Unlocking Success: Unveiling the Key Metrics for SEO Dominance

Optimizing your site for search engines improves visibility so more searchers can find your pages. This drives quality and organic traffic to your website. But, how do you know whether your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts are working? You need to track SEO metrics.

Studies show that companies with the most mature SEO strategies track the most metrics.

And the reason is simple: Metrics show your progress and performance. Tracking changes to your SEO over time is the only way to understand whether you’re actually improving visibility with your organic strategies.

But which metrics should you track?

Let’s take a closer look at the most important SEO metrics. We’ll also cover some metrics you don’t need to worry about.

What Are SEO Metrics and Why is it Important to Choose the Right Ones?

SEO metrics are the measurements you use to track how well your website performs in search engines. 

Imagine SEO metrics as the dashboard of a car. They tell you how fast you’re traveling, how much fuel is left, and whether you have engine problems.

When you consider that organic search produces almost 40% of all website traffic, it’s clear that it’s important to optimize your website for search engines. The easier it is for potential customers to find you through search engines, the more organic search traffic you’ll see.

But if you aren’t measuring the right metrics, you won’t know if your tactics work.

Tracking SEO metrics is crucial for several reasons.

First, it shows whether your SEO strategies are working.

Secondly, it helps you understand whether you’re getting a return on investment (ROI) for these techniques. It’s no use implementing many successful strategies if you’re not seeing revenue growth from them.

Lastly, it helps you stay on top of search engine algorithm changes. 

By tracking metrics, you can quickly identify performance drops. This can indicate algorithm updates. When you stay on top of this, you can adjust your strategies to match these updates.

But it’s important to pick the right metrics to understand whether you’re reaching your targets.

Each metric should directly relate to your business goals.

For example, to boost brand awareness, you’ll need to track metrics like click-through rates. If you’re trying to figure out whether your SEO investment is worthwhile, you’ll need to focus on revenue growth compared to SEO costs.

If you pick the wrong metrics, you won’t understand if your tactics are working.

For instance, tracking the number of pages on your site won’t help you determine whether your pages are getting hits.

7 Key SEO Metrics to Measure and What They Tell You

If you want a full picture of SEO success, you need to track the performance of your tactics. 

Here are some of the most important metrics you need to keep an eye on.

1. Organic Traffic

Organic traffic is the most tracked metric.

It shows the number of visitors that arrive on your site through search engines without clicking on a paid ad.

You can monitor organic traffic to your entire website or to particular pages. 

Domain organic traffic tells you whether you get more visitors overall, while page traffic tells you which content attracts visitors.

For example, SoFi tracks organic monthly page traffic. It noticed that its blog about the differences between APY and interest rates gets a lot of views. 

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With this result, SoFi now produces more explainer content to help people understand different financial terms.

2. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Your click-through rate (CTR) shows you the percentage of users who search for a term and then click your link after seeing it in search results. 

Essentially, it’s the percentage of searchers that choose you over the other search results.

While it seems to overlap with organic traffic, there’s a subtle difference between the two metrics. 

Organic traffic counts total visitors to see if your SEO strategy works overall.

CTR focuses on how effective your listing is at getting clicks compared to its surrounding competitors.

For instance, high traffic but low CTR means people do head to your site, but not as their first choice. This shows you that your title or meta description might need improving. 

Tracking CTR helps you understand whether the changes you make to your content increase its appeal. If you aim to improve engagement and attract more visitors from search results, you need to track CTR.

3. Domain Authority/Page Authority

Domain Authority (DA) is a predictor of how well your website is likely to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). Page Authority (PA) focuses on individual pages. 

SEO platform Moz created this metric, which gives your site or page a score out of 100. Semrush has a similar metric known as Domain Rating.

The score relates to the website or page’s authority and credibility as a source on a specific topic. The idea is that the most trustworthy and useful source will rank highest. 

For example, Royal Moving Company tracks PA for its page about expert movers in San Francisco. 

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By comparing its page’s PA to the PA of its competitors, it can work out whether it’s offering the most value to searchers. If the PA is lower than competing pages, the article might need optimization.

Tracking DA and PA over time shows you whether your site is gaining credibility. This is important if your strategic goal is to boost search engine rankings and brand trust.

4. Number of Backlinks

Backlink volume shows you how many websites link to your site or page. 

It’s really important to track this, as sites with more backlinks rank higher. 

This is because backlinks show that your website is an authority on a subject, as other sites use you as a source or recommend your services.

If your SEO goal is to improve trustworthiness and credibility, as well as boost rankings, you need to track backlinks. 

By tracking backlinks, you can also work out the types of sites that refer traffic to your site. 

Armed with this information, you can improve your backlinking strategy as you know which sites to approach for backlinks.

For example, Beaches of Normandy tracks backlinks (as well as other strategic SEO metrics) to see how many people recommend it for WWII tours across Europe. 

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By delving into competitor analysis, identifying content gaps, and conducting thorough keyword research, they’ve significantly increased their Domain Rating (DR) from 19 to 51 in just a year. 

This strategic approach has translated into impressive results: 2.6K backlinks, ranking for 4K keywords, and attracting 1.8K monthly organic visitors. Their story highlights the power of a well-executed SEO plan 

5. Keyword Ranking

Keyword ranking can refer to two different metrics. 

You can measure how well your site ranks for specific target keywords. You can also measure which keywords your site ranks highly for.

Keep in mind that the top three Google results receive two-thirds of all clicks.

If your goal is to improve search engine visibility, this metric is essential.

Measuring your rankings for relevant keywords helps you identify which pages ‌rank in spots four to ten. These are the articles you need to optimize first so they reach the top three. 

Measuring the keywords your site ranks for tells you what people search for when they find your site. Knowing this helps you create more content to attract similar searches.

6. Traffic Cost

While it’s important to measure traffic and rankings, none of this matters if the cost of optimization outweighs the result.

SEO traffic cost estimates the marketing costs of your organic traffic if, instead of working on SEO, you paid for Google Ads. 

This shows you the value of your SEO efforts in monetary terms.

This helps you understand whether the time and effort your team puts into SEO returns the investment. If your traffic cost is very high, it may be more cost-effective to run paid ads instead.

You can use Semrush to find out this information.

7. Coverage Errors

SEO coverage errors are problems that stop search engines from being able to index your site correctly.

If your site doesn’t index correctly, you won’t appear in the right searches. 

Identifying coverage errors helps you resolve problems like broken links or service issues. 

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This is an important aspect of technical SEO. Fixing these errors provides full online visibility in relevant searches, improving your site’s overall health and SEO performance.

You can find this information in Google Search Console. 

3 SEO Metrics You Don’t Need to Obsess Over

Feel free to track the following metrics — but don’t let them define your strategy. 

Here’s why: 

1. Bounce Rate

Don’t get hung up on bounce rate. 

You might think it’s an indicator of people leaving your site without acting. 

However, bounce rates also encompass failed website launches, session timeouts, and ad-block users.

So, while it shows people who leave quickly, it doesn’t show you why. To get useful insights from this metric, you’d need to segment it quite heavily.

2. Exit Rate

Exit rate shows you the percentage of sessions that end on particular pages.

If you’re thinking negatively, you’ll look at this through the lens of visitors leaving because they’re dissatisfied.

But that’s not always true. 

Lots of people leave because they’ve found what they’re looking for. 

In this respect, it doesn’t really help you make informed decisions on which actions to take.

3. Average Session Duration

Again, some users find what they need quickly. 

A short session duration doesn’t necessarily translate to poor user experiences.

Just like exit rate information, this doesn’t really tell you much about how satisfied customers are.

Track the Metrics That Work For You

In short, SEO metrics are extremely useful to help you get a picture of whether your SEO tactics are working and where you need to improve.

But, if you want to understand whether you’re reaching your organizational goals, the metrics you track should relate directly to those goals.

Just remember, SEO isn’t just about high-quality content. You also need to boost your authority and credibility. 

Link building is the ultimate way to do this.

Ready to learn how to boost your site’s backlinks to supercharge search engine visibility? Talk to an expert at Intercool Studio now.