The Ultimate Guide to SEO Metrics and KPIs

How can you tell whether your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) investment is paying off?

Once you’ve begun executing your SEO plan, the essential is to create SEO KPIs and track your SEO metrics.

KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are success indicators that show how effectively you’re accomplishing your marketing goals.

SEO KPIs and SEO metrics can eventually assist you evaluate whether or not SEO is paying off for your company when it comes to reporting on the performance of your SEO strategy.

We’ll take a deeper look at the most crucial SEO KPIs and indicators to measure your SEO performance in this article.

The following SEO KPIs and indicators will be discussed:

1. Organic Impressions
2. Keyword Ranking
3. Organic Search Traffic
4. Leads from Organic Search
5. Sales from Organic Search
6. Organic Conversion Rates
7. Organic Click Through Rate
8. Organic Page Views
9. Bounce Rate
10. Lost Clicks
11. Backlinks
12. Domain and Page Authority
13. Local Visibility

Following that, we’ll break down each SEO measure so you know what they imply and why you should be watching them.

SEO Tracking Tools you will need to track SEO KPIs and SEO metrics

1. Google Analytics
2. Google Search Console
3. Open Site Explorer by Moz
4. Google My Business
5. SEMRUSH

1. Organic Impressions

The amount of times your web pages appear in organic search results (such as Google) for searches is referred to as organic impressions.

Organic search impressions can be an early sign of progress because search engine optimization takes time to yield results.

Google Search Console (GSC) for Google search traffic and Bing Webmaster Tools for Bing search traffic may be used to track your organic search impressions. Because Google accounts for over 65 percent of all organic searches, I’ll concentrate on Google Search Console.

Here’s how to get Google Search Console up and running.

Take the following steps to see your organic impressions:

• Login to your Google Search Console account
• Click on performance or search result in the left side panel.
• Select the time period for which you would like to view your organic search impressions

This will provide the total number of impressions for all of the keywords for which you are currently ranking. Simply scroll down to view impressions by your specific keywords.

You can also use a query filter and input a specific query or phrase to get the amount of impressions for a certain term.

2. Keyword Ranking

There are ten organic results on Google Search Engine Result Pages, ranging from position 1 to 10 on the first page, 11 to 20 on the second page, and so on.

Of course, for some queries that result in Featured Snippets, there’s also the infamous position zero.

Tracking your keyword ranking is a good way to gauge your progress. However, I would advise you to avoid worrying with keyword rankings.

Keep in mind that a high ranking is only as beneficial as the traffic it generates.

You don’t want to worry on rankings; instead, concentrate on your core KPI, which is generally leads or sales.

When you’re first starting to optimise for a keyword, though, impressions and keyword ranking will tell you if your efforts are paying off.

You may keep track of your rating in a variety of ways:

1. Use an SEO tracking tool
2. Google Search Console

I’ve tested a number of free and paid keyword ranking tools, and the SEMRUSH position monitoring tool has shown to be the most accurate.

I’ve found Google Search Console’s position rating to be incorrect; nevertheless, if you don’t want to pay for a service, you may use GSC to determine your ranking.

To view your keyword ranking in GSC:

• Login to Google Search Console
• Click on Performance
• Select the date range for which you wish to see your ranking
• Ensure you check the Average Position box at the top
• Scroll down to see your keyword ranking for each individual keyword

3. Organic Search Traffic

One of the primary objectives of an SEO campaign is to increase organic traffic to your website. The amount of people that find your website using an unpaid search engine is referred to as organic traffic.

Organic traffic is not the same as direct traffic. Visitors that come to your website directly by putting the URL into a browser are known as direct traffic.

Google Search Console and Google Analytics are two of the most popular tools for tracking organic traffic.

We recommend reviewing both, but Google Analytics will help you better understand your organic traffic’s on-site activity and conversion rate.

• Login to your Google Analytics account. If you don’t already have one, you can access this guide to learn how to setup Google Analytics.
• Go to your Acquisition Report
• Next click on Channels
• Then click on Organic Search. Here, you will see Sessions in the first column.

Sessions, according to Google, are a collection of interactions by a user over a period of time. The default session length in Google Analytics is 30 minutes.

You’ll want to utilise sessions from different periods to use this statistic to assess the performance of your organic traffic strategy. It might be week to week, month to month, or even year to year.

To examine the performance of organic traffic over a certain time period, go to the Organic Search page and choose the date in the upper right.

4. Leads From Organic Search

If your objective is to generate leads, one of the most essential SEO KPIs and metrics to measure is leads from organic search.

A lead is a specific action on your website that you want a user to perform, such as requesting a quotation, scheduling a demo, booking an appointment, or requesting a proposal.

You’ll need to set up conversion tracking on your website to track leads generated by organic search. You may accomplish this by using Google Analytics’ Goals feature (access a guide on how to setup and instal Google Analytics here, including setting up Goals).

After you’ve set up conversion tracking in Google Analytics, you’ll be able to see leads generated by organic search by following the steps below.

• Login to Google Analytics
• Go to Conversions
• Under Goals select Overview
• Add a Segment for Organic Traffic

5. Sales from Organic Search

If you have an e-commerce site, organic search sales will be a key metric to track.

You must, of course, ensure that you have e-commerce tracking in place.

Google Analytics can also be used for this.

When using Google Analytics to set up e-commerce tracking, you must first enter the tracking code and then switch on e-commerce tracking. You can do so by following the procedures outlined below.

You can see sales in Google Analytics by following the same steps as you did to see leads, but you’ll need to click on E-commerce.

However, I’d like to provide an option that can also assist you in gaining more knowledge.

• Login to Google Analytics
• Click on Acquisitions
• Click on All Traffic and select Channels
• Next, click on Organic Search

You can then change between e-commerce conversion and any other conversion objectives you’ve defined over to the right next to conversion.

You’ll also be able to add extra dimensions, such as landing page, to have a better understanding of your organic pages’ performance.

6. Organic Conversion Rate

The total number of conversions (goals) achieved on your website divided by the total number of visitors to your website is your organic conversion rate.

This is an important measure since it tells you how well your SEO strategies are doing, whether they’re performing below or above average, and whether there’s room for improvement.

After you’ve figured out how well your organic traffic is doing, or what proportion of organic traffic you’re getting, you’ll want to know how good that traffic is.

Just because you’re getting organic traffic doesn’t imply it’s turning into leads or revenue for your business.

You’ll still need Google Analytics to check your organic conversion rate.

However, in order to track your conversions, you must have a target or objectives set up in Google Analytics.

The following are some of the most common organic conversion objectives:

• Email signups
• Phone calls
• Website sales
• Form submissions

Refer to our guide on how to set up and instal Google Analytics for instructions on how to set up objectives.

To view your organic conversion rate:

• Login to Google Analytics
• Go to Acquisition
• Click on Channels
• Click on Conversions to the right – you can select all conversions to see the overall conversion rate for all the goals you set, or you can select a specific conversion goal to see the conversion rate for that individual goal
• To see your organic conversion rate by source (specific websites such as Google, Bing, etc.) click organic search to view traffic by specific search engines.

7. Organic Click Through Rate (CTR)

The percentage of clicks obtained through organic search divided by the total number of organic impressions is known as the organic click through rate.

Every time your web pages appear in a search engine result page, you make an organic impression.

When someone goes to your website through a search engine result link, it’s called a click.

Organic CTR is determined by a variety of criteria, including your ranking position, page title, meta description, URL, and structured data.

A high CTR translates to more website traffic. You can determine whether you can obtain more traffic by boosting your organic CTR by measuring your CTR.

According to a recent research by Advanced Web Ranking, a first-place ranking in Google organic search results receives at least 4X the quantity of traffic as a fifth-place ranking.

How do you keep track of your organic CTR?

If your Google Search Console account is linked to Google Analytics, you can get organic CTR under Acquisition>Search Console>Queries.

However, I prefer to look at organic CTR in Google Search Console since it’s easy to spot pages with low CTR that might be ripe for development, and because the Google Search Console data in Google Analytics is frequently wrong.

To find your organic CTR in Google Search Console, do the following:

• Login to Google Search Console
• Click on Performance
• Select the date range you would like to review CTR for
• At the top, check Average CTR
• Scroll down to view the CTR for each individual keyword

What’s particularly beneficial about Google Search Console is that you can use filters to find pages that are ranked in position 10 or below so that you can look at their CTR to see whether they have a low CTR.

8. Organic Page Views

The total number of pages seen is referred to as page views.

“Analytics differentiates traffic that comes on your site through a search engine result from traffic that arrives through other referring routes, such as a paid advertising or another site that connects to yours,” according to Google.

You’ll need to build a segment to separate your organic page visits. A segment is a collection of visitors who have a common feature, such as the fact that they all arrived via organic search.

To view your organic page visits, establish a section like follows:

• Go into your Behavior Report
• Click on Site Content
• Click on All Pages
• At the top of your report, click Add a Segment
• Scroll down, select Organic Traffic and click Apply

Your organic traffic, total page views, and page views per page should now be visible.

Make sure you choose the time frame for which you want to see your page visits.

9. Bounce Rate

The percentage of visitors that arrived to your website and departed without visiting any further pages is known as the bounce rate.

The bounce rate is a good measure of user engagement and if a visitor finds your material valuable.

However, it’s crucial to look at bounce rate on a page-by-page basis. This is why: If your objective is for people to come to your website and call your phone number (which is on the homepage), a high bounce rate on the homepage may not be an issue because your visitors are accomplishing the goal you set for them.

If you see a high bounce rate on your service pages while the route to conversion for people who visit your service page is to proceed to the testimonial page and maybe request a proposal, this could suggest a deeper level issue with that page.

To see your organic bounce rate on your website, go to:

• Head back to Google Analytics
• Go to Acquisition
• Click on the All Traffic tab
• Next, click Channels and in the fourth column – you will see your overall bounce rate for paid, organic and more.

To view the bounce rate of individual traffic.:

• Go to Behaviors
• Click on Site Content
• Click on the All Pages tab

To view bounce rate specifically for organic traffic, simply click Add Segment at the top of the page and select Organic Traffic as a segment and hit Apply.

10. Lost Organic Clicks

There are two sorts of organic clicks that result in a loss:

The first is when you appear in searches but don’t get any clicks – this is generally because of feature snippets or information panels.

The second form of lost organic clicks occurs when you have a history of receiving clicks for a term and then your clicks for that phrase begin to decline.

I’m talking about the second sort of clicks in particular.

By comparing your clicks to the prior month or period in Google Search Console, you can quickly see which terms are losing traffic.

This is an opportunity to improve on keywords for which you were previously ranking and receiving traffic, but are now losing clicks due to a variety of factors (such as a reduction in ranking, changes in page titles, or company seasonality).

To view your lost clicks in Google Search Console:

• Login to Google Search Console
• Click on Performance
• Select Total Clicks
• Click Date Range
• Go to the Compare tab
• Select the date range or period you would like to compare and click Apply
• Scroll down to see the difference in clicks for the time period you’re comparing
• Click on the Difference column to see your positive difference (clicks gained) or negative difference (clicks lost)

11. Backlinks

Backlinks are links to your site from other websites. It’s also one of the most significant SEO ranking variables. As a result, you should keep track of the amount of backlinks going to your website.

If you want to outrank your competition, you should strive for at least the same number of backlinks as they do, as well as near-perfect on-site optimization.

When launching a backlink acquisition campaign, it’s critical to remember that the relevancy and quality of the backlinks you get, as well as the authority of the sites referring to you, are all factors to consider.

You may look at your backlink profile in a few different ways:

• Use Google Search Console
• Use a Backlink tool, such as MOZ Open Site Explorer

To view your backlinks in Google Search Console:

• Login to Google Search Console
• Scroll down to Links
• Backlinks are referred to as External Links in Google Search Console

You’ll find a list of sites that are connecting to you under external links. Internal links, or links from one page of your website to another, are displayed on the right.

12. Domain and Page Authority

Domain authority (DA) is a search engine ranking number that indicates how well your website will rank in search engine result pages (SERPs). The scale usually goes from one to one hundred.

When determining domain authority, several criteria are taken into account, including the total number of links and the root domains. That score may then be used to track or compare the strength of your site’s ranking over time.

What is a good domain authority?

If your website has a lot of good links, it has a high domain authority, and vice versa. A domain authority of one is typical for a new website.

However, because domain authority is only a predictor of how well your site will do in search engine results, you shouldn’t place too much emphasis on obtaining a high domain authority score.

What you want to do is look at your rivals’ domain authority and see if you can beat their score.

Page authority (PA), on the other hand, forecasts how well a certain page of your website will rank in search engine results pages (SERPs). It likewise has a range of 1 to 100.

Page authority is calculated using data from your web index and considers a variety of criteria. It uses a machine–learning model to create an algorithm that best correlates with ranks across multiple SERPs that the system predictions against, and then uses that computation to get the score.

How page authority is scored

Page authority is measured on a 100-point logarithmic scale, as previously stated. This basically means that improving your score from 20 to 30 is simpler than improving it from 70 to 80. Because the algorithm that calculates page authority is continuously changing, your score may fluctuate from time to time.

Domain authority vs. page authority

While domain authority is primarily used to assess the predictive ranking strength of your domains or subdomains, page authority is used to assess the strength of individual web pages.

In Link Explorer, you can examine both domain and page authority.

13. Local Visibility

There are three sorts of results in Google Search: paid ads, local 3 pack for local search (local SEO Campaign), and organic.

If you’re doing a local SEO strategy, you’ll want to keep an eye on this statistic to make sure your unpaid traffic is coming from the appropriate people: your local audience.

Google provides several local SEO metrics including:

• Google Maps rankings
• Google My Business Insights: Shows how many times your pages appear in search engine results, number of phone calls, and directions.
• Session Location: Shows the cities where your web sessions are to gauge the amount of organic local traffic your site receives.

To track your local visibility, login to your Google My Business Account and click on Insights.

Final Words

Google updates its SEO ranking criteria on a regular basis. However, no matter how you look at it, you must stay up with the times or risk being left behind.

Reviewing your SEO analytics at least once a month is a smart practise.

Choose the metrics that are most important to your company and track them. Once you have insight, take action – it’s the only way to improve performance and outcomes.

Keep in mind that rankings change naturally, which may have an impact on certain of your measurements. So, unless you’re noticing a significant reduction in traffic, don’t make any adjustments to your website right away.