Understanding KPIs and their Significance –
When you launch an ecommerce business, you invest so much more than just money – numerous ideas, countless hours, probably your life’s savings, and the trust of the people in your team. Now the time has passed and it is time to evaluate the actual results – for the people above you in your organization, for the client, and above all – for yourself!
How do you prove productivity?
How do you show that you have added value to this project – in a measurable way?
The answer lies in the Key Performance Indicators or the KPIs!
Key performance indicators, or KPIs, are the different aspects that measure the performance of a project or task. In case of eCommerce businesses, the KPIs allow the business owners, webpage developers, and marketing people to determine the profitability of a particular site. By understanding how successful the site is, further business plans can be made. In case of a not-so-desirable output, the team can work on the aspects that need to be improved in order to get the desired business results.
One factor that needs to be taken into consideration is that the KPIs in the SEO or ecommerce industry may not necessarily be the same as the other business models. And hence, it is of paramount importance that an online business owner, SEO agency or webmaster understand the KPIs very clearly, and also the specific KPIs that need to be taken into account while assessing the profitability of the business.
What to presume before you evaluate –
We have already established that an ecommerce business model will have a different set of KPIs than the other businesses. But another factor that needs to be considered is the nature of the business of the e-commerce entity. For instance, an ecommerce store dealing with a luxury clothing brand may have low number or orders but a very high Average Order value. However, the business like Grocery products etc. usually have high number of orders but low or average product price.
The right set of ecommerce KPIs or Questions to ask business will depend on the following main factors –
- The business entity’s age
- The line of business
- The organizational goals
It is also necessary to choose realistic, measurable, and achievable KPIs. With specific KPIs set, and measurable results in hand, you can make decisions based on solid data rather than assuming things. KPIs can actually help a business rework on SEO components such as keyword ranking and strength, abandonment rate, average session duration, etc.
Now the question of which KPIs to track is answered here…
We are here to help you shortlist the key Ecommerce KPIs. Let’s have a look at some of the top SEO KPIs that you need to track-
The traffic on your website is perhaps one of the most apparent key performance indicators, which a business owner will want to track. As a rule of thumb, the higher the traffic in organic search, the better the chances of conversion of these into actual sales. However, this may not always be true. And the numbers can exponentially increase with the increase in the number of people that visit your site. Apart from increasing the chances of converting organic visitors into actual purchasers, an increase in traffic also means more awareness of your brand, which, in turn, may lead to referral traffic. One needs to keep a track of this KPI, and look for noticeable highs and lows and the pattern in the increase or decrease.
Goals are the first step towards launching any business, whether it is a physical store or an ecommerce one. Unless we know where we want to go, we cannot plan how to reach there. Based on the goals, SEO strategies are formulated and budgets are allocated; and based on the achievements (in our case, conversions), strategies need to be revisited. Hence it is of great importance to understand where a business stands as compared to the goals determined. Google Analytics can be of great help here – by setting up goal tracking in Google Analytics, you can monitor the goals for your website and work on the marketing strategies based on the data in hand. Google Analytics is undoubtedly a blessing for those working in the SEO and digital marketing domains.
SEO is a long-term process and it takes at least 4-6 months of investment on SEO, Content and Website before one start seeing results. So it is very important to understand the benefits associated with any investment that is done in a business. Consider this example – content marketing is one of the important components of SEO; it involves payment to the content writers, charges associated with press and media releases and in some cases, digital costs. Now, the ROI on this would be calculated based on the cost of the actual content. If you end up spending more than the cost of the content, then the ROI is bound to be very low. In such a situation, the strategies in place will have to be relooked at and then revised or reworked.
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Competitor Rankings & Strategies
Many times, we are so involved with our own strategies and designs, that we often forget the other significant part of the business – the competitor! When in business, it is very important to keep an eye at the competitor – not only to understand what makes them better than us, but also to understand what we can do to be better than them.
Whether it is the product line, or the discounts offered or even something as simple as the appearance of the website – it is necessary to keep yourself at par or above, so that the ultimate aim of giving the customers a better user experience is fulfilled. Always remember, one satisfied customer may always help you in getting more referrals and conversions.
Few other important SEO KPIs are Landing Pages Performance, Impressions vs Clicks vs Page Position, Featured Snippets performance etc. Some of the most important Featured Snippets in Ecommerce business are:
- Product Markup schema, the code that describes the basic information about the product
- Website Business Schema like Organization, Local Business etc.
- Category Schema markups like Breadcrumbs etc.
- FAQ schema markup which will help users answer questions in the Google Search box directly.
- Reviews Schema, which add more value to the search by providing more information
- Price Schema, which helps people to make the purchase decision by comparing the price across various ecommerce sites.
- Product Availability Schema, which will provide additional information to the buyer regarding the availability of the product.
- Video Schema, another tool to provide more information regarding the usage or appearance of a product on the SERP. This, however, may not be applicable to all types of products.
Customer’s time is of paramount importance, no one wants to sit and look at the screen while it takes its own sweet time to load the pages! The speed at which page loads could be a debatable KPI. According to Google, pagespeed of a webpage is extremely important, as it ultimately leads to a better experience for the user. Many SEO experts also advocate that the page load speed plays a crucial role in deciding the rankings and popularity among the customers. Moreover, Google’s upcoming Pagespeed and user experience-related update “Core Web Vitals” will be a major game-changer and create a far better experience in the future. Google AMP is another great example.
Concluding thoughts…
As a business owner, it is necessary to understand your goals, create strategies, and execute them. While looking at the effectiveness of the strategies, it is necessary to understand that there are certain parameters that help you assess the profitability of your business. We at Orvador are constantly trying to help our clients assess whether their SEO strategies have worked in their favour or not. Feel free to let us know your thoughts on this.
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