8 Crucial Metrics to Check in a Local SEO Audit

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Online businesses are thriving on local SEO. Local search presence plays an integral part in a business's market performance. A measurable SEO audit should back a carefully curated SEO strategy.
An SEO audit will allow you to track your business growth even before launching your SEO campaign. Hence, it is crucial to identify your local SEO key performance indicators.
This article will discuss important KPIs to consider in a Local SEO audit.

8 Key Metrics to Check in a Local SEO Audit

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1. Online Presence of Your Business Listing/s

Online presence is a fundamental metric to consider for an SEO Audit. You must see from the perspective of your target customers. Your online presence depends on how easily your local prospects can access your website.
Let’s look at some of the tips and tools for your business’s online presence.

• An updated Google My Business profile can enhance your online presence in the market.
• You can also take Google My Business insights as a metric for the SEO audit. Google My Business insights provide you with the number of engagements with your business listing.
• Google Map Rankings can give you insights into your business's rankings in your local area on Google Map.
• Guest blogging for high-traffic website/s can enhance both your business’s online presence and reputation.
• Backlinks from high-authority website/s and citations can improve your online presence and authority as a leading business in the market.

Here’s an image that shows the updated Google My Business profile and Google Map Rankings for a Los Angeles-based dance studio.
Read: Step-by-step Setup Guide for Google My Business Set up

2. Organic Lead Conversion Rate

Tracking the organic traffic drive of your business website gives you insights into general traffic, but it doesn't provide you with details about the quality of the driven traffic. So tracking organic lead conversion rate offers you details about the quality of your site visitors.
Organic lead conversion rate is an essential metric for a measurable SEO audit. Business owners are experimenting with different digital marketing strategies to improve their organic lead conversion rate.
Let's look at some tips and tools to track and improve your business website's organic lead conversion rate.

• Organic conversion tracking can provide insights into the percentage of your visitors converting into your actual customers.
• You can track your organic lead conversions from Google Analytics. Set up a Goal, and Google Analytics will give you insights on your lead conversions until the goal is achieved.
• Use the analytics tools of your social media platforms to track your organic lead conversion rate.

Have a look at how Google Analytics helps you track your online lead conversion rate.

3. Organic Growth in On-site Traffic

Site traffic is one of the basic and primary goals of business owners.
A well-thought business strategy and an SEO tactic can certainly drive loads of traffic to your business website.

• But are they organic?
• Are they convertible?
• Are they going to contribute to your sales numbers?

We need a measurable SEO audit to know the answers to the questions mentioned above. Organic growth in traffic is one of the most important KPIs of an SEO audit for fair reasons. Organic traffic can improve your sales, reputation, and SERPs rankings.
So let’s look at some of the tips to improve organic growth in your on-site traffic.

• Dedicate respective landing pages for your new visitors and returning ones.
• Improve your website navigation by equipping AI and ML environments.
• Create a visiting counter to keep tabs on the number of visitors.

You can use tools like UberSuggest to conduct a thorough SEO audit, as shown in the image below.

4. Organic Rankings Efficiency

The organic ranking of your business website is an essential metric in an SEO audit. Business owners are investing their money and mind to get their business website featured on the first two pages of the SERPs. There are two types of rankings on the SERPs; Local and Organic.
Local rankings are based on how well your brand performs in your locality. In contrast, organic rankings are based on how popular and authentic your business is around the globe.
A solid local ranking and a poor organic ranking may not do well for your business goals in the long run.
Let's look at the tips on improving the overall organic ranking of your business website on SERPs.

• Have a structured and updated Google My Business Profile.
• Make your business website readable to your users and scannable to the search engine.
• Use Ad marketing to strengthen your online presence.

You can use Google Search Console to monitor and track your organic rankings, as shown in the image below.

5. On-site User Engagement

On-site user engagement is dependent on various internal and external factors related to your business website. User experience plays an extremely important role in improving the user engagement of your business website.
User engagement is another important KPI for a measurable SEO audit. While running an SEO audit on your business website, keep the website bounce rate in mind. Bounce rate can give you insights into how many people explore your business website after landing.
Use Google Analytics to find out your visitors' time on your business website. It will provide insights into how engaging and converting your business website is. Here are some tips to improve your on-site user engagement.

• Keep a user-friendly and easy-to-navigate user interface of your business website.
• Keep Chatbots and FAQs sections on the page to improve your website's user experience.

Here’s how you can track the bounce rate of all your pages in Google Analytics.

6. Website Load Speed and Downtime

Website load speed is an important KPI of an SEO audit. Website load speed determines how soon your audience can access your business website. The Sooner the audience gets to access your website; the better user engagement will happen.
Website load speed and website downtime are directly dependent on each other. The more time your business website will load, the more website downtime it will have. Website downtime decreases your on-site user engagement and site traffic.
Websites with better load speed and less downtime are ranked higher on the SERPs. It gives your business an edge over your local competitors. It will get you the necessary audience attention and market reputation.
Let’s look at some of the tips to improve website load speed.

• Cache all your high-traffic pages. Caching will help your web pages load in 40% less time.
• Decrease your on-page redirects. It will improve your website engagement and decrease your website downtime.
  

7. Technical Errors and Issues On-site

Technical errors are also one of the critical metrics of an SEO audit. Crawling issues can affect your website and its rankings despite all the excellent work and strategies you will put into it. Technical errors can easily ruin your whole SEO strategy for the business website in a flicker.
How does crawlability matter in an SEO audit?
Crawlability refers to how well a search engine can access your business website and index it. The less time a search engine will take to crawl and index your website, the higher it will be ranked on SERPs. Hence, Technical errors such as crawling error is an important KPI in an SEO audit.
How to improve the crawlability of your business website?

• Optimize your web pages. Structured web pages are easier to crawl and index.
• Websites with an audience-centric user interface have better crawlability.

Here’s an image showing the technical errors after an SEO audit.

8. Reviews and Queries

Business websites with dedicated on-page review sections always perform better in sales and rankings on the SERPs. Reviews and queries are important KPIs of a measurable SEO audit.
During an SEO audit, keep an eye out for the number of users raising queries and spending time on your review section. It will provide insights into how many organic users are driven to your business website due to a dedicated review section.
The more visitors spend time on your reviews section, the more chances you will convert them into your actual customers.
Let's look at some tips to maintain a proper review and query section on your business website.

• Attend to genuine negative reviews and resolve the issues quickly.
• Attend to all the queries to gain the confidence of your potential prospects.
• Equip AI bots on-site to attend queries and general feedback on your behalf.
  

Key Takeaways

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• Create a robust online business presence and reputation in the market.
• Keep track of your organic lead conversion rate to perform better.
• Keep track of your organic growth in site traffic to know more about your organic user engagement.
• Get ranked by search engines due to improved market performance and satisfactory user experience.
• Decrease the website downtime by caching and optimizing your web pages.
• Get rid of minor technical errors and improve your website's crawlability.
• Attend to customer queries and reviews for better market reputation.