With These 10 SEO KPIs, You Can Measure Your Success
We introduce the most important key figures to you, with which you can measure SEO.
- In short: What are SEO KPIs?
- Why you should measure your SEO success with SEO KPIs at all
- Detailed look at important On-Page SEO metrics
- Conversion Rate (Conversion Rate)
- Off-Page SEO KPIs: Backlinks
- Return on Invest (ROI)
- Challenges: How do I find the right SEO KPIs for my strategy?
- Conclusion: With the right SEO KPIs to success
Measuring relevant metrics is one of the most important components of an SEO strategy - but it is often neglected. If you want to know whether your SEO strategy is working, you should keep an eye on the right SEO KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) from the start. This is the only way you can determine whether and how your efforts are affecting your success or whether adjustments may be necessary.
Which SEO KPIs are really important and how you can effectively measure your SEO measures is explained to you by our guest author Lisa Bähr in this article. We also show you some practical tools that make monitoring easier for you.
In short: What are SEO KPIs?
KPI is the abbreviation for Key Performance Indicator and refers to a series of metrics, with the help of which the success of measures is quantified. Reliable metrics are the be-all and end-all in SEO, because they form the basis for successful Search Engine Optimization.
SEO KPIs are therefore data-based values with which you can measure the effectiveness of your SEO measures. The key indicators provide you with important data to see whether your efforts are paying off and where there is still a need for optimization.
Why you should measure your SEO success with SEO KPIs at all
Anyone who does not want to lose touch with the competition and the top positions in the search results (SERPs) should regularly monitor their most important SEO metrics. With the KPIs, you cannot only prove your SEO success, but also show where improvements are still needed. If you analyze the (for you) most important KPIs at regular intervals, you can act immediately in case of discrepancies and take countermeasures.
The relevance of pre-defined goals
In order to effectively measure your SEO success, you should - even before implementing your strategy - think about what exactly you want to achieve. Only then can you decide which SEO KPIs are relevant for you and find out how successful your measures really were.
Pre-defined goals can also help you to argue the long-term nature of the SEO measures against the responsible parties. If you can show that no major impacts are to be expected in the first months, your SEO measures are less likely to be discontinued or considered ineffective in the first weeks. A detailed analysis and goal definition before the start of the SEO project can also help you to estimate required resources inside and outside the company and distribute them sensibly.
From the point of view of company management, however, the profitability of the SEO measures is decisive. Here, it is less about rankings and clicks and more about hard cash. How much needs to be invested and how much can the company generate with it?
But how can the economic success of the SEO channel be planned and measured in advance? To answer this question, we first introduce you to a few basic SEO KPIs.
Detailed look at important On-Page SEO metrics
Organic Traffic
Organic traffic measures how many visitors come to your website via organic search - in other words, the clicks on unpaid search results. This metric is one of the most important on-page SEO KPIs to consider, because its growth means that you have achieved one of your goals: the number of visitors is increasing. From an SEO point of view, it makes sense to measure non-brand traffic (generic traffic) - the traffic that does not come about in connection with your brand.
On the other hand, brand traffic is the traffic that comes from users who have started a search in connection with your brand name. The searchers therefore already know exactly what they want and where they find it. If brand awareness is a focus for you, measuring brand traffic can also be useful.
Organic traffic can be tracked via the Google Search Console in the "Performance" category. For measuring brand traffic, you can add all keywords that are associated with your brand to the search query filter. Also remember to use incorrectly spelled terms to capture the complete potential. Now you can observe the total number of clicks over time. To filter out the non-brand traffic, you should exclude your brand keywords via the filter.
Impressions
Measuring impressions shows you how often users have seen an unpaid, organic result for your website in the SERPs. Being seen by potential visitors online should be a basic goal of your search strategy. Because the total number of impressions helps you to check whether you have made the right decisions in terms of your SEO and content strategy. If the number of impressions increases, it means that your content is well placed and is therefore an indication of organic growth. If your content is not visible or no one is searching for the content, even the highest quality content is of no use to you.
You can trace the development of impressions in the performance report of the Google Search Console. An impression is generated when users start a search and your website appears in the search results.
Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
The Click-Through-Rate (CTR) or click rate is an SEO metric that measures the ratio between the clicks and the total number of users who have viewed the search results. Simply put, this formula applies:
Since the CTR is also an important ranking signal for search engines, you should always keep an eye on this metric. The click rate is crucial for assessing your SEO success.
If your CTR is low, you should find out why your impressions are not leading to the desired clicks. If your title and meta description do not appeal to the searchers, even a high ranking will not help you. A low CTR also signals to Google that your website does not meet user expectations. Google tends to consider the pages with a higher CTR as more valuable for the searchers, so a higher CTR has a positive effect on the ranking.
You can use the Google Search Console to monitor your CTR. If you have linked the Google Search Console with Google Analytics you can also display the CTR in Analytics.
Important: You should always put the CTR in the right context. It is best to always look at the CTR in conjunction with the bounce rate. If the CTR increases but the bounce rate deteriorates at the same time, this is a signal that your users expected something different in terms of content from your content.
Rankings & Ranking Distribution
It is absolutely no secret that a better ranking attracts more visitors. With good rankings, you can get significantly closer to your other goals - such as traffic, conversions or leads. The rankings are therefore a crucial KPI, as these correlate directly with your SEO success.
Monitoring the rankings gives you an insight into whether your SEO strategy is heading in the right direction. You can read from this whether you have selected the best keywords or whether you should reconsider your selection. To achieve the goal - to appear at the top of the search results - the selection of keywords is crucial. For this, a detailed keyword research analysis is necessary. For each keyword, you should also keep in mind the search volume and the corresponding search intent.
Tracking the rankings is a continuous process. But with tools like the Google Search Console, Semrush, Searchmetrics or Ahrefs keyword monitoring is simplified. The WordPress SEO plugin Rank Math also helps with rank tracking.
The ranking distribution shows how your rankings are distributed on the individual search result pages. Specifically, this means: What percentage of keywords are on page 1 (position 1-10), on page 2 (position 11-20), etc. The greatest chance of being seen on Google and receiving clicks only exists with rankings on the first page of the search results. Ideally, the ranking distribution therefore falls from left to right. This means that most keywords are on the first search result page and the least on the tenth.
You can view the ranking distribution, for example, at Sistrix or Ryte.
Bounce Rate (Bounce Rate)
The bounce rate measures the percentage share of visitors who left your website without making a single click. The rule here is: the lower the percentage, the better. Because the more visitors click on your website and leave it immediately again, the more turnover you miss.
The bounce rate is one of the most important SEO KPIs, as it is used by search engines as a ranking factor. A high bounce rate can mean that your website is in need of improvement. Does the content perhaps not correspond to what the visitors expect? The trick is therefore not only to receive organic traffic, but relevant and targeted traffic.
Another reason for a high bounce rate could be a bad page layout or a too high page loading speed. If your website loads too slowly, visitors will quickly bounce off and leave the page. If users cannot find their way around your page, you should try to improve the site structure and add call-to-actions (short: CTAs) - in other words; improve the user experience (UX). The goal should be for your visitors to click through the pages and thus stay on your website.
However, there is no standard for bounce rates. The optimal bounce rate can vary greatly depending on the industry, country or device. You can monitor the bounce rate of your pages in Google Analytics. In the audience report, you can find the bounce rate for your entire website, in the "All Pages" report, you can find the bounce rate for individual pages.
Average Session Duration (Length of Stay)
How much time visitors spend on your website on average is indicated by the average session duration. The dwell time helps you to measure the engagement of your users and to assess the quality of the page. Ideally, you should try to keep visitors as long on your website as possible. Since the session duration is a direct ranking factor, this is an important SEO metric.
In order to achieve the longest possible session duration, you should build a detailed page structure via the internal linking. If your average session duration is too low, the content may be optimized for the wrong keywords, which does not correspond to the intent of the searchers. You can view your average session length in
Google Analytics - e.g. via the "All Pages Report".
Conversion Rate (Conversion Rate)
You not only need to know how many visitors have clicked on your search result, but also how many have actually converted. With the Conversion Rate you can monitor your previously defined goals. Whether it's signing up for a newsletter, a specific download, filling out a lead form or sales - a conversion can take place in different ways. Simply put, the conversion rate is the number of conversions divided by the total number of visitors during a certain period of time.There are many reasons why tracking conversions is of crucial importance. Conversions give you information about the quality of the traffic. If you record high traffic but only a few conversions, you can assume that the traffic is not very high quality.
You can measure the conversion rate in Google Analytics by storing your conversions. To capture purchases, you first need to set up e-commerce tracking. Afterwards, you can retrieve the e-commerce conversion rate under conversions.
Page Load Time
Another important SEO KPI is the page load time. If users land on your website and it takes longer than 3 seconds to load, they will most likely leave your page in most cases. If you have a lot of large images, GIFs or videos, it may appeal to your audience, but it can have a negative impact on your page speed. So users are probably more likely to click on the "back button".
The loading time is therefore not only important for the user experience, it affects the bounce rate and other metrics that can have a major impact on your ranking.
To monitor load times and other Core Web Vitals, you can use tools like
Page Speed Insights. With PageSpeed Insights, you can test the load time over several pages and understand exactly what leads to a slow load speed. You can also check the average page load time via Google Analytics in the "Website Speed" report.
Off-Page SEO KPIs: Backlinks
While on-page factors such as user experience and topical authority are increasingly becoming relevant, a high-quality backlink profile is still a key factor for ranking in organic search. A backlink is created when an external website links to your website. External links can tell Google that your content is useful and can therefore give credibility to the page.
In addition to the number of backlinks, you should also track the authority of the referring website and the (topic) relevance of the backlinks.There is no concrete benchmark for the number of backlinks. You should perform a competitor analysis and find out how many backlinks your direct competitors have. Tools like
Ahrefs, Semrush
, SE Ranking or can assist you with the analysis. For example, the tools show you all new links, their quality and whether they are marked with do- or no-follow. Also monitor the Moz Pro lost backlinks and investigate the reasons for this. In addition, you can measure how much traffic which backlinks direct to your website.If you notice many spammy or irrelevant links, you should consider removing the links. Many spam links harm your ranking and ultimately your website as a whole.
Return on Invest (ROI)
With the ROI calculation you can find out whether your SEO measures are worth it. Without equating the SEO investments with the expenses, you cannot effectively evaluate the SEO measures. The revenue should be greater than the investment.But the profitability of the SEO channel is not always easy to determine. We show you what you need for the calculation:
- KPI & Status Quo: First, you should define a key figure that has a high value for you. For example, non-brand clicks are used as an important SEO KPI. In addition, the status quo of this key figure should be set: What is the current value - in other words: How high are the current non-brand clicks per month?
Example: 50,000 non-brand clicks per month
- Potential: Next, you should determine your potential in the search engine. This is only possible with a detailed - and tailored to you - keyword research. Consider seasonal effects, languages, countries and current trends. At the end stands a potential of possible search queries to be served.
Example: 2 million clicks per month
- Target Value: From the status quo and the potential, the current coverage (50,000/2,000,000 = 2.5%) can be determined and a target value can be set. The target value can only be determined on the basis of estimates, for example by looking at the competition.
Example: 150,000 non-brand clicks after 3 years
Based on these key figures, an S-curve is generated, symbolizing the increase in non-brand clicks. Once the target curve is created - and the expected increase in non-brand clicks is determined - we can calculate the ROI. For this you need the following SEO KPIs:
- Value per Conversion (VPC): How much euros does a conversion bring you? But especially in the service industry, this question is not always easy to answer. You should use an approximation, because this KPI is important for the calculation.
Example: 100 euros/Conversion
- Conversion Rate (CVR): How high is your current conversion rate? How will it change in the period under consideration?
Example: 1.5 %
- SEO Investments: How much do you want to invest in the SEO channel per year?
Then the ROI can be calculated year by year with this formula:
Also be aware that the costs for SEO accrue from the start, while the return builds up over time. Usually, the ROI in SEO is in the negative area in the first year. Only from the 2nd year will the investment pay off. Based on this calculation, you can easily determine whether the set goals are realistic and your SEO measures lead to economic success.
Challenges: How do I find the right SEO KPIs for my strategy?
The selection of SEO KPIs should be based on your goals. What exactly do you want to achieve with the SEO measures? How high is the potential in your industry? If the metrics should be meaningful and reliable, you should always view the KPIs in the respective industry environment and in the temporal context. In e-commerce, the KPIs may look completely different for a purely informational blog.
Empfehlenswerte SEO Tools
Weitere empfehlenswerte SEO-Tools kannst du auf OMR Reviews finden und vergleichen. Insgesamt haben wir dort über 150 SEO-Tools (Stand: Dezember 2023) gelistet, die dir dabei helfen können, deinen organischen Traffic langfristig zu steigern. Also schau vorbei und vergleiche die Softwares mithilfe der verifizierten Nutzerbewertungen:
Conclusion: With the right SEO KPIs to success
SEO is - contrary to non-professional opinion - much more than just rankings. There are numerous metrics with which you can and should measure your SEO success. But which KPIs are important to you? If you ask 10 SEOs for their opinion, you will probably get 10 different answers. This is understandable, because there is not the one key figure that is important for everyone. The SEO KPIs that you can measure should always be oriented towards your goals. Only then are the measured key figures meaningful. Also remember not to consider the SEO metrics in isolation. Only the right interaction helps you to derive the right measures.
On OMR Reviews you can find an overview of useful SEO tools, which can support you in monitoring relevant SEO KPIs., die Euch beim Monitoring relevanter SEO-KPIs unterstützen können.
Die enge Verzahnung zwischen SEO, Content und UX ist für Lisa Bähr eine Herzensangelegenheit. Als Teil des Organic Search Teams beschäftigt sie sich tagtäglich mit den neusten Updates und Entwicklungen, lässt diese direkt in ihre tägliche Arbeit einfließen und stellt die News regelmäßig im Dialog mit unseren Kund:innen vor. Ihre Expertise und Begeisterung für die Finanzwelt lässt sie ihre Kund:innen in ihren Texten und Audits regelmäßig spüren.
