It’s a fact. You can’t succeed online without SEO, and even as digital trends change, marketers still believe SEO is more relevant than ever.
Here’s a stat to back that up:
According to the State of Content Marketing report, 100 percent of marketers say SEO is more important now than last year.
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It doesn’t stop with SEO, though.
Tracking your SEO metrics is an essential part of any content strategy.
However, that doesn’t mean all SEO website metrics are equal. Some are just vanity metrics, and, as you’ll find out later, there are some SEO metrics you can safely ignore.
In this post, I’ll explain the SEO success metrics that truly matter so you can focus on what’s important.
Ready? Then read on.
How Can You Use SEO Metrics?
Before I go any further, let’s start with how you can use SEO metrics to help with your digital and content marketing.
First, measuring your most important SEO metrics informs your strategy. If you’ve got pages ranking well for specific keywords, your organic click-throughs are increasing, and you’re attracting organic traffic, then it’s safe to say you’re doing something right.
On the contrary, if you’re struggling to rank in the SERPs for your chosen keywords, you’re not securing enough conversions, or you’re not picking up quality backlinks, that should tell you something is up.
By tracking your SEO metrics, you can see if you’re on course to reach your marketing goals and change strategy if it’s not working.
The right metrics enable you to optimize what does work and ditch the tactics that don’t.
SEO Metrics to Track
OK, now I’ve covered the basics, let’s get down to the best SEO metrics to track.
When you’re measuring the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts, monitoring SEO KPI metrics is crucial. Below are the most important SEO metrics to track.
Organic Traffic
Organic traffic refers to searchers who discover your site through unpaid methods. For instance, they might find you through a regular search, a social media link, or even an online forum.
The Content Marketing Insitute calls organic traffic the “super KPI of content marketing,” and I can see why.
It’s a crucial SEO metric that reflects how well your site ranks in search engines. The more organic traffic you have, the better your SEO efforts are performing.
Your organic traffic also has a better chance of converting as these visitors actively search your niche.
Additionally, this SEO metric increases brand awareness, improves custom retention, and is cost-effective.
You can track your organic traffic with free analytic tools such as GA4. Here’s a breakdown of organic traffic marked as a percentage in blue.
You’ll find this information in GA4 under the “Acquisition” tab from the main dashboard for your selected website property.
Keyword Rankings
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Targeting keywords is the most basic part of any SEO strategy. Keyword rankings show you where your page is in the SERPs for these target keywords. For example, in Ubersuggest’s Top Pages by Traffic report, you can see which keywords and positions are driving traffic to pages on your site.
The better your position is, the more organic traffic you get. According to Ahrefs, 75.1 percent of clicks go to the top three organic results, while 31.73 percent go to the top-ranked page.
By measuring this SEO metric, you can see which keywords bring you traffic and those that aren’t pulling their weight.
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To measure keyword rankings, you can use Ubersuggest or Google Search Console.
Traffic Value
Ever wondered what the ROI is of your SEO strategy? Then look no further than your traffic values.
This SEO metric measures the monthly monetary value of your organic traffic created by ranking keywords on your website and how much it would have cost you if you’d used paid advertising.
You can work this out by:
calculating the monthly organic traffic each keyword generates
factoring in its respective ranking position
multiplying it by the cost-per-click.
Alternatively, try this traffic value calculator.
Core Web Vitals
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These days, Google puts an emphasis on user experience. That includes Core Web Vitals metrics that assess page load times, interactivity, and visual stability:
Large Contentful Paint (LCP) measures the loading times of your webpage, specifically the largest element. The better your website loading time, the better the UX.
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First Input Delay (FID) is all about interactivity and responsiveness. It measures the time between when a user first interacts with your page and how long the browser takes to respond.
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Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures individual shift scores or the visual stability and whether any elements of the layout shift.
Interaction to Next Paint (INP) assesses the page’s general responsiveness in response to user interactions.
Optimizing your Core Web Vitals can enhance your SEO rankings, ensure your site is mobile-friendly, and give you a competitive advantage.
Page Load Times
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Speed matters. Here’s some proof.
When Vodafone increased its LCP loading times, sales increased by 8 percent, and when Yelp! optimized page loading times, conversions got a 15 percent boost.
There’s another reason you want to track this SEO metric.
Research shows that 26 percent of visitors will only wait one to three seconds for a site to load.
You know what that means? Slow sites lose you leads.
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It may also result in lower rankings and a high bounce rate.
Slow-loading pages can kill your conversions, too.
If you feel web speed is letting you down, here’s what you can do:
Test your current load time at Pingdom.
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