Measuring SEO Performance: 10 Metrics That Matter in 2025

Intro

With 71% of small businesses that invest in SEO saying they are satisfied with their results, it’s clear to see that SEO is essential for online growth.

Although many businesses know that SEO is important, many find the concept overwhelming and don’t know where to begin. Without previous knowledge of SEO strategies, the new terminology and complex technicalities can make it feel like an impossible task.

In this article, we discuss some of the key metrics that matter in 2025, helping businesses know what to look out for if they want to grow their traffic.

The 10 SEO Metrics You Need to Be Focusing On

Whether creating a website for a new business startup or developing niche-specific ecommerce strategies, understanding which SEO metrics to keep an eye on can make or break the success of the website. Here are the top 10 metrics to focus on in 2025…

Website health

Website health refers to the overall functionality of a website, offering valuable insights into any issues that may be impacting SEO rankings. Tools such as the Ahrefs Website Checker are able to calculate a health score that can be used as an indicator of whether further work needs to be done – typically, a website should have a score above 80.

Using a tool that can calculate website health helps diagnose any issues that could be hindering the health score. From 404 errors to redirect loops, knowing where improvements can be made will help a business improve its website health and subsequently improve its chances of ranking well.

(Image source: Ahrefs)

Keyword rankings

When looking to monitor SEO performance, keyword rankings are one of the main metrics to keep an eye on. It shows what keywords are ranking on each page and what the average ranking position for each looks like. This is a great way to see how target keywords are performing on each page.

This is a crucial metric for marketers as it shows exactly how SEO efforts are paying off. Since high-ranking positions matter and are a direct contributor to the visibility of a site, identifying areas for improvement opens up new opportunities for optimization.

Indexed pages

Indexed pages are those which have been crawled and stored by search engine bots. Once they have been indexed, they are eligible to rank in search results. Any website pages that have not been indexed will not appear in search results, however well optimized and relevant to the user they may be.

Tools such as Google Search Console can be used to produce a list of indexed pages.

By ensuring that any important web pages are indexed and any irrelevant ones, such as privacy policies, are not, search engines will be able to gain a strong understanding of a website and boost the chances of it ranking for relevant search terms.

(Image source: Search Console)

Organic traffic

Organic traffic refers to the number of users who are arriving at a site (not including those through paid advertising). This is a huge indicator of how visible a web page is in search results and whether SEO measures are proving successful.

Google Analytics is one of the most popular tools when looking at organic traffic numbers. It displays a visual representation of organic traffic over time through a line graph that can be filtered to show results during custom date periods.

A gradual increase in traffic over time is a key signal that SEO strategies are working, but if traffic is decreasing, this shows that action needs to be taken to identify what has gone wrong.

Referring domains

If a website is linked to from another website, this is called a referring domain. Search engine algorithms consider having numerous referring domains to be an indicator of reputability since other websites are referring to it in their own content.

Ahrefs offers a free Backlink Checker that produces a list of referring domains for a web page, including metrics such as the number of linked domains and the traffic that the referring domains attract.

The quality of referring domains plays a big part in how a web page is ranked. If there are referring domains from trustworthy web pages that are relevant to the industry, this will favor the rankings over irrelevant ones that imply black-hat strategies are being used.

(Image source: Ahrefs)

Click-through rate

The click-through rate, also referred to as the CTR, shows the percentage of users who click on a web page after seeing it in the search results. A high CTR is a strong indicator that the web page is highly relevant to the user’s search query.

This is a key metric to track as if the CTR is not as high as expected, it might mean that the metadata needs to be optimized. By making sure the meta title, meta description, and URL structure are all keyword optimized and entice users to click through to the site, organic traffic is likely to increase.

Bounce rate

The bounce rate is the percentage of users who leave the site without viewing a second page and this is commonly tracked through Google Analytics. The aim is to keep the bounce rate as low as possible since the goal is to keep users on the site and guide them through the funnel.

Although a high bounce rate is typically an indicator that users haven’t found what they are looking for and are likely to be going back to the search results, this isn’t always the case. For blog posts or single-page sites, users may only be expected to spend time on a single page. However, for ecommerce sites and service pages, the goal is for users to end up visiting the checkout or contact page.

(Image source: PPCexpo)

Conversion rate

Conversion rate refers to the percentage of users who take a desired action. These actions are defined by the business and are typically things like sales, form submissions, newsletter signups, or resource downloads.

This is key within SEO campaigns as it helps identify whether the traffic arriving at the site is relevant. If a page is attracting a lot of organic traffic but the conversion rate remains low, this indicates that either the content is not relevant to the users or the user experience is too complex.

To boost the conversion rate, optimizing landing pages with relevant content, call-to-action buttons, and clear navigation will help guide users to the right place before they lose interest.

Exit pages

Similarly to the bounce rate, exit pages track users leaving the site. The aim is to pinpoint exactly where users are leaving from to see if there is a trend.

Web pages that are expected to be exit pages are things like blogs, contact forms, and order confirmation pages – these imply that the user has found what they were looking for and has come to the end of their user journey.

If the main web pages are showing up as popular exit pages, this is a sign that further optimizations can be made to improve the user experience. Without this, search engine algorithms may consider the page to not be relevant to users and this can affect its rankings.

Page load time

Page load time is one of the more technical SEO metrics, defining how long a page takes to load when a user arrives on it. Since this can be a deterrent for users who land on the page, it can be a contributing factor to a page not being ranked well by search engines.

Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights can be used to check the page load times and identify any areas for improvement.

Whether the loading delays are due to large multimedia files, excess code, or unoptimized features, making changes to increase page load time can help improve SEO results.

(Image source: Google PageSpeed)

Turning SEO Metrics into an Actionable Strategy

With search engine algorithms becoming increasingly advanced and the web becoming more competitive than ever, having a strong SEO strategy is essential.

By knowing what tools to use and understanding how to interpret key metrics, businesses can find areas for improvement and optimize their site to draw in more organic traffic.

Keeping an eye on the ten metrics listed above and keeping up with optimizations will not only help web pages get picked up by search engine algorithms, but will also help a business improve the online experience for its users.