11 SEO KPIs - SEO controlling done right

SEO controlling: key performance indicators that are essential for SEO success

...and what SEO agencies need to look out for

For many companies, search engine optimisation is like a "black box" whose functions are not really comprehensible. That's why they hire an SEO agency to take care of all the necessary SEO measures for them.

The problem is that although many companies invest regularly in SEO, they do not know exactly what services they are receiving from their SEO agency. Are the SEO activities the right ones? Are they effective? Is my money well invested?

But it doesn't have to be that way! Good SEO agencies carry out regular SEO controlling and also provide their clients with regular SEO reports containing the most important KPIs.

As an agency, you need to keep an eye on the right SEO KPIs and constantly adapt your SEO strategies to the new circumstances. In technical jargon, this is called SEO controlling.

SEO controlling of the relevant key performance indicators allows you to understand the processes in SEO and track the chosen SEO strategy.

What is SEO controlling?

SEO controlling is the process of monitoring and controlling the SEO measures that you carry out yourself or that an agency commissioned by you carries out on your website or e-commerce shop.

If you carry out the SEO measures yourself, then you probably also know how to monitor and evaluate their efficiency. However, many entrepreneurs have little or no knowledge of SEO and are therefore unable to judge what their SEO agency is doing and how they can monitor and assess the agency's work on the web.

Due to the constant development of Google and Co. as well as your competitors, search engine optimisation is never really finished, but should be seen as a continuous process.

SEO controlling allows you to check how your project is doing and how different measures are actually developing. As the name suggests, you monitor your own SEO work or the performance of the SEO agency you have commissioned - ideally at regular intervals. This is done using hard numbers that serve as indicators.

What are KPIs?

KPI means "Key Performance Indicator" and can be translated as performance indicator. Wikipedia defines key performance indicators as...

Key performance indicators are also used in search engine optimisation to track the effectiveness of SEO measures.

The 11 most important SEO metrics for your SEO controlling

...and why you should demand them from your SEO agency

In this article, I would like to show you a selection of what I consider to be the most important KPIs for meaningful SEO controlling. You may be spending a lot of money on your online marketing. That's why you should ask your SEO agency for these figures and have them explained to you. This way, you will always have an overview of the SEO measures taken and their effectiveness.

Checking the figures once a week can therefore be misleading. Monitoring over a longer period of time and reacting to longer-term trends is the secret here and is the key to success or failure. A medium to long-term upward trend should be the goal of all SEO measures.

What KPIs are there in search engine optimisation?

A distinction is made between on-page and off-page KPIs. On-page KPIs - such as the bounce rate - can be tracked using your own website, while off-page KPIs - such as the Google ranking - are measured "externally".

SEO KPI 1: Keyword rankings

This key figure provides information on how many different keyword combinations your website is found with in Google search results (and other search engines). It is a good indication of the status quo of your website's visibility.

Please note: I'm talking about organic search, not Google adverts. Organic search brings you organic traffic. This means that you don't have to pay for it.

The key figure of our agency

What's interesting about this metric is the change over time and how you compare to the competition.

SEO KPI 2: Keyword rankings on page 1

Sometimes we discover websites that have many rankings on Google, but still only have a few visitors on their site. There can be several reasons for this problem.

One reason may be that the website ranks with many different terms in Google, but is not found on page 1. It's a fact: most clicks take place on page 1 of the search results.

Every company or industry has relevant search terms or an entire keyword set. For example, a Crossfit studio should be found with terms such as "Crossfit" or "Crossfit Vienna" etc.

The position of these keywords is checked regularly (automatic documentation). This means that you always have the most important search terms in view. We set up automatic notifications for this so that we can react immediately if an "important" keyword loses position.

SEO metric 3: Organic traffic from Google

How many website visitors come from organic Google search results? How does this figure change over time? At ithelps.at, we get 73.4 per cent of our website visitors from organic Google searches. (No Google Ads!)

We are not alone in this: with a market share of almost 93 per cent, Google is the undisputed number one search engine, at least in Europe and the United States. The organic Google search is particularly important here.

With the help of Google Analytics, you can easily determine how high your organic traffic is.

SEO key figure 4: Visibility index

One of the most important goals in search engine optimisation is visibility in organic Google searches.

Every SEO tool has a specific metric to express the visibility of a website.

The visibility index allows you to recognise the position of your website within the SERPs (Search Engine Result Page or search results for short) in the form of an easy-to-understand, clear presentation.

It will be interesting if you check the visibility index regularly and pay attention to the changes. Has visibility improved or deteriorated since the last check? Has there perhaps been a "penalty shift" by Google?

At this point, it is of course very important to also monitor your competitors. You should therefore ask your trusted SEO agency for the change in the visibility key figure over time plus the evaluation of the competitor.

We use the SEO tool Xovi and here the key figure is called OVI. This figure is important if you want to quickly compare the visibility of websites.

But other programmes, such as Sistrix or Ahrefs, can also be enormously helpful in this regard.

But be careful: as each tool uses different data sets for the calculation, the results will differ. It is therefore advisable to concentrate on one programme for the analysis and track the changes within the tool.

SEO key figure 5: Number of backlinks

Links from other websites are still one of the most important criteria for the visibility of projects. Regardless of whether you are actively building backlinks or not. It is important to have regular reports on how many backlinks have been added over a period of time.

The question of whether you should actively build backlinks and what this means divides SEO experts into two camps of opinion. We are convinced that new backlinks need to be built regularly.

In search engine optimisation, you should always make sure to build a traffic link for your site. This is a link that brings users to your site. However, there are other quality criteria that need to be considered when building links.

These include, among others:

• Value and trust of the linking website
• Number of outgoing backlinks of the linking website
• Content relevance of the linking website
• Position of the backlink
• Anchor text of the backlink
• Topicality of the content

If the number of new backlinks in the last 3 months at regular intervals is 0, then I would take action in this area.

If you want to know how many pages are already linking to your website, I recommend carrying out a free backlink check.

For more detailed information, you can consult our guide Backlinks - Guide & Link Building Tips.

SEO key figure 6: Click-through rate (CTR)

The click-through rate (CTR) tells you how high the number of clicks is in comparison to the total impressions.

How often is your page displayed in the search results and how often do users click on the corresponding link?

This results in a ratio that is given as a percentage. The more often the impressions lead to clicks, the higher the percentage. The click-through rate is closely linked to your ranking in the SERPs. The higher the CTR, the better your page can be listed in the SERPs if other criteria for a good ranking are also met.

A meaningful and at the same time enticing SERP snippet can ensure a high CTR. Make users curious about your site, your shop and your project!

SEO KPI 7: Bounce rate and dwell time

Many SEO KPIs are closely related to each other. This is also the case here: after looking at the click-through rate, you should take a direct look at the bounce rate and dwell time.

Definition: Bounce rate

A bounce is when a user leaves a website without further interaction. The bounce rate is calculated by dividing the number of visitors to a website by all sessions. Like the CTR, the bounce rate is also expressed as a percentage.

However, a high bounce rate does not necessarily have to be negative, as it depends entirely on the type of site you operate. Is it purely an information site or a web shop?

If the website visitor leaves an information page, this may mean that they have found the information they were looking for. In conjunction with a longer dwell time, this is definitely a positive signal.

However, if they leave a shop page without making a purchase, this can be seen as a negative signal.

Definition: Dwell time

The dwell time indicates how long a user stays - or lingers - on the site on average. Unique, high-quality content will help you to increase the dwell time. Watch our video for more tips:

Maximise dwell time on your website

SEO KPI 8: Number of pages visited per session

The better the user experience, the longer users will stay on your website. And the more subpages they will visit during this dwell time.

In the course of SEO controlling, it is now checked which subpages are clicked on more often and which subpages are not successful at all. If a subpage is clicked on several times during a session, this is also important.

SEO key figure 9: Conversion rate

A conversion is a planned, measurable user action that is of value to you. This could be a purchase, leaving an email address or registering for a webinar. Perhaps you also want a price list to be downloaded or a contact form to be filled out?

The conversion rate indicates the ratio between the total number of visitors and the actions taken. The calculation is done in a very simple way: The number of actions divided by the number of visitors. This value x100 gives the conversion rate, which is expressed as a percentage.

What is the ideal conversion rate?

It would be nice if this question could be answered so easily. Unfortunately, this is not possible, as conversion rates vary greatly depending on the industry, as research data from January 2021 shows.

According to the data, the average conversion rates in the arts and crafts sector are at the top of the analysed industries at almost 3.8 percent, closely followed by products from the healthcare sector with a conversion rate of 3.6 percent. At the bottom of the table are children's and baby products with a conversion rate of less than 1 per cent.

As you can see, the trees don't grow to the sky.

Source: https: //www.growcode.com/blog/ecommerce-conversion-rate

By the way: With an average conversion rate of 2.2 per cent, Germany is at the top of the countries surveyed, well ahead of the USA in second place. Italy, with an average conversion rate of less than 1 per cent, is the "conversion grouch".

Source: https: //www.growcode.com/blog/ecommerce-conversion-rate/

SEO key figure 10: Crawling

Your website should not only impress with its user-friendliness, but also make it as easy as possible for search engines.

Google works with so-called crawlers, also known as Google bots. These are programs that search and catalogue the Internet independently according to defined parameters.

Every single word that the crawler finds on a page is given its own entry. Google's search index is correspondingly gigantic. It is 100 million gigabytes in size and contains billions of websites. With such a size, it is only too understandable that Google has endless (time) resources available per page. In technical jargon, these resources are called crawl budget.

For you, this means: Make it as easy as possible for the Google bots! Check your websites regularly for error messages and respond quickly. Check whether all submitted pages have actually been indexed by Google.

The "Index > Coverage" item in the Google Search Console provides more detailed information about Google's crawling history and also shows corresponding errors.

SEO metric 11: Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are the most recent SEO KPIs in this list, as they were only declared an important ranking factor in mid-June 2021 as part of the Google Page Experience. The Core Web Vitals are 3 metrics that measure certain aspects of the page experience with regard to page load time.

These 3 metrics of the Core Web Vitals are called:

• LCP: Largest Contentful Paint
• FID: First Input Delay
• CLS Cumulative Layout Shift

What does LCP mean?

The LCP metric measures the perceived loading speed. Google measures how much time passes until the largest element (above the fold) is fully loaded and rendered.

What does FID mean?

This measures the time between the user's first interaction, such as a click on a link, and the browser's reaction to it.

What does CLS mean?

Visual stability is the focus of CLS. How much visible layout elements shift in the viewport.

You can find more detailed information here: Understanding and optimising Core Web Vitals [guide].

Always keep an eye on these KPIs to ensure the success of your SEO strategy.

You can download the SEO KPI checklist as a PDF here.

Conclusion: Keep an eye on the key figures

You have now learnt what SEO KPIs are and what you use them for.

I've also shown you the most important key figures.

Here are the 11 most important SEO KPIs for your SEO controlling as a reminder

• Number of keywords ranking
• Rankings on page 1
• Number of website visitors from Google
• Visibility index
• Number of backlinks
• Click-through rate (CTR)
• Bounce rate and dwell time
• Number of pages visited per session
• Conversion rate
• Crawling
• Core Web Vitals

I hope I have been able to convey to you how important it is that you regularly check these SEO KPIs and draw the right conclusions from them.

Frequently asked questions

What SEO KPIs are there?

There are a variety of SEO KPIs. Here are the most important ones:

• Organic traffic: Measures the number of visitors who reach your website via the non-paid search engine results.

• Keyword rankings: Shows where your website appears in the search engines for certain keywords.

• Click-through rate (CTR): The percentage of users who click on your listing in search results.

• Conversion rate: Measures the percentage of website visitors who perform a desired action, e.g. make a purchase.

• Bounce rate: The percentage of visitors who leave the website after viewing only one page.

What do KPIs measure?

KPIs (key performance indicators) are quantitative measures used to evaluate the success or performance of activities in different areas. They provide concrete data on how well certain goals or strategies are being achieved and where possible improvements can be made.

What are KPIs in online marketing?

In online marketing, KPIs refer to measurable indicators that show the success of marketing strategies and campaigns in digital channels. These include key figures such as the number of visitors, the conversion rate, the average order value or the bounce rate. These KPIs help marketers to evaluate the effectiveness of their efforts and take optimisation measures.

What are good SEA KPIs?

Good SEA (Search Engine Advertising) KPIs are those that measure the success of paid search campaigns. These include the cost-per-click (CPC), the click-through rate (CTR), the conversion rate, the return on advertising spend (ROAS) and the total cost of the adverts compared to the revenue generated.

What is the difference between metrics and KPIs?

While the two terms are often used interchangeably, metrics generally refer to any measurable data or statistics. KPIs, on the other hand, are specific metrics that are directly linked to a company's business goals and measure progress towards those goals. In short, all KPIs are metrics, but not all metrics are KPIs.