What is an SEO KPI? Explanations & examples

Les SEO KPI... A subject that deserves attention as there is confusion about what really needs to be measured. Between marketers who are drowning in data that has no real value and those who only track organic traffic, there are few who fully exploit the power of performance indicators in natural referencing.

In this article, no unrealistic promises like “follow these 3 metrics and your traffic will explode”. Instead, we will explore together the 14 KPIs that are really relevant to your SEO strategy, understand how to measure them effectively and especially how to use them to make the right decisions that will move your site forward.

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What to remember about SEO KPIs

Define your goals before the KPIs : Performance indicators only make sense if they are aligned with your specific business goals - visibility, engagement, or conversion.
Traffic KPIs aren't everything : Beyond the volume of visitors, it is the quality of interactions that counts. One engaged visitor is better than ten who bounce back.
User experience influences SEO : Technical (load time, indexing) and behavioral (bounce rate, session length) and behavioral KPIs (bounce rate, session length) are interdependent in the Google algorithm.
An ecosystem of complementary tools : No single tool is enough - Google Analytics for user behavior, Search Console for visibility, and specialized tools like Semrush or Ahrefs for competitive analysis.
Analyzing trends, not just numbers : The evolution of your KPIs over time reveals much more than their absolute values at a given moment.

Understand the KPIs for your natural referencing

Definition of KPIs in SEO

A key performance indicator (KPI, for Key Performance Indicator) is a tool used to measure the effectiveness of an initiative in achieving a specific objective. These indicators may vary and take the form of, among others:

The number of visitors on a website,
Of the average basket in an online store,
The number of downloads of a lead magnet,
The number of reactions on a post LinkedIn.

The choice of KPIs is directly linked to specific goals that we are trying to achieve. It is crucial to select the right SEO KPIs to guide your strategies and develop an action plan that is both relevant AND achievable.

Why are SEO KPIs important?

SEO KPIs to monitor the visibility of your website

To optimize the visibility of your site on the results pages, some SEO KPIs are essential. Among them, the organic traffic volume, the keyword ranking strategic, and the number of prints in SERPs play a crucial role. These indicators make it possible to measure the attractiveness of your site as well as its accessibility. By tracking these KPIs, you can identify opportunities for improvement and adjust your strategies.

SEO KPIs to audit your ROI

Carefully selected KPIs facilitate the evaluation of the performance of a strategy and the implementation of corrective actions when necessary. By grouping them together in a dashboard, these indicators offer a quick overview of the performance, for example, of your site, your social networks, of your Marketing automation and the content you published there, making it possible to determine whether the strategies achieve the goals set.

SEO KPIs to analyze interactions with your tools

Analyze the user interactions with your digital tools requires the observation of specific KPIs such as the conversion rate per tool, The commitment and Click-through rate. These indicators make it possible to assess the effectiveness of the various elements of your digital ecosystem in terms of attracting attention and converting. They are essential for understanding how users interact with your tools and for identifying optimizations.

How do you measure your SEO effectiveness? 14 essential KPIs

KPIs to measure the quantity of traffic

Visitor numbers & traffic sources

This KPI measures not only How many people visit your site, but also where they come from. Traffic sources are generally classified into:

Direct traffic : users who directly enter the URL of your site,
Reference traffic : visitors redirected to your site via a link on another site,
Organic traffic : users who find your site via a search engine,
Social traffic : visitors coming from social networks.

Analyzing traffic sources helps you understand which marketing strategies work best and where to focus your efforts to improve your online visibility.

New & returning visitors

This indicator makes it possible to distinguish The new visitors of those who come back to your site. New visitors indicate the achievement of new targets or the effectiveness of your campaigns in attracting attention, while Recurring visitors attest to the quality and interest of your content. A balance between new and returning visitors is essential for sustainable growth.

The volume of impressions

This indicator measures the How often does your site appear in the results pages for a given query. It should be interpreted carefully because impressions count even if the link is beyond the immediately visible part of the page (“below the fold”) without the user scrolling the page. By comparing this KPI to the volume of clicks, we can judge visibility and attractiveness of the page. A significant gap between impressions and clicks may suggest low visibility or lack of engagement.

Click volume & click rate (CTR)

This is the total of individuals who selected a link in the search results (SERP) who redirects to your website. The volume of clicks provides a reliable estimate of the traffic generated to your site through natural referencing. Not to be confused with Click-through rate Who represents The percentage of impressions in the search results that lead to a click on your site. Calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the total number of impressions, a low rate can indicate that your site is underperforming.

Positioning monitoring

The main objective of natural referencing is to ensure that your site appears among The first positions in the search results for key queries related to your industry. It is therefore natural to focus on changing the ranking of your pages based on these keywords to analyze which ones work best.

KPIs to measure the quality of content

The bounce rate

The bounce rate, which indicates the percentage of users visiting a single page without additional actions (example: submitting a form), is crucial for evaluating the performance of a site. Although a high rate may be alarming, the analysis of this essential SEO KPI should consider the context, such as the length of the sessions. For example, a visitor leaving the site after reading a full article is counted as a rebound, but this does not reflect disinterest.

Sessions & session length

The sessions represent a set of interactions that a user makes on your website in a given period of time. It's a key metric for understanding user engagement. An increase in sessions on your site may indicate better visibility in search results and engaging content that grabs the attention of visitors. The time spent per page reveals the interest of Internet users; it is essential to assess it with the bounce rate, as the average duration can be influenced by visits to a single page.

The volume of pages per session

This KPI represents the relationship between The total number of pages viewed and The number of sessions on the site. This ratio provides insight into how visitors are engaging with site content. A low number can indicate several problems, such as problems with accessibility, navigation, ergonomics, a lack of incentives to action (Call To Action), etc... It is essential to analyze the underlying causes to improve the user experience.

Internal & external networking

External links, which are hyperlinks from a page on your site to third party sites, contribute to the evaluation the relevance and appeal of your content. Content that links to external pages on similar, complementary and high-quality topics is generally better perceived by search engines.

At the same time, the internal networking consists in linking the web pages of the same site wisely, helping search engines to enter their thematic links and to Promote your website. To optimize this strategy, it is recommended to structure pages in semantic cocoons, thus creating a network of thematically coherent content.

KPIs to measure site health

Charging time

Charging time Measures how long it takes to load a page, whether on a computer or a mobile device. The speed of the loading time directly influences the user experience and, therefore, the positioning of a site in the SERP. A good way to observe the speed of a web page is to use the tool PageSpeed Insights.

Indexing pages

It is the assurance that each page of your website is recognized and considered through The search engines, which allows them to include them in the SERP. A page that is not indexed by search engines cannot appear in the results pages and, therefore, bring traffic to the website.

Duplicate content

This indicator is designed to identify the presence of content that is repeated on different pages of your website or between websites. Having duplicate content on multiple pages of your site sends a Negative signal to Google. It is essential to check your site frequently to detect and manage cases of copied content to show and ensure their quality.

Backlinks

Les Backlinks Are links from other websites that link to a page on your site. Search engines, such as Google, perceive these inbound links as a quality brand, especially if these links come from sites with a high trust index or Trust Flow (TF), such as government sites.

The conversion rate

The conversion rate is calculated by dividing the total number of conversions by the total number of interactions. This indicator assesses the effectiveness of your content And of your actions to encourage action. For example, in the case of a content marketing strategy, interactions correspond to people who clicked on a link within an article, while conversions refer to those who made contact after clicking on the link.

What tools should you use to monitor your SEO indicators?

Semrush for your SEO KPIs

Semrush is an all-in-one tool that offers a wide range of features for tracking SEO KPIs, including:

Keyword analysis,
The tracking the positioning,
THEsite audit,
The analysis of the competition.

It allows you to understand the natural referencing strategy of your competitors and to identify opportunities improvement for your own site.

Google Analytics for your SEO KPIs

Google Analytics is an essential tool for analyzing your site traffic and user behavior. It provides valuable data on The volume of visitors, The duration of the sessions, Conversion rates, etc... The information transmitted by Google Analytics helps you understand how users interact with your website and which pages generate the most interest.

Search Console for your SEO KPIs

La Google Search Console gives you a first-hand view of how Google sees your site. It allows you to track the search performance of your site, including impressions, clicks, and positioning in the SERPs. The Search Console is also essential for identifying and fix technical issues that could affect your SEO.

Screaming Frog for your SEO KPIs

Screaming Frog Is a website crawler that helps quickly identify technical issues that can impact your site's SEO, such as broken links, 404 errors, redirection issues, and metadata issues. It is a valuable tool especially for technical SEO audits.

Sistrix for your SEO KPIs

Sistrix provides a comprehensive set of tools to analyze the visibility of your site on search engines. It offers insights on the keyword ranking, the Estimated traffic and Competitor analysis. It is particularly appreciated for its visibility index, which is a measure of the overall performance of your site in the SERP.

Ahrefs for your SEO KPIs

Ahrefs is recognized for its abilities backlink analysis, but it's also a powerful tool for keyword tracking, competition analysis, and SEO auditing. It can help you discover new keywords, track your rankings, analyze your site's link profile, and identify high-performing content in your industry.

Moz for your SEO KPIs

Moz offers tools like Domain Authority (DA), an SEO score that predicts the ranking of a site in the SERP. Domain Authority (or referring domain) helps measure the strength of a site, while Moz's features on incoming links, referring domains, keyword research, and site audit help improve SEO. Moz provides a comprehensive view of SEO performance to optimize the visibility and content strategy of your site through your blog posts.

Key points: Monitoring SEO (Search Engine Optimization) KPIs

What KPIs should you choose to analyze the performance of your website?

Good SEO KPIs to focus on include the volume of organic traffic, the conversion rate, the bounce rate, the average duration of sessions, the number of page views per session, the ranking of strategic keywords, the number and quality of backlinks, and the loading time. These metrics provide an overview of the effectiveness of your SEO, visitor engagement, and the ability of your site to convert.

What are the most essential marketing KPIs?

The most essential marketing KPIs include return on investment (ROI), cost per acquisition (CPA), cost per acquisition (CPA), conversion rate, customer lifetime value (CLV), social media engagement rate, volume of web traffic (organic and paid), and online Share of Voice. These key metrics help measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, assess the return on investments, and understand consumer behavior and preferences. SEO KPIs are part of marketing KPIs.

What tools should you use to monitor and analyze SEO KPIs?

For tracking and analyzing SEO KPIs, use tools such as Google Analytics for web traffic and user behavior, Google Search Console for tracking performance in search results, Semrush for competition analysis and keyword tracking, Ahrefs for backlink analysis and SEO audit, Ahrefs for backlink analysis and SEO audit, Screaming Frog for technical site audits, Sistrix for tracking keyword rankings and tracking keywords, Ahrefs for analyzing backlinks and SEO audit, Screaming Frog for technical site audits, Sistrix for tracking keyword rankings, visibility analysis and the evaluation of global SEO performance and finally Moz with its DA tool (the Authority of Domain). These tools offer essential insights to refine your SEO strategy and increase your site's online presence.

What SEO KPIs are relevant for evaluating the popularity and authority of a website?

The evaluation of the popularity and authority of a website is based on several complementary SEO indicators. Domain Authority (DA) is a fundamental measure, scoring the reputation of the site on a scale of 0 to 100. This metric is reinforced by the analysis of the referring domains that create links to your site, as well as by the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the backlinks received. Trust Flow also plays a crucial role in measuring the reliability of links, while Citation Flow makes it possible to assess the overall volume of inbound links. Finally, brand mentions and social signals complement this analysis by offering a broader vision of the site's online presence.

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