Search engine optimization (SEO) is so successful because everything can be tracked and measured. Rankings, traffic, engagement, leads, orders, revenue, or authority are just a few of the SEO indicators that can help you understand how your organic search strategy is doing.
Additionally, SEO metrics are essential information that may be used to develop new strategies or enhance existing ones. However, how do you decide which metrics to use? Thousands of data points are available across Google Analytics and SEO tools, after all.
I’ll outline the top 15 SEO KPIs to watch in this post along with the tools to do so.
Why Tracking the Metrics is Crucial
It is said that you cannot manage anything if you don’t measure it.
You won’t find opportunities to boost your organic search traffic and revenue until you have thorough tracking in place. Threats to your current traffic and business could be missed by your digital marketing radar at the same time. Additionally, there are many pertinent measures for SEO that assess overall marketing performance.
Google tweaks its algorithm frequently, and SEO is never static. To make sure that your site is stable, effectively optimized, and bringing in revenue, it is crucial that you consistently monitor critical SEO indicators.
What is the SEO ROI?
Top 15 SEO Performance Indicators
SEO success indicators and KPIs are not all made equal. Although Google’s algorithm uses about 200 ranking variables, some are more significant than others.
It’s critical to concentrate on metrics that have the biggest effects if you want your organic search performance to have an impact. Your SEO campaign will thus produce a better return on investment for your marketing dollars.
Let’s take a look at the 15 key SEO metrics you need to be monitoring on a regular basis to help with that.
1. Fresh Referring Sites
One of the most significant Google ranking variables is the number of backlinks. The vast majority of the time, relevant backlinks from top-notch domains will increase your domain authority. However, additional links from websites that have already connected to you in the past tend to be less effective than links from new domains that have not previously linked to you.
If a website already links to your domain, Google will consider you to be a reliable authority. The value of a second link from the same website will be slightly lower than that of a link from a fresh, related domain.
Track your referring websites and overall backlinks without a doubt. However, you should also see an increase in the number of new referring domains if you want your organic traffic to improve significantly. To make sure that your link-building efforts support your SEO strategy, keep an eye on this indicator.
2. Domain Rating & Authority
Most significant integrated SEO tools (Moz, Ahrefs, SEMrush, etc.) employ the Domain Authority / Domain Rating score to determine the overall SEO strength of a website. The score is determined by a number of variables, including the quantity of backlinks, the caliber of the referring domains, and others.
The score is based on a logarithmic scale and spans from 0 to 100. Therefore, raising the score from 20 to 21 is significantly easier than raising it from 80 to 81. All other things being equal, it is assumed that sites with higher scores will appear higher in search results than sites with lower scores.
Domain Authority is not a recognized Google ranking criterion, to be clear. Nevertheless, since this statistic is reliant on ranking variables, it is crucial to keep an eye on it. Work to raise your Domain Authority if you want to appear first in the search results.
It’s also important to monitor Page Authority for your most important landing pages. Instead of the authority of the entire domain, this metric examines the authority of certain pages.
3. Scores for On-Page Optimization
On-page optimization is the process of making a page’s contents as user- and search engine-friendly as possible. Tools You can get assistance from Ahrefs Site Audit by having it examine a website and then give you a score that indicates how effectively the page is optimized for SEO. The score may consider the following factors:
- Keyword abundance
- Headings and subheadings with keywords
- Examples of related keyword phrases
- Headings and subheadings with related keywords
- External and internal connections
- URL for the meta description
- Image alt tags for the page's canonical URL
- SEO on-page
4. Readability of SEO Statistics
The majority of SEO metrics monitor data such as authority scores, backlinks, page visits, traffic information, and target keyword rankings. While those measures are crucial, it’s equally necessary to monitor content quality. So how do you monitor the website content’s quality?
Users value text readability and relevancy because they provide a smooth experience. Additionally, they help search engines like Google and Bing understand your text, which is vital. Simply put, useful information with obvious takeaways is more valuable than bloated filler.
Thankfully, there are methods for evaluating content quality.
Every page on your website receives a readability assessment from Yoast, which includes a grade based on the Flesch reading easy score. Yoast also advises utilizing active voice, transition words, and shorter phrases, paragraphs, and sections. That’s not the case because things affect rankings. They do this by making your writing simpler to understand.
On the other hand, tools like Clearscope evaluate the relevance of material based on associated search phrases and items discovered in rival content. Your grade will increase the more pertinent terms from their list you use.
Your content marketing is made more thorough by Clearscope, and it is made more palatable by Yoast. They can work together to raise your position in search engine rankings (SERPs).
5. Reactions
Even if a person doesn’t scroll down to see your listing, every time your page appears in a Google search result, it counts as an impression. Impressions are a good way to gauge how well your SEO effort is doing. Impressions will rise as rankings rise. Your traffic will then increase once you crack the top 3.
The “Performance” element of Google Search Console makes it simple to monitor impressions.
To be clear, impressions and clicks are not the same. Many would term them vanity metrics because they don’t produce traffic or income. Impressions are just a count of the number of times a specific page from your site has been displayed in the SERP.
6. Click-Through Rates (CTR)
The ratio of views to clicks is known as CTR. In the context of SEO, it reveals the proportion of Google SERP impressions that resulted in a click-through to your website. Your click-through rate (CTR) is 1 percent if one searcher out of 100 who sees your listing in the search results clicks on it. Similar to impressions, CTR may be monitored directly in the “Performance” section of Google Search Console.
Ranking position and CTR have a positive association. On average, the higher you rank, the more clicks you’ll get. Although 90% of hits for a query go to the first page of Google, most traffic comes from the top three spots in Google.
Here are a few short suggestions to raise your CTR on specific pages:
- Adapt the title of your page to the search query.
- If you can, incorporate a strong call to action into your title.
- Put your title in brackets, a dash, or a pipe to make it stand out.
- Create meta descriptions that persuade visitors to click and continue reading.
- Use your title and meta description to elicit a feeling.
- Specify what they will get from viewing your page.
- To make your page appear better in search results, use structured data.
- Use concise, keyword-rich URLs to describe your products.
7. Keyword Positioning
Rankings for specific keywords are a simple yet crucial SEO measure to monitor. They assist you in gauging your progress and provide an early indication of how well your SEO approach is performing. Additionally, rankings show the overall opportunity as well as your present organic market share.
Focus on both branded and non-branded search phrases when conducting keyword research. Branded keywords are crucial since they signify people who are prepared to buy. Additionally essential to your internet reputation are these terms. In contrast, generic words for e-commerce goods, such as “women’s running shoes,” are crucial for swaying customers throughout the decision-making phase of the customer journey.
Although keyword ranks are continually changing, a sharp decline in rankings may indicate problems. There are numerous SERP trackers available, such as Ahrefs, Moz, SEMrush, and STAT.
8. Organic Market Share (Natural Visibility)
An indicator of how much organic search traffic your site receives in relation to the total number of clicks is called “organic visibility” (also known as “organic market share,” “SEO visibility,” “search visibility,” etc.). The factors that affect click through rate are search volume and ranking position (CTR).
Both a score for your site’s overall visibility and a score for a particular term are provided by many SEO tools. Both scores are crucial to monitor since they give you a fast overview of how well your website is performing in terms of SEO.
However, the majority of currently available solutions just offer a snapshot without the capacity to see trends. For this reason, Terakeet created Carina, a piece of unique software that offers a thorough analysis of your previous, current, and future online market presence.
Understanding how to determine market share with organic traffic is crucial because those are effectively “free” visits from consumers who are actively looking for information right now. Although organic market share appears to be a straightforward indicator, it actually shows how effectively you target and engage with your potential clients.
The effectiveness of high-level search performance as a metric is demonstrated by Terakeet using organic market share reports like the one below.
9. Organic Traffic
You should monitor the volume of visitors your site receives through organic search, to say the obvious. It is a crucial SEO indicator that lets you know if your SEO efforts are providing the building blocks for a fruitful SEO program.
There cannot be SEO-based conversions or money without organic traffic. If you’re not getting traffic, then something is definitely not working and needs to be corrected.
Google Analytics allows you to keep track of your organic traffic. Check your mobile and desktop organic traffic. And make an effort to compare the figures for your organic traffic with those for your other SEO metrics so that you may constantly evaluate the caliber of your visitors.
10. Organic Conversions
Organic conversions are a crucial SEO metric because they show you whether your website is receiving the correct kind of organic traffic. If your site receives a lot of traffic but few conversions (sign-ups, leads, sales, etc.), it’s possible that you’re not attracting the correct kind of visitors. You’re drawing people to you who aren’t really interested in what you have to give.
If this is the case, you should examine the keywords that are bringing visitors to your website to see if they genuinely correspond to your client acquisition funnel.
Consider the scenario where you offer organic coffee beans and you have a detailed blog post on famous people who love strong, black coffee, such as Sofia Vergara. This page generates a lot of organic search traffic, yet there are no interactions or transactions when you look at the metrics for it. This indicates that rather than actual coffee enthusiasts and potential buyers, the information may be geared toward those looking for celebrity rumors.
Find relevant keywords at the top, middle, and bottom of the marketer’s funnel and concentrate on writing content around them to increase conversion rates.
11. Amount of Indexed Pages
Only indexed pages are displayed in Google’s search results. Therefore, your pages won’t receive organic search traffic if they aren’t indexed. Use Google Search Console to check that all of your website’s pertinent pages are correctly indexed.
Here’s an essential side note: duplicate, obsolete, irrelevant, or thin indexed pages could harm your site’s overall authority. To find low-quality indexed pages, conduct a content audit and take the following steps:
- Update dated material
- Remove pointless material and reroute the links
- Consolidate several weakened pages into a few much stronger, valuable ones, and then redirect links as necessary.
12. Core Web Essentials & Page Speed
Google is placing more emphasis on user experience, and one metric it uses to gauge this is how quickly a page loads. Numerous studies over the years have demonstrated that faster page loads result in higher conversion rates, while slower loads result in lower conversion rates.
Google took it a step farther by releasing Core Web Vitals in 2020. Core Web Vitals are a more precise, sophisticated method of assessing page load speed, and they are expected to start influencing search ranking factors in May 2021. For this reason, they are expressly mentioned here as a crucial SEO measure.
The three components of the user experience that the current set of Google Core Web Vitals metrics emphasizes are loading, interactivity, and visual stability.
- Largest contentful paint (LCP)
- First input delay (FID)
- Cumulative layout shift (CLS)
You may access the metrics using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool or the “Enhancements” section of Google Search Console, which displays how the pages on your site perform based on the Core Web Vitals.
13. Pages Per Visit
You can assess your capacity to advance consumers farther down the conversion funnel by looking at the average number of pages per visit metric. You’re losing out on a chance to convert most visitors if they just stay on one page before leaving.
Keep in mind that increasing traffic is merely the first step in generating cash. The next step is to persuade them to act. However, not every customer is prepared to buy. Find different ways to interact with them so that they continue to be interested in your content. Pay close attention to exit pages, which are where the majority of visitors seem to leave.
Here are a few strategies to raise KPIs for user engagement, such as pages per visit:
- Make sure your site navigation is simple to understand and that your page layout is straightforward.
- To provide your visitors a clear next step, group topics around themes.
- Use internal links to point website users to other useful pages.
- Include interesting content that encourages visitors to engage with your website, such as movies, surveys, tools, etc.
- Increase SEO results.
14. Crawl Mistakes
A high number isn’t always a good thing when it comes to SEO analytics. For instance, crawl errors must always be prevented.
When a search engine tries to access a page on your website but is unsuccessful, it makes a crawl error. Crawl failures can be caused by a variety of reasons, including deleted sites, pages with a “noindex” tag, and pages that are prohibited in the robots.txt file.
It’s critical to monitor this status since if a page can’t be crawled, it won’t be indexed and won’t get any traffic from organic search. If the number of crawl mistakes on your website increases, there’s a potential that Google will lose faith in the website and begin to downgrade any current rankings.
Crawl problems can be found with the aid of a program like ContentKing, Screaming Frog, or Google Search Console.
15. Retention Rate
The percentage of visitors to your website that only view one page is known as the bounce rate.
A high bounce rate may point to issues with particular pages or your website as a whole, even though the statistic isn’t a ranking signal. Even if nothing else, it’s a lost chance to interact with your audience.
So how can bounce rate be decreased? In the end, you need to give website visitors a wonderful experience. There are several methods for doing this:
- Verify that the page reflects the searcher's purpose.
- Make the page's goal obvious right away and place crucial information above the fold.
- Produce content that is genuinely excellent and encourages readers to explore more of your website.
- Make sure the text is well-designed and simple to read.
- Prevent activities that interfere with user experience (pop-ups, ads, unintuitive navigation, etc.).
- Speed up the page.
- Put in place compelling CTAs.
- Tracking SEO metrics tools.
The best SEO metrics may be easily measured using a number of tools, some of which have already been highlighted.
Track data like organic search traffic, pages per visit, and bounce rate using Google Analytics. For tracking impressions, click-through rates (CTR) from the Google SERP, crawl problems, and the number of sites indexed, use Google Search Console.
You can keep track of new referring domains, domain authority, and keyword ranks with the aid of Ahrefs, Moz, and SEMRush. Technical issues on your website can be found and fixed with the help of ContentKing, DeepCrawl, and Screaming Frog. You may gauge page load time with the use of Pingdom and Google PageSpeed Insights. For on-page optimization and text readability, use Yoast and Clearscope.
Using SEO Metrics to Improve ROI
Let’s review the main ideas we covered. Setting up SEO metrics as benchmarks that assist you find areas for development can help you achieve higher SEO ROI. Look for strategies to increase your ranks, organic traffic, conversions, income, and ROI while employing SEO metrics.
In light of this, the top 16 SEO KPIs you need to monitor are:
- Additional referring domains
- Dominant domain
- Scores for on-page optimization
- Reading comprehension impressions
- Rates of click-through
- Keyword positions
- Organic traffic, organic market share, and conversions
- Page Speed Core Web Vitals: Pages Indexed
- Pages per visit Errors in Crawling
- Bouncing rate
A zero sum game is SEO. One page drops in the ranks whenever another one rises. So stay one step ahead of your rivals and pay close attention to your SEO performance measures.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is so successful because everything can be tracked and measured. Google Rankings, traffic, engagement, leads, orders, revenue, or authority are just a few of the SEO indicators that can help you understand how your organic search strategy is doing.
Additionally, SEO metrics are essential information that may be used to develop new strategies or enhance existing ones. However, how do you decide which metrics to use? Thousands of data points are available across Google Analytics and SEO tools, after all.
