To set goals and track the performance of a campaign effectively, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and benchmarks are essential.
With a plethora of KPIs available, it can be challenging to identify which ones should be used as benchmarks.
It’s common to see KPIs and benchmarks mentioned interchangeably, but they serve distinct purposes.
KPIs are industry metrics used to assess performance over time and provide insights into the success of an SEO campaign.
Benchmarks, on the other hand, are specific KPIs set as reference points when developing an SEO strategy.
These benchmarks give us a before-and-after comparison for particular KPIs, allowing us to track the progress of our SEO efforts and adjust our strategies as needed.
Additionally, benchmarks help demonstrate the value of our work to clients.
There are numerous KPIs to measure, and the ones to focus on depend on the type of site and its individual goals.
Several key KPIs are crucial for tracking the performance of all websites:
Traffic and User Experience Benchmarks
Driving users to the site is only part of the task.
Ensuring they have a good experience is equally important, as a poor user experience can lead to high bounce rates. Therefore, it’s essential to set benchmarks not just for traffic but also for user experience.
Organic Search Traffic
This metric tracks how many users visit the site through unpaid search engine listings like those on Google and Bing. Traffic should be tracked monthly, and it’s generally wise to use data from the most recent full month when setting benchmarks.
The goal should always be to surpass the closest benchmark.
For businesses affected by seasonality, using the best month during peak season as a running benchmark is advisable.
For accurate tracking of organic traffic from Google, Google Search Console (GSC) is preferred over Google Analytics due to data collection differences.
GSC’s Performance report includes four key metrics, including the number of clicks from Google search results.
To break down organic traffic by search engine using GA4:
1. Go to Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition.
2. Select First User Source/Medium from the Audience Name dropdown menu.
3. Choose the desired organic search channels from the Dimension Values dropdown menu.
This approach can show all organic traffic from multiple search engines or allow setting individual benchmarks for each search engine like Bing or Yahoo.
For page-level breakdowns, go to Engagement > Pages & Screens.
Engaged Sessions
In GA4, “Bounce Rate” has been replaced by “Engaged Sessions.”
A session is considered active if it lasts longer than 10 seconds, involves multiple screen or page views, or results in a conversion.
Find the number of active sessions per user under Engagement > Overview.
Average Interaction Time
Average interaction time in GA4 is important as it indicates user engagement with the site.
A low interaction time may suggest that visitors are quickly finding what they need, which is beneficial for sites that monetize content through quick affiliate link clicks.
However, it can also signal issues like low-quality content or poor user experience.
The average total engagement time is listed in the Reporting Snapshot in GA4. For a detailed breakdown, go to Engagement > Pages & Screens.
Backlink Profile Benchmarks
Backlinks are links from other websites to the site and are crucial for SEO.
They help search engines like Google understand the content and assess the authority of the website.
Important factors include the quality, quantity, relevance, authority, and anchor text of backlinks, as these influence the ranking in search engine results.
Number of Backlinks
To rank and maintain rankings, a website needs a consistently growing number of high-quality backlinks. Monitoring the number of backlinks helps track progress and sustain momentum.
Ahrefs’ Site Explorer provides a Backlink report that shows the total number of links to a website.
Additionally, it’s important to track the number of individual referring domains and their month-over-month growth, comparing this to competitors using the same chart.
This benchmark is crucial as there’s a strong positive correlation between the number of referring domains and increased organic traffic.
Domain Rating
Ahrefs’ Domain Rating (DR) measures the strength of a website’s backlink profile, comparing it to others in Ahrefs’ database on a 100-point scale.
Ideally, a site’s DR should increase over time, indicating an improving backlink profile.
Benchmarking DR is common, especially for clients who may not fully grasp SEO and link building. It’s simpler to explain that a higher DR signifies improvement.
UR Score
While DR correlates well with Google rankings, Ahrefs’ URL Rating (UR) correlates even better.
UR measures a single page’s backlink profile on a 100-point scale, considering both internal and external links and “nofollow” attributes, following similar principles to Google’s PageRank.
Benchmarking UR helps understand how well a single page can rank on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Keyword Benchmarks
Keywords are fundamental to an SEO campaign.
Understanding relevant queries that the target audience searches for is key to optimizing pages.
Individual Keyword Positions
A website could rank for thousands of keywords on the SERPs, but some keywords are more crucial than others—especially those most relevant to the products or services offered.
Benchmarking individual keyword positions in search results helps track important keywords and set goals.
Using Google Search Console and a ranking tracking tool like Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker can help monitor these keywords and compare performance with competitors.
Email notifications can also keep you updated on keyword progress.
Keyword Profile Value
Benchmarking keyword profile value might not be relevant for everyone, but it can help convey the value of SEO work to clients.
Ahrefs’ Site Explorer shows the Keyword Profile Score as “Traffic Score,” representing the monthly cost of traffic for all keywords the target website or URL ranks for if acquired via PPC instead of organically.
This metric can demonstrate the financial value of organic rankings.
Keyword Difficulty
Ahrefs’ Keyword Difficulty (KD) measures how challenging it would be to rank in the top 10 for a specific keyword in a particular country.
KD is calculated by averaging the number of linking domains to the current top 10 ranking pages and plotting the result on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 100.
Although KD only considers linking domains, it is a good indicator of keyword difficulty.
KD can be used to benchmark and select keywords, with more critical keywords often being the most difficult.
Over time, the achievable KD level should improve, making KD an important metric for benchmarking and growth.
Share of Voice
Share of Voice (SOV) elevates rank tracking by showing the percentage of all possible organic clicks from SERPs that land on the website for tracked keywords.
Essentially, it measures the brand’s visibility on search engine results pages.
Find SOV in the Overview report in Rank Tracker.
SOV is a crucial KPI because it strongly correlates with market share.
To benchmark the SOV, compare it against the competitors by visiting the Competitors tab in Rank Tracker and entering the sites to consider as competition.
Benchmarking key KPIs like SOV is one of the best ways to assess the current status of the site and gather data for improvement.
It helps in setting strategic goals and measuring ongoing performance.