Your design is clean and modern. You've earned backlinks from trustworthy sources and you've checked the right boxes on speed and mobile friendliness. You should be on your way to the top of search engine results. But how do you know if your SEO efforts are working?

SEO is a marathon. It takes time to see results. It can take months to recognize any issues or mistakes and more time to fix them.

Data analysis is crucial for success with SEO. It helps you learn which tactics are working and which aren't. Tracking performance will give you the information and power to refine your SEO and increase your ROI To get the best results, you need to look at a range of data, from engagement to traffic, conversions, ROI, and more.

Rankings, organic traffic, backlinks, and pages indexed are essential metrics to assess to ensure your SEO efforts are working as expected. With these key performance indicators, you're aware of the situation. If you're working with an agency, KPIs are even more important as they display whether they're meeting your goals and delivering the desired effects of your investment.

Organic traffic

Businesses want to rank higher for one primary reason: to get more natural visitors to their website. Organic traffic is when you get visits from search engine results without paying for an ad. If you notice more visitors from organic search, your campaign is doing well, and your website's visibility is improving.

Google Analytics

It's easy to track organic traffic. Open Google Analytics, click Audience > Overview, and select Add Segment. Select organic traffic to see the total percentage of website visits from organic search.

Organic traffic is critical for websites because it's targeted. When your site ranks for the right keywords, e.g., "best SEO strategies," it reaches the right people at the right time. If you provide content that meets their needs, you can shape their decisions and boost your brand. Plus, unlike services like Google Ads, every click from organic traffic is free. So organic traffic is an excellent choice if you're looking for a more cost-effective way to improve your return on investment.

Backlinks

It's understandable why you might ask, "Why should you measure links?" After all, aren't there more critical SEO metrics to track? The answer is yes; links are essential for SEO. Google considers the quality of backlinks to determine if your site is authoritative and valuable for searchers.

Ahrefs

The higher the quality and relevance of your backlinks, the higher your ranking and domain authority. So, if you want to rank higher and build domain authority, you need to track the quality of your links. Simply looking at the number of links won't do—Google doesn't rank based on quantity alone.

To save time, you can use tools like Ahrefs to see what percentage of your backlinks are high- or low-quality.

Conversion rate

SEO metrics can help you build your business case for search marketing and refine your SEO strategy for maximum ROI. The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who take the desired action. You can use this to compare content and drive your content strategy.

Bounce rates

The bounce rate indicates when visitors check out one page on your website and then return to the search results. Many SEO experts take SEO metrics very seriously because they can affect your organic search ranking.

Wordstream

Studies from WordStream show that a lower bounce rate is linked to better rankings. Even though it may seem straightforward, it's more complex.

Bounce rate can be misleading, as it doesn't mean the visitors who left your site after one page did so by clicking back to Google; they could have gone to another site or closed their browser.

However, calculating your bounce rate is easy: divide the number of single-page visits by your total website sessions. So, if 6,300 of your 20,000 sessions are single-page visits, your rate is 31.5%, a mere 0.315.

On average, what should the bounce rate be?

No single figure decides it; bounce rates differ greatly depending on the industry. Generally, though, a rate of 26-40% is reasonable, and 41-55% is average.

A low bounce rate is suitable, although it can be skewed by technical issues such as duplicate Google Analytics codes, referrals, and bot spam. If your bounce rate is lower than 10%, it's wise to check it out and be aware of sudden changes from one month to the next.

Page speed

Page speed is paramount; it is a critical factor for search engines and a massive part of providing an exceptional user experience. Studies have proven that every extra second of loading time between 0 and 5 seconds causes an average drop of 4.42% in conversion rates.

Unbounce

Unbounce conducted a study that revealed that 7 out of 10 consumers factor loading speed into their decision to shop from an eCommerce website.

Gaining clear insights is vital for any SEO endeavor!

You can modify your strategies to achieve tangible results by tracking relevant metrics. Avoid the guesswork and gain the upper hand by tracking your SEO performance.