The 3 most important SEO KPIs

To measure your SEO performance, we believe there are three KPIs you should definitely keep an eye on: the number of users and visitors on your site, the impressions within Google and the conversions on your website. By carefully monitoring these, you can assess the impact of your SEO work and make adjustments where necessary. So keep an eye on them and make sure you see rising lines in all three!

What is an (SEO) KPI?

An SEO KPI is simply an indicator of the effectiveness of your SEO strategy. A KPI(Key Performance Indicator) is a measurable value that shows how well your website is doing. Think about how often people click on your website from Google, the percentage of visitors who end up buying something or how many people subscribe to your newsletter. KPIs help you understand what is working well and where you can still improve.

Required tools and settings

To measure the 3 most important KPIs, you need a number of tools: Google Search Console (GSC), Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Google Tag Manager (GTM). For GSC, no additional settings are required. For GA4 and GTM, you must first set up conversions to make your website measurable. For example, think about making clicks on an email address or your thank you page measurable.

Short- and long-term comparisons

In Google Analytics 4 (GA4), you can easily analyze and compare the performance of your website over different time periods. This is particularly useful to see how certain adjustments or seasonal trends affect your traffic and interactions. You can also compare this month's data with last month's data, for example. That way you can see the growth over a period of time. Something we always include in our monthly updates as well.

In GA4 offers you can also look at data over a longer or shorter period of time, such as a year or a specific number of months. And also within GSC it is possible to look at data over a shorter or longer period of time.

This allows you to select and/or compare a period within GA4

SEO KPI 1 - Users & visitors on your website

The first and perhaps most important SEO KPI is about the number of users or visitors on your website. This number can be found in GA4. By "Users" we mean the number of unique people visiting your website, while "visitors" represents the total number of times your site is visited.

When do you look at users vs visitors?

Sometimes it's useful to look specifically at users. Especially if you want to know how many unique people you're reaching. But usually tracking visitors is more useful because it gives you a clearer idea of how active people are on your site. This indicates how attractive your Web site is.

Traffic and user acquisition can be found in GA4 under 'reports > acquisition'

SEO KPI 2 - Displays within Google

The second important SEO KPI is the number of impressions within Google. You can see this in GSC. The number of impressions shows how often your website appears in search results when people search for relevant terms for your website. . Many impressions show that your site is highly visible. A prerequisite for attracting more traffic to your site!

Make sure you continue to see an upward trend in GSC over the long term

SEO KPI 3 - Conversions on your website.

The third SEO KPI we focus on is the number of conversions on your website. A "conversion" can range from purchasing a product to signing up for a newsletter or any other desired action item you set up for visitors. While conversions are not exclusively related to SEO, they are hugely important for measuring the success of your site.

In fact, tracking conversions gives you insight into how well your website converts the number of users/visitors into concrete results. This tells you whether you are attracting the right visitors and helps you evaluate your SEO strategy (and other online strategies) and the ROI(Return On Investment) of your marketing efforts.You can find theconversions in GA4 under 'reports > engagement'.

Other key SEO KPIs

Besides SEO KPIs such as the number of visitors, impressions and conversions, there are a number of other indicators that you need to keep an eye on for a complete picture of your SEO performance. For example, tools such as SEMrush allow you to monitor the development of your positions within Google. Your current positions can also be found in GSC.

You can also see the number of clicks in GSC. This not only shows you how high your pages rank, but also how effectively they attract visitors from search results. Together, these metrics provide deep insight into how well your website is performing in SEO.