What Is SEO Monitoring?
SEO monitoring tracks your website’s visibility and rankings in search engines. You then use these insights to optimize your SEO campaigns.
Here’s an example of monitoring your website’s SEO health using the Semrush Site Audit tool:
The SEO monitoring process also includes:
- Tracking your keyword rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs) over time
- Analyzing the profiles of backlinks pointing to your site
- Monitoring engagement metrics like page views, bounce rate, and click-through rate (CTR)
- Checking for broken links to avoid penalties from search engines
- Monitoring technical aspects like page speed
- Identifying problem areas like crawling issues and slow page speed
Regular checkups keep you informed about your website’s performance. This allows you to know what changes to make.
Further reading: SEO Basics: How to Do SEO for Beginners
Later, we explain how to perform SEO monitoring tasks using the right tools and metrics. First, let’s see why monitoring SEO is critical.
Why Is Monitoring SEO Important?
Monitoring SEO reveals areas you could improve. That way, your site and content can rank higher in the SERPs.
Here’s a success story.
SEO monitoring greatly helped Edelweiss Bakery. The artisan bakery was popular locally but was not getting the digital traffic it expected. By tracking its SEO, Edelweiss learned it needed a new plan to boost online brand visibility and increase online and offline orders.
It adopted a three-stage strategy that targeted its site, blog, and ecommerce platform. The result was a 460% increase in monthly mobile organic traffic—from 171 to 785.
Tracking what works and what doesn’t on your website can help you:
Increase Visibility in Search Results
Monitoring your SEO ranking can help you ensure that your website is visible in search engine results. Greater visibility can lead to higher organic traffic, which raises your chances of conversions and sales.
Stay Ahead of Competitors
Monitoring your competitors’ SEO performance can show you which strategies they are using and how successful those strategies are. You can stay ahead by learning from their successes and failures.
Understand User Behavior
SEO monitoring provides insight into user behavior by tracking metrics such as CTR, bounce rate, and time on page. This data helps you recognize what type of content users value, and how they engage with your site, so you can adapt your strategy accordingly.
Find and Fix Technical SEO Issues
SEO monitoring can uncover technical issues on your website, such as broken links or duplicate content. Finding and fixing these issues can improve search engine rankings, leading to more traffic and revenue.
Next, let’s explore tools you can use to monitor your SEO performance and get results.
6 Best Tools for SEO Monitoring
There are many SEO monitoring tools available. Below are some of the best tools to help you get started.
1. Semrush’s Position Tracking
The Position Tracking tool identifies where you rank for specific keywords in SERPs. It includes daily rank tracking, SERP analysis, and competitor comparisons.
Here’s how to use it:
Enter your domain and name your project. Click “Create project.”
Choose your preferred settings and add your location.
Add your keywords and click “Start Tracking.”
On the dashboard, you’ll see the “Landscape” and “Overview” tabs. You can also explore more detailed tabs.
For example, clicking “Lost” under “Pages” shows which pages fell in the SERP rankings.
Use these tabs to track your website’s search performance:
- Rankings Overview: Shows where you rank in SERPs
- Rankings Distribution: Shows the number of keywords your domain ranks for in top positions, plus changes over time
- Visibility: Shows your visibility percentage compared to competitors. It estimates how often each domain appears for specific keywords you’re tracking.
- Share of Voice: Tracks brand awareness based on the ratio of traffic you receive from your target keywords to the total volume of those keywords (available with a Business subscription)
- Competitors Discovery: Shows domains that rank for your target keywords, helping you find and track close competitors
Further reading: Keyword Rankings: What They Are & How to Check Yours
2. Semrush’s Domain Overview
The Domain Overview tool offers insights into a domain’s online visibility, including organic search traffic, paid search, backlinks, and top competitors. You get an overview of your competitors’ online presence to find growth opportunities.
Further reading: How to Expose Your Competitors in One Click with Domain Analytics
To start, enter a domain URL and click “Search.”
The dashboard shows a domain’s overall search presence—such as Authority Score, backlinks, and traffic.
In other tabs, you can:
- Compare domains to see how your site stacks up against competitors
- Generate a growth report to see how competitors are progressing
- Compare performance by country to understand international performance
Use these insights to learn what rivals do well and what you can do better.
3. Semrush’s Site Audit
The Site Audit tool finds potential issues on your website. It crawls your site to highlight errors, warnings, and notices.
Site Audit checks your site’s technical infrastructure to find broken links, security issues, and on-page SEO inefficiencies, among other things. It then provides actionable insights to optimize performance, improve rankings, and enhance your user experience (UX).
Here’s how to use it:
Create a project and set up your site audit.
Next, click “Start Site Audit.” After the tool analyzes your site, you’ll receive an email confirmation.
The Site Audit dashboard looks like this:
“Site Health” gives you a benchmark. Use the “Errors,” “Warnings,” and “Notices” tabs to see how to improve your site’s SEO.
You’ll also see “Thematic Reports,” which provide deeper analysis of various technical SEO aspects:
Further reading: How to Perform a Complete SEO Audit in 12 Steps
Run Site Audit regularly or whenever you change your website (e.g., adding pages or redesigning). This helps ensure that any issues don’t harm your SEO efforts.
4. Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free tool that helps you monitor and optimize your website’s organic search performance. It provides real-time SEO data for diagnosing issues.
Use these reports and tools to track performance:
- Performance report: Metrics like total clicks, impressions, average CTR, and average position
- URL Inspection Tool: Shows the index status of a single page and helps troubleshoot indexing problems
- Page Indexing report: Shows which pages Google can find and index, plus any related issues
- Core Web Vitals report: Details how your website performs for users
- Links report: Tracks backlinks to your site
Google will email you if it finds issues with your site, so you don’t need to constantly check the platform. However, it is good to log in once a month or after you make changes to your content.
5. Google Analytics
Google Analytics offers data about your website’s visitors, their activity, and their behavior. It collects site data and creates reports that help you analyze your results.
Here’s where you’ll find SEO performance data in Google Analytics 4 (GA4):
- “Acquisition” > “Traffic Acquisition” to see organic search traffic
- “Engagement” > “Landing Pages” to check which pages receive the most organic traffic (and those with the highest bounce rates)
- “Acquisition” > “Traffic Acquisition” > “Referrals” to see external sites that send traffic your way
- “Tech” > “Overview” for your site’s mobile performance and the split between mobile and desktop traffic
Use Google Analytics to answer:
- Who is visiting your website?
- What do they do once they arrive?
- Where do your visitors come from?
Analyze what works and what doesn’t, then make data-driven adjustments.
6. SEOquake
SEOquake is a free plugin for Google Chrome, Opera, Internet Explorer, and Firefox. It provides quick data for any webpage you visit.
The toolbar shows:
- Page info: Overview of metrics, such as page age and last update
- Diagnosis: An on-page SEO check
- Internal/external links: A breakdown of links on the page
- Compare domains: Analyzes multiple domains side-by-side
After installation, visit any webpage and click the SEOquake icon to see metrics like Google Index, Bing Index, Alexa Rank, and others.
To conduct SERP analysis, search for a keyword in Google. For example, “minimal jewelry.” SEOquake displays metrics below each result, letting you analyze strengths and weaknesses of pages ranking for that keyword.
You can also export a full SERP report that includes backlinks and domain data.
Use the “Density” feature to see keyword density. It shows if a page may be over-optimized or under-optimized for certain keywords.
Use SEOquake as a research tool to spot traffic data and opportunities for improvement.
6 Important SEO Metrics to Monitor
You have set up your SEO tools. Now, which metrics matter most?
Below are six key metrics you should track to maintain strong search visibility. Each metric includes a recommended tool and steps for tracking.
Organic Traffic
Organic traffic measures how many users visit your website, where they come from, which pages they visit, how long they stay, and where they exit.
Track organic traffic in Google Analytics by going to “Acquisition” > “Traffic acquisition.”
Traffic fluctuations provide a “pulse check.” Consistent and growing traffic means your website is healthy and meeting goals. Monitoring traffic also reveals which content resonates with your audience, helping you allocate resources effectively.
Further reading: What Is Organic Traffic? (And How to Increase It)
Keyword Rankings
Tracking keyword rankings shows where your website appears for certain keywords and how those positions change over time. This data helps you see which SEO tactics are working and which ones need adjustments.
Use Semrush’s Position Tracking to monitor keywords:
Follow this cycle:
- Evaluate which keywords perform well and which do not
- Prioritize the keywords you want to improve and make the necessary adjustments
- Track their performance over time
- Analyze your keyword SEO progress and repeat
Backlinks
Backlinks are among the most important factors for organic search ranking, and they function like votes of confidence for your website. They can significantly influence search rankings, especially if they come from trusted sources.
Use SEO monitoring to track new links and spot potential issues with existing ones. Semrush’s Backlink Analytics shows you a complete view of your backlink performance:
Check who links to you, the authority of their domains, and whether backlinks are increasing or dropping off.
You can also use:
- Backlink Audit: Reviews your backlink profile for suspicious links that may affect your rankings
- Link Building Tool: Collects link-building opportunities for your domain and provides a management interface for campaigns
- Bulk Backlink Analysis: Analyzes up to 200 competitors at once
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of visits that don’t result in users taking desired actions. Although it’s not a confirmed ranking factor, a high bounce rate often indicates slow page speed, poor design, or a weak mobile experience.
Check your bounce rate in GA4 by going to “Engagement” > “Pages and screens.”
Ideal bounce rates vary by industry, but lower is generally better.
While 0% is unlikely, it’s helpful to know your industry averages. Here are some average bounce rates as an indication:
Site Exit Pages
Site exit pages are the last pages visitors view before leaving. Combined with bounce rate and time on page, this data can highlight UX problems.
For example, a vital page with many exits might need better content, visuals, or CTAs. You can find your exit pages by using Semrush’s Traffic Analytics Top Pages Report.
Navigate to “Top Pages.”
Scroll to find the “Exits” tab. Sort the pages by highest exit rate.
Look for patterns. Is there a specific type of content that doesn’t retain visitors? Are there technical issues that may deter users?
Consider using pop-up surveys or feedback tools on exit pages. Direct user feedback can provide invaluable insights into why they’re leaving.
Lastly, while high exit rates on certain pages might be concerning, it’s essential to contextualize the data.
For example, a high exit rate on a “Thank You” page after a successful purchase or signup is expected.
Remember: Regularly monitor SEO and adapt your strategy based on this data so your website continually meets users’ needs and expectations.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who complete an action, such as a purchase or newsletter signup.
Not all conversions contribute to revenue directly (e.g., an ebook download or newsletter signup). These are called micro conversions.
Some actions (micro conversions) don’t generate direct revenue but move users toward bigger (macro) conversions (e.g., booking a demo or buying a product).
Further reading: Conversion Rate Optimization: 9 Tactics That Work
To track conversion rates in GA4, add “Session conversion rate” to your “Traffic acquisition” reports:
Follow the steps under “Conversion Rate” in our guide to Metrics in Google Analytics to get set up.
Monitor conversion rates to see how well your campaigns perform. Identify pages with low conversion rates and fix any issues.
Keep a Pulse on Your SEO Performance
SEO monitoring is an ongoing process, and you should continuously track how your SEO efforts change over time.
Regularly analyze the data and refine your strategies to maintain a healthy website that draws visitors, builds trust with search engines, and grows your business.
Putting in this effort pays off when you see your rankings and performance improve.
Explore the Semrush tool suite to track your website’s SEO efficiently and with ease.