You know what's worse than tracking no SEO metrics?
Tracking too many.
When you monitor 47 different KPIs, you end up drowning in data and starving for insight. Everything looks important. Nothing is actionable.
rolls eyes
The 5 KPIs that actually matter
1. Organic traffic (segmented)
Not total organic traffic. Segmented organic traffic.
A 50% increase in blog traffic is nice. A 20% increase in product page traffic is revenue.
2. Keyword rankings for money terms
Don't obsess over ranking for every keyword. Track 10-20 "money keywords" -- the ones that directly drive revenue.
Are they moving up? Good. Holding steady? Investigate. Dropping? Fix it now.
3. Organic conversion rate
Traffic without conversions is a vanity metric.
What percentage of organic visitors are doing the thing you want? Buying. Signing up. Requesting a quote. Calling.
If traffic goes up but conversion rate goes down, something's wrong with your landing pages.
4. Page speed (Core Web Vitals)
LCP, FID (now INP), and CLS. These aren't just SEO metrics. They're user experience metrics. Measure yours at PageSpeed Insights.
Slow sites lose visitors. Lost visitors means lost revenue.
5. Indexed pages vs. submitted pages
Are all your important pages in Google's index? Or are some missing?
If you have 500 pages on your sitemap but only 200 are indexed, you have a problem.
What to ignore
Track the right things
SEO Checkup helps you focus on what matters. 113 prioritized tasks, each one connected to outcomes that move the needle.
Free. No credit card. 30 seconds.
Stop measuring everything. Start measuring what matters. And don't confuse these with vanity metrics that make you feel good but do nothing.