What is a SEO Score

There are a lot of metrics in the field of search engine optimization. In fact, tracking, managing, and utilizing metrics is much of the industry itself. We’re so crazy about tracking numbers we even have metrics for our metrics. In this article we’ll define what an SEO score is, go over top scoring metrics, and what makes a good score. You’ll even learn how to check your website’s SEO score.

With this new score in hand, you’ll be able to measure your successes in a new, granular way you may not have leveraged before. If you’ve ever asked what an SEO score is, you’re in the right place.

What Are SEO Scores?

Not every website has the same SEO. Some are vastly more effective than others. Some need a little help. That’s okay – And that’s what this score is about. The SEO score is about how well your website helps itself get noticed by search engines. The score tells you if users and web crawlers can effectively view and use your website. It can point out weaknesses in your approach, too.

This is because an SEO score comes from four basic areas. Your ranking will be determined by your site’s content, its user experience, its mobile experience, and its technical features. You can optimize your website in these four areas and see a noticeable difference even if you don’t know your score. This is because work in these areas usually helps your rankings on search engine results pages or SERPs.

These four areas are tallied up to a final score, ranking out of the highest score of 100. Think of it a bit like a test in school – A higher score is better. Websites with high scores have better engagement with search engine crawlers and users. Meanwhile, lower-scoring websites will run into some issues.

What Should My SEO Score Be?

As we’ve mentioned, a higher score is much better. You don’t want a score lower than 80, as this indicates deficiencies in key areas. A score between 80 and 100 is ideal. If each of the four categories represents a quarter of the score… A score less than 80 could indicate one area that is completely failing. Meanwhile, an 80 means that the areas of user experience, mobile experience, content, and technical features are doing well. But what do these four categories mean? Are they equal? Let’s get a bit more granular.

How is SEO Scored?

You should note that the 25/25/25/25 split isn’t quite accurate. In reality, it’s ranked closer to 40/25/25/10. Which of the four areas do you think is most important? If you guessed technical SEO features, you are correct!

This area is weighted heavily because it determines if search engines can access your site. Sites with major technical deficiencies will rank lower even if they are a dream to operate. The best storefront on the market would still rank poorly if the website’s technical side were a mess. Keep your page’s URLs concise, make sure server response times are good, pages are indexable, and fix any broken links.

Your content is the next most important area, tied with mobile experience. Your content should use effective on-page SEO. Websites with good engagement rank high in this area. You can help by using meta titles and descriptions for each page, or optimize your heading tags. Mobile usability, meanwhile, is weighted as highly because Google uses mobile-first indexing. If your website doesn’t have mobile-friendly content, it will rank poorly. Your mobile experience scores in the categories of how fast your page loads on various devices, touch responsiveness, and ease of scrolling. Things like font size can factor in too, but the crawlers prioritize raw usability.

User experience is the least important category but is still important. Even though it is low on the list of priorities when scoring your site, you still need a good UX. Images should load quickly, and your website should need three clicks or less to access any given page.

How to Check Your SEO Score

While you can target the areas we’ve mentioned, there are other places in those four categories that grade your website. Even if you’re being careful to manage these four areas, it pays to use a service to check your score. You can use tools freely available on the internet to check your score. Many of them will test hundreds of issues that could affect your site.

At Emu Marketing, we care about your website’s SEO score. Visit our website to learn more tips for good SEO or to get started with our services. We’ll drive traffic to your website and build you a complete package. Your business deserves to succeed, so visit us today.