Keyword choice is a central issue when it comes to small business SEO. There are online tools available out there to help you, but when you’re just starting out as a small business, you may find it a little tricky to interpret some of the language. Here are three basic SEO metrics to start understanding the basics of small business SEO:
Impressions
Impressions, or Impr. is the metric of how many times your ad is viewed. A higher score on this metric means more people will see your ad.
If you see that your keywords have high impression scores, don’t get too excited too early. How do search engines calculate how many times your ad is seen? Do they really know if it’s been seen? Well, not really. Usually, an impression is counted when your ad is shown on a search result page. But simply being there doesn’t guarantee your ad is seen. When you search Google for something, do you really “see” the ads that show up? Merely judging by impressions itself is not enough.
Average Position
Average position, or Avg. Pos. tells you in which order your ads appear on the search result page. Usually, an Avg. Pos, of 1-8 means your ad will appear on the first page, 9-16 on the second page, and so on.
Remember that the position can fluctuate. So you should definitely keep checking it and updating your keywords on a regular basis.
Click-Through Rate
Click-through rate, or CTR, measures the percentage of clicks received out of total ad impressions.
A high CTR is definitely what you want to achieve. But what you may not know is that a higher CTR can give you more than just increasing traffic to your website and potentially generating more revenue. It can also help you save money! The reason is simple. Ads with high CTR provide relevant information to the search engine users, so the search engine providers love those ads. In return, they will give you discounts on cost per click.
Now you know the very basic terminology for small business SEO. When you’re ready to learn more about small business SEO strategy and execution on a more advanced level, I highly recommend reading Neil Patel’s online marketing blog at QuickSprout.com. Even if you’re not personally implementing the online marketing efforts for your business and you hire an outside small business SEO expert, it’s critical to understand the responsibilities of those you are managing so you can keep your consultants accountable for results.