Most Important SEO Metrics to track and measure performance

As an independent SEO consultant, I have the chance to gain many insights into SEO projects of various scales. Some questions, however, are always the same: How do you measure SEO success? What SEO metrics do you track? I will answer these and other questions in this blog post.

First and foremost, I want to distinguish between two SEO performance KPIs (key performance indicators):

Leading vs Lagging Indicators

Leading indicators are metrics that reflect the right now or near future. They often measure a reaction based on an action. The Click-Through-Rate (CTR) is a good example of a leading SEO metric. Leading metrics are often used to manage campaign tactics rather than a strategy.

Lagging indicators, on the other hand, are often trailing results and more aligned to business metrics like generated pipeline, revenue, profit, or Return-on-Investment (ROI). Lagging SEO metrics can only be measured after some time has passed.

In short, leading SEO indicators help to make adjustments on the go, while lagging SEO indicators define the success of Search Engine Optimization. Leading KPIs lead up to lagging results.

Leading SEO Metrics

The following table lists the most important leading SEO metrics that are regularly used by an SEO consultant. I use these metrics to report to my clients but mainly to optimize the campaigns.

Most clients don’t want to be bothered by metrics that are in the weeds and care more for business outcomes (lagging indicators). However, especially at the beginning of SEO leading metrics are crucial to measure trends and identify specific optimization opportunities.

All metrics should show a positive trend in comparison to previous performances. There are no clear defined benchmarks like in other parts of digital marketing. Almost all SEO metrics are relative values to past performances.

SEO Metric	Meaning	Reporting-Tool	Optimization Opportunity
Keyword Ranking	How many keywords are ranking in search results	SEO Keyword Tracking	Add more content: new sites but also updating old content
Keyword Ranking Difference	Increase/decrease of total keyword positions. Sum of all fluctuations	SEO Keyword Tracking	Content optimization, internal cross linking, on-site SEO optimization, external signals like social media or backlinks
Organic Sessions	Number of organic sessions/pageviews	Google Analytics	General SEO
Impressions	How often was the site shown in search results	Google Search Console	General SEO
Organic Clicks	How many clicks were reported	Google Search Console	SEO title tag & meta description. But also keyword positions
Click-Through-Rate (CTR)	Ratio clicks to impressions	Google Search Console	SEO title tag & meta description. But also keyword positions
Average Position	The avg. position/keyword rank in search results	Google Search Console	General SEO
Bounce Rate	Percentage of users that only visit one page of your website before leaving	Google Analytics	Contextual interlinking and call-to-action (CTA)
Avg. Pages per Session	On average number of pages per session	Google Analytics	Contextual interlinking and call-to-action (CTA)
Avg. time on page	Average time spent on the page	Google Analytics	Rich media like videos, carousels, as well as internal links
Google My Business views	How often was the GMB profile viewed	Google My Business	Local marketing/GMB optimization

General SEO optimization opportunities

Certain SEO metrics can be improved with general SEO efforts. Often the SEO metrics are related to each other. For example, a lower average keyword position usually results in a higher CTR.

Some praxis tips on how to improve general SEO results and ranking factors:

Increase your domain authority with quality content, backlinks, and referring domains
Watch SEO Google Analytics engagement metrics for landing pages and keywords
Monitor user experience metrics like page load times

Site/Page/Keyword Breakdown

All leading SEO metrics can be viewed for the entire domain, specific page, as well as keyword sets or search term level.

Sitewide trends are important, especially for new websites and SEO projects. Anyways, detailed SEO reports should focus on specific pages and keywords to optimize organic ranks and results further.

Branded vs unbranded SEO Results

One of the main goals of SEO strategies is to drive traffic for solution-oriented search queries. Sure, it’s great to have massive branded traffic, aka people looking for your brand, but Content Marketing and SEO should focus on unbranded traffic, too. Google Search Console’s search term analysis is a great tool to compare unbranded and branded search queries your page ranks for.

That being said, all the above SEO metrics can be further broken down for branded and unbranded keywords.

Lagging SEO Metrics

Lagging SEO Metrics are more interesting to clients and upper management. After all, they hire an SEO consultant to drive business outcomes, not impressions or page views.

SEO Metric	Meaning	Reporting-Tool	Optimization Opportunity
SEO Traffic Value	Hypothetical Dollar amount of the organic traffic based on CPC estimates	SEO Keyword Tracking	General SEO
SEO Leads	How many new organic leads have been generated	Google Analytics Goals, better yet CRM-System	Conversion Rate Optimization, Content Offers, and CTAs
SEO MQL	How many leads are Marketing Qualified	CRM-System	Lead Qualification, Lead Nurturing
SEO Pipeline	How many opportunities have been created	CRM-System	Lead Qualification, Corporation with Sales
SEO Pipeline Value	How much are the opportunities worth?	CRM-System	Lead Qualification, Corporation with Sales
SEO Customers	How many new customers have been won	CRM-System	Lead Qualification, Corporation with Sales
SEO Revenue	How much revenue was generated	CRM-System	Lead Qualification, Corporation with Sales
SEO ROI	Ratio of return to SEO investments	CRM-System	General SEO

It’s recommended to measure each conversion rate from one SEO metric to the next. Dealing with absolute numbers is hard to compare and can fluctuate heavily.

Similar to leading SEO metrics, lagging KPIs can be measured for the entire website, individual pages, or keywords. However, this is more tactical again and probably more interesting for the SEO Manager – not the CMO.

Expectation Management

Realistically it takes about 3-6 months to see the first SEO results. For new pages, it’s even closer to the 6 months mark. During the first few months leading SEO metrics are more important – also simply there is no lagging KPI to report on. However, at some point, the leading indicators need to lead up to lagging SEO success metrics.

In general, the shorter the sales cycle the sooner lagging KPIs should be included in the monthly SEO reports.

How often should you report on SEO metrics?

It’s important to always have a finger on the pulse. A detailed SEO report should be created on a monthly basis. If your CRM system doesn’t allow you to track pipeline and deals based on the source automatically, it should be enough to report lagging SEO metrics quarterly. However, even without lagging SEO success metrics, leading indicators should be used constantly to improve SEO campaigns.

SEO Return-on-Investment (ROI)

The ultimate question: What’s the ROI of my SEO strategy? Since we talk about organic growth the investment is always difficult to quantify. Like many marketing campaigns, we can calculate the time that was spent on the search engine optimization efforts. For instance, we can allocate 25% of a Marketing Managers role to SEO initiatives.

On top of that, we can add technologies like keyword tracking and the occasional content writing service. Now, we need to compare the returns with those investments.

However, one factor we can never quantify: what would be organic growth if there was no work done. It could be that a site picks up in search results without any work. We can’t attribute for the real organic growth.

Sascha Hoffmann

Sascha is a Lifecycle Marketing Consultant with over 8 years of digital marketing experiences in Silicon Valley, the UK, and Germany.
After leading the demand generation for a 100+ million company, he decided to venture out on himself. He’s now helping clients to attract and convert more leads and customers.
His main focus are SEO, paid media & marketing automation – all with the focus to tie marketing campaigns to revenue.

Sascha has been featured in industry publications.