KPI for SEO: Which Metrics to Track to Measure Search Performance

In this article, we’ll share the key SEO KPI metrics that help you evaluate search performance end to end: from search visibility and user behavior to real financial results.

Not only does this approach help you track growth or decline, but it also helps you understand what’s behind the changes and make informed decisions about your SEO strategy.

Traffic

1. Total Organic Traffic (Sessions in Google Analytics)

Organic traffic refers to visits from users who reach your website through unpaid search results. It’s one of the core SEO KPIs to track in an SEO report because it shows how visible your site is in search results.
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‍Example goal: Increase total organic website traffic by 25% year over year.

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‍Growth in this metric usually means the website:

• ranks for more search queries;
• better matches user search intent;
• becomes more visible in search compared to competitors.

At the same time, context matters. Total organic traffic alone is not a business result and does not directly answer questions about sales or leads. It reflects potential: how many users search engines can bring to the site.

‍That’s why this KPI in SEO is beneficial:

• during the growth stage of a project;
• when expanding keyword and semantic coverage;
• when assessing the impact of technical SEO and content updates.

For example, if organic traffic grows after launching new categories or an informational section, it means that search engines are displaying the site more widely. If traffic remains flat despite ongoing SEO efforts, it may signal issues with indexing, content relevance, or competition.

You can track total organic traffic (sessions) in Google Analytics 4. It is in the traffic acquisition reports.

It’s best to evaluate total organic traffic over time rather than by absolute numbers. Month-over-month comparisons help identify short-term changes. Year-over-year analysis helps distinguish real growth from seasonal fluctuations.

In practice, we use this KPI as a starting point. It provides a detailed view of search visibility but always requires deeper analysis.

2. Informational Traffic

Informational traffic refers to visits driven by queries in which users are looking for answers, explanations, or advice rather than a specific product or service.

This KPI shows how well a website covers informational demand within its topic and whether search engines perceive it as a source of expertise.

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‍Example goal: Increase informational organic traffic by 40% by expanding content coverage.

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‍Growth in informational traffic usually means the website:

• expands its semantic coverage;
• strengthens its topical authority;
• attracts users at the early stages of the decision-making process.

You shouldn’t forget about the impact of AI Overviews in search results. AIO increasingly answers simple informational queries directly on the results page without requiring a click. As a result, some informational traffic may decline even when rankings remain stable or improve.

‍The informational traffic KPI is significant for:

• niches with a long decision-making cycle;
• service-based businesses;
• brands that invest in content as an acquisition channel.

3. Commercial Organic Traffic

Commercial traffic comes from searches that indicate purchase intent. The KPI shows how many users from search are likely to convert.

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‍Example goal: Increase commercial organic traffic to the website by 30% by the end of 2026.

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This metric often becomes a primary focus because it allows you to:

• set measurable goals;
• forecast potential revenue;
• justify investments in search engine optimization.

Unlike total traffic, commercial traffic is almost always evaluated alongside conversions rather than on its own. If commercial traffic grows but sales do not, it’s usually a sign to review the page itself: the offer, UX, pricing, or trust signals, rather than SEO.

4. Branded Organic Traffic

Branded traffic includes visits from search queries that contain the brand name, product name, or company name.
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Example goal: Increase branded organic traffic by 20% year over year.

Branded traffic helps interpret overall organic growth correctly and understand whether brand demand is increasing. Growth usually means that:

• users search for the brand directly more often;
• users consciously choose this specific website;
• marketing efforts are aligned.

The last point is important because growth in this KPI is rarely driven by SEO alone. It also depends on advertising, PR, social media, and overall brand reputation.

For example, in our case with the ZooComplex online pet store, our PPC team worked on optimizing the ad account. At one of the stages, we launched a branded search campaign after noticing competitors were running ads for queries related to the “ZooComplex” brand.

Although increasing branded traffic was not our initial goal, we recorded a significant increase in brand awareness (+50%), based on Google search query data.
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Optimization of the ZooComplex Ad Account

How to get 5× more revenue from PPC

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Google Search Console

5. Clicks and Impressions 

Impressions show how often a website’s pages appear in search results for relevant queries. Clicks show how many times users actually visit the site from those results.
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‍Example goal: Increase website clicks by 25% year over year.

Together, these metrics answer a key question: Is the site visible in search results, and do users choose it over other results?

Growth in impressions usually means that:

• the site ranks for a larger number of queries;
• semantic coverage is expanding;
• pages show up in search results more often, even without reaching top positions.

6. Average Position by Page or Page Group

Let’s take a category page like “dog food.” Google doesn’t rank it for just one query; it ranks it for many variations, such as “buy dog food,” “dog food price,” “dry dog food,” or “food for dogs.” For some of these queries, the page may rank in positions 4–5, while for others it may rank in positions 12–15.

In this case, the average position shows the page’s overall placement in search across all of these queries combined, rather than its ranking for a single keyword.

For example, if the average position is around 13, the page appears in search results frequently but mostly outside the first page, so it gets few clicks. As the average position improves to around 6–7, most of these queries move into the top 10. The page becomes more visible, and commercial traffic increases.
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Example goal: Improve the average position for page group X by 4 positions over the next 6 months.

This KPI helps us evaluate how strong specific pages are in search: which categories, landing pages, and site sections rank well across the queries that matter to us.

7. Search Visibility for Specific Keywords or Keyword Clusters

Search visibility shows how often a website appears in search results for business-critical queries and which positions it actually competes for.

In SEO, visibility should be evaluated not by a single keyword but by groups of terms with the same intent.

For example, for a dental clinic website, it’s not one keyword like “dentist” that matters, but visibility across a cluster such as “dentist Chicago,” “dental clinic Chicago,” “dental hygiene cleaning New York,” or “tooth extraction cost.” This KPI is beneficial for understanding a site’s position compared to competitors.
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Example goal: Secure a top-5 position in search results for the “dentist in Chicago” cluster by the end of the year.

If a website consistently ranks in positions 3–5 for these terms, it means it has established itself in search as a relevant option for users seeking a specific service.

Commercial SEO Performance

8. Revenue

Revenue from organic search is the total value of sales or orders from organic traffic. This metric includes all purchases or service orders made by users who came to the website via unpaid search results.
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Example goal: Increase revenue from the organic channel by 15% year over year.

One important thing to keep in mind about SEO is that organic search rarely leads to a purchase during the first visit. This is especially common in niches with a long decision-making cycle or a high product or service price (B2B, real estate, automotive).

Also, organic search is not always the final conversion channel. A user may first discover the site through a blog article (organic search), and then later complete a purchase after seeing a Facebook retargeting ad and returning via a direct visit.

In this case, under a last-click attribution model, the organic channel would not receive revenue credit, even though it was the entry point. That’s why SEO revenue should be analyzed using multi-channel attribution rather than only the final touchpoint.

9. ROI 

ROI (Return on Investment) shows how well SEO investments pay off financially.

The formula basically looks like this:
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ROI = (revenue from SEO − SEO costs) / SEO costs × 100%

This KPI is strategic rather than operational, so it is not used for monthly performance tracking. SEO has a delayed and cumulative effect: results build gradually, sometimes over several months. Because of this, calculating ROI too often can distort the real picture and create the false impression that the channel is not working.
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Example goal: Achieve a positive ROI from SEO within 9–12 months and ensure steady year-over-year growth.

The optimal approach is to measure ROI/ROMI over longer time periods—six months or a year. This timeframe makes it clear how SEO investments turn into business results and whether the channel pays off compared to other traffic sources.

Read more about core KPIs in eCommerce.

10. Conversions

Conversions in SEO show which actions users take after coming to the site from organic search and whether they actually make purchases.
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Example goal: Increase organic traffic conversions by 25% year over year.

In practice, SEO conversions include all actions that have business value: purchases, form submissions, calls, registrations, and other events that the business considers results. These actions are then segmented by traffic source, and only those from organic search are analyzed.

Google Analytics 4 is most often used for this. In GA4, you can filter data by the Organic Search channel and see how many conversions were completed by users who came from organic search. It also makes it easy to analyze both the total number of SEO conversions and the conversion rate for this channel.

If you work with leads, you can also review this data in a CRM system. This helps clarify how many leads or sales reached the final stage and which of them originally came from organic search.
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