Which SEO KPIs Should You Measure (And Why)?

1. Bounce Rates
Bounce rate is an important SEO metric. Bounce rate tells you how many visitors leave your site after visiting only one page. It does not directly impact SEO scores but can be a warning sign. A small percentage of bounce rate is expected and normal. However, a big increase is a cause for concern. It means that people are either not finding relevant information or hint at problems with the site itself.

Work on reducing the bounce rate. You can start by ensuring that the pages are well-formatted and the text is readable. Ensure that product landing pages contain helpful information and clear calls to action, such as a Buy or Home button.

2. Average Time Per Session
A session in SEO terms is a person's visit to your website. It lasts from the time they land on your site and the time they exit. The average session duration of a user on your site is a valuable metric to track. It can tell you a lot about the website quality and relevance of content on it.

You can use Google Analytics or other tools to track it. It's a healthy sign if you see visitors stay on your site for long periods without being idle. It shows that your site has something of interest, which could lead to a sale. It also tells you if your internal linking and navigation are on point.

3. Pages per Session
The pages per session KPI tells you how many pages a user visits during a single session. This is helpful for you to determine if your SEO efforts are paying off. A person visiting many pages and spending time on each is a good trend. It shows that the on-page optimization, as well as the content, are of value.

If the numbers for this KPI are low, it could point to one or more issues. For example, the site's internal navigation may not be intuitive, or there could be content gaps.

Use Google Analytics to derive this metric and keep a close watch on the numbers. A low pages-per-session rate over several days can indicate a potential red flag.

4. Total Number of Ranking Keywords
Tracking keywords is one of the most vital SEO metrics. They give you the first signs that your SEO strategy is working as planned. Keywords reflect your products and customer intent in their use within your content and on the site. Your website ranks high when the keywords you use are searched often.

Measuring keyword volume over time is essential. There are many paid and free tools that can help you measure keyword effectiveness. Some keywords rank higher than others. You must track these numbers regularly to get an idea of where you may be lacking.

Don't panic for minor dips. These happen due to Google algorithm updates, but keep working on quality content and site optimization.

5. Track Featured Snippets
Featured snippets quickly answer a user's question on Google. A small box on the results page displays the best answer. The content for snippets is taken from existing sites with the best rankings.
Featured snippets are important as they appear above other results on Google. It gets the visitor's attention and drives organic traffic.

To get your content featured on snippets, start with basic research. Enter a keyword and see what comes up in the snippet. Work on better content with the same keyword to overtake it. To get your content featured, focus on the main question. Stay focused on the question and write precise, verified, and relevant information. Use structured data and format the text well to stand a chance.

6. Backlink Volume and Traffic Generated
In SEO, backlinks play a vital role in ranking your site—backlinks from sites with authority boost SEO. Any new authoritative site that links to yours builds your credibility. Google ranks your site as valuable when it sees this happening.

Tracking backlinks is a best practice to measure SEO KPIs. Use tools like Ahrefs or SE Rankings to gather actionable data. Get data about the total number of backlinks along with the traffic volume generated from them.

When you analyze backlinks, track the following:
•    Number of backlinks
•    The volume of unique referring domains
•    Referral traffic from backlinks
•    New and lost backlinks
•    Most valuable backlinks

Keeping a watch on these KPIs is essential to growing your SEO ranks.

7. Page Exit Rate Over Time
If people are not staying on your site or product pages for long, it's a problem. It indicates an issue with your content or other technical issues. Both these factors are major KPIs for tracking SEO efforts.

The exit rate is defined as the number of people exiting your page divided by page views for that page.

This metric is helpful to understand the relevance of the information on your site. If your page shows a high exit rate, it means people are not finding answers there.

The exit rate is directly related to your page optimization and content quality. Perform a detailed audit of the site to identify and fix any big gaps seen in these areas.

8. Page Loading Speed
Google has started ranking sites based on how well they perform on a mobile device. It's a given that any site that aims to win the SEO game needs to embrace the mobile-first approach. Google uses page load speeds as a parameter for its rankings.

Poor loading speeds directly impact the customer experience. It also affects two other key SEO KPIs-bounce rate and exit rate. Use Google's free PageSpeed Insights tool to check the speed of your site. The tool generates a helpful report that gives you clues about the cause of slow site loads.

A best practice to do well in this metric is to minimize the use of large-sized images, gifs, and videos on your site.

9.Organic Traffic From Mobile Devices
Mobile devices are everywhere. A large chunk of online searches and site visits happen on these devices. It is prudent to track site visits and other SEO metrics for mobile phones on a regular basis. Doing so will tell you how much organic traffic is coming to you from mobile phones.

You can analyze the trends to identify many site issues that directly affect SEO KPIs. Track metrics such as usage patterns, site load speeds, and usability issues. You must ensure that your site meets the most expected standards for mobile sites. This ensures better engagement with your mobile user base. Follow the best practices for mobile SEO optimization to rank well on this vital KPI.

10.Location-based organic sessions
If your company has a physical store with one or more branches, tracking location-based data is prudent. This data tells you if your Local SEO strategy is working. Local SEO is the best way to get your brand name amplified in local searches.

Keep track of organic traffic that you get to the site. Filter this traffic by locations where you have a physical presence. This is an essential KPI for SEO. You can filter this data on your Google My Business page to get precise metrics.

Tracking this metric is good for business expansion. If you see more traffic in a specific location, it can be a potential hotspot to expand your business.

11.Organic Traffic
Organic traffic is a term you often hear when working on SEO. It is the visitor traffic you get from showing up on search results without paying a promoter. It is the single most important SEO KPI to measure as a business and an SEO agency.

There are many tools to measure this metric. SEMRush is a popular tool for measuring organic traffic. It is used to measure organic traffic for your site as well as competitors. Google Search Console is a powerful free tool. It gives you a lot of data and insights to help you improve organic traffic.

Track organic data to see where your visitors are coming from and their online journey after leaving your site.

12.Traffic From Paid Campaigns
The best way to measure your SEO effectiveness is to track qualified visitors. These are visitors who are most likely to buy from you. You may be using the services of an agency to boost your SEO scores. It could include strategies like PPC (Pay-per-click) or Social Media Marketing.

Track any paid promotions to gauge their value. Online marketing companies sometimes use shortcuts to drive traffic. Most of this traffic may not be your audience. Ask the online marketing company to send you regular reports on the performance.

Audit these results closely to see if the money you are spending is paying off. Traffic from paid promos is a vital KPI to get a measure of your SEO strategy.

13. Conversion Rates
Conversion rate is the rate at which casual site visitors end up making a buy. As a business, this is the most important metric for growth. The primary purpose of all SEO tactics is to sell more and gain more customers.

It's easy to track how many site visitors were successfully converted. Many free and paid tools can give you a detailed analysis of this key metric. You can track the conversion rate for the whole site or break it down to different landing pages. Regular analysis of this data can help you come up with better content and site structure to drive more sales. Set up conversion goals for your SEO strategy and work on it.

14. Click-through-rate (CTR)
Click-through-rate (CTR) is a popular metric for SEO. It tells you the percentage of people who landed on your site after clicking your site in the search results. It's simple to measure. For example, if ten people saw your name in the search listing but only one person clicked it, your CTR becomes 10%. It is an important metric to track for SEO.

It indicates if your SEO techniques are adding value. A high CTR is directly related to the content quality of your site and the site structure. Work on great content and creating attractive snippets to get more visitors. You can use Google Search Console to track this metric. Keep a regular tab on it.

15. Cadence For Content Publishing
Content is king. There is no doubt that Google ranks sites with quality content on a much higher scale. A strong content strategy is a must for long-term SEO success. Focus on creating relevant and long-form content that adds value to a user's search.

It is vital to track how often you publish new content or refresh existing content. Creating tons of content during site launch and forgetting about it is a poor SEO practice. Maintain an internal tracker for content. It should track how often you post new material. It will also help you plan for special promos and holidays when new content has the most impact on SEO. Don't ignore this SEO KPI, even if it's tracked internally.

16. Revenue Earned Per Unique Visitor (RPV)
RPV or Revenue Per Visitor is a crucial sales metric for SEO. It tells you how much sales you make on an average per visitor. You can calculate it by dividing your overall revenue by the number of unique visitors.

Measuring this KPI tells you the type of visitors you attract. It can hint at gaps in content or product quality that needs to be overcome to get healthier numbers. It helps your sales team craft better sales and marketing campaigns. You can try out referral campaigns, promos, and upsells to boost your sales figures.

There are many tools online to help you calculate RPV metrics. Ensure that you take positive action if the RPV figures go down drastically.

17. Most Viewed Posts
Every website owner wants to know which type of content pulls in the most number of visitors. Keeping an eye on these helps you create and update relevant content. Monitoring total page views and time spent is a good KPI to measure.

Set yourself a target every quarter to ensure that your content team is working on great content. Google Analytics is a free tool that can help you measure the most viewed posts. It can break down the total views into individual pages. Filter it to see which pages had the most traction.

Tracking this metric has other benefits. For example, you can look at poor-performing pages and evaluate if the content needs updating or is obsolete.

18. Validate Domain Authority
Domain Authority or DA is a metric that shows your site ranking on a broad scale of 1-100 compared to other sites online. It is not a Google ranking but indirectly helps better SEO. It's calculated by evaluating many factors that help build credibility. It is a good metric to check to see how your site fares compared to the competition.

Reputed SEO sites that help businesses gain higher rankings have their own algorithms. Among them, Moz and SEM Rush are popular for their DA scores.
When analyzing if you have a good DA score, don't compare with top sites like Google or Wiki. Instead, see where you rank compared to your closest competitors in the market.

19. Competitor Performance
Keeping a close watch on the SEO tactics used by your competition is rewarding. Tracking competition does not mean copying their methods. Seeing the tactics they use can help you improve your SEO strategy. It pays off in the long term.

Track their social media posts, rankings, and content. Generate regular reports to see your own SEO KPIs measure against theirs. Doing so will keep you one step ahead and establish you as a leader in your domain.

Many tools help you with competitor tracking. Popular tools include SpyFu, Infini Graph, and Open Site Explorer. Use the insights from these tools to solidify your SEO game.

20. Backlinks Lost
Let's face it. Building quality backlinks is hard work. It is one of the most important KPIs for good SEO alongside quality keywords. It can be devastating when quality backlinks are lost. You can lose backlinks if the other site removes them. It can also happen during mistakes during site restructure efforts as part of your SEO plan.

Tracking lost links and reclaiming them helps you build credibility. Tools like the Site Explorer from Ahrefs are a great place to begin. It enables you to locate lost links. You can track the exact reason you lost the links. Most times, it's because the other site refreshed their content. Aim to reclaim as many backlinks as possible.

21. Top Performing Backlinks
Building site domain credibility through backlinks is a significant part of SEO. It increases brand visibility with users and search engines. If you're serious about SEO, you must work on quality link building.
Add backlink performance tracking as a part of your SEO KPI checklist. Check how much referral traffic they are bringing you.

If a set of backlinks are bringing in revenue, it makes sense to connect with the webmasters. You can come to a mutual agreement to help each other. Keep track of your quality backlinks every week. If you lose any due to content restructure, try and reclaim them from the other website as much as possible.

22. Site Crawl Errors
Search engines access your site pages before indexing them for searches. This process known as crawling tells them about the content on your pages. It helps users get relevant search results.
Crawl errors can prevent search engines from indexing your site. There can be two types of errors:
•    Unable to crawl and index the entire site
•    Unable to index specific landing pages
Tracking this KPI is crucial to better SEO rankings. Crawl errors identify site structure issues early. Broken links frustrate customers and kill revenue. Be sure to monitor crawl errors with Google Search Console. It is free and powerful. It displays the number of crawl errors (with date and time) along with the number of pages successfully indexed.

23. Social Media Outreach Metrics
Social media has changed the way we make our purchase decisions. It has the power to boost or destroy brand credibility in an instant. Every business with an online presence maintains a social media account in today's world. The quality of content you share here earns you followers. They, in turn, become your brand ambassadors and promote your company.

A solid social media presence is directly related to better SEO scores. It engages your users and drives traffic to your site. Track your social media campaigns often. Useful parameters to monitor include:
•    Brand mentions
•    Likes, comments, and shares
•    Clicks to content on your site
•    Conversions from social media traffic

These metrics help you build better content for your site.

24. Branded and Non-branded Search Volumes
Branded search is nothing but people directly looking up a brand name on Google. For example, Adidas sports shoes. Brand awareness helps you strengthen your reputation. Branded and non-branded traffic volumes are vital KPIs to track.

Branded searches result in most conversions. This is because people searching with a brand name have already zeroed in on your product. There are many ways to track this metric. The best way is using the Google Search Console.

Add all the keywords related to your brand and run a search to get a chart with the metrics. Run a similar filtered search for non-branded volume too. You can use common keywords related to your brand to extract this data.

25. Average Content-Length
It is a myth that short content is easy to consume. Short content is useful only in specific scenarios, for example, FAQs on a site. People tend to trust sites with long and well fleshed out content. Content length has a direct implication on SEO. Hence, content length is a useful SEO KPI to track.

Long content earns more backlinks and tends to get more social shares. Both these factors are essential to get your site on the first page of search results. It also affects other SEO KPIs, such as the average time a person spends on the page and the click-through rate.

Your content team must track this for each post on the website for best results.

26. Visitor Dwell Time
Dwell time is the time a visitor spends on a web or product page. Measuring dwell time is key to knowing how well your SEO and content strategy is working. This metric is essential for several reasons. The longer a person stays on your site, the more likely they are to buy your product. Also, a longer dwell time indicates that your content is engaging and relevant.

You can track dwell time using Google Analytics. Look at the average session duration data to determine the dwell time. Tracking dwell time is a must after you have made significant content and site URL changes. Work on better content and optimize your site structure if the dwell time is consistently low.

27. On-Page Optimization Score
On-page optimization is a primary aspect of SEO planning. It makes the site user-friendly and taking care that all technical aspects of the site are in order. Sites with poor optimization scores have lower rankings, even though they may feature great content. On-page optimization score is a crucial KPI in SEO. It takes into account:

•    Technical SEO such as search-friendly URLs, Site metadata, and titles.
•    Unique content
•    Mobile-friendly interface
•    Intuitive navigation

Audit your site on the above factors. Sites like SEMRush can help you with it. They generate a total score with a breakdown of the main areas that may need work. On-page optimization is an ongoing effort. Work on your site's on-page elements constantly for better search rankings.

28. Performance of Landing Pages
Landing pages are pages on a site that a visitor arrives at by clicking a link. The link could be from a search engine, an email, or a social media post. A landing page has helpful information the customer wants and urges them to take action, such as buy a product.

Visitors land at these pages from many sources. This could include search engines or paid campaigns to drive sales. Tracking landing page performance is an essential SEO KPI. It can give you insights to improve conversion rates.

Track the following metrics for landing pages:
•    Number of views
•    Conversion rate
•    Visitor dwell time and bounce rates
•    Pages per session
Track the above metrics by configuring the specific filters in Google Analytics.

29. Bing Traffic
Google is synonymous with search engines. People often forget that there are other search engines too. Bing is a big name. It has a significant market share among search engines. Most often, businesses miss out on tracking visitor traffic from Bing.

Monitoring the traffic from ping can give you deep insights into your audience. It can help you curate finer content to drive higher sales and SEO rankings on Bing and Google.
Just like Google, Bing has its own set of powerful webmaster and SEO tools. These tools allow you to:
•    Track which queries are performing well
•    Identify queries for which optimization is needed
•    See page-wise performance
•    Analyze performance data from the past 6-months

30. Duplicate Titles and Descriptions
It's a common practice to use a unique title and description for each page of your site. Easy as it may seem, this gets overlooked when working with large sites or under a tight deadline. Duplicate tiles and descriptions dilute the site's content. For example, you may have two pages with the title as product overview. This lowers the relevancy of your landing pages with users and search engines.

Keeping track of duplicate content is the best way to ace this important SEO KPI. You can use Google Search Console to identify duplicate titles and descriptions. Rename or remove them as needed.
Run a website audit every few weeks or whenever you make new content updates to the site.