Measuring SEO Performance 101: Metrics Higher Ed Marketers Need to Know
As a higher-ed marketer, you want to make data-driven decisions to maximize the results of your marketing efforts. However, when it comes to tracking the effectiveness of your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy, it can be intimidating to know where to begin. What data is most valuable to your institution and its goals? What metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) should you be monitoring?
The foundational components for measuring performance metrics and KPIs play important but differing roles. One easy way to tell the difference between the two is to remember that all KPIs are metrics, but not all metrics are KPIs. A metric is a data point or other quantifiable measure you might use to monitor performance, but that isn’t an integral marker of success or ROI. For example, if your goal is to increase enrollment, a metric might be organic impressions, while a KPI might be the conversion rate. KPIs can help you focus your efforts on the metrics that will offer insight into the most vital aspects of your SEO strategy.
SEO Performance Metrics and Measurement Tools
Typically, you can measure your college or university’s organic website performance through several metrics. The two most basic (and free!) tools you can use to measure these metrics are Google Search Console (GSC) and Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
You can find the organic impressions and clicks for your website in GSC, a tool that shows only Google organic traffic data. Here, you can filter by date range, search query, landing page, and more to get a clearer picture of how your website is performing in organic search results.
To find data about how prospective students engage with your website, you can use GA4. Because GA4 shows data about your website’s many traffic sources—such as display ads, direct, organic, email, and paid—you should ensure you use the appropriate source filters to look only at organic data when measuring for SEO.
Paid tools, such as SEMRush, can also prove helpful in understanding how your institution’s website performs in organic search results, particularly in relation to keyword ranking and local and national visibility. We’ll talk more about SEMRush and other helpful SEO tools in the next blog in this series, Measuring SEO Performance 201.
SEO Metrics You Can Find in Google Search Console
In Google Search Console, you can filter data to gain insights into your institution’s website performance in Google organic search results. After logging in, navigate to “Performance” and select “Search results.” Here, you can apply various filters such as date range, query, page, country, and search appearance.
For instance, you can choose to compare your selected date range either period over period (PoP) or year over year (YoY) to understand organic traffic performance trends over time. When selecting your date range, keep in mind that GSC only retains data from the previous 16 months.
For more granular data insights, you can also filter by queries containing or matching a certain keyword, URL folder path (such as all pages under /programs), or individual URLs. These filtering methods provide an excellent starting point for your keyword research and can help you analyze data more effectively to strategically optimize your website.
Organic Impressions
An organic impression refers to any time a user can see your listing—a page from your website—in organic search results. This occurs when a prospective student enters a query and search engines like Google serve up your content in the results. Remember, these impressions don’t include impressions from advertising campaigns.
Impressions tell you how visible your content is on the search engine results page (SERP). A prospective student needs to see your listing to click on it, so if one of your high-priority pages isn’t getting many impressions, you may see low-traffic numbers.
It’s important to distinguish, however, between impressions in general and meaningful impressions—not all impressions are of equal value. For instance, let’s say your Atmospheric Sciences program page has thousands of impressions for the keyword “weather.” You might initially see this as a positive; your page has a high level of visibility for a keyword searched by millions every day.
However, in this example, the keyword does not match the content of the page, meaning you’re unlikely to rank highly on the SERP, and users are even less likely to click through to the website; your content does not match their search intent.
Organic Clicks
While impressions represent how many times your organic listing is shown on the search result page, a click occurs whenever a user clicks on your listing.
Click data can help you better understand the organic traffic to your website. However, it’s important to note that clicks are not the same as users; or rather, there is not a 1:1 ratio of clicks to users—one user can click on your search result many times.
While the total number of clicks can be an important indicator of traffic, click-through rate (CTR) plays an even larger role in determining the success of your content.
