SEO reporting has long centered on rankings, organic traffic, and conversions. But now that AI is increasingly becoming the first touchpoint in search, we need the metrics to match.
With new outcomes to measure, the instinct is to track everything. The better move is to track a few hand-picked SEO key performance indicators (KPIs) instead of a dozen.
This guide covers 18 SEO KPIs across organic and AI search, so you can choose the few that matter for your goal.
Why tracking 3 KPIs gives you a clearer read than tracking 12+
There are tons of search performance data points. Metrics like rankings, impressions, AI citations, mentions, and referral visits all capture something real, but tracking all of them splinters your attention across numbers that don’t necessarily relate to your goal.
Monitoring a select number of hand-picked SEO KPIs is far more useful than tracking a dozen or more because it keeps you focused on measuring progress toward your goal. So, choose the KPIs that ladder up to your SEO goal, which in turn supports your broader business goal.
The right KPIs depend on what you’re trying to achieve. A brand chasing awareness watches different numbers than one chasing conversions, so the skill is deciding which KPIs actually matter for your goal.
What are SEO KPIs?
SEO KPIs are the most important metrics across organic search and AI-generated answers that you measure to evaluate whether you’re on track to meet your SEO and business goals.
Common examples include search engine visibility, keyword rankings, AI citations, organic click-through rate (CTR), and conversions.
Monitoring these types of KPIs helps you:
- Track and evaluate performance
- Make data-driven decisions about where to invest next
- Demonstrate return on investment (ROI) to stakeholders
The specific KPIs you track depend on your website and goals.
Search visibility KPIs
Search visibility KPIs measure your brand’s presence across organic and AI search.
1. Search engine visibility
Search engine visibility measures how prominently your website appears in search engine results for target keywords and covers multiple SERP features (e.g., “People Also Ask,” featured snippets) to give you a broader view of your presence across different queries.
Tracking search engine visibility helps you see if your SEO efforts succeed beyond individual rankings.
To track search engine visibility, open Google Search Console (GSC). In the left-hand menu, find “Performance” and click “Search results.”
Check the box next to “Total impressions” to see how many times your site appeared in search results over a specific period.
GSC’s total impressions include queries beyond your target keyword list. Even keywords you weren’t originally targeting or ones you’ve deemed irrelevant.
Track your search visibility for specific target keywords using Semrush’s Position Tracking tool. Just enter your target keywords as you set up your project. Click “Start Tracking.”
Position Tracking will create reports specifically for your target keywords.
The “Overview” tab shows a trend graph of your site’s visibility and also provides an estimate of your visibility potential.
Further reading: SEO visibility: What it is & how to improve it
2. Keyword rankings
Keyword rankings show where your site appears in organic search results for specific terms, which impacts your visibility and potential to drive clicks.
Tracking rankings helps you find drops, spot high-performing pages, and discover new keyword opportunities. If you’ve already set up a campaign in Position Tracking, go to the “Overview” tab to view your keyword rankings and other relevant metrics.
Further reading: Keyword rankings: What they are & how to check yours
3. AI visibility
AI visibility measures how often your brand appears in AI-generated answers across relevant topics compared to competitors.
Semrush’s AI Visibility score reflects your AI visibility on a 0–100 scale. View it in Visibility Overview to see your score’s trend over time and how you compare to competitors across AI platforms.
Semrush’s Enterprise AIO solution offers broader platform coverage and more granular monitoring for large organizations with more complex needs.
4. AI mentions
AI mentions are brand name appearances in AI-generated answers.
Use Visibility Overview to track your mentions over time, broken down by platform and country. You’ll also see how you perform against competitors.
5. AI citations
AI citations are instances when AI-generated answers cite your domain as a source, regardless of whether you’re mentioned.
Use Visibility Overview to view both your total number of citations and the total number of pages on your website that are cited.
Click the number below “Cited Pages” to identify which of your pages earn the most AI citations.
Traffic KPIs
Traffic KPIs show how often search visibility leads to clicks and visits.
6. Organic click-through rate
Organic click-through rate is the percentage of impressions in unpaid search results that result in clicks to your website.
A higher CTR often signals relevant and compelling content.
Calculate your CTR by dividing the number of clicks by the total number of impressions. And multiply it by 100. Like this:
Organic CTR = (Organic clicks / SERP impressions) x 100
View your organic CTR in GSC by clicking“Search results” under “Performance,” and checking the box next to “Average CTR.”
Scroll down and select the “Pages” tab to see the CTR for each page.
Further reading: How does organic CTR affect SEO? (& 5 ways to improve it)
7. Organic traffic
Organic traffic refers to visits to your site from organic search results.
Monitoring organic traffic shows which pages attract the most visits from search engine listings. And allows you to see whether that number is growing or shrinking over time.
You can view organic traffic in Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Just click “Reports” in the left-hand menu, click “Acquisition,” then select “Traffic acquisition.”
In the table, find the “Organic Search” row and look for the number of sessions associated with it. That number represents how many visits from organic search your website received in the selected time period.
Use Semrush’s Organic Search dashboard in the Traffic & Market Toolkit, to separate any domain’s traffic into Organic Search and Google AI Mode, so you can see how much of your traffic comes from each.
Further reading: What is organic traffic? (And how to increase it)
8. Non-branded organic traffic
Non-branded organic traffic is search engine traffic from queries that don’t contain your brand name.
An increase in non-branded organic traffic shows you’re growing awareness and getting visits from people who don’t know your brand.
Use Semrush’s Organic Rankings tool to monitor your non-branded traffic. Enter your domain and click “Search.”
In the “Overview” tab, see your estimated non-branded traffic at the top.
9. AI referral traffic
AI referral traffic is website traffic you get from AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude.
Semrush research found the average AI search visitor was 4.4 times as valuable as a traditional organic search visitor, based on conversion rate. That matters when you consider that AI-generated answers don’t generally drive much traffic to other websites.
You can see AI referral traffic in the GA4 Traffic acquisition report, under the “AI Assistant” channel.
Use Semrush’s AI Traffic dashboard in the Traffic & Market Toolkit to see your breakdown of AI referral traffic by platform and to compare your traffic against competitors’ over time.
Larger organizations with more sophisticated needs should use Benchmark Intelligence in Semrush Enterprise AIO. It allows you to easily compare your estimated AI traffic against competitors across an array of AI platforms.
Authority KPIs
Authority KPIs are concrete ways to measure when other websites validate your brand.
10. Backlinks
Backlinks are links on external webpages that point to your site, which signal that your content is valuable and trustworthy.
Search engines see backlinks from authoritative, trustworthy sites as a stronger credibility signal. So one link from a reputable site can outweigh many from lower-quality ones.
The same holds true for AI search. Semrush’s backlinks study, which analyzed 1,000 domains, found that domains with stronger backlink authority are mentioned more often in AI-generated answers.
Use Semrush’s Backlinks tool to view your total number of backlinks. Add competitor domains to compare your backlink count against theirs.
Further reading: What are backlinks in SEO & how do I get them?
11. Brand mentions
Brand mentions are references to your brand across the web, and they can be linked or unlinked.
Linked mentions can support SEO through backlinks. Unlinked mentions reveal context that can help search engines and AI systems understand what your brand is known for.
Track your mentions with the Brand Monitoring app. Click “New query,” enter your brand’s name, select “Brand” from the drop-down, and click “Continue.”
Click “Main Filters” and enter your website under “Track backlinks,” so Brand Monitoring can identify mentions that also link to your site. Then, select all the sources you want to monitor and click “Create query.”
Once Brand Monitoring collects your mentions, go to the “Analytics”tab to see your total number of mentions and how many are also linked.
Further reading: Brand mentions: Complete guide to tracking, measuring & optimizing
User engagement metrics
User engagement metrics like the two below show how visitors interact with your site.
12. Bounce rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of unengaged sessions, meaning the session lasted for 10 seconds or fewer, didn’t involve a key event, or included less than two page or screen views.
A high bounce rate may mean the page content is irrelevant or that the site has usability or technical issues. While Google has never specified that bounce rate is a direct ranking factor, we do know from leaked documents and testimony at Google’s antitrust trial that user experience metrics like bounce rate do affect rankings.
Track bounce rate in GA4 by going to“Reports,” clicking “Engagement,” and selecting “Pages and screens.”Click the pencil icon in the top-right corner to customize the report.
Under “Metrics,” click “Add metric,” select “Bounce rate,” and click “Apply.”Then, click “Save” to save your changes.
Now, the table will include bounce rate data for your pages.
Further reading: What is bounce rate? And how to reduce it
13. Average engagement time
Average engagement time measures the average amount of time users spend actively viewing your website or app.
In GA4, average engagement time only considers the time when a webpage is in focus in the browser or when the app is open in the foreground.
High engagement signals that content is useful and meets user expectations, which helps build trust with audiences and supports overall search performance.
Find average engagement time in GA4’s “Engagement overview” report. Just look for the time under “Average engagement time per active user.”
Business impact KPIs
Business impact KPIs show how search performance translates to tangible value.
14. Conversions from organic and AI search
A conversion occurs when visitors from organic or AI search complete a desired action, such as completing a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a resource.
Effectively, conversions from organic and AI search reveal how well your traffic from those sources contributes to business results.
In GA4, conversions are tracked as key events that you specify. Mark the actions that matter most to your business by going to “Admin” > “Data display” > “Events” and selecting the star next to each event you want logged as a key event.
The Traffic acquisition report then shows total key events and “Session key event rate” for the “Organic Search” and “AI Assistant” rows, so you can see what portion of visits from each channel convert.
15. Return on investment
SEO return on investment (ROI) is the profit you gain from SEO compared to what you spend on it.
A positive ROI is the ultimate goal of every SEO strategy.
Here’s how to calculate SEO ROI:
SEO ROI = ((Revenue from SEO – cost of SEO) / cost of SEO) x 100
For example, if you spend $9,000 on SEO and generate $16,000 in revenue, your ROI would be 77.8%.
Further reading: The ROI of SEO: How to measure SEO ROI (with formulas)
16. Customer lifetime value
Customer lifetime value (CLV) estimates the total revenue generated by customers during their entire relationship with your business, and tracking it for SEO shows whether those customers purchase once or continue to create value over time.
Here’s how to calculate CLV:
CLV = (Average purchase value) x (average purchase frequency) x (average customer lifespan)
For example, if your average customer spends $100 per order, makes three orders per year, and remains a customer for five years, your CLV is $1,500.
17. Cost per acquisition
Cost per acquisition (CPA) from SEO measures how much it costs to acquire one new customer through organic and AI search.
SEO costs that can affect CPA include team salaries, agency fees, SEO tool costs, content creation, and link building.
A dropping CPA indicates your SEO strategy is becoming more cost-effective. A rising CPA may signal problems.
Here’s how to calculate your SEO CPA:
SEO CPA = Total SEO costs / Total number of customers acquired through organic and AI search
For example, if you spend $4,000 on in-house SEO and $1,000 on an agency, and gain 100 new customers, your CPA would be $50.
Local KPIs
Local KPIs show how customers find and interact with your business in Google Search and Maps.
18. Google Business Profile metrics
A Google Business Profile (GBP) lets you manage your local business’s presence in Google Search and Maps to boost your local SEO results.
Once your Google Business Profile is verified, open your profile, click “Performance,” and select a date range to review metrics such as:
- Search terms people used to find your business
- Profile views
- Website clicks
- Direction requests
- Calls
This data helps you see your local visibility and how potential customers engage with your business.
How to choose and refine your SEO KPI targets
Choose your SEO KPI targets by developing an SEO goal that aligns with your business goal, then selecting KPIs that track progress toward your SEO goal.
Let’s say an ecommerce business is trying to grow revenue by 20% in six months — that’s the business goal. The SEO goal could be to grow revenue specifically from AI search and SEO by $4,000 within six months.
Once you set your SEO goal, choose the few KPIs that track it, using a mix of leading and lagging indicators. Leading indicators show whether performance is progressing early enough for you to adjust your approach. Lagging indicators confirm whether that progress produced the intended result.
For the ecommerce business, the primary KPI and lagging indicator is conversions from organic and AI search. Two leading indicators, like organic traffic and AI referral traffic, indicate whether the business is on pace to hit that target.
Track your SEO KPIs
Regular SEO tracking shows whether your organic and AI search efforts are helping you progress toward your SEO goal.
Use Semrush’s My Reports to easily report on both SEO and AI search KPIs in one place.
Add your KPIs, then schedule the report to send updated results to stakeholders automatically.
