Search engine optimization (SEO) key performance indicators (KPIs) are metrics that SaaS businesses track to measure the effectiveness and performance of their SEO campaign. Companies need to track key metrics to ensure they have the data they need to make impactful decisions.

Behind every successful SaaS SEO campaign is a team that has set the right SEO goals and built a system to measure the impact of their SEO efforts. 

That being said, there are many SaaS SEO KPIs available for businesses to track, but it’s not a good idea to try to track everything.

It’s crucial for teams to pinpoint the right SEO KPIs they need to focus on — but how do you choose them?

The primary objective for any SaaS business looking to improve its SEO is to boost its revenue. Therefore, when it comes to measuring the right SEO KPIs, you need to focus on metrics that’ll help you reach a highly-targeted audience and increase your return on investment (ROI).

In this blog, we’ll share a list of critical SEO KPIs, and the tools businesses can use to track them.

7 Important SEO KPIs You Should Be Tracking

1. Keyword Rankings

You may have done your homework, found all the best keywords to rank for and incorporated all the right ones within your web pages. But what next? How do you know whether the 14 times you included “best UX websites” is making any difference?

This is where keyword rank tracking comes into the picture. 

Keyword rank tracking (also called SERP tracking or position tracking) is the process of regularly monitoring your website’s position on Google or other search engines for specific keywords. 

Why is keyword rank tracking important?

Businesses worldwide invest heavily in SEO to boost their organic traffic. But, of course, it goes without saying that to drive more traffic to their websites, they need to rank well on Google. Therefore, it’s easy to see that the best way to understand whether or not your SEO efforts are working is to track your most important keywords over time.

A study conducted by Backlinko showed that nearly 27.6 percent of user clicks went to the top organic search result.

Tracking and optimizing web pages for top-ranking keywords is critical for SaaS businesses because their sales could be affected significantly if they experience a drop in rankings from their first position.

While you can use Google tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to gain insight into your SEO performance, they have their own limitations. 

They don’t allow you to track how specific keywords are performing over time, nor will you be notified when there is a sudden drop in your position. This is why it’s a good idea to leverage paid SEO tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs to track your SERP ranking.

2. Organic Traffic

The organic traffic SEO KPI refers to a website’s traffic via unpaid search results from search engines like Google and Bing. This SEO KPI measures the number of people who land on your website from organic search results.

SEO is all about getting people to your website by ranking highly on SERPs. Therefore, it’s no surprise that organic traffic is one of the most important SEO metrics SaaS businesses need to track. 

You can find your Organic traffic in Google Analytics under the Acquisition section > All Traffic > Channels. 

You can also track your daily site traffic by going to Audience > Overview report > Add Segment > and selecting the Organic Traffic field. The report will give you an understanding of your organic session changes within a specific period. 

3. Conversions (Leads / Phone Calls / Sales)

Simply obtaining organic traffic from search engines is not the end goal of SEO campaigns. When SaaS businesses implement SEO campaigns, their ultimate goal is to convert prospective customers. Conversions are what transform organic search traffic into sales and revenue for your company. 

Therefore, SEO conversions are one of the most important SEO metrics that businesses should track. You need to define the actions that count as a conversion for you, know how to track these actions, and then calculate your SEO conversion rate to evaluate your SEO campaign’s performance on the larger landscape.

But what counts as a conversion? 

This depends from business to business. 

In simple terms, an SEO conversion is any action that organic visitors take to show interest in what you offer. 

The most substantial conversion could be a sale; some lower-end conversions could include actions like signing up for a demo call, filling out a contact form, creating an account, downloading an eBook, or even subscribing to your email list.

For SaaS companies, it could mean people who sign up for a trial or maybe trial users converting into paying customers.

Here are some crucial conversion and revenue KPIs you should track:

• Organic Clicks. Businesses can receive insight into their overall SEO success with the help of organic traffic SEO KPI. It is crucial to track organic clicks to understand what your users are clicking on when they visit your site. You may make better-informed decisions about your SEO initiatives by knowing what search terms, blogs, or pages led people to your site. You can use Google Search Console to track this SEO KPI.
• New Visitor Conversion Rate. This metric tracks how first-time visitors interact with your website compared to regular or returning users. While this might not technically be an SEO KPI since it depends on how people find your site, it’s still a valuable metric to track. Add a segment for new users within your Google Analytics to see how they convert.

Other conversion rate metrics you can track are return visitor conversion rate, sales conversion rate and organic keyword conversions.

4. Bounce Rate

In simple terms, the bounce rate SEO KPI is the percentage of visitors who come to your website and leave without taking any action or interacting with your website in a meaningful way. 

They simply bounce off your site. They don’t click on your call-to-action (CTA), a menu item, or any other links on your site. 

A good average bounce rate depends on different factors like the type of business, region, industry, niche and even the type of devices your audience uses. 

There are a few different ways you can check your website’s bounce rate on Google Analytics:

• For your entire site’s bounce rate: “Audience Overview” report
• Bounce rate for each traffic channel: “Channels” report
• For individual source/medium pair: “All Traffic” report
• Bounce rate for specific pages: “All Pages” report

5. Google Business Profile Metrics

49 percent of companies that leverage Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) get over 1000+ views and 59 actions every single month. Businesses that have completed and thoroughly optimized their Google Business Profile listings receive nearly seven times more clicks and are 70 percent more likely to attract users.

Google Business Profile Insights is one of the most powerful marketing tools for businesses. However, many feel it’s only useful for local businesses with a physical location like a restaurant, lawyer, or doctor’s clinic.

That’s not true. 

A company’s Google Business Profile is not just where people go to get phone numbers or directions. It helps people make informed decisions by checking people’s reviews, the company’s response to queries and more.

You can now share content like blogs, lead magnets, videos, case studies, product launch announcements, discounts and offers and more with your Google Business Profile.

You can leverage Google Business Profile to track SaaS SEO KPIs through:

• Searches. How many times was your business listed within the search results?
• Views. How many times was your site viewed on Google Search or local search?
• Actions. What actions do people take when they come across your business? Do they choose to visit your website or give you a call?

6. High Impression / Low Click Pages

This isn’t technically a straightforward SEO KPI, but it does offer a lot for businesses that track this particular metric.

The truth is that when working with SEO, you don’t really care about impressions. What matters is the organic traffic — how many people have clicked on your web page.

When you rank on the bottom of Google’s first page, you’re left with a lot of impressions, but how many times have you ever moved past the 4th or 5th result on SERPs?

Your web page may have a high impression rate but very low click-through rates. 

And these web pages are hidden gems that provide opportunities you shouldn’t miss out on!

Let’s explain how spotting high impression/low click pages can help you.

You’ve created a guide, “5 Steps to Start Dropshipping” which ranks in the 8th position on the first page.

It has had a lot of impressions since its ranking on the first page; however, it doesn’t have a high click-through rate.

Now, you notice this and check the web pages ranking above you and find out that your competitors have listed around eight to 10 tips on average. So you go back to your blog and optimize it by adding three to five more tips to make it an in-depth guide for your readers. 

Within a few months of optimizing this content, you start ranking in the second or third position for the very same keyword! 

This means you now get high impressions and high clicks for your web page!

7. Page Load Speed

This technical SEO KPI is a critical one since it defines how long it takes for the web pages on your site to load from an actual user’s point of view. 

Desktop page load speed and mobile page load speed are two types of page load speed businesses need to take care of. 

Unfortunately, most SaaS businesses miss out on optimizing their website for mobile devices, which can significantly impact their SEO positioning.

Here’s the thing: People have become too impatient to wait any longer than a few seconds for websites to load before they bounce off and simply click on the next result to find what they’re looking for. 

A good page speed average is around 2.5 seconds. 

You can easily track your page load speed via tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and even your Google Search Console. 

Final Thoughts

Search engine optimization can seem easy or extremely complicated, depending on how deeply you dive into this subject. You can try your best to optimize your site for a bunch of factors you know, but if you aren’t an expert, you may have no idea how much of an impact everything you’re missing may have on your website. 

Tracking these SEO KPIs will hopefully get you one step closer to applying SEO where it’s critical. There are several other metrics you can track to gain insightful data that can help you better optimize your SaaS website; however, the seven listed in the blog are the most crucial ones. 

We hope these metrics help you make strategic decisions and build a successful SaaS SEO campaign.