Search Engine Optimization Metrics Funnel

From the series of articles “What are the types of metrics funnels in Internet marketing.”

We help you understand how the effectiveness of search engine optimization (SEO) is measured, what website visibility is and what place it occupies in the funnel of Internet marketing metrics.

The classic internet marketing funnel consists of absolute, relative and financial metrics from advertising impressions to the transaction.

We described performance metrics in detail in a separate article.

But sometimes the specifics of advertising tools add their own special metrics to the funnel, and the funnel changes. Such special metrics are found in SEO, video advertising, and recommendation systems. In this article, we will look at the features of the search engine optimization funnel.

SEO funnel. Visibility

In the search engine optimization funnel, advertising impressions are replaced by impressions of search results for semantic core queries, and two new metrics are added – “Effective Impressions” and “Visibility”.

Effective impressions — this is the frequency of each semantic core request, multiplied by the visibility coefficient of the position occupied by the page of the promoted site for this request.

Search results are shown to all users. But not all users see the site page in search results because it is not visible on the first screen of the device.

The visibility coefficient of the first three positions is usually taken as one, and the lower the page is in the search results, the less likely it is that it will be seen and, accordingly, the lower the coefficient.

That is, this metric tells us what % of users saw the site in search results.

Why do you need to track website visibility?

Visibility describes the quality of a site's coverage of search demand. This is a higher-level metric than site positions, since in addition to position it also takes into account the frequency of the request.

Visibility does not depend on changes in search demand under the influence of seasonal, economic or epidemiological factors, therefore it is a more accurate metric of search engine promotion success than search traffic.

For example, if search traffic increases due to seasonal search demand growth, but visibility decreases, this means that despite the increase in traffic, SEO is performing poorly.

Or, if traffic is down due to a seasonal decline in search demand, but visibility is up, SEO is working well.

These statements are true if the semantic core is adequate to the site and the CTR on search does not change during the periods under study.

The dynamics of visibility should be positive, the visibility of the site should strive for 100%.

Sometimes visibility is more than 100%. This is the case when a site has two or more high positions in search results for one query. This situation is observed for navigation queries.

In what sections is site visibility monitored?

For an in-depth analysis, visibility dynamics are considered in the context of search engines, semantic core segments, or entry points (traffic to site pages).

Ideally, visibility in Yandex and Google should be the same and change in the same direction.

When a site's visibility increases in one search engine and decreases in another, this is a clear signal of trouble.

In terms of segments of the semantic core or entry pages, visibility is tracked in order to understand how successful the search engine promotion efforts for specific sections or pages of the site were.

Visibility is automatically calculated in some site position monitoring services, such as seranking or allpositions.

Author: Roman Rublevsky, March 2024