Despite this understanding which metrics hold very little value at all can be helpful when trying to avoid types of analysis that waste time and money. Here are 5 metrics that I think are useless:
Number of Competitors Backlinks
When doing competitive analysis for SEO there are many different ways to judge how well a competitor is doing. However the number of backlinks does not usually reflect a coherent understanding of their performance. This is because the quality of backlinks have a greater weight than the amount. Further more, sites with massive backlink profiles have greater risk of attracting negative patterns. For example, a site might have 3,000 more backlinks than your site, but 2,000 of them could all use the same anchor text and be found on the same IP cluster. As a result the site will likely be hit with Penguin or a manual penalty. So looking at the total number alone tells you nothing about the health of a competitor’s backlink profile.
Rankings For One or Two Keywords
This metric isn’t completely useless, but it is dangerous. Dangerous, because so many site owners are tempted to obsess over only one or two keywords. As a result they miss the bigger picture and fail to see trends that they should be paying attention to. I talked about this briefly in the past and still wholeheartedly believe the following.
Now, let me be clear when I say “ranking data”, I am not talking about the position for one or two terms. I am more interested in looking at the bulk of rankings over time, and identifying trends. For example, if your site loses significant rankings for one or two terms, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have been affected by an algorithm update. However, seeing 10 to 20 terms change position by more or less than 15 positions, is an absolute sign that a change has taken place, changes like that need a specific strategy moving forward.
Keyword Density
This is an interesting metric that has been around for a very long time. This is simply the percentage of times a given keyword appears in text on a page. This metric used to hold value, but now a days it is a quick way to over simplify whats really going on, on the page. The only time I use this metric is in a high level comparative sense when trying to identify content that might have manipulative patterns. Don’t fall for this easy metric.
Number of Followers In Social Media
Any good content marketer will tell you that the larger your following is in social media, the easier it is to promote your content, and the easier that task becomes, the more likely that you will attract links and other positive signals. But it is important to remember that the number of followers alone do not have any direct affect on rankings. In fact the most value aspect of a strong social media following is the ability to talk directly with your customers. Can this help with SEO? Sure, but just as many sites are ranking well with out social followings as the ones that are.
The Amount of Your AdWords Budget
For some weird reason there is a longstanding myth that if you spend more on AdWords you will likely do better in organic. In fact I have even heard some very dishonest PPC consultants say this. This is has never been true.
Source: Joe Hall Internet Marketing Ninjas