is usually a toss up between Bing and Yahoo.
3. Total Number of Keywords Driving Traffic (Non-paid)
- What is the total number of keyword driving traffic (i.e. Google sent 1,000 visits via 58 keywords)? The object of any SEO campaign is to increase the total number and diversity of keywords that drive traffic to your website.
4. Top Keywords Driving Traffic (Non-paid)
- What keyword(s) are driving most of the traffic to your website? Understanding this can help you determine where you’re strong and where you need to refocus your keyword targeting efforts.
- Are the keywords driving traffic centralized on search queries for your business name, or are there a diverse set of different phrases being used to find your site? Typically the goal is the latter. You want to maintain the traffic pull from your brand, while increasing exposure for as many additional/relevant keywords as possible.
5. Percentage and Total Visits from Referral Sources (Non-paid)
- What is the percentage and total number of visits that you’re receiving from refering sources? A good SEO campaign will invest a significant amount of time in link-building, which should help you expand your traffic coming from referral sources.
6. Top 10 Referring Sources (Non-paid)
- Who are your top referring websites? You should keep these sites top of mind and treat the relationship like gold.
- How much traffic is being driven by your top referrers? Again, you want to ensure that you maintain link relationships with referrers who’re driving a lot of traffic to your site.
- How are these referrers related to your website? In SEO, the goal is to get referral links from sites with high authority, and sites that are related to your industry.
- Where is the link on the referrer’s site? Are you monitoring it as a main traffic source (in case they ever remove the link (i.e. take away a traffic source))?
7. Top Regions (Non-paid)
- What countries/states are driving the most traffic? If you’re a business that services people locally or regionally, then understanding which regions drive traffic is a must.
- Within those regions, what cities specifically are driving traffic? You need to find out if the specific cities that you’re servicing the ones driving traffic.
- What keywords were the traffic drivers in those cities/states/regions? You need to be able to correlate your cities that drive traffic with what keywords people in those cities are clicking on. This will help you understand your regional visibility.
8. Percentage and Total Visits from Direct (Non-paid)
- What percentage and total number of visits driven by people typing in your domain directly? You must try to decipher whether your direct traffic is coming from brand awareness, or from people at your website/company typing in the URL.
9. Top 10 URL’s
- Which URL’s are your biggest traffic drivers? It is a good idea to know which pages drive the most traffic, so you can pay extra attention to them as well as use them as examples of how to structure other pages.
These are just a few of the things you can look at that will help you understand what is happening with your site’s traffic, and how SEO may or may not be impacting it. I encourage you to also look at other breakdowns in your data, as every little bit helps you paint the bigger picture.
Hope this helps! Happy optimizing!
Note: I used my measly traffic stats (don’t laugh), cuz I didn’t want to bust someone else out.
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