SEO KPIs are metrics such as organic traffic, backlinks, click-through rate (CTR), etc. that you can use to track the effectiveness of your SEO strategy.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can drive organic traffic to your website, but if you don’t track key performance indicators (KPIs), it’s hard to know if you’re headed in the right direction or wasting resources on ineffective strategies.

There are many KPIs worth tracking, but some may be more relevant to your business goals. Here are 10 important SEO KPIs to measure, along with helpful tools to help you track them.

What are SEO KPIs?

SEO KPIs are metrics such as organic traffic, backlinks, and click-through rate (CTR). You can use these metrics to track the effectiveness of your SEO strategy. By regularly analyzing these metrics, you can adjust and optimize your site to improve your SEO performance.

Why is it important to track SEO KPIs?

Effective SEO can help you gain higher visibility in search results, which ultimately leads to better sales and business growth. However, SEO is a long-term strategy. It can take three to six months to start seeing results.

Because it’s unrealistic to wait six months to measure success, tracking SEO metrics can help you see progress toward your ultimate goal through a mix of short-term (leading) and long-term (lagging) indicators. Leading indicators are indicators that predict future trends, helping you plan and forecast, while lagging indicators reflect past results and help you measure long-term trends and performance.

Tracking a mix of appropriate leading and lagging indicators offers the following benefits:

• You can predict the results.
• You can align your SEO goals with your business goals.
• You can make data-driven strategic decisions.
• You can benchmark against your competitors.
• You can demonstrate ROI to your stakeholders.

10 Important SEO KPIs to Track

1. Organic traffic
2. Backlinks
3. Keyword Rankings
4. Organic Conversions
5. Branded vs. Non-branded Traffic
6. Search Visibility
7. Organic Click-Through Rate (CTR)
8. Google Business Profile Metrics
9. SEO ROI
10. Core Web Vitals

There are many SEO KPIs that you can monitor and there are many SEO tools that can help you track them. It is recommended that you choose 4-5 KPIs that are aligned with your business goals and focus on tracking them.

1. Organic Traffic

Organic search traffic is an important SEO metric that measures all the free traffic that comes to your business site through search engines like Google, Bing, etc. When organic traffic to your site increases, it means that more people are learning about your business. This increased traffic should lead to increased conversions and increased sales.

When measuring organic traffic, it's better to account for seasonality (e.g. sales and holidays) by comparing year-over-year rather than month-over-month.

Tools to use : Google Analytics, Google Search Console

Leading or Lagging Indicator : Lagging Indicator

2. Backlinks

Just as you are more likely to visit a store if a friend recommends it to you, backlinks work in a similar way. Backlinks are links from other authoritative sites to your site’s content, and are a direct ranking factor for Google. The more backlinks your site has from relevant and authoritative sites, the higher your chances of ranking. You can check backlinks using third-party SEO tools, and you can see the number of backlinks in Google Analytics’ “Referral Traffic” report.

Tools to use : Ahrefs, SemRush, Moz, Google Analytics

Leading or Lagging Indicator : Lagging Indicator

3. Keyword Rankings

Keyword tracking helps you understand where your traffic is coming from and what types of search queries it’s coming from. While in the past a page might only rank for one keyword, today, thanks to semantic search (where search engines use context and meaning rather than exact keywords to provide relevant results), a single page can rank for hundreds or even thousands of keywords. Understanding which keywords are driving the most traffic and where you’re lacking can help you adjust your strategy or focus on what’s working. Aim to track rankings for 1-4 keywords on each SEO-focused page on your website.

Tools to use : Ahrefs, SemRush, Moz

Leading or Lagging Indicator : Lagging Indicator

4. Organic Conversions

As a business owner, your most important goal is to increase your revenue and sales. Even if you have traffic and high rankings, if it doesn’t convert to sales, it’s worthless. Tracking conversions from organic traffic is the most obvious way to directly connect your SEO efforts to your business revenue.

Determine the key transitions based on your goals and business context. Transitions can include:

• sales
• Sign up for our newsletter
• Request a free trial
• Check out
• Any other actions that are linked to a business outcome.

You can track conversions as events in Google Analytics. You can also assign a dollar value to conversions that aren’t directly related to a purchase (e.g., a $10 value for submitting a newsletter form).

Tools to use : Google Analytics

Leading or Lagging Indicator : Lagging Indicator

5. Branded vs. Non-Branded Traffic

Branded traffic is traffic that comes from searches that include your brand name. Non-branded searches are traffic that comes from searches based on keywords you rank for or products you sell. These users may not even know your brand exists.

These two types of searches provide very different information about SEO success. Branded traffic indicates brand awareness, while non-branded traffic indicates that you are acquiring new visitors through your SEO efforts. Splitting your reporting into branded and non-branded traffic helps you understand these two aspects better.

Tool to use : Google Search Console

Leading or Lagging Indicator : Lagging Indicator

6. Search Visibility

Search visibility is a metric that measures how much your website appears compared to your competitors for a specific keyword. For example, if your target keyword gets 1,000 searches a month and your site gets 10% of those clicks, your search visibility is 10%. Understanding your search visibility for high-value terms compared to your competitors can help you understand your position in the industry and optimize accordingly.

Tool to use : Ahrefs

Leading or Lagging Indicator : Leading Indicator

7. Organic Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Organic click-through rate (CTR) is a metric that measures how often searches result in clicks to your site. While CTR doesn’t tell the whole story (what happens after users arrive at your site? Do clicks lead to purchases?), it does tell you whether your site’s appearance on search engine results pages (SERPs) is compelling enough to drive users to your site. For example, if you see a high ranking and impressions but a low CTR, this could be a sign that you need to improve your metadata (title tags, meta descriptions, and other schema) to drive more clicks on the SERPs.

Tool to use : Google Search Console

Leading or Lagging Indicator : Leading Indicator

8. Google Business Profile Metrics

Google Business Profile is an essential tool for businesses with physical stores. It allows you to manage your business listings on Google platforms, including Google Maps and search results (Local Pack). With Google Business Profile, you can measure lower-level metrics such as 'Call Clicks' and 'Website Clicks'.

Tools to use : Google Business Profile

Leading or Lagging Indicator : Leading Indicator

9. SEO ROI (Return on Investment)

Return on Investment (ROI) measures the return generated by SEO efforts compared to the total amount spent. A positive ROI means that all the effort and resources spent on content creation, site maintenance, and link building were worth it.

You can calculate SEO ROI using the following formula:

( gun Organic Profit – Total SEO Investment Cost ) / Total SEO Investment expense × 100

The formula is simple, but measuring SEO ROI can be difficult. The cost of optimizing your site is usually fixed (like the cost of a blog post or hiring a dedicated SEO expert), and it can take months to see a return on your SEO efforts. Also, certain pages may be more valuable than others. For example, a blog page at the top may be important for generating awareness, but it may not always generate revenue. On the other hand, an optimized product page may generate less organic traffic but generate more sales.

Tools to use : Google Analytics, eCommerce platform, CRM

Leading or Lagging Indicator : Lagging Indicator

10. Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals is a set of technical SEO metrics that Google uses to measure user experience. The Core Web Vitals score is a ranking factor, so it’s important to check it regularly. The three core web metrics to measure are:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) : Does the main content of the page load in less than 2.5 seconds?
• First Input Delay (FID) : Is the page responsive to the user’s actions? (Note: This metric will be replaced by Interaction to Next Paint (INP) in March 2024.)
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) : Is the page visually stable and free of unexpected shifts?

To optimize these metrics, you can use the Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console.

Tool to use : Google Search Console

Leading or Lagging Indicator : Leading Indicator