10 Key SEO Metrics Marketing Agencies Must Track in 2024

SEO moves fast. What worked yesterday might fall short today. As a marketing agency, you need to know exactly what to measure to prove your worth and drive your clients’ success. Once you have a solid grasp on these key SEO metrics, you’ll be well-equipped to track your SEO progress effectively and craft compelling reports that showcase the value of your SEO efforts.

We’re not just listing metrics; we’re showing how to turn these into real, tangible results for your clients. Each metric ties directly to business outcomes—no fluff, no vanity metrics.

Before diving in, we want to share insights gathered from surveying thousands of agencies to understand the key metrics they report. These insights reflect the metrics most commonly prioritized and tracked across the industry.

However, instead of simply discussing these popular metrics, we challenge you to focus on deeper, more meaningful ones that go beyond the norm. While some of the metrics align with industry standards, others are chosen for their emphasis on quality over quantity, offering insights that drive real client success.

What’s So Important About These SEO Metrics?

Why these metrics? Simple. They show the true impact of your work on your clients’ bottom line. From traffic quality to ROI calculations, each one packs a punch in demonstrating value and shaping strategy.

But here’s the kicker: we’re not just telling you what to watch. We’re arming you with the know-how to act on these metrics. You’ll learn how to make smart decisions, fine-tune your strategies, and clearly communicate your value to clients.

What sets this guide apart? We get it. You’re juggling multiple clients, each with their own goals and challenges. That’s why we’ve focused on metrics that matter across the board. But we also show you how to tailor your approach for each unique situation.

Are we missing anything? Maybe. SEO is a big field. Depending on your clients, you might also want to keep an eye on:

1. Brand visibility scores
2. Local SEO performance
3. Content engagement stats
4. E-commerce metrics like revenue per visit
5. Voice search optimization data

You don’t need to track everything under the sun. Focus on the metrics that align with your clients’ goals. Use this guide as your starting point, then customize based on what each client really needs.

Ready to dive in? Let’s get to the metrics that will truly move the needle for your agency and your clients in 2024.

1. Organic Traffic

This is what I look at as soon as I wake up and before I have my coffee. Organic traffic is the lifeblood of SEO success. It's not just a numbers game; it's about attracting quality visitors who are likely to engage with your client's content and convert.

Dive deep into your organic traffic data. Which pages pull in the most visitors? What keywords lead them to your site? How do these visitors behave once they arrive? These insights will sharpen your SEO strategy, focusing your efforts on attracting high-value traffic.

Raw traffic numbers don't tell the whole story. A 20% increase in organic traffic sounds good, but what if it led to a 50% boost in qualified leads? That's the kind of insight that will grab your clients' attention and prove your SEO value.

With Swydo’s integration with GA4, you can import detailed organic traffic data directly into your reports. This integration allows you to analyze keyword performance, identify high-traffic pages, and understand what drives organic visitors to your client’s site.

Create Google Analytics segments for high-value organic traffic. Track visitors who view multiple pages, spend significant time on the site, or hit key conversion pages. These segments reveal the true quality of your SEO efforts over time.

Quality trumps quantity every time. A modest increase in highly relevant traffic often outperforms a large spike in untargeted visits. Your mission? Attract visitors primed for conversion, not just inflate traffic numbers.

Build client dashboards that go beyond basic traffic trends. Include engagement metrics like average engagement time per session, engaged sessions per user, and conversion events for organic visitors. This comprehensive view showcases the full impact of your SEO strategy.

Long-term trends tell the real story. While month-to-month fluctuations occur, focus on the bigger picture. Are you consistently growing organic traffic year over year? Are you capturing an increasing share of your client's target market? These questions reveal the lasting value of your SEO work.

Organic traffic reflects your ability to align your client's online presence with their audience's needs and search behaviors. Master this alignment, and you'll not only drive traffic but deliver tangible business results.

2. Conversion Rate from Organic Traffic

Conversion rate from organic traffic directly links your SEO efforts to your client's bottom line. It's the metric that transforms clicks into customers, visitors into valuable leads.

Calculate this rate by dividing the number of conversions from organic traffic by the total number of organic visitors, then multiply by 100. But don't stop at the overall rate – segment it by landing page, traffic source, and user demographics to uncover hidden opportunities.

A high organic traffic conversion rate indicates you're not just attracting visitors, but the right visitors. It shows you understand user intent and deliver content that matches what searchers are looking for.

Set up conversion tracking in Google Analytics to monitor both macro conversions (like purchases or form submissions) and micro conversions (like newsletter sign-ups or video views). This gives you a fuller picture of how organic visitors engage with your client's site.

Compare your organic conversion rate to other traffic sources. If it's significantly lower, you might need to reassess your keyword targeting or landing page optimization. If it's higher, you've got a strong case for increasing your client's SEO budget.

Don't settle for average industry conversion rates. Push for continuous improvement. A/B test your landing pages, refine your calls-to-action, and optimize your site's user experience. Even small improvements in conversion rate can lead to significant revenue increases for your clients.

Use conversion path reports to understand how organic traffic interacts with other channels before converting. This multi-touch attribution view helps you articulate the full value of your SEO efforts, especially for clients with longer sales cycles.

When reporting to clients, don't just present the numbers. Tell the story of how your SEO work is driving real business results. Show them the revenue impact of their improved organic conversion rate. This tangible connection between SEO and business growth will cement your value as a strategic partner.

3. Keyword Rankings for Strategic Terms

Keyword rankings remain a crucial indicator of your SEO success. While they're not the end-all-be-all, they provide valuable insights into your visibility for important searches in your client's niche.

Focus on tracking a mix of short-tail and long-tail keywords that align with different stages of the customer journey. This approach gives you a comprehensive view of your client's search presence across various user intents.

Don't get hung up on chasing #1 rankings for every keyword. Instead, prioritize terms that drive valuable traffic and conversions. A #3 ranking for a high-intent, transactional keyword often delivers more value than a #1 ranking for a low-intent informational term.

Use tools like Semrush or SE Ranking to monitor your rankings daily. Look for trends and sudden changes that might indicate algorithm updates or increased competition. Quickly identifying ranking drops allows you to react swiftly and minimize potential traffic losses. SE Ranking can even help you identify traffic forecasting opportunities.

Pay attention to SERP features like featured snippets, local packs, and image carousels. Optimizing for these can significantly increase your client's visibility, even if you're not in the #1 organic position.

When reporting rankings to clients, provide context. Explain how changes in rankings correlate with traffic and conversion metrics. This helps clients understand the real impact of ranking fluctuations on their business goals.

4. Page Load Speed

Page speed is more than a ranking factor; it's a key determinant of user experience and conversion rates. In an age of instant gratification, slow-loading pages can kill your SEO efforts before they even begin.

Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and Pingdom to measure and monitor your page speed regularly. Pay special attention to mobile page speed, as Google's mobile-first indexing means this is now your primary battleground.

Don't just look at the overall score. Dive into specific metrics like First Input Delay (FID), First Contentful Paint (FCP), and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). These granular measurements help you pinpoint exactly where your site is lagging.

Prioritize speed improvements on your most important pages first. Your homepage, top landing pages, and key conversion pages should be lightning fast. Even small improvements here can lead to significant gains in traffic and conversions.

Use the mobile vs. desktop results to determine which device types might require more attention.

Implement easy wins like image optimization, browser caching, and minification of CSS and JavaScript files. Then move on to more complex optimizations like reducing server response time and leveraging browser caching.

Establish a baseline for each critical page, then monitor these metrics regularly to detect improvements or regressions. Report on trends over weeks or months to show the long-term impact of any optimizations.

Don't forget to test your speed improvements. Use A/B testing to measure the impact of speed enhancements on user engagement and conversion rates. This data helps you prove the ROI of technical SEO work to your clients.

5. Organic Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Organic CTR reveals how compelling your search listings are compared to your competitors. A high CTR indicates that your titles and meta descriptions are effectively enticing users to click through to your site.

Monitor your CTR in Google Search Console, paying attention to how it varies across different queries and pages. Typically, the top positions get higher CTR, but variations can indicate issues with your snippets.

While Google Analytics doesn’t directly report on CTR, you can set up a custom dashboard that combines Search Console data with other engagement metrics, such as bounce rate and session duration, to get a fuller picture of how users interact with your site after clicking through from search results.

Don't ignore the impact of rich snippets on CTR. Implement structured data markup to enhance your SERP appearance with stars, prices, or other relevant information that can make your listing stand out.

Track your CTR over time and in relation to ranking changes. Sometimes, moving up just one position can dramatically improve your CTR. Use this data to prioritize your ranking improvement efforts.

Average CTR by the way, varies by position and industry. Benchmark your performance against industry standards, but always strive to beat the average for your specific niche.

6. Backlink Quality and Quantity

Backlinks remain a cornerstone of SEO, signaling to search engines that other reputable sites vouch for your content. But in 2024, it's all about quality over quantity.

Use tools like Semrush or Majestic to monitor your backlink profile. Track not just the number of backlinks, but their quality, relevance, and authority. A few links from highly respected sites in your industry can outweigh hundreds of low-quality links.

Monitor your link acquisition rate (link velocity) in tools like Semrush. A steady growth in backlinks is ideal, as it indicates natural, sustainable link-building practices. Sudden spikes in backlink acquisition could be flagged as suspicious by search engines, so it's crucial to track this metric over time.

Analyze the anchor text distribution in your backlink profile. See which keywords are used as anchor text most frequently. Ensure a healthy mix of branded, naked URL, and keyword-rich anchor texts.

Don't neglect link reclamation. Use tools to monitor for broken backlinks or mentions of your brand that aren't linked. Reaching out to fix these can be an easy win for improving your backlink profile.

Check for broken backlinks (links pointing to 404 pages on your site) and reclaim them by creating a 301 redirect to a relevant page or by asking the linking site to update the URL.

Audit your backlink profile for toxic links. While Google's gotten better at ignoring bad links, a high number of spammy backlinks can still hurt your SEO. Use Google's Disavow Tool as a last resort for links you can't get removed.

7. Domain Authority and Comparable Metrics

While not an official Google metric, domain strength metrics like Domain Authority (DA) from Moz, Domain Rating (DR) from Ahrefs, and Authority Score from Semrush provide a snapshot of your site's overall SEO health and ranking potential. These metrics are particularly useful for competitive analysis and setting realistic ranking expectations.

Track your domain strength using tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, or Moz. Focus on long-term trends and significant changes rather than obsessing over minor fluctuations.

Compare your domain metric to your main competitors. This gives you insight into how challenging it might be to outrank them and helps you set realistic goals for your SEO campaigns.

Improve your domain authority or equivalent score by acquiring high-quality, relevant backlinks and creating authoritative content that naturally attracts links. Remember, these metrics are a reflection of good SEO practices, not an end goal.

Use these metrics to identify link-building opportunities. Sites with a slightly higher score than yours often make good targets for outreach and collaboration.

When reporting these metrics to clients, always provide context. Explain that while they are useful for understanding overall SEO progress, they are not direct ranking factors used by Google.

8. Mobile Traffic Percentage

With Google's mobile-first indexing, understanding and optimizing for your mobile audience is crucial. Your mobile performance can make or break your SEO efforts.

Use Google Analytics to track what percentage of your organic traffic comes from mobile devices. Look for trends over time – is your mobile traffic share growing?

Compare engagement metrics between mobile and desktop users. If mobile users have significantly higher bounce rates or lower conversion rates, you've got work to do on mobile optimization.

Pay attention to mobile-specific issues like touch-friendly navigation, readable font sizes, and properly sized tap targets. These factors significantly impact user experience and, consequently, your SEO performance.

Check individual pages. Don't assume that because your site is responsive, it's optimized for mobile. Each page needs to be checked and optimized.

9. Bounce Rate from Organic Traffic

Bounce rate can indicate whether your content meets user expectations and search intent. But be careful – a high bounce rate isn't always bad.

While Bounce Rate is still an important metric, GA4 provides additional context through Engagement Rate, Engaged Sessions, and Average Engagement Time per Session. These metrics together offer a more complete picture of user behavior on your site.

Segment your bounce rate by traffic source, focusing on organic traffic. Compare it to your overall site average and to industry benchmarks.

Understand how far users scroll on your pages. A high bounce rate coupled with low scroll depth might indicate that your content isn't capturing attention or the page loads slowly.

Analyze bounce rates in context. For a blog post or informational page, a high bounce rate might mean users quickly found the information they needed. For a product page, it could signal a mismatch between user intent and page content.

Look for pages with unexpectedly high bounce rates. These are prime candidates for optimization. Check if the content matches the search intent, if the page loads quickly, and if the design encourages further exploration.

Use heatmapping tools like Hotjar to visualize how users interact with high-bounce pages. This can reveal usability issues that might be causing users to leave.

Compare your bounce rates to industry benchmarks for similar types of content. For example, blog posts typically have higher bounce rates than product pages, so context is crucial.

10. Return on Investment (ROI)

ROI is the ultimate metric for proving the value of your SEO services. It directly ties your efforts to your client's bottom line.

Calculate SEO ROI by subtracting the cost of your services from the revenue generated through organic search, then dividing by the cost of your services. Multiply by 100 to get a percentage.

Work with your clients to assign accurate values to different types of conversions. This might include both direct revenue from e-commerce sales and estimated values for leads or other non-monetary conversions.

Use multi-touch attribution models to give SEO proper credit in the conversion process. Last-click attribution often undervalues SEO's contribution, especially for businesses with longer sales cycles.

Track ROI over extended periods. SEO is a long-term strategy, and its full value often becomes apparent over months or years, not weeks.

Present ROI data alongside other metrics to tell a complete story. Show how improvements in rankings and traffic translate into real business value.

Don't shy away from discussing ROI with your clients. It's your strongest argument for retaining clients and justifying increased SEO budgets.

Bonus Metric - Branded Clicks

Both our data analysis and the top SEO metrics lists we've gathered missed one vital aspect that truly aligns with your client: branded keywords.

Branded organic clicks represent a crucial metric in digital marketing, serving as a barometer of a company's online presence and reputation. These clicks occur when users search for a specific brand name or related terms and click on non-paid search results.

Unlike generic searches, branded queries indicate pre-existing awareness and interest in the company, often translating to higher conversion rates and customer loyalty.

We are noticing a trend where well-known brands are more likely to rank in the top 10 search results compared to lesser-known brands. Smaller affiliate sites are being overshadowed by authoritative sites like Forbes and others.

Building branded clicks is not about putting all your eggs in one basket, but rather a collaborative effort to strengthen your client's website and brand perception. E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) plays a critical role in this process. Focusing on E-E-A-T not only contributes to long-term success but also reduces reliance on Google alone. This means that even if Google's algorithms change, your brand will still be sought out by users.

Correlate Google Search Console branded click data with Google Analytics direct homepage traffic to gain insights into your brand's performance beyond Google search. Monitor competitor branded search performance to identify opportunities and benchmark your own progress.

Key Takeaway

• Focus on Impact: Prioritize metrics that directly influence client revenue and goals.
• Show the Value: Clearly demonstrate how your SEO efforts translate into business results.
• See the Big Picture: Combine multiple metrics to gain a comprehensive understanding of SEO performance.
• Personalize Your Strategy: Tailor your reporting and approach to each client's unique needs.

Ultimately, the SEO metrics you choose to focus on will shape the effectiveness of your SEO efforts and the value you deliver to your clients. As you refine your approach, let these insights guide your decisions, ensuring that every report not only demonstrates results but also builds a stronger, more strategic partnership with those you serve. The right metrics are more than just numbers—they're the key to unlocking meaningful growth and success.

Showcase your client's SEO results with Swydo. Request a demo or sign up for a free 14-day trial today.