15 SEO Metrics to Track for Measuring SEO Performance

In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) stands as a critical factor, for the businesses aiming to enhance their online visibility and drive organic traffic. However, merely implementing SEO strategies is not enough; monitoring and measuring their effectiveness is equally crucial. This is where SEO metrics come into play—they provide valuable insights into how well your SEO efforts are performing and where improvements can be made.

What SEO Performance Metrics Should I Track?

One of the best things about digital marketing (over traditional offline marketing) is that you can measure nearly every part of your strategy. Here’s a comprehensive guide to most important SEO metrics that every digital marketer should track to assess and optimize their SEO performance.

1. Organic Traffic

Organic traffic is the number of visits that come to your site from organic (meaning unpaid) search engine results. It’s a good indicator of how well your webpages rank for relevant keywords (terms and phrases that your ideal audiences search online). Tracking organic traffic over time helps gauge the overall effectiveness of your SEO efforts. Tools like Google Analytics provide detailed insights into the volume of organic traffic, which pages receive the most traffic, and how visitors engage with your content.

And how many visits you get that may eventually translate to more customers.

2. Keyword Rankings

A keyword ranking is your website’s position on a search engine results page (SERP) for a specific keyword or phrase. Monitoring keyword rankings is fundamental to understanding how well your website is performing for targeted search queries. Identify the primary keywords you want to rank for and track their positions in search engine results pages (SERPs). Tools such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Moz can help automate this process and provide historical data to analyze trends.

And the higher you rank, the more traffic you’re likely to drive to your site. But a website’s keyword rankings can frequently change. For any number of reasons. The major reasons of fluctuation in keyowrds rankings are;  Google algorithm updates, losing backlinks, or competitors update their content to improve it. So, keeping a watch on your keywords ranking is an important aspect of SEO Perfoemance.

Losing keywords ranking positions may mean losing organiic traffic to your site—which may hurt your business.

3. Impressions

Impressions are the number of times your site was viewed in search results in a given time period. It’s an important metric for tracking your SEO progress because it gives you an idea of whether your efforts are helping you appear in search results.

Often, the first sign of SEO success is an increase in the number of organic impressions for your website.

To track impressions, go to the “Search results” report in Google Search Console. You can also analyze impression data on a page-by-page level.

4. Search Engine Visibility

Search Engine Visibility (also known as “search visibility” or “SEO visibility”) is the share of traffic that a website receives from its rankings in the organic search results. It is shown in the form of percentage. The exact way this metric is calculated can vary from tool to tool.

5. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of users who click on your website link compared to the number of impressions (how many times your link appeared in search results). A high CTR indicates that your titles and meta descriptions are compelling and relevant to searchers. They are attracting searchers’ attention and interest. Google Search Console provides CTR data for each page, which can help you optimize your snippets for better performance.

CTR is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions, then multiplying that number by 100. For example, if your site appeared on a SERP 1000 times in a month and 58 people clicked on it, your CTR is 5.8%.

6. Bounce Rate

Bounce rate measures the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page (without engaging), indicating that they did not find the information they were looking for. This specific SEO measurement shows how engaging and relevant your content is for the visitors who land on it.

And monitoring bounce rate can help determine if there are any weaknesses in your SEO approach or website—like slow loading speed, poor mobile optimization, a mismatch between content and keywords, and more.

You can check your bounce rate in Google Analytics.

Dwell time refers to the amount of time visitors spend on your site before returning to the search engine results page (SERPs).

It’s a measurement of a user’s dwelling time—how long they linger on your website page; starting from the time they click on a search result and ending when they navigate away from the page.

Bounce Rate and Dwell time both metrics provide insights into user engagement and content relevance.

8. Domain Authority

Domain Authority (DA) is a metric developed by Moz that is a predictor of how well websites will rank on search engines. At Semrush, they call it “Authority Score.”

It’s based on the quality and quantity of your site’s backlinks, organic search traffic, and other data. The score is presented on a logarithmic scale of 1 to 100. And the higher your score, the stronger and more authoritative your domain.

9. Backlink Profile/ Domain Rating

Backlinks are links from other sites that point to yours. They remain a crucial ranking factor in SEO. They help to show your site is trustworthy and valuable to others. Monitoring your backlink profile involves tracking the number of backlinks, their quality, and their relevance to your content. Tools like Majestic SEO or Moz’s Link Explorer offer insights into your backlink profile, including new links, lost links, and overall authority metrics.

Domain Rating (DR) is a ranking metric developed by Ahrefs that shows the strength of a website’s backlink profile on a scale of 1 to 100.

10. Page Load Speed

As you know all too well, a long page loading time leads to a bad user experience. Therefore, it makes sense that Google uses this SEO metric to determine SERP rankings.

Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights can help you monitor and optimize your site’s loading times for both desktop and mobile devices, ensuring a smooth browsing experience.

Page speed can be described in two ways:

• Page load time: The time it takes to display the full content on a page
• Time to first byte: How long it takes for your browser to receive the first byte

There are other website performance metrics to consider but these are the two primary.

11. Conversion Rate

While SEO primarily focuses on driving traffic, conversion rate measures the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action on your site — like subscribing to a newsletter, downloading an ebook, filling out a contact form, signing up for a trial, or making a purchase, etc. Tracking conversions attributed to organic traffic provides a direct link between SEO efforts and business goals. If you have high conversions, it means your pages are effective in turning visitors into leads or customers.

In Google Analytics, conversions are called “key events.” To track your key events, set them up in Google Analytics.

12. Mobile Responsiveness

With the majority of searches now happening on mobile devices, ensuring your website is mobile-friendly is crucial for SEO success. Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool can assess how well your site performs on mobile devices and identify areas for improvement.

13. Indexed Pages

This tells you how many pages (more specifically URLs) a search engine has in its index. Your pages first need to get indexed for them to appear in SERPs and drive organic traffic, but you’ll also want to keep some pages out of the index.

Monitoring the number of pages indexed by search engines gives insights into how well your site is being crawled and indexed.  Google Search Console provides data on indexed pages and any crawl errors that might be preventing certain pages from appearing in search results.

Any sudden changes in the number of indexed pages are likely a sign of a technical SEO issue. The larger and more complex your website is, the more important this metric becomes for you.

14. Top Exit Pages

Aside from knowing which individual pages are performing the best, a detailed website audit will also identify which pages aren’t up to par. One way to do that is by tracking exit pages. Exit page refers to the specific web page from which visitors leave a website. It is the last page users view before exiting the site entirely or navigating to a different website.

If you’ve realized that many users exit after leaving a particular page, it could indicate that the content needs an overhaul or some other fix is required.

15. User Engagement Metrics

Metrics like pages per session, average session duration, and returning visitors indicate how engaged users are with your content. Higher engagement metrics suggest that your content is relevant and valuable to your audience, which can positively impact SEO rankings over time.

In conclusion, tracking these SEO metrics not only helps measure the success of your SEO strategies but also guides continuous improvement efforts. By regularly analyzing these metrics and adjusting your SEO tactics accordingly, you can optimize your website’s performance in search engine results and drive sustainable organic growth for your business.