Benchmarking: Definition, Importance In SEO & Best Practices For 2022

SEO benchmarking is vital for getting your website into the hands of those looking for your content.

Benchmarking contains many parts and can help you get your content seen through search engines.

SEO, search engine optimization, and benchmarking may sound challenging, and there are a lot of confusing terms you may need to learn before you can get your website or blog off the ground and seen by the world.

What Is Benchmarking?

SEO benchmarking is the act of using metrics to ensure your website, web page, or blog has appropriate value in its industry.

SEO benchmarking will also show you how to improve SEO metrics and help gain website visibility.

Difference Between Benchmark and Baseline

The terms benchmark and baseline have two different implications.

Simply put, a baseline is where your web page or blog falls regarding SEO metrics.

A baseline will give you an idea of where your web page already is with its SEO score.

However, a benchmark compares your web page’s SEO content to others in the industry.

Benchmarking will rank your web page alongside other authoritative web pages in the same genre, and this ranking will impact where it falls in a search engine and how many people will see it.

How Does Benchmarking Work?

Benchmarking may be a little complicated, especially for new bloggers or website holders who may not understand why their web pages may not get enough attention.

However, benchmarking can be broken down into simpler parts. First, you must understand its purpose.

What Is the Purpose of Benchmarking?

Benchmarking helps you understand where your web page falls regarding authority, worth, and value.

For example, authoritative sites will have high SEO benchmarks and thus appear closer to the top results on a search engine results list.

An SEO benchmark may offer insight into why your web page ranks in its position.

Different Types of Benchmarking

Keywords aren’t the only thing that SEO benchmarks use to discover the position of your web page compared to others.

Different SEO KPIs, or key performance indicators, can help you understand which areas of your website you should target.

• Speed-Related KPIs: Speed-related KPIs determine values on how much time it takes for your web page to offer relevant information to the searcher or customer. Increasing page speed can help boost this KPI and benchmark.
• Keyword Position: Keywords are the primary way in which SEO is benchmarked. Keywords should always appear within the first couple of sentences on your web page and should appear in headings and titles.
• Bounce Rate and Pageviews: Bounce rate and pageviews are connected benchmarks since they involve people clicking on your website. If you get many visitors but click away quickly, your bounce rate may be high.
• Lead-Related KPIs: Lead-related KPIs discuss how long it takes for your website or page to process orders. This KPI will likely be an issue for storefronts or shops that sell products.

Example of Benchmarking

Checking the Core Web Vitals of your website will give you information on your metrics.

For example, most website or blog hosting platforms will have a dashboard where you can access your metrics.

You can then see your personalized example of benchmarking, especially when using a famous platform.

For example, WordPress SEO information is comprehensive and will assist even the most amateur website owners.

Every website will have a ranking, but some are not actively benchmarking for views, clicks, and traffic.

These websites will likely have lower numbers, but well-known companies will likely have large numbers, plenty of traffic, and thriving website vital signs.

Does Benchmarking Affect SEO?

Benchmarking may not affect SEO, but the two are interconnected.

Benchmarking looks at your SEO and rates how authoritative your information is.

If a search engine deems your SEO benchmark high, it’ll make it more visible.

Why Is Benchmarking Important for SEO?

Benchmarking will compare your web page to other web pages in the same category or genre, but only so many of the same topics can land on the front page of a search engine for a phrase.

That’s where benchmarking comes in.

Benchmarking for SEO will determine if your website has the necessary information relevant to the searched term.

If your website is deemed worthy or valuable enough, the search engine will rank it higher in the list of results, and your website will gain visibility.

This ranking will drive traffic to your website, making benchmarking vital for SEO.

Is Benchmarking Necessary?

Benchmarking is not necessary to run a website or blog, but if you don’t monitor SEO benchmarks, you may not see much traffic to your website.

Monitoring and improving your SEO benchmarks will help you get more page views and lift your website in the results list of a search engine.

How Long Does it Take for Benchmarking To Work?

Benchmarking can take several months to improve website traffic and increase your page views.

However, without any benchmarking at all, you may see no improvement in your website and page views.

There are many websites on the internet, all vying for the same top 10 spots on the first page of a search engine results list, but with consistent benchmarking, you may see improvement in six to 24 months.

Process of Defining an SEO Benchmark

Defining your benchmarks and monitoring them can be challenging.

Which benchmarks will be the best for you to consider?

The process of choosing which SEO benchmarks to monitor for your website will depend on multiple factors.

• Step 1: Consider the purpose of your website
• Step 2: Choose your metrics
• Step 3: Analyze your website
• Step 4: List competitors
• Step 5: Analyze competitor websites
• Step 6: Forgo checking irrelevant benchmarks
• Step 7: Create a strategy
• Step 8: Check benchmarks consistenly

How To Do SEO Benchmarking

SEO benchmarking may sound complex, but it can be done in a few simple steps that will help you build up your website and drive traffic.

Let’s take a more detailed look at the process.

STEP 1: Consider the Purpose of Your Website

If your website is blog-based and only serves to deliver information, you may only need to focus on a few metrics like keywords, bounce rate, and page views.

However, websites with a storefront and shopping area will need to focus on speed-related metrics to prevent shoppers from getting annoyed with slow speeds and a long checkout.

STEP 2: Choose Your Metrics

Pick the most beneficial metrics that you would like to follow and engage in.

These metrics should be related to your website needs and should be as relevant as possible.

STEP 3: Analyze Your Website

Take a look at your website and check that each part of your website is user-friendly and will discourage a poor bounce rate.

Your website should be eye-catching and interesting to prevent readers and viewers from clicking off immediately.

STEP 4: List Competitors

Make a brief list of your direct competitors.

This list will help you understand who you’re up against and how you can model your website to have similar components that will catch the audience’s attention.

STEP 5: Analyze Competitor Websites

Take time to analyze what parts of a competitor’s website work well and draws in an audience.

These components can be added to your website to drive traffic.

For example, when looking at SEO for WordPress sites, you may be able to see how your competitors build their sites and use keywords differently. Be inspired by these differences.

STEP 6: Forgo Checking Irrelevant Benchmarks

It may be tempting to check other benchmarks to see where you rank among competitors, but this may discourage you.

Checking unrelated benchmarks may cause you to feel down and may make you wonder why you keep trying.

Instead, focus on the necessary benchmarks that you want to build up.

STEP 7: Create a Strategy

Use the analyses of your website and competitor websites to create a plan to adapt your site to more closely mirror successful websites.

This plan may mean including keywords, producing relevant content, or speeding up the checkout process.

STEP 8: Check Benchmarks Consistently

Check your benchmarks consistently to see how they change and develop.

It may take months for you to see significant and fruitful changes, but checking consistently can tell you what parts of your site to put energy and time into.

Benchmarking Best Practices

Benchmarking will take plenty of time so it’s vital to ensure that you are dedicating the right amount of time to the right tasks.

Although this can be frustrating for many website owners, using benchmarking best practices will help you see progress and remain dedicated.

Use Deadlines

Make deadlines for yourself, your metrics, and your website.

It’s okay if you need more time, but a target is good to have.

Consider Your Demographic

Your demographic and target audience may not need links to some older social media platforms.

Stay up to date with what your target audience prefers.

Monitor Meaningful Metrics

Your website may not need all the metrics and SEO benchmarks.

Sometimes, you may only need keywords.

Make a Checklist

You’ll want to make a checklist of all the metrics you check routinely to ensure you don’t miss any.

Benchmarking Tools To Save Time and Money

Benchmarking doesn’t mean doing everything on your own.

There are plenty of tools for SEO available to help you boost your benchmarks without burning the candle at both ends.

A benchmarking tool is any tool that helps you measure metrics and get an idea of where your SEO benchmarks compare against competitors.

Our Favorite Benchmarking Tools

There are benchmarking tools that simply blow the rest out of the water.

These tools will help track where your website compares to others in ranking, where it shows on the results page of a search engine, and who makes up your demographic.

• Rank Tracking Tools: Rank tracking tools show how your website compares to your competitors in ranking.
• SERP Checker Tools: SERP Checkers monitor where your page lands on the search engine results page and how close that page is to the top of the list.
• Google Analytics: Google Analytics is one of the best tools for SEO audits and allows you to see your demographic and target audience.

Other Related SEO Terms to Know

To better understand SEO, you’ll need to understand some key terms.

• Bounce Rate: Bounce rate is how quickly someone will click away from your website. If your website doesn’t have immediate answers within the first few paragraphs, your bounce rate may be high.
• Keyword Tracking: Keywords are the primary way in which SEO benchmarks are assessed and keyword tracking is vital for website visibility. Research which keywords are necessary for your website or blog and use them in the first 100 words of your page.
• Page Views: Page views are the number of times a page has been clicked on and viewed by someone on the internet.

Frequently Asked Questions

SEO benchmarking can be a little confusing, but some answers can make it easier to understand.

Wrapping Up

SEO benchmarking can be a confusing and tiring experience for many website owners and bloggers.

Not only can it take months or years to see the fruits of your SEO-related labors, but it will also take hours of research, work, and plenty of adaptation.

However, being aware of the components within SEO benchmarks is vital to improving your SEO standings.

Making your website more visible is possible and can be done through monitoring and adapting SEO benchmarks consistently.