Index / Monthly Click Number

[HypermediaSystems]

Hi,
This is a general question, so sorry in advance if inappropriate.

Once I was told, in large scale EC / Forum Site,
the following number should be around 1,
and if it is below 1, it is a good sign ...

Google Indexed Page Number / Monthly ( 30days ) Click Number

I was told this is just a general idea, and real world situation varies, then
if you don't have any standard, this could be a start. (not dogmatic rules, just reference)

Does this sounds about right? or do you have any other formula?

I was tasked to do the site wide SEO, and diagnose the general state of SEO-wellness/fitness.. 
and right now, the number is 1.5, so I am about to report we can do more to get more SERP presence or something...

If you guys point me relevant blog article / Q&A forum, I would really appreciate.

Thanks!

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

I am a bit confused - are you saying that if I have 200 pages indexed in Google, and I have a 40 clicks to my site, that the 5 is an indication of bad SERP performance? Just using your formula:

200 / 40 = 5

I guess that's an okay rule of thumb as you would ideally want every page indexed on your site to be clicked at least once if it's ranked, I just have never heard of that rule.

If you're goal (I am not saying it is) is for every page to be clicked, then yes, 1 or lower would be good because it showed every page is showing up in SERPs. I wouldn't use this as the sole basis of your indexing and SEO performance however, as this doesn't tell you if ALL pages were clicked, or if one page was clicked overall. There's so much more digging you have to do.

Check these resources out: Google Analytics Academy (Google)
Analytics Help (Google)
On-Site SEO (Moz) Moz Academy (Moz)
Local Search Ranking Factors (Moz)
A Technical SEO Guide to Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking (Paddy Moogan)
Internal Linking (Moz)

All of the above will help you way more than the equation you stated above. Again, it's a nice way of thinking about it if you want to just look at those two numbers, but you're not taking into account a LOT of elements. For instance, that number could equate to .01 but that doesn't mean a lot of pages are necessarily getting traffic or appearing in search. The resources I listed will help you better assess your search and organic performance. You'll get so much more out of it and think of things you never thought to track.

Hope this helps you! Let me know if you have any questions or comments! Good luck!

[MattRoney]

Yeah, I'm also not familiar with that. Are you basing your report on the site's SEO on that number?

[HypermediaSystems]

Hi,

Thank you for good information, I will look into it.

My situation is like this (due to the NDA cannot reveal exact site):
Google Indexed: 150k pages
Clicks Daily: 3k
Impressions Daily: 10k

So to evaluate the general state of SEO readiness of the entire site, and to plan next move,
I needed to some entry point, including to know how to evaluate THAT NUMBER...
3k clicks are enough? with these pages indexed? Is there any improvements on traffic?
Is it CTR or should we think of SERP? etc...

And those numbers have to convert...

I feel like a bit lost,,, so studying while planning...

Thanks again...

[MattRoney]

I think I understand. It can definitely be tough to work out the right metrics to evaluate a site's search potential, or even the right metrics to report down the line.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think you'll learn much from the numbers you're talking about. There are just so many variables—size of site, marketing strategy, product offering, and specific goals are only a few—that a formula like that can't be universally applicable. Plus, there's the simple fact that in a vacuum a click is pretty much worthless. Who's clicking? Why? Why do you _want _them to? Where are they landing? What did they search for? What are they looking for?

This isn't quite so concrete, but start by thinking about what you want to get from your SEO work. Is it just more clicks? Is it more conversions? Is it greater brand visibility?

Patrick gave a really, really good list of educational resources that might help you wrap your head around everything, but I'd actually recommend starting with the Beginner's Guide to SEO. For the sake of your question, you may want to focus on Chapter 10, Measuring and Tracking Success. That should give you a good sense of what constitutes "success" from an SEO perspective. I also recommend this checklist for a technical SEO audit, which will give you a much better idea of what kind of work you've got ahead of you. (If it looks kind of screwy, it's because of our recent blog redesign. Working on it!)