Measuring SEO success by how much traffic you get is a surefire way to waste time and money. The real measure of your SEO efforts is not eyeballs, but profitable revenue from the right kind of customers. Obsessing over keyword rankings and total sessions will distract you from the metrics that actually grow your business.
Of course, it’s easy to see why so many brands get fixated on traffic. It’s simple, the numbers go up, and it feels like progress. Agencies have sold this for years. The logic seems sound: more traffic should lead to more sales. This thinking is a classic trap of chasing what Jack Kavanagh on Future Commerce calls vanity metrics. Impressions and clicks look good in a report, but they don't pay the bills. On the eCommerce Australia podcast, the hosts made the point that you have to move beyond these surface-level numbers and find the ones that actually drive business growth.
This is where the popular view falls apart. Traffic is not a monolithic entity. Are you attracting high-intent buyers or just curious browsers? As Rand Fishkin pointed out on Ecommerce Conversations years ago, the goal is converting traffic into customers. More traffic that doesn't convert is just a bigger server bill. The obsession with top-of-funnel metrics ignores the rest of the customer journey. Kunle Campbell breaks this down brilliantly on the 2X eCommerce Podcast, explaining that you need to measure success at every stage. Inbound traffic is just the start; you also have to analyze what happens next, from micro-conversions like email sign-ups all the way to revenue, repeat orders, and eventually, word-of-mouth referrals.
Instead of just tracking organic sessions, you should be measuring the business impact of your SEO. Look at the conversion rate of your organic traffic—is it higher or lower than other channels? What's the average order value (AOV) for customers who arrive from a search engine? These are the numbers that tell you if your SEO is actually working.
Go even deeper. Connect your SEO efforts to Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV). Are the customers you acquire through search more valuable over the long term? Track how different types of content contribute to the bottom line. Maybe your blog posts don't lead to direct sales, but they might be your biggest source of email captures, which then convert later. That's a huge win for SEO, but you'd never know it if you only looked at last-click revenue. The point is to create a unified approach to analytics, as discussed on an episode of Future Commerce, that ties every action back to a meaningful business outcome.
