The 10 most important SEO KPIs

Tracking the right KPIs (key performance indicators) is the best way to avoid spending time and money on something that doesn't bring you the expected profit

Is your SEO strategy effective enough? How can you ensure that your efforts are producing tangible results? What can you do to improve the performance of your website?

If you track the right performance metrics, you can answer all these questions.

KPIs serve as a control system that helps you figure out which tactics are working and which are not. And most importantly, tracking the right KPIs saves you a lot of money.

1. organic traffic

This KPI measures how many visitors come to your website from organic search results.

This is one of the most important metrics you should pay attention to because its growth indicates that you have achieved the most important SEO goal: increasing the number of visitors to your website.

When you work with Google Analytics you can easily track the daily search queries on your website.

In the resulting report, you can see how the number of organic sessions changes over time and how it correlates with the total sessions.

2. search rankings

It's no secret that the higher your website ranks for the relevant search terms, the better.

Search results are an important KPI because they correlate directly with your SEO success. Once you have achieved a higher search position, you can also achieve the other goals such as Traffic, leads, and conversions.

It's also important to track your rankings for the right keywords. If the category "jeans" ranks first on your website for the search query "black and white vertical striped skinny jeans for women", your website's rankings will improve.Traffic not improve significantly.

You can use tools like Ahrefs monitor how your search positions for the target keywords change. All you have to do is enter your domain, select the type of SERP (you need organic results), import the list of keywords and start the Ranking-Tracking to begin.

The reports provide you with data on your current positions and how they have changed. You can also select your competitors' domains and receive reports on their rankings for the tracked keywords.

3. search visibility

Search engine visibility indicates how often your domain is displayed in the search results for the keywords for which it ranks.

If you track search visibility, you can see the positive momentum even before your website attracts visitors. This value can be an important driver for all your SEO activities. Visibility is extremely useful if you want to monitor the initial results of website optimization.

To track the dynamics of visibility, you can use the Google Search Console use

In the performance report you can see the value for the total impressions. Every time a user comes to the search results page that contains your URL contains, a Impression recorded.

4. left

Links should be used for SEO expertn always be considered an important SEO metric. Backlinks are today one of the most important factors for the Ranking. This means that your SEO strategy should revolve around acquiring links.

So the more links you get, the better, right? Not quite. If you get low-quality links, not only will you not be able to improve your authority, but your ranking in the Ranking even impair it.

To ensure that you build a high-quality link profile, it is important to check the quality of the links. For this purpose, you need one of the backlink analysis tools. The tools I would recommend include:

• Majestic
• Ahrefs
• Moz's Links Explorer

Each of these tools offers a link authority index: the higher it is, the better the link. When you enter your domain, you will see a score that estimates the quality of your link profile based on the number and quality of referring domains.

At Ahrefs it is the so-called Domain Rating, DR for short.

5. organic CTR

The Click-through rate (CTR) is a performance metric that measures the ratio of clicks on your link to the total number of users who view the Search results have looked at. In other words: high CTR = high Traffic.

The CTR is also an important Ranking-signal for search engines. For example, if your search snippets don't look appealing enough, even high rankings won't help you attract more visitors. The result is that your CTR leaves a lot to be desired. A low CTR shows the search robots that your website does not meet the expectations of users, which can lead to a lower ranking.

Those who focus only on Traffic and rankings often makes the mistake of overlooking this KPI. If you track your organic CTR, you can find out why your high visitor numbers are not leading to significant traffic. Traffic and rectify the problem.

To monitor your CTR, you can use the Google Search Console.

6. branded traffic

Branded Traffic is the Trafficthat comes from users who have searched for terms containing your company name. If brand awareness is important for your brand, the Branded Traffic be one of your most important KPIs.

Since searchers already know what they want when they search for the brand keywords, this type of Traffic to the highest conversions.

You can track this KPI using Google Search Console:

Add all keywords related to your brand name to the search console filter.

Track how the total number of clicks and impressions changes over time.

7. bounce rate

Also Bounce rate called. This metric measures the percentage of your website visitors who left your website without doing anything on the page.

This is another important metric that search engines consider to be a Ranking-factor is taken into account. Depending on the industry, a typical bounce rate should be between 40 and 60 %. If the percentage is too high, this indicates that the page is not relevant for the search query.

Monitor the bounce rate of your pages in your overview report in Google Analyticsso you can find out which pages have a high Bounce rate that should make it much easier for you to analyze.

8. average visit time

How much time do your visitors usually spend on your website? Are you encouraging them to stay longer? Average session duration is an important metric to consider when measuring user engagement on your website.

If you monitor the session duration, you can assess the quality of your website and recognize whether you need to make changes to your website structure.

To achieve a longer session duration, you should create a detailed content structure: internal linking, Breadcrumbs, Hamburger menus etc.

9. cost per click

In contrast to paid campaigns, there is no amount that you have to pay Google for each click in the organic search results. However, the organic Traffic its costs.

The organic cost per click (CPC) determines how much you pay for each visitor from the organic search results. You can calculate these costs using the following formula:

Your budget / websiteTraffic

Your budget" is all the money you spend on the Search engine optimization spend,

SEO tools, copywriting, etc.

If your SEO strategy is effective enough, the CPC will decrease every month.

10. ROI

ROI (return on investment) is an indicator that you can measure for all your marketing campaigns. By calculating the ROI for SEO, you can determine whether the net return is worth the money you spend on optimizing your website.

Here's the formula you can use to calculate your ROI as a percentage:

(Profit from the investment - cost of the investment) / cost of the investment

Note that this value is often negative in the beginning. However, with a successful strategy, you will see the positive dynamics after a few months.