Web-Level SEO: Part 2 of 5
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Step 2: Setting Up Tracking
Why is it important?
There are two basic ways to determine whether our SEO work is producing results.
First, we can check the Google rankings of the keywords we are targeting. Second, we can monitor whether the website’s traffic and impressions are trending upward over time. This gives us a baseline. Without knowing where the website stands before we begin, it becomes difficult to judge whether our SEO work is actually improving its performance.
How do we do it?
Use Google Search Console, a free tool provided by Google. Connect the website to Search Console and record its current performance data.
- Impressions — how often the website appears in Google search results.
- Clicks — how many times people click through to the website from those results.
In Google Search Console, go to Performance → Search results and select an appropriate date range, such as the last three months. Record the current data so you can compare it with future results.
Once the client approves the initial keyword list from Step 1, establish your tracking baseline.
Then, after a month—and again over the following months—you can return to the data and ask:
Are impressions increasing? Are clicks increasing? Are our target keywords gaining visibility?
That’s how we begin to measure whether our SEO work is moving in the right direction.
I think that’s important because it connects directly with the professional SEO mindset we’re trying to teach.
We’re not merely saying: “Install Search Console.”
We’re saying: “Establish where the website stands before you start changing things, so you can later measure the effect of those changes.”
That’s a much stronger lesson.
And it also connects beautifully with the revenue-oriented mission:
Baseline→ SEO implementation→ Measurement →Change/trend →Interpretation→
Next decision
Article 1 = investigation.
Article 2 = establish the measuring instrument.
Your Next article, Website-Level SEO 3 of 5, can take you into the technical inspection.