Is Your Website Healthy & Successful? There Are A Few Ways to Tell

A successful website requires much hard work and painstaking detail, but when it comes to choosing the activities you need to focus most of your attention on, you first need to find out which activities bring the best results.

There’s a slight twist when it comes to on-page SEO in the sense that you need to do it (or get it done) and you have to do it right. But how do you know you’re on-page SEO is really working?

There are many factors involved in on-page SEO, namely:

• Google algorithms
• website changes
• competition factors
• changes in user behavior
• keyword rankings
• traffic

These factors fluctuate all the time, and they are mostly out of your direct control.

When you’re wondering whether your on-page SEO is working, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Are your most important keywords ranked?

When building pages on your sites, each page should focus on one primary targeted keyword and several secondary keywords. You have to constantly work at your excellent search rankings to ensure that they remain at the top of the SERPs, as they will fluctuate all the time.

Track your rankings on a regular basis to see how your site is performing based on your target keywords. However, there’s more to successful on-page SEO than just rankings.

2. Are you getting any organic search traffic?

Organic search traffic is when someone types in a search using one of your targeted keywords, and then links to your website through the search results, rather than the paid ads at the top of the SERPs.

If you’re featured at the top of search results, the search engines obviously view your site as a valuable resource on the relevant topic. Organic traffic increases when:

• your rankings improve
• you use quality page titles and meta descriptions
• you create more content

There may be some seasonal fluctuations in traffic, but by comparing traffic month-on-month and with the same period from the previous year, you will see whether you’re on track. Google Trends is another helpful tool for search data.

3. What is your bounce rate?

Your bounce rate is dependant on how long visitors stay on your site before leaving. It forms the link between the keywords used to target your audience, and the content and design of your landing page. Your page should be a natural progression that provides more information about the search terms that brought visitors to your site. Slow loading times, poor design and a lack of content are some of the reasons why visitors click out of your site.

Some pages will naturally have high bounce rates, such as event information pages, listings and so forth. Aim to have a lower bounce rate on your landing pages, homepage and service pages.

If your bounce rate is over 70%, you should consider getting professional help. Between 35-60% is typically a good average, but if you can improve the user experience or site content on your pages, be sure to do so. Anything less than 30% is usually good!

4. How is your conversion rate?

No two industries share the same online conversion rates, and every business has its own definition for conversion. For some, it might be a sale, for others, a newsletter sign up, or a free download. But most of us agree that a conversion is an action taken by a percentage of website visitors.

Most companies will be over the moon with a 5% conversion rate, while many will be satisfied a 3% conversion rate. However, if you are losing potential customers, it is time to speak to a professional about your conversion rate.

In many cases, sites receive thousands of visitors, but extremely low conversions. That often signals incorrect keyword usage and poor user experience. Either way, a professional can help you optimize in such a way to convert your visitors into qualified leads.

How is your on-page SEO faring? Are you happy with your results? Let’s discuss in comments below.