The Importance of Keyword Metrics in SEO: As the digital landscape continues to evolve, search engines are becoming the most popular method to locate information online.
Recognising the significance of the digital landscape, businesses and marketers have optimised their websites for search engines.
Keywords are an essential component of this optimisation procedure.
Businesses can improve their search engine rankings and generate more leads by focusing on the right keywords in a strategic manner.
But not all keywords are created equal. Some are more competitive and challenging to rank than others. Some keywords are more popular than others in terms of search volume.
Therefore, various metrics are associated with a keyword, and they are referred to as Keyword Metrics.
Keyword metrics are essentially a variety of data that reveal how well a keyword can perform on a search engine. These metrics assist us in selecting a keyword that will ultimately be beneficial to our business.
In this article, I will describe various keyword metrics, how to analyse them with various tools, and how to use them to accelerate your SEO and content strategy efforts.
The Importance of Keyword Metrics in SEO: Various Keyword Metrics
Search engine marketers use a variety of keyword metrics to optimise their content during keyword research. I’ve described them below:
Search Volume
This metric allows us to determine the number of times a particular keyword was searched for on the search engine per month.
A keyword with a higher search volume has greater potential to generate website traffic.
However, keywords with a higher search volume are frequently extremely competitive, making it more difficult to rank on search engines.
Impressions
This metric allows us to determine the frequency with which users encounter a webpage in the search engine results pages.
This metric is included in both organic and inorganic search results (paid ads).
It is an essential metric because it helps you determine how visible your website or advertisements are to your audience.
If your webpage receives few impressions, then it is not optimised for the appropriate keywords. Or, you have not properly optimised the website. Learn how to optimise a webpage’s on-page SEO from this page.
CTR (Click-Through Rate)
When a user performs a keyword-based search on a search engine.
The search engine result pages (SERP) are where search engines display their search results.
Now, CTR represents the proportion of users who clicked on a search result after viewing it.
A high CTR indicates that the page’s content is extremely relevant to the search intent.
Calculate the CTR by dividing the number of visits by the number of impressions multiplied by 100.
(Clicks / Impressions) * 100 = CTR
CPC (Cost-Per-Click)
This metric is utilised primarily in Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising campaigns.
When you conduct an ad campaign, it determines how much you must pay the advertising platform for each click on your website.
The formula for calculating CPC:
CPC = Total number of clicks / Total cost per link
For instance, if your advertising budget is $100 and your website receives 50 clicks as a result of the campaign, the cost per click on your website is $2. Therefore, you pay $2 per visit.
It is a crucial metric in digital advertising because it reveals the cost-effectiveness of your ad campaign. You can use it to improve the performance of your ad campaign by modifying your targeting, bidding strategies, and ad content.
It allows you to maximise your return on investment.
Keyword Struggle
Keyword difficulty measures the intensity of competition for a keyword on SERP.
This metric helps us understand how challenging it is to rank a page for a specific keyword.
Keyword difficulty is typically measured on a scale from 0 to 100, with a higher score indicating a greater level of competition and so on.
This metric’s score is determined by a number of distinct factors.
For instance, the number of search results and the demand for the keyword, which is represented by the keyword’s search volume.
The greater the competition for a particular keyword, the more difficult it is to rank for it on a search engine.
While various keyword tools may use additional factors to calculate keyword difficulty, the simplest formula is as follows:
Keyword Difficulty = (Number of Search Results for the keyword / Monthly Search Volume for the keyword)
The preceding formula is also known as Keyword Golden Ratio.
Using the above formula, you can determine how difficult or simple it is to rank a webpage for a specific keyword.
Conversion Effort
Conversion rate is a type of keyword metric that measures the proportion of site visitors who execute the desired action.
The action could be anything from making a purchase to submitting a contact form or signing up for a newsletter.
Here is how to calculate a keyword’s conversion rate. Let’s say our objective is to increase newsletter form signups.
To determine the conversion rate of a specific keyword, we need two metrics for the webpage that ranks for that keyword:
The amount of conversions that occurs. Therefore, if we consider our case as an example, how many users have subscribed?
The Importance of Keyword Metrics in SEO: How many customers have visited our website containing the subscription form?
Consequently, the mathematical formula for the conversion rate is as follows:
(Number of Conversions / Number of Visitors) x 100
The conversion rate determines which keyword or web page generates the most valuable website traffic. Using this metric, we can determine which of our online products is the most popular.
ROI – Return on Investment
This metric allows you to gauge the keyword’s profitability. It measures the ratio between the amount of revenue generated and the amount spent on the keyword.
The mathematical formula for calculating return on investment is:
ROI = (Revenue – Cost) / Cost
Understanding a keyword’s return on investment enables you to determine which keywords are worthwhile investments.
While return on investment (ROI) is a metric for paid search results (ads), it can also be analysed for organic results.
The only distinction is that, in organic results, you’ve specified your revenue and the expenses you’ve incurred for a particular keyword. In this case, your revenue could be a subscriber and your cost could be the time you spend optimising a keyword for search engine rankings.
There are numerous variables that can influence the ROI. The following are:
- the calibre of your site or landing page
- Content Relevance
- Keyword Challenge, etc.
Ranking Position
This metric identifies the position of a webpage (for a specific keyword) on the SERP.
In general, higher-ranked web pages receive more visits than lower-ranked web pages.
Understanding the ranking position enables us to identify the web pages (for specific keywords) driving traffic to our website and those needing optimisation.
Again, the classification position’s score can be affected by the various factors listed below.
- Content Relevance
- Quality of Website or Landing Page Quantity of Quality Backlinks
- Keyword Struggle
Keyword Trend
This metric allows us to determine a keyword’s prevalence.
It indicates whether a keyword’s prevalence is increasing, decreasing, or remaining stable.
It facilitates improved decision-making. For instance, if a keyword’s popularity is growing significantly, you may want to capitalise on it before your competitors do.
You can develop content and campaigns based on these emerging keywords.
This information allows us to determine a keyword’s long-term viability. In other words, how has this keyword performed over an extended period of time? Does its popularity increase, decrease, or remain stable?
While a few paid keyword tools (such as keywordtool.io, semrush, etc.) provide this information, Google Trends provides it for free.
The Importance of Keyword Metrics in SEO: Rebound Rate
The percentage of website visitors who only examine a single page before leaving the site.
Although bounce rate is specified for websites, it can also be defined for keywords.
Since a web page is associated with a keyword, a high exit rate for a web page (or keyword) indicates that the website does not provide a positive user experience.
A high bounce rate results in a decline in ranking, which in turn reduces traffic and, ultimately, conversions.
Using different analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, you can monitor the bounce rate of your website’s keywords.
You can enhance the rate of site exits by:
- concentrating on producing quality content
- Improving the usability of your website
- Optimise website performance
- Improving the comprehension of content
- Explicit Call to Action
- Encourage site navigation and more.
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Dwell Time
Session duration, also known as time on site, is a keyword metric that tells us how long visitors spend on a page (that is ranked for a keyword or keywords).
A page’s high dwell time indicates that visitors find its content useful and informative, indicating that the page’s content matches the search query.
A web page with a low dwell time indicates that it requires improvement in one or more of its many aspects. For eg. Perhaps the website’s content needs refinement, or perhaps the user experience is lacking.
There are numerous variables that influence the transit time:
Content Relevance Page Speed Absence of Interaction Unclear Calls to Action, etc.
Cost Per Acquisition
It assesses the cost of acquiring a customer through a marketing campaign.
The campaign could be natural or unnatural.
The mathematical formula for calculating CPA is as follows:
CPA = (Total campaign or keyword cost / Number of conversions produced)
A lower CPA indicates that the campaign is performing well, or that the cost to acquire a customer is minimal.
Shared Expression
This metric assesses the proportion of times a particular keyword appears in search engine results pages (SERPs) relative to the competition.
It assesses a brand’s competitive position in search engines.
The mathematical expression is:
SOV = (Impressions for Target Keyword / Impression Total for All Keywords in Market or Category) x 100
For instance, if a target keyword receives 1,000 impressions during a given time frame and the total number of impressions for all keywords in the same market or category is 10,000, the SOV would be:
SOV = (1,000 / 10,000) x 100 = 10%
This would indicate that the keyword has a 10% visibility share in search results for this market or category.
A high SOV indicates that a brand or product is conspicuously featured in search results relative to its competitors.
Thus, we now comprehend the significance and variety of keyword metrics. Let’s conclude now.
