How to Measure SEO Progress
By Christopher Reid ·
Start with your business goals
Reporting should connect website performance with your business goals. If you want more phone enquiries for a particular service, measure that, rather than focusing only on overall traffic.
Useful measures
Useful measures include:
- Relevant search traffic: visitors arriving from unpaid search, especially to key service pages.
- Search visibility: how often your pages appear in results, and for which searches.
- Enquiries: form submissions, calls and emails, where tracking is available.
- Sales: online orders or bookings that started with a search visit.
Free tools to get started
Google Search Console shows which searches your website appears for, how often people click and any technical issues Google finds. Google Analytics shows what visitors do once they arrive. Together they give a reliable picture of progress.
Look at trends, not single days
Search data moves up and down. Compare months, or the same month last year, rather than reacting to daily changes. Seasonal businesses in particular should expect natural peaks and quiet periods.