I contacted leading SEO consultants from across the globe to see how they measure the success of an SEO campaign.
Do they track rankings & traffic? Backlinks earned? Or do they only care about leads and sales from SEO?
Here is what 15 thought leaders have to say.
Conversions Over Rankings and Traffic
While rankings and traffic do play their part in any successful SEO campaign, it’s the conversions that matter in my eyes—specifically the leads and sales. If a client is paying for SEO, they want to see a return on their investment, and so it’s my job to improve the website organically, through expanding content, technically proofing the site, and enhancing the user experience in order to convert those users. Of course, I need to drive traffic to their website organically via search engines and other sites online, so I’m always ensuring I’m delivering the right content for the target audience to attract them to the website and that when they do arrive, they’ll stay and convert. Tracking rankings of major keywords is a part of this and analyzing the organic, direct, and referral traffic, but also assessing the type, intent, sentiment, and topic of keywords that the website is ranking for, the relevance of those keywords, and the page that is being delivered for those queries. Conversion rate is integral to my work as well, as a metric to measure the relevance and impact of my SEO campaign and as something to continuously improve upon.
Steph Andrusjak, Freelance SEO Consultant, SEO Steph
Leads Matter More Than Traffic Volume
I always state that traffic numbers and rankings are vanity metrics. An SEO campaign where we convert 10 useful leads per month with 100 visitors per day is worth much more than thousands of visitors and no leads. It’s all about getting the right traffic, not a high amount of traffic. So, I always focus on leads, as that’s what brings value to the businesses I’m working with. In rare cases, it’s a content website with ads, and here, the amount of traffic and time spent on the page is more important, but it’s the minority.
So when I start with a client, we always discuss what’s important for them, and then we set a monthly goal we strive for, which is often a certain number of leads. It does make it easier, too, as you’re aligned with your client and focus on smaller amounts of content, which means you can spend more time on those pieces to perfect them.
Phillip Stemann, SEO Consultant, PhillipStemann.com
Quality Backlinks and Conversions Define Success
Success isn’t just about climbing rankings or chasing clicks. Yes, I keep an eye on where we stand in search results and how much traffic we’re pulling in—it’s essential. But the real success begins with what these numbers do for us.
Backlinks? They’re great, but only if they’re solid, coming from sites that matter. I am actively trying to develop them, sure, but I’m pickier about where they come from than how many I net. Quality trumps quantity, always.
Then, it boils down to leads and sales. SEO isn’t just a visibility contest; it’s about drawing in the right crowd and converting them. If those visitors aren’t reaching for their wallets or at least showing genuine interest, it’s back to the drawing board.
How do I track all this? I lead with the main KPIs, then delve into organic clicks and rankings to understand why we got that lead in the first place.
Harry Boxhall, Freelance SEO, Boxhall SEO
Profitability Guides SEO Investment Focus
SEO, besides being a marketing channel, is an investment. Customers pay to see more money coming in than going out, and that must be taken into account from day one.
This does not mean that you should not look at organic traffic, backlinks, and rankings, but make sure that good results in them are accompanied by an increase in the profitability of the company you are working for.
Marco Genaro Palma, Freelance CMO and SEO Consultant, GenaroPalma.com
MQLs and Other Metrics Inform Effectiveness
In most cases, the number of marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) would measure the effectiveness of our SEO campaign. However, there are instances when other factors, like backlinks and traffic, matter more than getting MQLs.
For example, we would care more about the rankings and the traffic coming in if we have recently launched a website and the main objective is to raise awareness.
Of course, other metrics besides the leads generated matter in measuring the effectiveness of the SEO campaign. They would still be helpful in terms of understanding how our target audience behaves and where they are most interested among the services we offer.
Bianca Nagac, Marketing Manager, MVP Asia Pacific
Prioritize Conversion Rates and Lead Quality
As a marketer, my goal for SEO success isn’t just about numbers—it’s about the quality of leads and the sales they generate. While tracking rankings and traffic gives us an idea of visibility, the true test is how it impacts revenue. For example, our most recent campaign increased organic traffic by 20%—even better, it led to a 15% boost in qualified leads!
I prioritize conversion rates and lead quality over just getting a lot of traffic. This ensures our SEO strategy supports business goals. This approach helps us refine our tactics to target keywords that show high intent, creating content that directly contributes to the bottom line.
Tom Jauncey, Head Nerd, Nautilus Marketing
Holistic View: Rankings to Revenue Impact
In my years leading Raincross, a digital marketing and SEO agency, I’ve learned that measuring the success of an SEO campaign requires a holistic view. We track traditional metrics like rankings, traffic, and backlinks because they offer valuable insights into the visibility and authority of a website. For instance, watching keyword rankings helps us understand how well our targeted SEO efforts are performing in terms of search visibility. Similarly, analyzing traffic volume and sources tells us if our content is drawing in the right audience.
However, my primary focus always circles back to conversions and how SEO directly impacts the bottom line. We dive deep into conversion data, distinguishing between those generated organically versus through paid channels. Understanding the actions visitors take, such as filling out a contact form, signing up for a newsletter, or completing a purchase, gives us a clearer picture of SEO’s ROI. For example, we leveraged this approach in our programmatic advertising strategies, emphasizing not just the aesthetic appeal of the website but its conversion capabilities, which significantly boosted client sales.
To put it plainly, while SEO metrics like rankings and traffic offer valuable insights, the real measure of success for any campaign I lead is its impact on conversions and revenue. This approach requires continuous monitoring and refinement of strategies based on performance data, ensuring every effort contributes positively to the client’s business objectives. It’s never just about being visible; it’s about being valuable to the target audience and driving actionable results.
Kevin Watts, President & Founder, Raincross
Track All Metrics, Emphasize Business Outcomes
My first priority when working with the SEO team at LightHouse Graphics on a new or existing website is to track everything: rankings, traffic, leads, and sales. Our clients invest in SEO with the expectation of a return on their investment, often waiting patiently for six months to a year to see results. If they only receive keyword rankings, traffic, and backlinks without tangible business outcomes, their trust in SEO will diminish. While obtaining backlinks from reputable websites like BlakeSmithy.com may seem like an achievement, it’s only worthwhile if it benefits our clients’ businesses. However, tracking these metrics is essential to ensure our campaigns are heading in the right direction. While every dataset is valuable, I want to emphasize the importance of leads and sales.
Ahmed Ali, Digital Marketing Executive, LightHouse Graphics
Conversion Rate: The Core Success Metric
At RankWatch, we’ve adopted a nuanced approach to evaluating SEO success, focusing on the lifecycle of a visitor from discovery to conversion. As the CEO & Founder, I’ve seen firsthand that while rankings, traffic, and backlinks offer valuable insights, they are merely indicators of potential. Our core metric for success is the conversion rate—the ability of our SEO efforts to not only attract visitors but to convert them into customers. This emphasis allows us to align our SEO strategies closely with business objectives, ensuring that we’re not just generating traffic, but traffic that converts.
Why do we do it this way? Because in the vast landscape of the internet, visibility doesn’t guarantee viability. By analyzing how visitors interact with our site and what actions they take, we gain insights into the effectiveness of our content and user experience, adjusting our strategies to improve not just search engine visibility, but also the quality and relevance of traffic. This approach ensures that our SEO efforts contribute directly to our growth and the success of our clients, making SEO a strategic partner to business development rather than just a marketing tool.
Sahil Kakkar, CEO & Founder, RankWatch
Customized Approach Aligns with Client Goals
Our approach at our company is not one-size-fits-all; it’s customized, data-driven, and, most importantly, aligned with our clients’ unique ambitions. Here’s how we measure the success of our SEO campaigns, going beyond conventional metrics to truly understand the impact of our efforts.
At Wytlabs, measuring success goes beyond traditional metrics; it’s about the stories behind the data. We assess the reach and resonance of our content strategies through backlinks earned, social shares, and the buzz it creates online. It’s akin to throwing a pebble into a pond and measuring not just the size but the spread of the ripples. This holistic view ensures we’re not just making noise, but harmonizing with the market’s melody.
We’re like digital alchemists at Wytlabs, turning data into gold. Rankings and traffic tell us where we stand in the digital realm, backlinks help us gauge the strength of our content’s influence, but it’s the transformation of this traffic into leads and sales that truly measures the alchemy of our SEO strategies. It’s a balanced approach, where every metric, every analysis, contributes to the overarching goal of enhancing our client’s digital stature.
Our philosophy at our company is rooted in the idea that the digital journey is as important as the destination. By meticulously tracking a wide spectrum of metrics, we’re not just chasing leads or sales; we’re crafting a narrative of growth, learning, and adaptation. This approach allows us to refine our strategies in real-time, responding to the market’s pulse and our clients’ evolving needs with agility and insight.
Marc Bishop, Director, Wytlabs
Brand Metrics and Quality Links Take Priority
To measure the success of an SEO campaign, I look for brand metrics (share of search, branded searches) and high-quality links earned, as well as the leads and sales. Rankings and traffic do have their place, but they should be secondary to these other KPIs. SEO is primarily to build your brand, so you should be looking at metrics that go toward that goal. Ultimately, we want to be on top of the consumers’ minds when they need a solution to a problem we can solve, which is what SEO should do.
David Begazo, Owner, PRismatic SEO
Engagement and Conversion Rates Over Traffic
To assess our SEO success or failure, we look beyond traditional rankings and traffic metrics. Although these can give us a general snapshot of what’s happening with our efforts, we no longer rely on those figures but instead focus on engagement metrics like time on site and pages per session, and the conversion rates for organic traffic. The move away from relying on traffic as proof of SEO success means that we shift towards performance metrics that talk to users being engaged on site. This allows us to start gathering metrics that track what people are looking for and the actions they take on our site, more than just numbers about traffic. This shift in metrics helps broaden our ability to understand what audiences are looking for when they arrive on our site, and how we can continue to evolve our SEO tactics and narrative to meet their needs.
Mark McShane, Founder, HARO Link Building
Analyze Lead Quality and Customer Feedback
In my journey as a content creator and SEO expert who founded That Local Pack, my perspective on measuring the success of SEO campaigns has evolved. I’ve learned that while traditional metrics like rankings, traffic, and backlinks offer valuable insights into a campaign’s progress, they don’t tell the whole story. For example, in working with local service providers to increase their online visibility, I’ve seen that the ultimate indicators of an SEO campaign’s success are leads, sales, and the quality of engagement with the target audience.
One critical lesson from my experiences, especially in local SEO, is the importance of analyzing lead quality and customer feedback. Not all leads are created equal, and a high volume doesn’t necessarily translate to high-quality, convertible leads. By focusing on metrics such as lead-to-customer conversion rates, as well as collecting and reviewing customer feedback on how they found the business, we gain valuable insights into which strategies are driving real business growth.
For instance, while working on optimizing a local cleaning service’s online presence, we discovered that specific localized content and strategies targeted at improving their Google My Business listing resulted in a significant increase in high-quality leads and conversions, far more impactful than generic ranking improvements. This granular approach to tracking the effectiveness of different SEO strategies—beyond just rankings and traffic—helps in making informed decisions that are aligned with business goals, emphasizing that the end goal is always about generating tangible value for the business, whether through increased leads, sales, or enhanced customer engagement.
Ken Fortney, Founder, That Local Pack
Balance Visibility and Impact for Growth
In the realm of SEO, my compass for success is a blend of qualitative and quantitative measures. While tracking rankings, traffic, and backlinks offers invaluable insights into our efforts’ reach, the real victory lies in the tangible—leads and sales. This holistic approach allows us to understand not just visibility but impact. By balancing these metrics, we ensure our strategies not only attract eyes but also engage hearts, driving meaningful growth for the businesses we partner with.
Daniel Lynch, President & Owner, Empathy First Media
Leads and Sales Are True Success Indicators
My ultimate measure of an SEO campaign’s success boils down to leads and sales. While tracking rankings, traffic, and backlinks offers valuable insights into a campaign’s performance and health, these metrics are merely stepping stones toward the real goal: driving tangible business growth. I firmly believe that leads and sales are the truest indicators of an SEO campaign’s effectiveness because they directly correlate with a business’s profitability and sustainability. In my approach, I employ a holistic strategy that goes beyond just aiming for the top spot on search engines. I focus on optimizing content not just for search engines but for conversions as well. This means creating content that resonates with the target audience, solves their problems, and guides them smoothly through the sales funnel. By doing so, I ensure that the increased visibility from SEO translates into actual business results. The rationale behind this methodology is simple: Visibility doesn’t pay the bills—customers do. Therefore, while I still monitor all aspects of an SEO campaign, from keyword rankings to backlink profiles, my eyes are always fixed on the prize—increasing leads and sales. This approach ensures that my SEO efforts are always aligned with the ultimate business objectives, making every decision and adjustment strategically aimed at enhancing the bottom line.
Jason Vaught, President, Houston SEO Company
