Most SEO reports have the same problem.
They look busy.
They look impressive.
They look like progress.
But when you strip away the charts and percentages, the question that actually matters is still unanswered:
“Is this helping us get more of the right customers?”
That’s the gap.
The gap between the SEO metrics people talk about and the business outcomes they secretly care about.
This article is about closing that gap.
Not by tracking more things.
Not by adding another dashboard.
But by understanding which metrics are leading indicators of revenue — and which ones are just noise.
The problem with most SEO reporting
If you’ve ever sat through a monthly SEO report, you’ve seen the same pattern.
There’s a slide for:
- organic traffic
- impressions
- average rankings
- new backlinks
- click-through rates
- number of pages published
All of it is technically useful.
None of it tells you whether SEO is actually working for the business.
Because “working” doesn’t mean “more traffic.”
It doesn’t mean “more impressions.”
It doesn’t even mean “better rankings.”
“Working” means:
- more of the right people are finding you
- those people understand what you do
- they trust you enough to take the next step
Most SEO metrics stop one or two steps before that.
That’s why they feel hollow.
Metrics that look good but don’t mean much
Some metrics are useful to you as an operator but meaningless to the business if you report them in isolation.
They’re diagnostic — not directional.
Organic traffic (on its own)
Traffic is the easiest metric to misunderstand.
Yes, you need people visiting your site.
No, more is not always better.
If your traffic is coming from:
- broad “how to” posts
- people outside your target markets
- countries you don’t serve
- topics unrelated to your offer
…then rising traffic is not success.
It’s camouflage.
It hides the fact that nothing commercial is moving.
Impressions
Impressions show how often your pages appeared in search results.
Helpful for spotting trends.
Useless as a success metric.
You can double impressions overnight by accidentally ranking for irrelevant long-tail terms.
Doesn’t mean you’re closer to a sale.
Average position
Average position looks scientific.
It isn’t.
If you rank #3 for a keyword no one searches and #12 for a keyword that drives your best leads, your “average” might look fine — but reality won’t match.
Rankings only matter when:
- the keyword is commercially relevant
- the page is designed to convert
- the search results show clear buying intent
Everything else is bragging rights, not business impact.
Number of pages published
Publishing more is not the same as improving.
You can hit content quotas and still never move a single commercial page up the rankings.
The internet is full of consistent publishing that doesn’t matter.
Number of backlinks
Links matter.
But “we built 50 links” means nothing without:
- where they came from
- what pages they support
- whether those pages lead to revenue
A handful of strong links to the right pages will always beat a pile of random links dumped on fluff content.
SEO metrics that actually matter
The metrics that matter are the ones tied to behaviour and money.
They either show that more of the right people are finding you, or that those people are moving closer to becoming customers.
1. Organic conversions (even if they’re “small”)
This is the core metric.
Not traffic.
Not rankings.
How many people who came from organic search:
- filled out a contact form
- requested a quote
- booked a demo or consultation
- started a trial
- downloaded a high-intent resource (pricing guide, buying checklist, etc.)
It doesn’t matter if you call these “goals,” “conversions,” or “micro-conversions.”
What matters is this:
Can you see that organic search is directly responsible for people raising their hand?
2. Organic-assisted revenue
Not every lead will click “contact” on the first visit.
In many B2B and high-ticket setups, organic plays an assist role:
- first touch via a blog or guide
- direct or branded search later
- conversion through a different channel (email, direct, partner)
If you can track how often organic shows up in the journey of closed deals — even with rough attribution — you’re now talking in terms decision-makers care about.
3. Organic traffic to key commercial pages
Total traffic is noisy.
Traffic to your money pages is not.
Focus here:
- service pages
- product pages
- comparison pages
- alternatives pages
- high-intent landing pages
If organic traffic to your commercial pages is growing — and conversions don’t tank — you’re actually getting somewhere.
4. Conversion rate of those commercial pages
Ranking a service page is only half the job.
If 1,000 people a month visit it and only two convert, something is off.
- list your top 5–10 commercial pages
- track organic sessions and conversions for each
- work on improving the lowest-performing pages before creating new ones
This is how you make existing traffic more valuable instead of chasing more of it.
5. Search terms driving conversions (not just clicks)
- which phrases brought in people who took action
- which topics seem to attract buyers instead of browsers
- which keywords are quietly producing leads even with low volume
6. Lead quality from organic search
Quality is where the truth is.
“How do leads from organic search compare to leads from other channels?”
- close rates
- deal size
- sales cycle length
- close at a higher rate
- spend more
- move faster through the pipeline
…then SEO is probably under-credited in your reporting, not over-credited.
7. Engagement on key pages
No, this doesn’t mean obsessing over bounce rate.
- time on page for your service and comparison pages
- scroll depth for long-form decision content
- internal link clicks to case studies, pricing, or contact pages
It’s a content and UX problem.
How to build a simple SEO scorecard
You need a one-page summary that anyone on the leadership team can read in five minutes.
Here’s a simple scorecard structure.
Section 1: Outcomes
- Organic leads this month vs last month vs same month last year
- Organic-assisted revenue (or number of deals where organic played a role)
- Average deal size from organic vs other channels (if you have it)
Section 2: Leading indicators
- Organic traffic to key commercial pages
- Conversion rate on those pages
- Top converting queries by theme (e.g. “alternatives”, “services near me”, “best X for Y”)
Section 3: Activity
- Key pages published or improved (not every tiny blog)
- Links earned to important commercial or strategic pages
- Technical improvements that remove friction (e.g. site speed, crawl issues fixed)
SEO metrics your team should stop obsessing over
This doesn’t mean never look at them.
“We published X posts this month”
“We increased impressions by 40%”
<pNice, but did the right pages get those impressions?
Did they turn into clicks?
Did those clicks go anywhere useful?
“We built X links”
And what happened after?
How to talk about SEO metrics with non-SEO people
- “Organic sessions increased 22% quarter-on-quarter.”
Say:
- “More people are finding our service pages through Google — and that’s led to 14 extra enquiries this quarter.”
- “We moved from position 9 to position 3 for [keyword].”
Say:
- “We’re now in the top three for a search that usually leads to demo requests — we’ve already seen a bump in form fills from that page.”
Make it obvious how SEO work connects to their world — pipeline, deals, cash.
Final thoughts
It’s also not mysterious.
<pIt’s a long-term way of helping more of the right people find you and decide to work with you.
- organic leads
- organic-assisted revenue
- traffic and conversion rates for key commercial pages
- the queries that bring buyers, not just readers
…you’ll see the truth of your SEO very quickly.
But it’s the only way to close the gap between “we’re doing SEO” and “SEO is actually paying us back.”