How to judge whether an SEO strategy is working

What a fair strategy review looks like

Why to judge a strategy on evidence

What you need to judge whether an SEO strategy is working

• Access to Google Search Console for the site
• The written strategy, or the list of changes made and the date of each
• A spreadsheet or document for your review notes
• Access to the free Google Trends website

Judge whether an SEO strategy is working, step by step

1. 1

   Write down what you expected, with dates

   For each piece of work, record in your own document what you expect it to change, which figure will show it, and when you will look. Date the document. Google does not prescribe a format, but if the plan changes later, keep the old dated version, so you can still see what was expected at the time.

   You will know it worked when You have a dated record of expectation, measure and review date for each piece of work.

2. 2

   Open the Performance report and widen the dates

   In Search Console, open Performance, choose the date filter and select Last 16 months. Google recommends this so you can see whether a movement happens every year because of a festival or trend. See the traffic-drop guide.

   You will know it worked when You can see 16 months of clicks and impressions and whether last year shows the same shape.

3. 3

   Compare the period with a like-for-like one

   In the date filter, open the Compare tab and compare the last 3 months with the previous period, or year over year. Click through the tabs for queries, pages, countries, devices and search appearance to see whether the change is spread across the site or sits in one place. Sort the Pages table by Clicks Difference to find the pages that lost or gained most.

   You will know it worked when You know whether the change is sitewide, in one group of pages, or on one page.

4. 4

   Rule out the other causes

   Work through Google's list. For technical issues, check the Crawl stats and Page indexing reports for a matching spike. For security and spam, check the Security Issues and Manual Actions reports. For updates, check Google's list of ranking updates. Google also tells you to check the Search Console Data Anomalies page, because a change might come from data processing or a logging error. If URLs changed, remember Google says rankings may fluctuate while it recrawls and reindexes.

   You will know it worked when Each cause on the list is marked as checked, with the result noted.

5. 5

   Check seasonality and demand

   Filter the Performance report to one of your most important queries at a time, then check the same query in Google Trends. Google says this shows whether the drop was only for your site or across the web. See the Performance report help for how the report is set up.

   You will know it worked when For each main query you have noted whether demand moved too.

6. 6

   Allow for delay before reading the result

   Google says some changes take effect in a few days while others could take several months, and suggests waiting a few weeks before analysing the site in Search Console again. For a site move, it says a medium-sized site can take a few weeks for Google to notice the change, and larger sites longer. See Google's site moves guide. Set your review date accordingly, and do not judge a change before then.

   You will know it worked when Every review date in your record allows for the delay Google describes.

7. 7

   Write the review

   Under five headings, write: what you expected; what happened, with the period and source of each figure; what else changed; what you conclude and how sure you are; what you will do next. Where a figure was unavailable, say so rather than writing zero. Google also warns that positions are not fixed and says impressions and clicks are the measure of success, so do not rest the review on average position alone.

   You will know it worked when Another person can read the review and see which evidence supports each conclusion.

Common mistakes when you judge whether an SEO strategy is working

• Judging a strategy on one traffic line at the end of a quarter.
• Comparing with the previous month when demand is seasonal; Google recommends looking at a 16-month view.
• Blaming or crediting the strategy before checking technical, security, spam and update causes.
• Reading results before Google has had time to recrawl and reindex.
• Making radical changes to pages that are already performing well after a small shift in position; Google recommends avoiding this.
• Treating a reporting glitch as a real change.

Terms used when you judge whether an SEO strategy is working

Performance report

The Search Console report showing clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position for your site in Google Search.

Impressions

How many times your site appeared in Google Search results.

Seasonality

Demand that rises and falls at regular times of year, regardless of what you do.

Google Trends

A Google tool showing how interest in a search topic changes over time and by place.

Recrawl and reindex

Google revisiting your pages and updating what it has stored about them.

Sources for how to judge whether an SEO strategy is working

• Debugging drops in Google Search traffic | Google Search Central
• Site Moves and Migrations | Google Search Central
• Performance report (Search results): Overview and basic setup - Search Console Help