If you are a business owner on the World Wide Web, then you are likely investing time and money in SEO. You probably also know by now that getting to Page 1 of search engine results is neither easy nor cheap. However, with the right SEO strategy and investments, it is entirely possible.

But how do you know your SEO strategy is effective? How can you ensure the ROI of your digital marketing efforts? Most importantly, how do you improve? 

The answer lies in tracking your SEO efforts. As SEO is a combination of several on-page and off-page activities, measuring it can be challenging without setting key KPIs (key performance indicators) to focus your attention on.

Importance of Tracking SEO KPIs

SEO is a long-term activity where results are only visible months down the line, and SEO activities that polish up your digital beacon can quickly get out of hand.

Unless you monitor and review your efforts along specific parameters, you could end up confused about whether you have achieved your goals, what the ROI of your investments is, and, in some cases, you might even lose track of what you set out to achieve in the beginning!

Defining and following certain KPIs gives you concise and trackable benchmarks that can guide you for the duration of your SEO activities and beyond.

So, this brings us to the key question: how to track SEO? The first order of the day is to identify SEO KPIs that align with your business goals. 

Essential SEO KPIs to Track

Before we dive into the details of the most important SEO KPIs, let us quickly look at the significance of KPIs.

In case you are wondering, why do we even need a KPI? Why can’t we just track a bunch of data points? Here’s why:

KPIs are also data points, but setting them apart under the heading of a KPI will force you to think about your choice. Why are you selecting certain data points to track while ignoring others? Answering this question will be an exercise in aligning your SEO with your business objectives.

Once defined, SEO KPIs allow you to assess the performance of your website and marketing strategies. When asked whether you are getting the results you anticipated, these important metrics provide data-driven answers to either validate your efforts or give you a chance to course-correct.

KPIs are also great at keeping track of goals vis-à-vis timelines. Whether it’s increasing organic traffic, improving conversion rates, or climbing the keyword rankings, KPIs help you understand the ROI of your investment and expenses.

Here are the most important KPIs you can consider (and those that we keep tabs on for ours and our clients’ SEO efforts). 

Organic Search Traffic

KPI: The number of visitors who arrive at your website through organic (non-paid) search results. 

The key objective of almost every SEO activity is to get more people to your website or web page. Making this metric the MOST important one, all sales, conversions, and traffic monetization start here. Monitoring this KPI reveals whether your SEO efforts are attracting visitors and driving visibility. Analyzing changes over time will help you gauge the effectiveness of your strategies.

The most accurate ways to track organic traffic are via the Google Search Console and Google Analytics. You can also track the user journey flow to find out where your traffic is coming from and where it is going.  

Backlinks

KPI: The number and quality of websites linking to your site.

A critical ranking factor for Google algorithms, backlinks establish the credibility of your website. Google combines the quality and quantity of backlinks with overall growth in backlink numbers to decide whether your website is likely to provide value to its users.

Stay away from spammy or low-value backlinks and use a tool like Semrush, Ahrefs, or Moz to monitor them.  

Keywords Ranking

KPI: Your website’s position on a search engine results page (SERP) for a specific word or phrase. 

Users come to search engines looking for specific information and ask for it with phrases and keywords. Your website will only pop up on the results page if it is targeting keywords and includes relevant content in the right context.   

Conduct thorough keyword research, map your competitors’ rankings, optimize your content, and utilize tools like Semrush Position Tracking or Google Search Console to monitor keyword rankings.

Bounce Rate

KPI: The percentage of users who click on a link to your website and leave without performing any other action.

A higher bounce rate, when combined with a low time-on-page metric, usually signifies a website that is not serving its users. It means that Google is directing users to the site, but once there, the user doesn’t find what they are looking for. In conjunction with other metrics, Google algorithms can downgrade websites that have a high bounce rate. 

Track the bounce rate, but also look at user journeys, time-on-page, and CTRs to determine if your page is unsatisfactory. If the answer is yes, then you can use this information to test different content and other on-page content elements.

Conversion Rate

KPI: The percentage of visitors who take a desired action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or filling out a contact form.

A high conversion rate is, naturally, something you should aim for, and it shows that you are doing the whole thing right – SEO, content, and everything in between and beyond.

However, if you see space for improvement in your current conversion rate, then optimize your website’s conversion paths regularly and test new CTAs, landing pages, visual elements, and forms to arrive at better results.

Page Loading Speed

KPI: The time it takes for your website’s pages to load.

As this is an important ranking factor for search engines, you need to ensure that your page load speed is as fast as possible. Users DO NOT want to wait around for your site to load; in fact, if a page load time goes from one to three seconds, the chance of a bounce increases by 32%!

Use tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights to keep track of your website’s speed, optimize images, minimize code, and leverage browser caching to improve loading times.

Mobile Traffic

KPI: The percentage of visitors accessing your site via mobile devices.

Over 50% of internet users access the web from their mobile devices. Naturally, search engines have taken note of this shift and are ensuring an optimal user experience for their mobile visitors. Make sure you optimize your site for mobile users and use your mobile visitor KPI to keep your website accessible on all devices.

The best way to optimize for mobile users is to start with the foundation of a responsive website and test your designs, various additions, and iterations on different devices to ensure a seamless user experience.

Website or Domain Authority

KPI: Track domain authority via a third-party tool.

An overall metric, domain authority, is a holistic score that is based on several ranking factors such as backlinks, traffic, content quality, etc. It is a good KPI to track to get an overview of your progress on SEO matters. You can even compare it with your competitors’ scores to understand where you stand in the industry.

Tools like Moz, Semrush, and Ahrefs all provide domain authority scores. 

Other important KPIs you can consider are:

• Cost-per-click
• Branded Traffic
• Organic CTR
• Scroll depth
• Pages per visit
• Time on page
• Returning visitors and direct visitors
• User behaviour flow

Top Tools for Effective SEO KPI Tracking

Now that we’ve covered the essential SEO KPIs, let’s look at HOW to track these metrics. There are several free and paid software and tools available to SEO professionals. 

Quick Tip: Start with an SEO audit. Before you rush off to sign up or subscribe to any or all of the below-mentioned tools, we recommend an SEO audit. This will give you an understanding of where you are in the SEO universe and help you set realistic goals and a starting point for your SEO efforts. Many of the software mentioned in the list offers free SEO audits, so make it a priority while developing your strategy.

Many professional SEO agencies subscribe to these tools, and you can take advantage of their resources by utilizing their services. We use several of these tools to monitor and track our own and our clients’ SEO KPIs. 

Google Analytics

Tracks: 

• Organic traffic
• Bounce rate
• Conversion rate
• Mobile traffic
• Audience data
• And many more

Google Analytics is a powerful tool for tracking a wide range of SEO KPIs. It is free and provides detailed reports on user behaviour, traffic sources, and conversion metrics. 

Install your Google Analytics tracking code on every page of your website and open up your Google dashboard to see the results. 

You can set SEO goals directly in Google Analytics and track them directly, rather than parsing a mountain of data. 

All in all, a must-have for every website online!

Google Search Console

Tracks: 

• Keyword ranking
• Organic traffic
• Click-through rate (CTR)
• Search impressions
• Audience data
• And more

Another free Google offering, GSC, is a robust SEO-first tool that can give rank-boosting insights into how your website appears in Google search results. It provides data on keyword performance and a multitude of SEO factors, such as organic traffic, CTR (click-through rate), average position, traffic data, etc., while also identifying and troubleshooting a variety of errors and user experience gaps.

Consider also using Bing webmaster tools, which have similar functionalities for SEO on Bing.

Semrush Position Tracking

Tracks: 

• Keyword ranking
• Website traffic
• Competitor data
• And more

Semrush’s position tracking tool is part of its complete subscription-based offering. It allows you to monitor keyword rankings and compare your performance to that of your competitors. These insights can be set to track the position of your entire keyword set (paid or organic), further segregated into geographical and device-related fields to provide a full picture of your visibility on search.

Semrush is also an excellent tool for conducting an SEO audit, and the complete software is an all-in-one, easy-to-use SEO power tool perfect for small or medium businesses with websites under 20,000 pages.

Screaming Frog

Tracks: 

• On-page SEO elements
• Site structure analysis
• Broken link checking

Screaming Frog is a desktop program you can use to crawl websites and collect data about them. It has a free version that allows you to crawl up to 500 URLs and a paid version for an unlimited number of URLs. It is a specialty tool that is focused on testing the core technical metrics of a website, such as metadata, site maps, HTTP/HTTPS, orphaned pages, internal linking, and more.  

For smaller businesses, Screaming Frog is best used as a detailed and quick SEO audit tool and a free web crawler. However, it is invaluable for large sites, such as those run by eCommerce brands that have thousands of product pages. 

Ahrefs

Tracks: 

• Backlinks
• Organic traffic
• Keyword research
• Competitor data

Ahrefs, a go-to tool for link building and checking backlink authority, also doubles up as a holistic tool that can serve the varied SEO needs of businesses of all sizes. Apart from its robust backlink analysis features, it provides insights into keyword rankings, content improvement suggestions, site audits, and competitor strategies.

Moz

Tracks: 

• Backlinks
• Keyword ranking
• Site health
• On-page optimization 

Moz started as an SEO-focused service provider that now offers software, educational videos, and community advice to help marketers with their SEO efforts. Its premium SEO tool is called Moz Pro and is a popular, all-in-one SEO tool that is known for its robust backlink analysis and on-page optimization recommendations.

Level Up Your Digital Presence Through SEO KPI Tracking

In the digital world, one can never run out of data. Every touch point and every click is tracked and logged, giving marketers a granular level of understanding of user behaviour right down to a single person. If you are not putting all this data to work, then you are doing your business an injustice. 

However, we understand that so much data can often seem incomprehensible. So, at Asset Digital, we offer you a partnership that will give you control of your SEO efforts. Work with us to set your SEO goals and KPIs and keep track of your SEO investments with our comprehensive, easy-to-grasp monthly SEO reports.

Outsource your SEO campaign efforts and concentrate on what you do best: growing your business. 

Suggested Reads: 

• Benefits of Using A Professional SEO Company for Your Business
• Ultimate Guide on How to Set SEO Goals for Business Growth
• Enhancing SEO: How User Experience Impacts Rankings