How do you measure SEO results?

The most important KPI remains what SEO delivers: revenue, inquiries, or leads. But keep in mind: SEO has a delayed effect. That’s why we also measure Return on SmartRanking (ROS), our own take on ROAS.

Just like with ads, this is an indication of return on investment. But SEO isn’t just about growth. You also want to preserve what you’ve built. That protective aspect of SEO takes time and money, but it’s just as important.

Here’s a practical tip: for example, filter out the revenue from your homepage from your dataset. That traffic is often branded and can skew the results. This will give you a more reliable analysis.

Especially when it comes to new content or tapping into new keyword clusters, the number of impressions—and, more specifically, the growth in that number—is a good indicator. In this context, the trend line is more telling than the absolute number.

Logically, new content doesn’t rank right away. When it’s eventually included in AI Overviews or displayed in the SERP, impressions are attributed to the page. That said, you’ll hardly get any clicks if you rank at the bottom of the page. However, the increase in the number of impressions is a good indicator of whether your pages are gaining traction or not.

Please note: An increase in impressions is great, but it’s only truly relevant if it ultimately contributes to conversions or visibility among the right target audience.

We track how many search terms appear in specific positions, but we focus primarily on the trends. An upward trend in the number of top-10 positions often says more than a slight shift in average position.

So we don’t use the data regarding the positions as an end in itself, but rather—once again—as an indicative trend line.

AI Overviews are changing the SERP and impacting both search behavior and traffic to your website. When it comes to AI Overviews, we recommend tracking the following two KPIs:

• For how many search terms an AI Overview is displayed;
• How often a customer is mentioned in them (the “AI Overviews owned”).

This is a newer and increasingly important KPI, especially when it comes to the future of SEO.

SOV indicates what share of the search market you hold within a specific cluster or domain. We use tools like AccuRanker for this. The advantage? SOV is more reliable than an average position because it takes into account search volume, your position in the SERP, and the layout of the search results. For example, there are search terms that are frequently searched for, but if four ads are displayed, a large portion of users will already click on an ad. In that case, it’s not possible to reach all searchers through SEO.

The value of Share of Voice lies in the fact that you can also compare it to your competitors. This allows you to measure and monitor your market position—even dynamically. You can then use this information to effectively set your priorities.

The number of visitors coming from SEO is still important, but it does need to be put into context. Because of AI Overviews and AI Mode, people are less likely to click through to your website.

That’s why the conversion rate of SEO traffic is just as important. It shows whether your traffic is high-quality and whether your website conveys enough trust and credibility.

This is a trend line that’s particularly useful for technical monitoring. If we see a sudden drop or increase in the number of indexed pages, we’ll investigate. Not to take corrective action, but to stay on top of things.

Backlinks are not an end in themselves, but an important indicator of authority. We track how many referring domains are added or removed. Significant deviations often warrant further investigation.

In GA4, the numbers often differ from what you see in GSC. That’s why we compare these data side by side. The click data from Google Search Console provides a stable basis for trend line analysis. The data from Google Search Console comes directly from the index itself and is not affected by ad blockers or rejected cookies. That’s why this source is more reliable than GA4.

Please note: The Google Search Console interface displays a maximum of 1,000 rows. You can export all data from Google Search Console using the API or tools such as Search Analytics for Sheets. In that case, no filtering takes place.

For e-commerce, we specifically look at clicks and purchases from Organic Shopping. We retrieve that data from Merchant Center, because attribution in GA4 often falls short in this area.

This is a valuable addition to standard SEO metrics, especially for clients with high traffic to their product pages.

SEO hasn’t been about those 10 blue links for a long time now. You can increase your visibility in the SERP through various features, such as:

• Featured Snippets
• Image Packs
• People Also Ask
• Organic Shopping
• AI Overviews

All these different components of the search results matter. Do you want to maximize your visibility? Then it’s important to rank well in these features as well. This increases the likelihood that your target audience will see you as an authority. We automatically track where you are and aren’t visible and what that means for your chances of generating additional traffic and building your brand.

Rankings mean nothing without context. You might rank #1 for a keyword with low search volume or limited relevance, while a #6 ranking for an important commercial search term is much more valuable. Furthermore, rankings are constantly changing due to updates, competition, and personalization.

A high number of visitors doesn’t automatically mean success. What matters is whether that traffic generates results. A low conversion rate on SEO traffic can be a sign of irrelevant content, poor UX, or a lack of trust.

A report containing only monthly figures is worthless without insight into the underlying fluctuations and trend lines. Is traffic increasing on a structural basis? Are there dips in specific clusters? Is new content being picked up or not? The trend over time often says more than the figure for a single month.

No single tool tells the whole story. Combine data from Search Console, GA4, Merchant Center, and other tools relevant to your product. Don’t focus on just one metric: it’s the relationship between KPIs and trend lines that shows how well you’re doing.

Avoiding these mistakes is just as important as properly defining your KPIs. By taking a nuanced look at the numbers, considering the context, and maintaining a critical mindset, you can truly focus on results and make the right choices for future growth.