Amanda Natividad on How to Measure SEO Success & Sustainability

In a perfect world, search engine optimization (SEO) would work almost instantly. Your SEO provider would insert a few strategic keywords into your web pages and write a few blogs on trending topics. Then, you’d sit back and watch your content magically catapult to the top of the search engine results. 

SEO is a long game that may take months or years to produce visible results. By tracking SEO metrics, you can monitor your progress and quickly identify areas for improvement. Measuring SEO success also helps you gauge return on investment (ROI) so you don’t waste time and money on ineffective tactics. 

However, tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) isn’t as easy as watching your website traffic. Many factors contribute to SEO success and sustainability, from bounce rate to keyword rankings. You need a systematic approach to monitor the most important metrics and adjust your strategy as needed.

Amanda Natividad, VP of Marketing at SparkToro, gives tips for businesses looking to achieve SEO success long-term.

How to Measure SEO Success and Sustainability 

Web pages rarely jump to the top of the search engine result pages (SERPs) overnight. In fact, a 2024 Authority Hacker study found that the average top-ranked content is 3.5 years old. You must be patient and willing to commit to long-term strategies to improve your brand's visibility. 

Fortunately, checking Google isn’t the only way to measure your SEO success. Follow these five steps to analyze your performance:

• Define Benchmarks
• Set Baseline Metrics for Comparisons
• Organize Data on Spreadsheets
• Maximize SEO Tools
• Challenge Your Service Provider

Define Benchmarks 

You can’t measure the impact of your SEO work in a vacuum. Establish clear benchmarks at the beginning of your project that you can use to track the effectiveness of your efforts over time. 

Here are a few common benchmarks: 

• Average session duration: How long visitors stay on your website
• Conversion rate: The percentage of visitors who perform a specific action, like joining your mailing list or buying a product 
• Domain authority ranking: A score created by Moz that forecasts how high your content will rank in the SERPs
• Keyword rankings: How high your content ranks for specific keywords
• Number of monthly visitors: How many unique users visit your website in a month 

These benchmarks allow you to align your services with your business objectives. For instance, if you want to improve your keyword rankings, you might hire a provider to create relevant content or build backlinks. 

Set Baseline Metrics for Comparisons

Once you’ve defined your benchmarks, it’s time to gather your baseline metrics. Use SEO tools — more on these below — to track and analyze the metrics you’ve set. 

“Look at your organic traffic, page views, and social media metrics over the past three months. Get a baseline to compare against later,” advises Natividad. 

This process will reveal your website's SEO's current strengths and weaknesses. For instance, you may notice that certain web pages get little to no traffic, or you have thousands of visitors but few conversions. Identifying these issues early will help you shape your strategy and focus on the areas you can most impact. 

These baselines also enable you to track your progress over time accurately. Say, for example, you want to decrease your bounce rate by 20% by boosting your loading speed. By comparing your current bounce rate to future data, you can evaluate whether your efforts have helped you accomplish your goals. 

Organize Data on Spreadsheets

Compile the data you gather from different platforms into a centralized spreadsheet. This framework gives you a clear and structured view of your metrics, making it easier to compare them with your baseline. A spreadsheet will also help you uncover trends and visualize the data. For example, you could visualize your monthly web traffic in a line chart to quickly spot upward or downward trends. 

Consider using a cloud-based platform like Google Sheets so your entire team — including external service providers — can view and update the spreadsheet from any location. This streamlined approach allows you to share real-time updates and collaborate more efficiently. It also boosts productivity and saves time by eliminating the need to send multiple emails or meet to review the data together. 

Maximize SEO Tools

SEO tools provide in-depth data and accurate insights with the click of a button. Many of these platforms have specialized features that beat manual tracking. 

Here are a few popular tools: 

• Ahrefs lets you audit your website’s SEO performance, discover trending keywords, and analyze competitors. 
• Google Analytics provides detailed insights into your website’s traffic and performance. It compiles data into accessible dashboards and generates reports. 
• SEMrush is a top keyword research tool and backlink crawler. It also enables you to track web traffic and provides market insights.

Challenge Your Service Provider

Obviously, you shouldn’t pick fights with your SEO provider — that would damage your working relationship — but you should ask plenty of questions about its strategies. For example, you might politely inquire about how it measures success or ask for its recommendations about keywords. 

“Challenge agencies on how they track success. Ask how most clients measure success or what similar businesses do,” said Natividad during our discussion about success. “Know what you're hiring for and go in with eyes wide open. It's on both parties to track success.”

You’ll ensure you’re working toward the same objectives by openly communicating with your provider. Additionally, asking questions builds trust and helps you understand the underlying reasoning for its decisions. Some SEO strategies — like writing blogs on seemingly random topics or tweaking the user interface — may seem unhelpful at first glance. However, your provider could demonstrate how these techniques improve your content’s visibility. 

This dialogue also provides valuable insights into your provider's capabilities, giving your team a learning opportunity. For instance, you might assume that your provider can easily buy backlinks, but it could explain why organic link-building strategies are best for SEO sustainability. 

Commit for the Long Run 

Improving search engine visibility won’t happen instantly, but that doesn’t mean you need to be in the dark about your performance. Tracking KPIs and comparing them to benchmarks will help you monitor your SEO success and develop effective strategies. 

Above all, remember that SEO is a long-term endeavor. You can climb the rankings and achieve your desired results with flexibility, patience, and consistency. 

About Amanda Natividad, VP of Marketing at SparkToro

Amanda Natividad is the VP of Marketing at SparkToro, a market research and audience intelligence platform, and a respected expert in content marketing, SEO, and digital strategy. With a background in journalism and tech, Amanda is known for her insightful approach to audience research and her ability to create impactful, data-driven marketing campaigns.