10 metrics to track and improve your SEO and GEO

The key SEO and GEO metrics SMEs should monitor to improve visibility, engagement, authority, and AI search performance

The success of your search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy is no longer judged solely by where your website ranks in Google. Increasingly, it also depends on how your content appears in AI-generated responses, a growing area known as Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO). 

Users are now finding their information through platforms like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot, alongside traditional search engines. That means visibility is no longer just about rankings. It’s about whether your content is considered useful, trustworthy, and relevant enough to be surfaced by AI systems. 

In this guide, we explore 10 key metrics SMEs should regularly monitor to improve both SEO and GEO performance. 

Keyword rankings 

Tracking where your pages rank for target keywords remains one of the clearest ways to measure search visibility and SEO progress over time. 

Businesses should monitor: 

• Primary keywords directly linked to products or services  
• Secondary and long-tail keywords linked to customer questions, pain points, and niche searches  

For GEO, it is also important to monitor whether your content appears in: 

• Google AI Overviews  
• AI-generated summaries  
• Conversational search results  
• Featured snippets and ‘People also ask’ sections  

AI search increasingly favours content that directly answers questions in clear, natural language. 

Keywords and GEO can be measured using one of the numerous tools found online, Semrush and SE Ranking being two of the most popular. These typically come with a cost. 

Organic traffic 

Organic traffic is the visitors that arrive at your website from unpaid search results. 

This remains one of the most important indicators of SEO success because it shows whether your content is visible and relevant to users actively searching for your expertise. 

When reviewing organic traffic, track: 

• New vs returning users  
• Traffic by landing page  
• Traffic by device  
• Traffic from AI-assisted search experiences where possible  

A rise in impressions without a rise in traffic may indicate your content is visible but not compelling enough to earn clicks. 

Popular online tools for measuring engagement include Google Analytics, Fathom, and Microsoft Clarity.  

Impressions 

Impressions show how often your content appears in search results, regardless of whether users click on it. 

This helps reveal: 

• Keyword visibility  
• Search demand  
• Potential opportunities to improve click-through rates  

For GEO, impressions can also indicate whether search engines and AI systems recognise your content as relevant to a topic area, even if users are not yet engaging with it directly. 

Click-through rate (CTR) 

Click-through rate (CTR) measures how often users click on your content after seeing it in their search results. 

You can rank highly and still underperform if users are not persuaded to visit your page. 

Improving CTR often comes down to: 

• Clear page titles  
• Strong meta descriptions  
• Answering specific user questions  
• Aligning content with search intent  

For GEO, content should also be structured around natural language queries and provide enough depth to encourage users to click through for further detail. 

Bounce rate and engagement rate 

These metrics indicate whether users stay on your site and interact with your content. 

A high bounce rate can suggest: 

• Content does not match user expectations  
• Pages load too slowly  
• Formatting is poor  
• Information is difficult to access  

Meanwhile, a strong engagement rate, such as users viewing multiple pages or spending longer on-site, signals to search engines that your content is useful. Internal linking, clear navigation, and readable formatting all help improve engagement. 

Engagement time 

Engagement time measures how long users actively spend on a page. You may have heard this referred to as dwell time.  

Longer engagement times generally suggest that your content is valuable and relevant to the user’s search. 

To improve engagement time, consider: 

• Adding videos, graphics, or interactive elements  
• Breaking up text with subheadings  
• Including relevant internal links  
• Writing comprehensive, easy-to-follow answers  

This is particularly important for GEO, as AI systems tend to prioritise content that demonstrates depth, clarity, and topical authority. 

Conversion rate 

SEO should ultimately support business goals, not just traffic growth. 

Tracking conversion rates helps connect search visibility to commercial outcomes. Conversions could include: 

• Purchases  
• Contact form submissions  
• Newsletter sign-ups  
• Demo requests  
• Event registrations  
• Downloads  

Monitoring which pages convert best helps businesses focus on the content that drives meaningful results. 

Backlinks and referrals 

Backlinks from trusted websites remain a strong indicator of authority and credibility. 

Search engines, and increasingly AI systems, use these signals to assess whether a source is trustworthy enough to surface in results or AI-generated answers. 

Focus on earning backlinks from: 

• Industry publications  
• Trusted business websites  
• Academic institutions  
• Government organisations (this is a golden ticket as search engines regard links from a domain containing .gov and .ac.uk as highly credible) 
• Relevant media outlets  

A look at the source of referral traffic using tools like Google Analytics can also help you to identify partnerships and channels driving high-quality visitors to your site. 

Core Web Vitals 

Core Web Vitals are Google’s metrics for measuring user experience, focusing on loading speed, responsiveness, and visual stability. You can find these details in online tools like PageSpeed Insights and Google Search Console.  

The three main metrics are: 

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): measures loading performance. Ideally under 2.5 seconds.  
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP): measures responsiveness. Ideally below 200 milliseconds.  
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): measures visual stability. Ideally below 0.1.  

Poor performance can negatively affect rankings and user experience. Common improvements include: 

• Compressing large images  
• Embedding videos instead of hosting them directly  
• Reducing unnecessary scripts and plugins  
• Improving mobile optimisation  

Indexed pages and crawl errors 

Even excellent content cannot rank if search engines cannot properly access or index it. Regularly monitor via online tools: 

• Broken links  
• Duplicate pages  
• Redirect issues  
• Indexing errors  
• Missing metadata  
• Crawl problems  

Technical SEO remains critical because AI-powered search tools still rely heavily on structured, crawlable, and trustworthy web content. 

GEO: the growing importance of authority and structure 

Unlike traditional SEO, GEO is less focused on exact keyword matching and more focused on: 

• Clarity  
• Context  
• Authority  
• Structured information  
• Trustworthiness  

AI systems are designed to summarise and synthesise information quickly. Content that performs well tends to: 

• Clearly answer questions  
• Use logical heading structures  
• Include evidence or examples  
• Demonstrate expertise  
• Stay updated and accurate  

In practice, strong GEO often comes from strong SEO fundamentals combined with genuinely useful content. 

Tools to track SEO and GEO performance 

Useful tools include: 

• Google Analytics  
• Google Search Console  
• Ahrefs  
• Semrush  
• SE Ranking  
• Serpstat  
• Moz  

Many of these platforms are also beginning to introduce GEO and AI visibility tracking features, helping businesses understand how their content performs in AI-generated search experiences as well as traditional rankings. 

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