SEO Metrics You Should Be Measuring To Prove ROI

SEO has always changed quickly, but even seasoned search engine veterans have rarely seen anything like the past few years. It seems like there’s a new feature on the SERP every day, and many of them are powered by AI. We’re truly in the Upside Down now.

So what are the metrics that matter in this crazy search environment? How do we keep running up that hill and use AI-powered search and other innovations to drive growth? It’s all about the numbers: these are the top SEO metrics you should be monitoring and measuring to make the case and get the win.

The Most Important SEO Metrics You Should Be Tracking

There are eight metrics you must be tracking in the rapidly developing search landscape. But don’t forget: these may look very different than they did just a few years ago… and they will continue to change and evolve as search changes and evolves.

1. Organic Traffic

• What It Means: Web traffic that arrives from unpaid results on search engines
• Why It Matters: This KPI is still a useful measure of your brand’s web presence for relevant search engine queries, especially since 95% of consumers still use traditional search engines, not just AI. However, it’s true that AI search has pushed down overall organic search numbers: 48% of our clients have experienced a drop in organic traffic from 2024 to 2025.
• How to Measure: Most commonly, through the “Traffic acquisition” report in Google Analytics 4, which allows you to break out different sources of traffic to your site.

2. Organic Impressions

• What It Means: The number of times your site appears in organic channels, including unpaid positions on SERPs and news feeds, regardless of whether users click. Organic impressions include AI-generated SERP features such as Google’s AI overview, but do not include third-party referral traffic from large language models like ChatGPT or Perplexity.
• Why It Matters: Organic impressions measure how visible your content is, including how often it’s surfaced by search engines. A healthy number of organic impressions shows that algorithms are flagging your content as relevant; in fact, in the zero-click search era, impressions can be almost as critical as clicks.
• How to Measure: You can track organic impressions for your site in your Google Search Console account.

3. Keyword Rankings (Branded and Non-Branded)

• What It Means: The position your site occupies in SERPs for specific keywords; branded keywords contain your brand name or a variation of it, while non-branded keywords don’t
• Why It Matters: High rankings in the search results are a traditional goal of SEO because they make your site easier to find and confer authority on it. In fact, keyword rankings have only gotten more important with the dawn of AI search, particularly branded keyword rankings. Our research found that when our clients’ organic branded impressions grew, they averaged 2.75x organic revenue growth compared to clients with declines. It’s shaping up to be a landscape in which brand authority is key.
• How to Measure: You can track rankings in lots of different ways, from Google Search Console to analytics software like SEMRush or Ahrefs. The Performance report in GSC is a good way to start figuring out which queries are driving traffic to your site.

4. SERP Features

• What It Means: Times your content appears in Google’s non-paid SERP features, including featured snippets, knowledge panels, and People Also Ask; AI Overviews may also be included on some search tools
• Why It Matters: These features are critical to getting your brand and site found in the zero-click search era. As AI continues to impact organic traffic from standard search results, SERP features offer high-authority ways to get your content in front of your audience.
• How to Measure: You’ll need third-party tools like SEMRush or Ahrefs to track appearances in SERP features. Most SEO analytics trackers allow you to set up SERP feature tracking as part of your keyword reporting.

5. AI Referral Traffic

• What It Means: Traffic that originates when users click links in AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and even Google AI Overviews right on the SERP
• Why It Matters: AI referral traffic is soaring in importance as more consumers turn to AI search. It’s also a high-intent type of traffic, since most searchers who are deep enough in a topic to click through citation links from LLMs are closer to the middle or even bottom funnel.
• How to Measure: Solutions for tracking AI referral traffic are still evolving. You can track referrals from AI domains by using regex filters in Google Analytics 4 (though it’s not perfect), or use purpose-built AI tracking tools.

6. Engagement Rate

• What It Means: The percentage of users who take one or more actions that signal high engagement with relevant content, including spending more than a few seconds on the site, visiting multiple pages, or making a purchase (among others)
• Why It Matters: A strong engagement rate tells ranking algorithms that your site is the good stuff: high-quality, relevant, and technically sound. User satisfaction is a high priority for Google’s ranking algorithm, so a great page experience can give you a boost across the board, including in AI search.
• How to Measure: GA4 tracks this for you, under Reports > Engagement.

7. AI Platform Citations

• What It Means: The number of times that references or links to your content appear as citations in AI platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity, whether or not a user clicks them
• Why It Matters: Citations in AI platforms are a good indicator that your brand has strong trust signals, high domain authority, and relevant content. If they’re product citations, which link directly to an item, they can even turn into an opportunity for direct conversions.
• How to Measure: There’s no silver-bullet measuring solution for AI platform citations. You can use GA4’s AI tracking workaround (see #5 above), although it only tracks clicks. Some analytics solutions also feature AI tracking add-ons, which work by running prompts through popular AI platforms rather than collecting any kind of back-end signals.

8. Brand Sentiment

• What It Means: The overall positive or negative feeling that the public has toward your brand, based on social media posts, reviews, media coverage, and practically anywhere else your brand appears online
• Why It Matters: Sentiment can make or break your brand, since it influences everything from purchase decisions to word-of-mouth to customer lifetime value. It can also directly affect how your brand shows up in AI-based SERP features like AI overviews, since terms like “best heavy-duty flashlight” or “top concealer brands” will often surface information from sites like Reddit where consumers share their unfiltered opinions.
• How to Measure: No KPI can ever perfectly quantify brand sentiment, but many platforms let you see which way the wind is blowing. Sentiment analysis tools give you scores to track how people feel about your brand and which issues they’re paying attention to, giving you more options to respond. Most of these platforms now leverage natural language processing (NLP), which unlocks a new level of interactivity and accuracy.

How to Evolve Your SEO Reporting

Visibility and authority have always mattered in SEO, but now they’re the foundation of zero-click performance. Your old reporting frameworks need to shift to account for metrics like AI traffic referrals and SERP feature wins. It’s worth paying more attention to branded queries, too, as these results are often the ones that end up shaping your AI presence most significantly.

These form the foundation of our AI search approach, which is based on deep research and hands-on experience by our SEO specialists who track every new development and update best practices constantly. Our SEO services and content marketing services teams work side-by-side to deliver content that hits what the humans and the robots are looking for. If you’re ready to hit growth mode in the AI search era, let’s talk.