The benefits you reap from appearing in the top spots on Google are sought after - but what share of that longed-for traffic are you getting? This is something that SEO visibility helps quantify - and we’re here to tell you all about it.
What is SEO visibility?
SEO organic visibility indicates how visible a website is to a user within the search results for certain search terms; it shows a share of the traffic that a webpage receives based on its rankings in the SERPs. The more keywords you rank for and the better you rank for them, the higher your ‘SEO visibility score’ will be.
For example, if you currently rank 2nd on the SERPs for a keyword, you can expect that result to get a 24.71% share of the traffic - 24.71% of people click on it, in other words.
What influences SEO visibility?
Position one on the search results gets around 34% of traffic, and it’s what every site is aiming for. Here’s how your SEO visibility is influenced:
Search intent and relevance
Line up your content with what people are actually searching for, answering those frequently asked questions and remaining relevant to their queries.
Meta tags
Meta tags show Google the hierarchy of your page, structuring your content with titles and leading Googlebots through it effortlessly. Your title tags should refer to the keywords you’re looking to remain visible for.
Quality content
Person-first content is an SEO staple for success, and by infusing it with helpful and authoritative information and insight that users can trust stands out to Google as content that they should reward. They do this with higher rankings, and therefore increased search visibility.
Website structure
A website that’s easy to navigate relies on a good structure - something you have control over as the website owner. Having all the pages within easy reach of the home page with strong internal linking in place not only helps users find their way around, improving their experience, but it also makes it easy for Google to crawl your site, make sense of it, and rank it accordingly.
Mobile responsiveness
With well over 50% of traffic coming from mobile devices, it makes sense that Google prioritises sites that are built for mobile users as well as desktop browsers. In fact, they work on a mobile-first policy.
UX
User experience goes beyond the design and navigability; things like load speed, page stability and the ease of interactivity can all build up to create a positive user experience.
Backlinks
Backlinks from high quality websites signal to Google that you have good things to say, and are therefore worth rewarding with higher rankings.
How to check your SEO visibility score
You can check your SEO visibility score on tools such as SEMrush and Ahrefs. What’s considered a good SEO visibility score will vary - achieving 100% isn’t really attainable. What’s important is to track your main target keywords, and aim for the best visibility score that you can.
Does SEO visibility show a full picture of SEO performance?
No - it’s never a good idea to rely on one metric as an indicator of your overall success. In addition to SEO visibility, you should also be looking at the traffic your site generates, click-through rates, domain authority; and that’s just the start! Use tools such as Google Search Console and GA4 to get an overall view of how your website is performing.
What should you do if you lose SEO visibility?
First things first, don’t panic; a drop in SEO visibility could be for a number of reasons, so the best way forward is to take an overall look at your site’s SEO, making sure you’re doing all you can to remain user-first and relevant to searchers.
TOP 7 ways to increase your SEO visibility
Here are our top 7 ways to increase your SEO visibility, whether you’ve noticed a drop, or just want to make sure you’re doing the best you can:
Keyword research for new content
Keeping your content fresh as well as relevant is a huge key to SEO success, so take some time to find keywords relevant to what you do that people are actually searching for - and make sure they’re ones you’re not already targeting on your site, using ‘keyword gap’ tools, like those on Semrush.
Optimise older and underperforming content
In the same vein, revisit previously published content that may not be as helpful as it once was, or contain the keywords that it should. Restructure it if necessary, ensuring meta titles contain your target keywords, and the content is updated with fresh insights.
Obtain high quality backlinks
Backlinks from high quality sites indicate to Google that you know what you’re talking about, and are therefore a site to prioritise in the SERPs so that users can benefit from your knowledge too. So, start by creating high quality content that helps the user in the first instance, and conduct outreach to authoritative websites to encourage them to link to you if they frequently refer to topics relevant to what you do.
Broken link building
Finding broken links in the content of others presents an opportunity if you think your site provides a good alternative. This helps the website owner avoid the frustration of their users (no one wants to click on a link only to find the page doesn’t exist), and it boosts your backlink profile, showing Google you’re a site with helpful things to say.
Fix technical website issues
Niggly technical issues such as slow load speeds or broken links of your own are big no-nos as far as Google are concerned, and they’re a big turn off for your users too. Find these issues and fix them promptly to ensure they’re not impacting your SEO visibility.
Image optimisation
Those slow loading speeds we’ve talked about? Images could be the cause if they’re too hefty for browsers to load at any decent speed. Compressing and resizing them is an easy (if a little time consuming) way to improve your load speeds, and therefore your SEO visibility.
Improve Core Web Vital metrics
Core web vitals are like a health score for your site, and they’re used to measure the overall usability of your site - you should work through these if you’re looking to increase your SEO visibility. Core Web Vitals include:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
LCP measures how long it takes for the page to show the user the largest block of content on the screen before it ‘folds’, which is what you see before you have to scroll. 2.5 seconds or less is ideal!
First Contentful Paint (FCP)
This measures how long it takes for the page to load the first block of content (not necessarily the largest) onto the screen.
Interaction to Next Paint (INP)
INP measures the overall responsiveness on a site - for example, how long it takes for the next page to load following a click.
First Input Delay (FID)
FID measures the time it takes for a part of the website to respond to the user’s first input, which is generally a click.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
Think of this as page stability; content that moves after the page has loaded is pretty frustrating!
Time to First Byte (TTFB)
TTFB measures the time between an interaction with the site, and the first ‘byte’ of the response when it arrives.
Need help with SEO visibility?
If website visibility is top of your list, you’ve come to the right place - getting our clients visible on Google is what we do best! Aim for the top spots and we’ll help get you there - just chat to us today about what 427 Marketing has achieved for our clients, and what we could achieve for you too.