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Benchmark Your SEO Performance with a Custom State of Affairs Analysis

Written by Chris Sachs | February 11, 2022

SEOs are hired to drive more traffic and more revenue through the organic search marketing channel — we at seoClarity align to your goals so you can achieve this.

We want to see you drive more traffic through organic search.

It’s the common goal we share with all of our clients!

As a part of seoClarity’s SEO Success Framework, we create and present a State of Affairs analysis custom to your website.

The State of Affairs report does a few things:

  1. Uncovers what SEO performance looks like for your website right now
  2. Aligns current performance to where you want to be
  3. Identifies opportunities (and gaps) for how to get there
  4. Establishes a benchmark for future reporting

Even if you’re not an seoClarity client, you can still follow along to see what a State of Affairs report includes. We’re always supportive of companies trying to enhance their organic search program.

Or, request a free analysis from our team.

Before we jump into the report, let’s cover how leading SEOs think about organic search.

How you think about SEO matters! 

This is what lets brands recognize opportunities, scale their processes, and execute projects.

The Search Experience Framework

Brands that win at SEO don’t think of it as search engine optimization, but search experience optimization.

You don’t win at SEO by trying to beat an algorithm.

Rather, you create the best user experience possible and deliver relevant content that your audience is looking for.

Search Engine Optimization Search Experience Optimization
  • Focuses on optimizing for the engine
  • Chases the algorithm
  • Tactical
  • Ignores new developments
  • Hard to scale


  • Focuses on the end user
  • Holistic approach (Optimize the search experience throughout the entire buyer’s journey)
  • Delivers a terrific experience with authoritative content that addresses a relevant need and intent
  • Fast and error-free delivery

 

To create a positive search experience, follow the URA framework: usability, relevance, authority.

Focus first on building and maintaining a technically-sound site, then create relevant content, and lastly focus on link building.

At seoClarity, your dedicated Client Success Manager analyzes your site’s performance and compares areas of opportunity to the URA framework to uncover priority action items. 

Your Client Success Manager will help you create a go-forward strategy to act on the insights from the analysis.

Companies who succeed at SEO are the ones that build muscle to implement ideas quickly, track results, learn from them, and then iterate on the approach."

The State of Affairs: Assessing SEO Performance

The State of Affairs analysis is a comprehensive look at your domain’s current performance. 

It includes an audit of the following areas:

Pages Ranking

The total number of unique pages that rank for at least 1 keyword in the top 100 results. 


Keywords Ranking

The total number of keywords you rank for in the SERPs. 

Estimated Monthly Traffic

Organic traffic you can expect to see based on your keyword position CTR and search volume.

Your Position in the Search Landscape

The top ranking competitor domains based on the keywords ranking for your domain. 

Keywords to Defend, Improve, Grow, and Recoup

The keywords in your universe (i.e. those that are most relevant to your business) that need to be prioritized. 

  • Defend = Keywords ranking in the top 3 positions
  • Improve = High priority, low-hanging fruit keyword opportunities 
  • Grow = Relevant keywords that your competitors rank for that you don’t
  • Recoup = Keywords that were lost and no longer rank

Indexed Pages vs. Ranking Pages

The number of pages that are ranking compared to the total number of pages that are indexed in Google.

Desktop vs. Mobile Performance

The breakdown of traffic from different devices to reveal what should be priorities and next steps.


Brand vs. Non-Brand

Brand versus non-brand performance can seem like two vastly different stories. It’s important to have an understanding of both. 

Here’s an example: if you rank for primarily brand keywords, that's a warning sign that you need to prioritize non-brand efforts because the customer is only looking for your brand directly.

Non-brand demonstrates how strong your SEO channel works in acquiring new customers.

Share of Voice

How often you dominate the top position for the keywords that you care about.

Current Visibility

Your share of the potential traffic you should be getting, presented as a percentage. 

Conclusion

The State of Affairs analysis creates a benchmark for future reporting, and clearly compares you to the competition for opportunities and gaps.

When you choose seoClarity as your enterprise SEO platform, you not only get world-class data and technology, you get an ongoing partnership. 

There’s a constant effort to increase your search visibility and organic traffic.  

Your success is our success — we hope you’ll take us up on it.