Finance | Jun 15

Five metrics to track and improve SEO rankings

Finance | Jun 15

The five SEO metrics that matter most for measuring visibility, engagement, and business growth in an AI-powered search landscape

Ian Wylie Journalist, broadcaster, educator

Reading Time 6 minutes

Online search is changing rapidly. Customers are no longer finding businesses solely through traditional search results. Increasingly, they are discovering information through Google’s AI Overviews and AI-powered tools such as ChatGPT and Claude.

Recent Bain research suggests that nearly 60% of Google searches now end without a click to another website, as users increasingly find answers directly within search results. That doesn’t make SEO less important. Instead, it means businesses need to think beyond rankings alone and pay closer attention to whether their content is attracting the right audience, generating engagement, and driving meaningful actions.

According to digital marketing experts the key to achieving this is not trying to track everything. Instead, focus on the metrics that reveal how customers move through your brand’s online journey, from discovery to conversion.

1. Organic traffic

One of the most important metrics for SMEs is organic traffic, says Alison Battisby, founder of Avocado Social: the number of visitors arriving at a website through unpaid search results. Tracking organic traffic helps SMEs understand whether their SEO efforts are increasing visibility among potential customers. It also provides a useful benchmark for measuring growth over time.

Scott McBay, CEO of digital marketing agency Balanced Impact and visiting associate professor at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh Business School, explains that strong rankings depend on three core areas: technical performance, content quality, and backlinks. Page loading speed, smartphone compatibility, and site architecture all affect how search engines evaluate your website.

But content matters just as much. Pages need to align with the words and phrases customers actually use when searching, as well as being relevant to the products and services you sell. In addition, ‘A good backlink is authoritative and reputable, and boosts website credibility,’ McBay says.

Those same factors are increasingly important in AI-powered search too. Carefully chosen SEO keywords in your content, in line with the language your customers use when searching, will increase the chances of your website being seen, while AI overviews can still drive valuable traffic when users click through to the sources cited in those summaries.

2. Click-through rate (CTR)

Appearing in search results is only half the battle. SMEs need users to click on their listings too. Click-through rate measures the percentage of people who see a search result and then visit the website. Battisby argues this is one of the clearest indicators of whether a listing is compelling enough to attract attention.

Even as AI-generated summaries answer more queries directly within search results, CTR remains an important indicator of whether your content is persuasive enough to encourage users to explore further. You can find your CTR through analytics providers, such as Fathom, Clarity, and Google Analytics.

Improving CTR often comes down to writing clearer page titles, stronger descriptions, and more relevant content. SMEs should also pay close attention to the search queries that bring people to their site. ‘It tells you what your audience actually wants, and that’s gold for your content, social media, and PR strategy,’ Battisby says.

‘Long-tail’ keywords can be particularly valuable. Rather than targeting broad phrases such as ‘hotel room’, explains McBay, businesses may benefit from more specific search terms like ‘luxury hotel room with king-size bed in Edinburgh’. These longer phrases often reflect clearer user intent and can attract more engaged visitors. But keep the terms relevant to the products and services you want to be known for, Battisby warns against obsessing over ‘vanity keywords’ that generate little meaningful traffic.

3. Engagement metrics

Getting visitors onto a website is important, but SEO success also depends on what happens next. Kathryn Waite, associate professor in digital marketing at Edinburgh Business School, explains this using the concept of the customer journey funnel. At the top of the funnel, businesses focus on acquisition. The middle of the funnel measures engagement and retention. And the bottom of the funnel tracks conversion.

Engagement metrics help SMEs understand whether visitors are actually interacting with the site. Google Analytics measures how long users actively engage with a page and whether they continue browsing beyond their initial visit. A high bounce rate, where users leave without meaningful interaction, can signal that a page failed to meet expectations or answer a search query. Equally, low engagement times or dwell rate may suggest weak content or poor usability.

In an AI-driven search environment, engagement metrics are becoming even more valuable because they show whether visitors arriving from search engines or AI-generated recommendations are finding genuine value in the content.

‘This information helps you understand which pages people are visiting and with which content they are actually interacting,’ Waite says. Tracking these metrics over time also allows SMEs to evaluate whether website changes are improving performance.

4. Conversion metrics

Ultimately, rankings and traffic only matter if they support wider business goals.

‘Rankings are a means to an end, not the goal itself,’ Battisby says. SMEs need to ask what they actually want visitors to do when they arrive. ‘The businesses that get the most from SEO are the ones who connect it to a real goal, and measure backwards from there.’

As search behaviour evolves through AI, conversion metrics provide a useful reality check. Visibility has little value unless it ultimately generates enquiries, leads, or sales.

Conversion metrics measure these outcomes. They may include purchases, enquiries, downloads, newsletter sign-ups, or other ‘micro-events’ that generate leads and move users further along the customer journey. Google Analytics tracks both session key event rates and user conversion rates, allowing SMEs to see which channels and pages are driving results.

Low conversion rates can indicate several problems, such as weak calls to action, poor mobile compatibility, unclear messaging, or slow follow-up processes. ‘If your SEO is driving traffic but you’re not converting the traffic, the problem might not be SEO at all,’ Battisby says.

McBay also stresses the importance of micro-events that generate leads and build prospect databases. For ecommerce businesses in particular, conversions are essential to survival.

5. Traffic source and channel data

Understanding where visitors come from is another critical metric. Analytics tools such as Google Analytics allow SMEs to identify whether traffic arrives through direct visits, organic search, paid advertising, or referrals from backlinks.

This information helps businesses assess which marketing activities are working. For example, Waite notes that low levels of organic traffic may indicate poor keyword selection, while unusually high direct traffic could suggest tracking code problems or strong brand recognition.

Combining traffic source data with conversion metrics allows SMEs to understand not just where visitors come from, but which channels generate valuable outcomes. ‘Search is competitive and the algorithms shift, so it needs regular attention,’ Battisby says.

For SMEs, the goal is not simply to rank highly in traditional search results. It is to be visible wherever potential customers are looking for information, whether that’s Google search, AI-generated overviews, or emerging AI-powered discovery tools, and then turn that visibility into engagement and measurable business results.

Ian Wylie Journalist, broadcaster, educator

Ian Wylie is a journalist, editor, and broadcaster for the Financial Times, Guardian, BBC, Monocle, and others. For 16 years he was a staff writer, feature writer, and section editor at The Guardian newspaper. He also teaches on Newcastle University’s undergraduate and postgraduate journalism programmes.

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