Which SEO Metrics Matter Most to Marketing Leaders, According to Semrush's VP of Brand Marketing

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Having a strong SEO strategy is critical for reaching new audiences and generating leads for your business.

In fact, 43% of marketing directors, VPs, and C-suite executives reported SEO as one of the most effective strategies their companies currently leverage.

Creating a powerful SEO strategy requires consistent testing and iteration. Over time, certain metrics can help you identify which areas of your strategy are working — and which aren’t.

It can be difficult, however, to determine which SEO metrics actually matter. To truly evaluate the success of your SEO, what should you pay attention to? Organic traffic? Leads? Keyword rankings? Conversions?

Here, I sat down with Semrush’s VP of Brand Marketing, Olga Andrienko, to discuss the SEO metrics she’d advise leaders pay attention to in 2023. Let’s dive in.

The SEO Metrics That Matter Most, According to Semrush’s VP of Brand Marketing

1. Focus on the metrics that tie directly back to revenue — like conversions and new MRR.

You might’ve expected Andrienko to start with organic traffic or rankings as a top SEO metric, but instead, she advises leaders to start with the bottom line — revenue — and work backwards.

Andrienko told me, “When we discuss quarterly goals, we always look at new user monthly recurring revenue (new MRR). And, in that case, conversion is the only thing that matters. I think the metrics that matter are the ones that can tie back directly to revenue.”

She adds, “For instance, using analytics, you can see where the user came from, and how long it took them to convert and become a customer. So if we know most users come from organic search, then organic would be the metric I’d be focused on measuring. Whatever your success element is is the most important outcome. Rankings don’t matter much. People need to land on your website, and they need to buy or show they’re interested.”

Hearing ‘rankings don’t matter much’ from the VP of Brand Marketing at Semrush, a platform often used for online ranking data, initially surprised me. But it makes sense.

Let’s say you rank #1 for the keyword query: “What is marketing?” If your company sells products or services related to marketing, that’s great. But if that same post isn’t driving the right kind of traffic, or isn’t converting that traffic into qualified leads and revenue for the business … Does it matter, really?

Focusing on the metrics that tie back to revenue can greatly impact where you spend your time and resources. To effectively evaluate your content based on revenue, consider making a spreadsheet that tracks all your top-converting posts. Even if those posts aren’t the ones that bring in the most traffic for your site, those are the posts you’ll want to focus your historical optimization attention on — since those have proven most valuable to your business’ bottom line.