Even the best tools, like Google Seach Console, only show around one-third of the hits your website gets, so it can be hard to know how to measure SEO performance accurately. Then, when you get the information, it can be a struggle to understand what you are seeing and what to do with it. How do you turn all the data you can gather into actionable SEO strategies?

Below, you will find insight and information on:

• Essential SEO metrics to track
• Practical tools to help you organize your website efforts
• Simple strategies to boost your organic growth
• Common SEO mistakes to avoid

So, elevate your SEO efforts with this guide and ensure you reduce the amount of wasted effort you engage in.

Important SEO Metrics to Measure

Once you have set up a metrics-tracking solution, you should start tracking the following:

Organic traffic: How much traffic comes to your site based on unpaid links. Sources of this traffic might include:

• Google search results
• Social media platforms
• Referral traffic from other sites
• Email marketing
• Direct traffic via manually entered URLs or bookmarks

These show you how much you are getting noticed without paying to bring people in. While there are several such sources, you can also use a tool such as Google Analytics to learn the specific places people come from.

Search rankings: Learn how close to the top position you sit in specific search rankings based on specific keywords. You can then determine what people are searching for when they discover you.

Bounce rate: If a large number of people hit your site and then immediately leave, it suggests they are getting the wrong idea about what you offer. You should look at how you promote yourself on external platforms and websites to iterate on your presentation.

Backlinks: The number of high-value sites linking to you increases your authority in your field. It means that search engines will likely rank you higher as a well-regarded source of information.

Keyword rankings: When you use keywords to target users with specific needs, you should monitor those text strings to see how well your efforts to leverage them bring people to your site.

Conversions or sales: Ultimately, if you gain a lot of views but cannot convert any users, you will not make any money.

How to Measure SEO Performance with the Best Tools

If you are measuring SEO yourself instead of hiring a professional with a legacy of SEO expertise, you will need the right tools to do so. They can then give you insights into what the above numbers mean. Some popular examples of these include:

Google Search Console: Google offers free tools that, after setting them up, allow you to monitor and troubleshoot your website’s performance when it comes to clicks, impressions, and other search stats.

SEO dashboard tools: Platforms such as Semrush and Ahrefs can centralize all the metrics related to SEO to help you monitor them all in one place. Through their websites, you can research and track keywords, analyze your competitors’ SEO efforts, and monitor backlinks that resolve to your website.

Ahrefs: Ahrefs is one of the most comprehensive paid SEO toolsets available and is widely used by professionals to track performance, analyze competitors, and uncover high-value keyword opportunities. Its Site Explorer shows you which pages on your site earn the most traffic, while Keyword Explorer helps you understand search demand and ranking difficulty with remarkable accuracy. Ahrefs is also one of the best tools for backlink analysis, allowing you to track new links, lost links, and the overall strength of your backlink profile.

Lighthouse: Audit your website with this simple Google tool to check its technical performance. Lighthouse tracks site loading speeds and offers specific advice tailored to your website’s to ensure you follow basic SEO best practices.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider: Use this to analyze your website’s structure, much like Google’s crawlers would. The tool can audit your web pages, look for technical issues, and troubleshoot unexpected metrics.

SEO Tracking to Measure Progress Over Time

You shouldn’t be tracking data and finding patterns through SEO analytics for its own sake. Instead, establish clear and measurable KPIs for your SEO efforts. Then, you can use these as benchmarks you should aim for when planning site updates.

Ensure that you iterate on your efforts, A/B testing different types of content to find what works. When things don’t work, try something new and allow time to see if it has a significant impact. 

Common Beginner Mistakes in SEO Tracking

Many people new to SEO make mistakes when analyzing related metrics, often leading them down the wrong development path. Be aware of the following common mistakes to prevent wasted effort.

Firstly, neither quantity of content nor quantity of traffic necessarily means you are getting the desired results from your efforts. As analytics platform Databox states, it is easy to believe that:

“If one blog post is beneficial, then 100 blog posts must be 100 times more beneficial.”

Instead, you should always try to attract your target audience with valuable or useful content to increase your chances of converting them into customers or clients.

If you instead draw in people for the wrong reasons, you will not make money, as users will be much more likely to bounce away or drive down your reputation via poor reviews.

Try to also pay attention to how people use your site. The fact they visited does not always mean they are engaging with you. Find where people go, how long they stay, and what they interact with to learn what they are specifically doing. Then, redesign your site to encourage them to pass through your user conversion funnel instead.

At the same time, ensure you monitor your content and technical SEO. For example, once you start getting popular, you will need to ensure that you maintain your site’s speed.

Take Control of Your SEO with Professional Guidance

Learning how to measure SEO performance comes with the responsibility of following up on it by enhancing your website’s potential to draw in more of your target audience. However, this can be a big responsibility, especially if the concept is new to you.

Rose & Cactus stands ready to help you handle this new experience, offering tailored strategies to match your business and boost the impact of any SEO efforts. So, contact us to learn how we can amplify your online presence, giving you a more competitive edge and ensuring you get more eyes on your key offering.

Laura Pulling Laura is a content strategist, SEO consultant, and lover of quiz nights. She works with global clients to turn great ideas into well-ranked, high-converting content.