SEO Visibility Score: How To Improve Your Website’s Score

An SEO visibility score is a metric that reflects how likely your website is to be found and clicked on in search results. Your score determines your site’s searchability and findability. 

You want to aim for a high SEO visibility score, since this indicates that people are more likely to find your website when searching online. This will be because your pages have targeted specific keywords and secured top rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs). If you have a low or decreasing score, you need to assess your SEO strategy.

Before you can calculate and improve your SEO visibility score, you need to have a good understanding of these key SEO metrics:

Domain Authority (DA)

Domain authority is a metric that estimates your site’s potential to rank well in search results – but it isn’t an official Google ranking factor. DA focuses mainly on the website’s backlink profile and is registered with a figure between zero and 100. Anything between 40 and 60 is usually considered to be good, but this can vary depending on your industry and competitors.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Monitoring CTR can give you valuable insights into how well your website’s metadata (the HTML tags and attributes used to describe your web page’s content, structure, and purpose) is performing. It’ll also help you identify areas of your site to improve.

If you want to increase your site’s click-through rate, consider experimenting with title tags and meta descriptions, using power words, and adding strong CTAs to your site.

Organic Traffic

It’s a clear sign that your SEO efforts are working if you receive a lot of organic traffic (the number of people who find your site naturally, without paid ads). This metric can help you figure out your ROI on the optimization strategies you’ve already implemented.

When you keep an eye on organic traffic, you’ll be able to spot trends, seasonal changes, and chances for further keyword optimization. This will help you improve your site’s visibility even more and draw those customers in.

Bounce Rate

Your site’s bounce rate is the percentage of website visitors who leave after checking out only one page. When you look at your bounce rate, combined with the average time a user spends on a page, you can better pinpoint specific issues that make your visitors turn away.

You can combat a high bounce rate by tackling these issues head-on, such as by providing well-organized and valuable content, so visitors will want to stay on your site for longer and possibly convert into customers.

Backlinks

Backlinks are links from one website pointing to another website. If a site links to yours, it sends a signal to Google and potential website visitors that your content is valuable, relevant, and authoritative.

When a site has a good backlink profile, that means the site’s owner has spent time making high-quality content and reaching out to others to see if they want to reference or share the page. Your backlink profile will give you a good idea of your site’s authority and SEO visibility.

Keyword Rankings

This metric indicates where your website ranks in search results for specific keywords. These are the words and phrases that people use when searching online, such as “best website builders for small businesses” or “how much does a website cost.”

When carrying out keyword research, niche keywords tend to have a higher search intent, meaning people know what they’re looking for already. You’ll have a better chance of ranking and finding an engaged audience with these keywords, particularly if you can focus on long-tail keywords vs short-tail keywords.

Try to use your primary target keywords in your titles, headings, and product descriptions, as well as naturally throughout your site’s copy. A high SEO visibility score is great to have, but it’ll only matter if the keywords you’re ranking for are actually relevant to your business and target audience.

➡️ Use our SEO glossary to brush up on other key SEO terms and metrics.

You can calculate your SEO visibility score by taking all of your site’s ranking keywords and working out the CTR of your page for each keyword. Then, add all of the CTRs per keyword together. You take this figure and divide it by the number of total keywords to give you a percentage (max 100%) – the closer to 100%, the better!

If this sounds daunting, the good news is that many SEO tools can calculate your SEO visibility score for you. Here are my three favorites:

• Semrush – Semrush is famous for its extensive keyword research and competitive analysis features. Its Visibility Trend Score gives you an overview of your site’s SEO visibility, as well as your competitors’, by measuring the percentage of times your website appears in the SERPs based on its ranking and how likely it is to be clicked on.
• Ahrefs – A powerhouse for backlink analysis and organic traffic insights. Ahrefs measures SEO visibility through the number of clicks you get in the SERPs for specific keywords and how many of those clicks then visit your website. It then displays a percentage score of all clicks.
• Moz – A comprehensive suite of SEO tools, including a Domain Authority calculator. Moz calculates your SEO visibility by producing a percentage based on the ranking positions and clicks you receive across your tracked keywords.

How To Check SEO Visibility With GSC

Google Search Console is a great free SEO tool for measuring your site’s visibility. Navigate to your GSC homepage and click “Search results” in the left-hand sidebar to see the report.

The real benefit of using GSC to check your SEO visibility is that the data provided is pulled directly from Google, meaning you’ll get an accurate picture of your site’s impressions, clicks, and average ranking positions – you can also analyze the visibility of individual pages, too. The more impressions you have, the greater your site’s visibility in the SERPs.

Your site’s SEO visibility matters for several reasons:

• Reach a wider audience – A high SEO visibility score means people are more likely to find your site and business, meaning you’ll have a greater chance of attracting new customers and connecting with your target audience.
• Track page performance – Monitor how your pages behave in the SERPs so you can adjust your SEO and content strategies accordingly. If you notice a page is losing impressions, it might be worth checking if your page has been fully optimized for SEO.
• Evaluate SEO campaigns – After making any changes to your site, assess the impact on your SEO visibility score. If it increases following a campaign or testing period, you’ll know that your efforts are paying off. Alternatively, if you notice a drop in visibility, it’s time to head back to the drawing board.
• Gain a competitive advantage – To outrank your competitors in the SERPs, you must understand their strategies. You can unpack what they’re doing (look at SEO, content, social media, etc.) to help inform your own strategy.

To improve your SEO visibility score, I recommend these top tips:

1. Conduct a site audit – A site audit helps you identify and fix issues, such as broken links, duplicate content, and slow-loading pages. If you’re catching errors and optimizing the user experience, you’ll reduce bounce rates and improve trust in your business.
2. Optimize your website for mobile users – You need to make your website mobile-friendly to capture traffic from people on the go. This includes working on content, structure, and website load times. Mobiles make up over 60% of all website traffic, so you need to cater to these users when designing your website.
3. Improve keyword rankings – Focus on high-priority and low-competition keywords when creating your content strategy. Use them as naturally as possible to make your content sound human, and avoid obvious keyword stuffing (or risk getting penalized by Google)!
4. Create high-quality content – Ensure all content on your website is engaging, informative, and genuinely helpful to readers. It’s also worth considering what content is shareable, since this can help establish your business as an authority in your industry and encourage people to visit your site.
5. Build links – Get high-quality backlinks from reliable websites and build a network of relevant internal links to show search engines that your website is a trustworthy source. A well-positioned internal link can help keep a reader on your site since you’re directing them to other relevant content.
6. Action technical SEO – Google’s Core Web Vitals are an important ranking factor to consider. Look at site structure, metadata, schema markup, and other behind-the-scenes elements to influence your site’s visibility and ensure visitors have a user-friendly experience.

It’s important to remember that even though an SEO visibility score is useful, it does have its limitations.

• It’s not comprehensive – The SEO visibility score doesn’t capture every aspect of your site’s performance since it focuses on impressions and clicks based on your tracked target keywords. This means you won’t get a clear overview of search volume and other keyword opportunities. You need multiple metrics to effectively monitor your site’s SEO performance and see how well your business is meeting its goals and the needs of your audience.
• High visibility doesn’t equal success – You could have great visibility for a tracked keyword that few people are searching for, meaning you won’t see an increase in traffic or sales despite the high score.
• It’s vulnerable to algorithm updates – I’ve seen a lot of volatility in the SERPs over the last year alone, with multiple core updates and fluctuations in rankings. Your SEO visibility score could see a lot of change depending on Google’s latest action.

Improving your SEO visibility score can help your online business thrive. It can help you reach a wider audience, shape your content strategy, and offer insights into how well your pages are performing, especially in comparison to competitors.

That said, it’s essential to use a variety of data and consider your goals and target audience to build a comprehensive SEO strategy. Your SEO visibility score is just one piece of the wider puzzle, so I don’t recommend relying on this metric alone.