SEO KPIs: The key metrics that actually measure your SEO success

• Use SEO KPIs to evaluate and optimize your SEO efforts
• Avoid vanity KPIs
• Focus on meaningful SEO KPIs to measure your SEO success
• Align SEO KPIs with your business goals
• Organic conversions may be the most important SEO metric

Organic traffic growth

At its core, SEO is all about securing strong rankings in search engine results to drive visitors to your website. So it’s no surprise that organic traffic – clicks from unpaid search listings – is one of the most fundamental SEO metrics.

But instead of just monitoring total click numbers, it’s far more useful to track traffic growth against specific goals. What percentage increase are you targeting over a given period? More importantly, are you attracting qualified traffic – users who are actually likely to convert?

Tailor your focus to what matters most for your business. In some cases, it’s better to measure traffic growth for specific site sections – especially if you're pushing a new product line or shifting your strategic positioning.

Keep in mind: High click numbers alone are just another vanity metric. If that traffic isn’t converting or supporting your business goals, it’s not delivering real value. To turn clicks into results, your content needs clear conversion paths – like links to your store, newsletter sign-ups, or registration forms. That’s how traffic becomes an actionable KPI.

Non-branded traffic growth

When evaluating your SEO performance, don’t just focus on total website traffic – pay close attention to the growth of clicks from non-branded search queries. Non-branded traffic refers to organic visits that come from searches that don’t include your brand name or specific product names.

An increase in non-branded traffic shows that your content isn’t just reaching existing customers – it’s building brand awareness and attracting new audiences through generic search terms. Steady growth in this area is a strong sign of long-term SEO success.

Non-branded traffic is especially important as a KPI if your strategy includes educational or advisory content that goes beyond just promoting products. For revenue-driven goals, it’s also smart to target transactional non-branded keywords – for example, if a gardening tools brand ranks highly for the generic term 'lawn mower.'

If your brand doesn’t currently rank #1 for its own name – or if boosting brand awareness is a top priority – you might choose to track branded traffic as a KPI instead. In that case, campaigns and other marketing efforts will likely play a bigger role. Still, from a SEO standpoint, non-branded traffic is typically the stronger driver of long-term growth.

Organic conversions

While generated traffic is a central SEO metric, organic conversions may well be the most important SEO KPI. SEO success only becomes tangible when organic reach is translated into measurable conversions. A high number of visitors means little if it doesn’t lead to the desired actions on your website.

To use organic conversions as a meaningful SEO KPI, you first need to clearly define your conversion goals. Depending on your business objectives, these goals could include actions like product purchases, sign-ups, or downloads. Clearly defined conversion goals allow you to evaluate and adjust your SEO strategy based on what truly contributes to your company’s success.

That said, focus only on KPIs your team can directly influence. For instance, if your content successfully directs users to your online shop – but your team doesn’t manage the checkout process – then tracking completed purchases may not be the most accurate KPI for SEO.

If the checkout experience isn’t optimized, even top-performing SEO won’t deliver results. In that case, it may be smarter to track clicks into the shop as your SEO KPI. The actual sale can then be tracked as a separate KPI by the team managing the shop.

Top rankings

Ranking high in search results drives clicks – that much is clear. According to Advanced Web Ranking, roughly 30% of users click the first result on Google, about 15% click the second, and just under 9% click the third – across all devices.

With numbers like that, it makes sense to use top rankings as a SEO KPI. But it’s important to stay realistic. You’re not going to land in the top 3 for every keyword – especially if you’re also targeting some secondary keywords.

Instead, consider defining top rankings for your most strategically important areas. For instance, if your company sells a range of tools but is especially known for high-quality hammers, then a suitable SEO KPI might be to rank in the top 3 for all hammer-related searches.

That way, you’re building strong visibility around your core product first. From there, you can expand your content strategy to support the rest of your offering – without holding yourself to top-ranking KPIs that aren’t yet realistic.

Content ad value

SEO marketing is a long-term game. Unlike traditional marketing campaigns that aim for quick sales, SEO is all about building lasting, strategic value. Still, it’s important to demonstrate a return on investment (ROI) for SEO content – especially when it’s time to justify budgets to top-level management.

Content ad value is a great SEO KPI for this. It shows how much it would cost to buy the traffic generated through SEO via Google Ads. After all, reach has real value – and companies invest significant budgets in advertising and campaigns.

So content ad value isn’t just an effective way to measure your SEO performance – it also lets you compare your SEO efforts to other marketing activities. That can be a powerful argument in favor of SEO when the next media budget discussion comes around.

Share of voice

In marketing, share of voice (SOV) refers to the percentage of a brand’s advertising presence compared to its competitors. It gives insight into how prominently your brand is showing up in the minds of your target audience.

In online marketing, SOV is often used to measure overall digital visibility. For example, in social media, it tracks the percentage of brand mentions across platforms. In SEO, however, share of voice refers specifically to your brand’s share of organic search traffic compared to the total available search traffic in your category.

That makes SOV a valuable SEO KPI – because it places your organic performance directly in context with your competitors. Tools like Wincher allow you to track all your relevant keywords and calculate your share of voice based on rankings, search volume, and average click-through rate (CTR). The result: a clear picture of how much of the potential organic traffic your brand is capturing versus your key competitors.

Backlink growth

A backlink is a link from an external website to content on your own site – and a strong backlink profile remains one of the most important ranking factors in SEO. The more high-quality sources that view your content as relevant and trustworthy, the stronger the signal to Google that your site deserves to rank. That’s why it makes sense to track backlink growth as a SEO KPI.

But it’s not just about quantity. In fact, links from low-authority websites can do more harm than good. A high-quality backlink profile is built on links from trusted, thematically relevant domains.

Tools like Ahrefs allow you to monitor the authority of your referring domains.

For SEO consultants, part of the job may also include identifying and removing harmful or toxic links. This can be a tedious task – and one reason we advise against buying backlinks altogether.

Instead, invest in high-quality SEO content that earns backlinks naturally. With the right content strategy, you can create valuable, relevant resources that others genuinely want to link to.

Also involve your PR team and actively build relationships with relevant websites. For example, it may be worth reaching out to existing retail or business partners and encouraging them to link to your content – a simple but effective way to drive targeted backlink growth. If you're a SaaS provider, you can also explore opportunities to include backlinks on third-party sites where your tool is embedded.