Usually, SEO signals do not depend on a single factor. Search engines use sets of different signals in order to assess website’s content, relations between pages, relevance, authority and many other aspects of site’s structure. So, taking into account only one signal and ignoring others leads to partial evaluation of SEO performance.
It is especially important in case of evaluation of such SEO elements as ranking, keywords, backlinks, traffic and technical performance. All of them can give you a useful information but none of them will be able to present a complete picture.
Let us look closer at backlinks. There are some aspects of any link that can affect SEO signals. The source, relevancy, placement, surrounding content and many others factors play their roles. If you consider only one aspect, you ignore the relation between the linking and the destination page. More details about why multiple factors are important in case of backlinks analysis can be found here: https://backlinksense.com/why-search-engines-rely-on-multiple-signals/.
Individual Metrics Hide Important Information
Using metrics is one of the advantages of SEO tools. They allow you to simplify complicated features of the website and to transform them into numbers. You can use these numbers for comparison of pages or for tracking changes.
However, you should not take metric as an explanation of the situation. For example, a keyword position gives you information where the page is situated regarding the specific search phrase. However, it does not explain why the page has taken this position. There are a lot of factors that play role in that process – relevance, competition, internal structure, external connections and so on.
The same thing concerns authority metrics and SEO scores. They can be used as a good starting point but relying only on a single number is wrong.
Relevance Requires Relationship Context
Relevancy also becomes clearer in case of taking into consideration its context. The page is not relevant because it contains a keyword a few times. The topic of the page, the semantics of its content, the search intent and other factors should be considered to get clear picture.
The examples of that are provided by internal links. In case of logical connection between pages, it becomes possible to move between the parts of the subject and to keep in mind the context. At the same time, links help to show the relation of the page in the context of the website structure.
Context can be added by external relationships too. Reference from one resource to another resource of the same subject means another type of the relation than the reference between pages with different topics.
Technical SEO Supports the Content SEO
Technical performance is very important but, again, it is not right to take this factor as the isolated element. Improvements of page speed, crawlability, mobile usability or site structure will eliminate barriers that impede the working of the website but they will not make its content more relevant or useful for users.
It is true in opposite direction as well. High quality and useful article can face some difficulties regarding technical performance.
That is why technical SEO and content strategy should be considered as connected parts of one environment and not as separate ways to improve visibility.
Search Intent Brings One More Level of Evaluation
Sometimes the search intent changes the approach to other SEO signals. Two pages may use similar keywords but they can have different purpose – one page can answer informational question and another page can be oriented on product comparison or service search.
If you will analyze pages in terms of keywords usage, you can miss this difference completely.
Taking into account the intent helps to put content, page structure, internal links and other SEO elements into the context. Instead of asking whether the certain SEO element is strong or not, you should ask yourself whether the different elements support the aim of the page.
Connected SEO Analysis
Analysis becomes more useful if the signals will be analyzed as parts of the whole system. It does not mean that you should ignore metrics, backlinks, technical check and keyword data. Each of them can provide you with some important information.
The main point is that you should understand what each signal is able to explain and what are its limitations. Backlink has its source and context. Keyword has the context of content and search intent. Technical performance influences on the availability of the content. Internal links connect individual pages to the website structure.
Considering all these relations gives you more complete view on the SEO performance.
