How to Monitor SEO Performance the Right Way

by Thomas Petracco · Updated Feb 15, 2023

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Performance tracking is a crucial part of any SEO strategy, as tracking gives you valuable insights into what’s working and what isn’t. The right insights will help you tweak and perfect your strategy over time.

In this article, we’ll get into the details of monitoring your SEO campaign efficiently, starting with the basics - understanding everything the term SEO performance covers.

What is SEO performance?

SEO performance refers to the effectiveness of your search engine optimization (SEO) activities that aim to improve the ranking of your page on search engine results pages (SERPs) and the volume of organic traffic you get.

Numerous factors contribute to your SEO success, and you should measure and monitor each of them to evaluate whether you are hitting the marks.

These measurable indicators of particular data tied to your SEO results are known as metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs). You can think of them as the lighthouse that steers your ship in the right direction.

In addition to SERP ranking and organic traffic, crawlability, keyword rankings, visibility, click-through rate (CTR), conversion and bounce rates, and page speed are important SEO metrics to monitor. I will go back to these in greater detail when we talk about the 12 SEO metrics to track performance.

Why you should track your SEO efforts

Setting up and implementing a search engine optimization strategy is a laborious process; even when done right, it takes a while to yield results. Let’s explain this with an example.

Suppose that the wheels of your SEO strategy have been set in motion:

You have identified clear SEO goals in line with your niche audience’s search intent and your business objectives;
You have created a good amount of insightful and exciting content in line with your content strategy; and
You have built a network of quality backlinks and internal links.

Still, your page rank and return on investment (ROI) are not what you initially expected.

Don’t worry - that does not mean your SEO strategy is flawed, but it may need a gentle nudge in the right direction.

You'll need data and real numbers to know what action to take to fine-tune your strategy. This is where SEO performance monitoring comes in.

Note that Google accounts for about 92% of the search engine market. Because of this and the fact that SEO aims to improve your website's ranking on search engine result pages (SERPs), all SEO efforts are efforts to optimize your content for Google's algorithm.

However, Google’s algorithm is subjected to constant changes and updates. SEO tactics that worked wonders just a week ago might hurt your rating this week if the algorithm changes. Tracking your SEO performance gives you an opportunity to identify such changes and take immediate action to ensure you reach your ultimate goal.

Here are a few additional examples of the benefits you’ll reap with SEO tracking:

Monitoring your page’s/site’s ranking will help you track your performance at all times and make the necessary adjustments to stay on top of the latest SEO trends.
Monitoring which keywords you rank for is also vital for your site’s performance.
Content creation is a very competitive business, so monitoring your content score is another helpful performance indicator if you want to be ahead of the game.

The quantity of tracked metrics in SEO is separate from quality results. Research by Moz shows that focusing on fewer yet highly relevant performance indicators over a prolonged period yields better results.

However, advances in the SEO field have contributed to a mind-boggling number of trackable SEO performance indicators. Because of this, the first step is determining which metrics are crucial to your site’s performance goals.

Once you have a clear idea, you need to set your trackers and regularly monitor, compare, and improve where necessary.

To help you find the right SEO performance indicators for your business, we’ll go over the 12 most relevant SEO KPIs.

The 12 SEO metrics to track performance

When monitoring your site’s performance, you want to pay attention to the following groups of important metrics:

Organic search metrics

Engagement metrics

Technical metrics

Page speed

Domain metrics

These metrics influence how well your page will do among organic search results and, consequently, its visibility and profitability.

So, let’s see what each of these metrics indicates and how to improve them.

Organic search metrics

Since SEO is about organically ranking high on SERPs, we’ll start our list with important metrics related to organic search.

Crawlability

Crawlability measures how accessible your page is to search engines. You might already know this, but search engines find pages with the help of web crawlers (also known as spiders or spider bots). These bots are automated programs that continuously “read” through the web’s content to discover and index new pages.

As Google explains: “Crawlers look at web pages and follow links on those pages, much like you would if you were browsing content on the web.

To ensure good crawlability:

Remove broken links.
Submit a sitemap.
Improve your site’s structure.
Improve your backlink profile.
Be careful with Javascript rendered elements.

Organic traffic

Organic traffic, i.e., website traffic coming from organic, unpaid search results, is a vital metric, if not the ultimate goal of SEO.

Keeping a close eye on organic traffic is a good way to measure the impact of your SEO strategy.

Keyword rankings

Knowing the keywords related to your business and industry that web users most commonly use in search queries is essential for showing your content to those interested in it.

Tracking your keyword rankings to see how your content performs is the best way to confirm that you’re targeting the right keywords.

Visibility

SEO visibility indicates how visible your webpage or website is in the organic search results on the SERPs. This is an index that makes it possible to identify and analyze potential issues and find ways to remedy them.

Engagement metrics

The next thing to pay attention to when monitoring your SEO impact is engagement metrics. These metrics give you insight into web users’ behavior once they have visited your page/site.

Click-through rate (CTR)

Your clickthrough rate (CTR) refers to the percentage of users who visit your page after finding it in Google search results.

Conversion rate

The conversion rate tells you about the percentage of web users performing a desired action on your page while visiting it.

Bounce rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of web users who have landed on a page and left without performing a specific action.

Average session duration

This tells you how much time people usually spend on your page.

Pages per visit

Pages per visit (or pages per session) measures how many web pages a user views on a particular website.

Technical metrics

Technical metrics show the impact of your technical SEO efforts or whether your website is sufficiently optimized for search engines to crawl it easily and index it.

Page speed

Page speed is the time it takes for a page to load fully after the user clicks on its link.

Domain metrics

Domain metrics are another KPI you should pay attention to. They are credible indicators of a site’s ranking potential in search engine results.

Domain authority

Domain authority is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz, which predicts the likelihood of a website ranking in SERPs.

Domain backlinks

The total number of backlinks directing users to your website is another important SEO performance metric.

Best SEO tools to track SEO performance

Now that you know what SEO metrics to monitor let’s see how you can automate that process with some of the best tools to track SEO performance - Dashword Monitoring and two of Google Suite’s free tools: Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

Dashword monitoring

Dashword monitoring tracks the content of your page and notifies the writer if it needs to be updated.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics offers several free tools to analyze your SEO data.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console (GSC) is another excellent free tool that you can use to monitor your site's SEO performance.

Conclusion

By now, it becomes clear that SEO is an ongoing process, and you must continuously keep up with the latest SEO trends to stay ahead of the game.

However, maintaining a top position in the SERPs is highly rewarding.