Search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential part of digital marketing, but also one of the more complex—so it’s fairly common for companies to outsource SEO services. And although it’s a solid strategic move to entrust your SEO to the experts, it’s always a good idea to stay involved. By supplementing the SEO reports from an outsourced specialist with your own search monitoring, you can get even more out of your SEO arrangements.
The basic principle here is to complement your SEO provider’s expertise with your industry knowledge. You know your business or industry better than your SEO specialists, and it’ll be your decisions that turn the tide for your business. That said, here are some specific things to keep track of to get the best out of outsourced SEO.
First of all, you should acquaint yourself with your site’s basic parameters. Google has some first-party tools that will provide you with all the basic SEO information you’ll need. One of these is Google Analytics, which details things like site traffic, views per page, etc. These will typically appear in the regular reports that an SEO specialist or service would provide you with. For your purposes, it would also be good to keep your own records on content keywords, inbound links, and pagespeed. Another tool, the Search Console, may also come in handy when it comes to narrowing down on improvements to be made to the website.
Content keywords essentially let you know what Google thinks your site is about based on the information entered into it. If you think the keywords do a good job of summing up what your business is about, then you’re in the clear. If not, you may need to adjust your content and metadata. You can find these through Content Keywords in the Search Analytics.
Inbound links are links from other sites that direct to yours. It’s not something you can control directly, but it is something you can possibly influence. Even if you don’t, however, it’s worth noting what other sites have to say about you.
Having more inbound links is generally a good thing—they boost your rank in search results—but it’s important that these links come from website that Google deems authoritative. In other words, it’s not a mechanic that can be exploited using cheap dummy sites.
Finally, pagespeed refers to how quickly the page loads when a user accesses it. The exact time varies, of course, from user to user but there are a few standard ways of optimizing this, which the Search Console tracks. Website graders can give you a good idea of how to improve pagespeed, but it’s always best to run actual trials of the page—after all, user experience trumps website graders.
In terms of your site working as expected, the foremost question is “Are users doing what they’re supposed to?” Depending on your website or page, this could mean filling out a form, creating an account, or making a purchase, among other things. The exact objective should be clear to you in order to make the path to that as conducive as possible for users.
You can measure your success using the Google Analytics’ Funnel Visualization tool. This allows you to list the pages or actions that constitute steps toward your main user goal and keep track of these. The information can then be compiled into reports.
Finally, you should be keeping track of how your website is serving your larger business goals—something that goes beyond the scope of SEO alone. It’s in this step that you try to account for ROI in your various marketing and web development efforts on the site. If your site is mainly there to promote brand awareness, for instance, then high traffic may be enough for you. But if the site is meant to serve as a major sales channel, you should keep a close watch on user behavior dealing with purchases.
Of course, you won’t get a reliable picture of all this if your SEO implementation is spotty. Make sure to keep track of all optimizations suggested and approved by your SEO specialists, your marketing team, and other stakeholders or decision-makers. Cataloging these in process documents, checklists, or other logs can go a long way to monitoring the results of different SEO tactics and strategies.
If you’d like to know more about taking a reliable, scalable process-based approach to SEO, feel free to drop us a line.