Being able to adequately generate results for your website is of the utmost importance, but in order to do so, you must also be able to accurately track progress. For SEO, a variety of metrics can be used to determine whether or not your efforts are having an impact. Without the use of these data-points, your efforts will simply be flying in the dark.

For local SEO specifically, it is just as important. There are in fact some differences in what must be done to target locally-relevant search results compared to overall SEO efforts, and likewise, select metrics may be more relevant in monitoring your progress.

Today, let’s examine the metrics most important to tracking local SEO progress.

Website Visitors and Clicks

The amount of traffic being derived from your organic and paid marketing efforts is vital in determining whether or not your approaches are having their intended impact. Many people can find their way to a website based on a litany of marketing approaches, including via review platforms, search engine listings, or social media.

With a comprehensive set of analytics options, there should be no method through which people are visiting or clicking on your pages in results that you can’t track. Options such as Google My Business offer a great level of complexity in assessing these metrics via Google mediums, while other on-site or third-party analytics choices let you determine who is pinging your website – and from where.

If there is a change in the number of people who are clicking or landing on your website, then you can determine whether or not any recent changes are contributing to said effect.

Calls and Messages

Without a doubt, most locally-focused brands require direct interaction with their audiences in order to justify their digital marketing efforts. Many of these entities are businesses tasked with interacting in a one-on-one setting, which is why the tracking of phone calls and/or messages is a vital metric to monitor.

Search engines can help you advertise and track phone calls to your brand, letting you monitor exactly how many additional calls are being placed each week or month. Again, integrating your analytics with phone-based solutions provided by Google My Business makes it simple to determine whether your efforts are having an impact.

Additionally, the same set of services can offer integrated messaging options to help you more effectively reach your target audience. Even messages coming via social media platforms should be tracked, as it is likely an indicator of increased local interest that may very well impact local SEO performance in the long-term.

Sales and Revenues

How much money is flowing into your brand compared to past months or quarters? Is there a dramatic shift that follows changes to your broader marketing plan? Even if there is no direct metric via search analytics that ties people pinging your website to a change in revenues, it is likely that the two are interconnected.

You always want to be tracking the amount of revenue and/or the number of sales being made over each week, month or quarter, as this will shed light on the direct and indirect effects of marketing shifts made by your locally-focused brand.

Without proper monitoring of select metrics, the ability to determine what changes have a positive (or negative) impact is very difficult. By following these select metrics and monitoring them consistently, you can determine what effect(s) your local SEO protocols are having on their target audiences.