Whether you are a marketing manager, business owner or working in an agency, there is a big chance that you are familiar with SEO and how your client our business can aproach SEO.

As you may know, you can’t rely solely on ranks as a method to track your progress. But there are other, simple ways to measure the impact of SEO on a business.

After all, If you’re going to invest the time and budget it takes to create and maintain an SEO plan, you want to be sure that your investment is worth the results.

Each of these are easy to understand SEO metrics — data that means something to everyone in a business.

• Organic traffic

This is undoubtedly a simple, if not the most simple way of understanding the return of any SEO efforts. The day-to-day traffic from search engines is the key measure for many marketers and any increase can often be tied to an improved level of search visibility.

Accessing this information is easy in Google Analytics. Just navigate to Acquisition > Overview, then select “Organic Search.”

• Mobile Friendliness

Important metric due to the evolution of browser behavior, with mobile traffic, often greater in volume than desktop for some sites.

Another report in the ever useful Google Search Console gives a clear low-down of how mobile-friendly a site is, showing warnings for any issues. It’s worth saying, this measure isn’t an indication of how likely a conversion is, but more the quality of your site on a mobile device.

• Page Speed

User experience plays a major role in your site’s ability to rank well and convert your visitors into customers, and one of the biggest factors in the experience your site provides is page speed.

This is an easy metric to monitor using Google’s Page Speed Insights.

• Bounce rate

When a visitor lands on a page on your site, then leaves without continuing to another page, this is called a “bounce.” And it’s a great indicator of whether your site’s content is in line with what users expect when they choose one of your pages from the list of search results.

If a large percentage of your visitors opts to leave your site and choose a different page from the results, this tells you that page they’re landing on doesn’t contain the information they wanted or needed.

But if your bounce rate remains low, you can be confident that your pages ranking in search are effective in providing what your visitors want.

• Average search rankings

A variety of tools can be used to get a handle on average rankings for specific terms. The free way to do this is through Google Search Console with freemium tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs, which also offer an ability to understand average rank distribution.

• CTR (Click through rate)

Clickthrough rate, indicates the percentage of searchers who visit your site after seeing one of your pages in search results.

For example, if ten different users saw one of your pages ranking in Google’s results for a particular keyword, but only one of them clicked and visited your site, your CTR would be 10%.

This metric is one of the best indicators of how effective your pages are at grabbing users’ attention in search results.

So if your clickthrough rates are low, this could be an indicator that your title tags and meta descriptions need some work.

Short conclusion

Measuring your results is an important factor of your overall SEO process. If you are still not tracking any of these metrics, well it’s time to get started.

All of these metrics are easy to monitor in free tools like Google Analytics or Google Search Console.

What is Google Search Console?

Definition by Google: GSC (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) is a free platform for anyone with a website to monitor how Google views their site and optimize its organic presence. That includes viewing your referring domains, mobile site performance, rich search results, and highest-traffic queries and pages.

Before we start to talk about GSC we’ll give you explanation on how to verify your website:

• HTML file upload: Upload a verification HTML file to a specific location of your website.
• Domain name provider: Sign into your domain registrar (like GoDaddy, eNom, or networksolutions.com), and verify your site directly from GSC or add a DNS TXT or CNAME record.
• HTML tag: Add a <meta> tag to the <HEAD> section of a specific page’s HTML code.
• Google Analytics tracking code: Copy the GA tracking code that you use on your site. (You need “edit” permission in GA for this option.)
• Google Tag Manager container snippet code: Copy the GTM container snippet code associated with your site. (You need View, Edit, and Manage container-level permissions in GTM for this option.)

Impressions

Impressions measures how many times your site came up in a search result. This number can give you a general sense of how broad an audience your site is reaching, and it can help you set realistic goals as you try to get noticed by more people.

Clicks

Clicks represent the number of times someone clicked on your website from the Google SERPs. This number can be a bit of a misnomer because Google doesn’t tell you about all of your clicks—they’re vague about why this is, but cite some privacy concerns.

Click through rate (CTR)

Number of clicks divided by the number of impressions. This number can help give you a sense of how relevant your pages are for certain search terms. A high CTR means that the title and description for your page are grabbing the attention of searchers.

Position

Position is all about where your page ranks in search results. Each page of Google’s organic results has 10 links, so if your position number is 10 or lower, that means your website is displaying on the first page of search results.

Find and fix errors

The crawl report allows you to understand what Google sees when it crawls your website. Google crawls websites to learn what the site is about, and the information that they find on their crawl affects how you rank in their results.

If your site is difficult to crawl, you could be falling behind on rankings even if your website content looks great to the human eye. Use this report to make your site as appealing as possible to the Google computers that are indexing websites to give your site the best shot at ranking well.

Short conclusion

GSC is one of the most powerful tools available to small business owners. Unfortunately, some are unaware of its benefits or are intimidated by the wealth of data it provides. However, when you know which reports to run and which numbers to look out for, it can completely transform your approach to SEO and marketing.

Is there a better way to engage with your followers on social media than with video? We think not, and in this post we will talk about some options for your consideration.

Why is video so important?

Because with video your followers will engage, they are easy to digest and can be entertaining. Also videos can have a potentially huge return on investment through many channels. Videos build trust and creates long-term relationships.

What types of videos is best for you?

• Live videos

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and even Linkedin offers this option. I am sure that you have a profile on at least three platforms. If you also have lot of followers this option can be a great way to announce something new from your company, or you can show some behind the scenes videos.

With live videos you can cover performances and live events, create interviews, Q&A, panel discussions.

• Tutorial videos

Tutorial videos have mass appeal and are among the most frequently shared on social media. The videos can relate to your products and services or can be broader topics that relate to your audience and industry.

It’s important that your tutorial videos are clear, educational, and entertaining. They need to be long enough to show every step and short enough to be engaging.

Let’s say that your company sells blenders. In the video you can show us how to use it, or teach us how to make delicious shake.

• Behind-the-scene videos

Behind-the-scenes videos are a great way to make your company and your team more personable. Highlight day-to-day operations, your offices, your manufacturing processes, and more. Interview employees, talk to the vendors you’re closest to, or speak with your best customers.

They are great for building trust and brand identity. How cool it would be to see behind the scene videos of car production? I am sure you are now looking different on Honda.

• User-generated videos

You are thinking of summer vacation with family, and one day you notice video from one of your friends on Facebook showing him on a journey. Looking at the video you also noticed that he tagged travel agency and thank them on a amazing trip.

Then you go on the website of that travel agency, and there you found a perfect vacation for you and your family.

How great would that be for travel agency? They spent 0 dollars on advertising but people are interested in their offers.

User-generated content is quickly becoming a fantastic and easy way to engage an audience. You can encourage your users to create videos and incorporate your hashtags into the upload to give them more exposure. This is a brilliant way to grow an audience because users are more inclined to share content they create.

Short conclusion

With this types of videos you will continue to attract followers. Even if you are just starting with this type of marketing, you will only get better. Don’t feel discouraged with some negative comments.

Try different formats, create one week for Facebook, then switch to Instagram to find out which audience reacts better.

And in the end: Videos are like pizza. Even if they are bad, they are still pretty good. ?

If you are using Google Ads and AdSense you probably already noticed this bug.

As Google said: „On May 1, at approximately 5pm PST, a bug caused Google Ads reporting for April 30 and May 1 (Pacific Time) to be incorrect. This bug impacts reports in all Google Ads interfaces, including any report data downloaded via the AdWords API, Google Ads API and Google Ads Scripts.”

What’s incorrect?

There are no further details on what data is not reporting correctly. From what we can see, data appears to be populating for those days, but at this point you should not rely on any reporting from Google Ads for those days.

The company said the issue may be resolved during this week, but all signs indicate it is still ongoing.

It’s not uncommon for Google to underestimate the timeframe of bug fixes.

If the recent indexing bug is anything to go by, the issue may not be resolved for days after Google’s original estimate.

Why we should care? 

Be aware that if you’re using a third-party reporting tool or dashboard, the data is for those two days may be incorrect. This is apparently not affecting automated bidding strategies and is just a reporting glitch.

Short conclusion

For now, hold off on making any decisions based on the past two days of data. And hold off on those monthly reports until this is fixed.

The company says it will publish an update when there is more information to share.

Facebook is making ThruPlay the default buying option for video ad campaigns. It will also begin the process of sunsetting 10-second video view optimization beginning this month. Starting July 31, Facebook will pause campaigns still set to use the 10-second video view optimization.

What is ThruPlay?

ThruPlay is an optimization and billing option for video ads through the video views objective. ThruPlay allows advertisers to optimize and choose to pay only for ads that are played to completion, or for at least 15 seconds. This optimization is available with auction or reach and frequency campaigns.

Available placements and ad formats

The following placements are available:

• Facebook: feeds, in-stream video, Instant Articles, Suggested Video, stories, Marketplace
• Instagram: feed, stories
• Audience Network: in-stream, native, banner and interstitial, rewarded video

Keep in mind that like the above placements that are stand-alone, those same placements are standalone for ThruPlay as well. Additionally, ThruPlay is not supported for Ads in Messenger.

Why is ThruPlay important?

The ThruPlay video option, launched in September, optimizes ad delivery to target users who are likely to watch the entire video or at least 15 seconds of longer videos.

After July 31, the ThruPlay ads and 2-second Continuous Video Views will be the only ad delivery optimization options available. Between now and the end of July, advertisers will have to manually switch their 10-second video ad campaigns to one of those options to avoid avoid having their campaigns paused.

Why you should pick ThruPlay over 0:10 View

Unlike the existing formats, designed to achieve the lowest cost per 0:03 second or 0:10 second video view, ThruPlay “allows advertisers to optimize and pay only for ads that are watched to completion, or for at least 15 seconds.

With this new ad format, Facebook can more confidently report back on video metrics and impact — an issue which recently caused concern when Facebook was found to have knowingly inflated video view data.

With all the work and effort put into developing video units, you want viewers to watch your entire video. Videos that are 0:15 seconds are long enough to tell a story, but short enough that users don’t mind watching the whole thing.

If you are just getting started with SEO, have an own projects or working in SEO agency I am sure you’re looking to get everything for free.

In 2019 there are lot of tools that can help you with your SEO efforts. Check out our list and try them out, of course for FREE.

• Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool offered by Google to help you analyze your website traffic. If you don’t use it yet, you should. You can see a lot of things, such as how long your users stay on your pages, if they bounce back to the search results looking for something else or where your traffic is coming from.

• Google Search Console

This is a must use tool if you are in SEO business. Why is Search Console so important? Because it tells you whether a page is indexed or not, which is important for every website. Previously known as Google Webmaster Tools, this free resource also helps you with: technical issues, sitemaps, keyword tracking…

• PageSpeed Insights

As the page speed is one of the most important factors in ranking. This tool will help you quickly identify the most vital issues your site is facing regarding speed.Take note that score isn’t in any way related to your SEO performance and getting it to 100/100 won’t guarantee you higher rankings.

• Answer the Public

I discovered this tool in recent years, but it has become one of my favourite. Great keyword tool which will give you ideas and sort them both alphabetically and topically. It’s a great tool if you’re looking for a broader view on the keywords and looking for content ideas. Primarily, I use it for content ideas as you can just type a single word and tool will give you hundreds of potential ideas for blogs.

• Yoast SEO Plugin

As WordPress is the most popular CMS platform, and you are in SEO business you will surely meet with this CMS platform. The Yoast SEO plugin does a basic thing, which is allowing you to add a Title and Meta description to your pages.

This is important, because you don’t always want your H1 and Blog Title to be the same as the <title> tag. The plugin comes with a bunch of recommendations and best practices, but you don’t really need to follow them by heart. Sometimes, a good title can get a red light.

• Tiny PNG

Tiny PNG is a great tool for compressing images, and it is easy to use. One of the leading causes for slow websites is pictures in MB. Sometimes, resizing images can be a really boring way to spend your time but it is important. Don’t upload big pictures on your websites.

For many people Amazon is synonym for online shopping, and for his founder Jeff Bezos, one of the richiest people in the world.

But for people who works in Internet marketing industry Amazon is also a platform where you can start advertising businesses and find new customers.

Amazon advertising can be a great opportunity for your business, because when you think how you buy nowadays, escpecially in countries like USA you think of Amazon not Google.

It can be really valuable for you to place your ads in front of those people who are already looking for some products, maybe even yours.

So how do you start with Amazon ads?

To start advertising on Amazon you’ll first need to sign into your seller or vendor account.

If you don’t have either of these accounts you can check out their various pricing and plans to fit your needs here. If you’re a first party seller then you’ll want to sign-up as a vendor, which is unfortunately by invitation only.

If you’re selling via Amazon Seller Central you’re considered a third-party seller. Seller Central has pricing options for pay-as-you go for independent sellers vs. a pro option for those with higher sale volume.

Pro merchant sellers also have the option of letting Amazon manage shipping, returns, and customer service, which is not a bad perk! Lastly, Amazon has a Vendor Express option that might be worth exploring if you’re interested in going the vendor route, but are lacking an invitation.

Types of Amazon Ads

There are three main types of ads you can configure through Amazon including sponsored products ads, headline search ads, and product display ads.

Amazon Sponsored Product Ads

Sponsored product ads operate similar to ads run through the Google Shopping Network. These are the ads that drive Amazon searchers directly to a specific product you’re selling on Amazon.

Headline Search Ads

Headline search ads display in the search result pages as headline banner ads always above the result listing, like the example below. These ads are cost-per-click, and lead searchers to any specified page on Amazon.

Amazon Product Display Ads

Lastly, we have product display ads that work a bit differently then the two ad formats above. These ads are not keyword targeted, but rather interest or product targeted display ads. They drive shoppers to the products detail page and are also priced by a cost-per-click method.

As one of the first tools I’ve encountered when I find out the world of internet marketing, I’ve always been a great fan of Keyword Planner. In those beginnings, it was fascinating to me that I can find out what people are typing on Google.

Imagine, you can choose a location and enter the terms and get the search for them. Since my first job right after the college was related to SEO, I used the Keyword Planner often so I learned that people in my town often search for term „best pizza in town“ :), as well as the words and terms related to tourism and the dental profession are extremely competitive.

Throughout the years, Google did not alter the tool itself a lot until recently when they started to change whole interface.

Few words from Google:

In 2018 the new Keyword Planner was launched in the Google Ads interface. Based on feedback we simplified the navigation and improved forecasting. For example, this new version allows you to:

• Download trend data for individual keywords
• Use up to 10 seed terms at a time
• Get more granular competition ranking across keyword ideas
• Get daily budget suggestions in the plan overview
• Find the in-account status for uploaded keywords
• View forecasts for all languages

The layout of the new Keyword Planner makes it easier to navigate. As always, you can select which keyword ideas you want to add to your plan, select the match type, and then add them to your plan. 

The plan overview gives an easily digestible report that you can use and share before implementing the new keywords into your account. Your plan overview changes based on: match types, locations, language, and search networks you selected for your plan. 

As Keyword Planner is a tool designed with PPC advertisers in mind we are extremely happy that new version allows us to get daily budget suggestion in the plan overview.

What are daily budget suggestions in Google Ads?

Daily budget is an amount that you set for each ad campaign to specify how much, on average, you’d like to spend each day. On the days when your ad is more popular, Google Ads will allow up to twice your average daily budget so you won’t miss out on those valuable clicks.