SEO KPIs: the three numbers a founder reads weekly

Keep SEO simple. Read three outcome numbers every week. Everything else is a diagnostic you open only when one moves.

• Clicks from non-brand searches. These are organic clicks where the query does not include your brand name.
• Signups from search. Account creations or trials that started on a session from organic search.
• Revenue from search. Money attributed to sessions that began from organic search.

Everything else is a metric you open to explain change: impressions, average position, indexed pages, Core Web Vitals, referring domains. They guide fixes. They are not KPIs.

• Clicks from non-brand searches: Google Search Console, Performance report. Filter out brand queries. Read total clicks for the last 28 days, then divide by four for a weekly view.
• Signups from search: your product analytics or GA4. Use the landing page session default channel grouping = Organic Search. Count signups in the same 28-day window.
• Revenue from search: your billing or GA4 ecommerce. Attribute revenue where the first or last non-direct click was Organic Search, as your model allows.

If you do not track signups or revenue yet, start now. You cannot judge SEO by positions alone. You will ship the wrong pages.

1. 1

   Set non-brand in Search Console

   Open Performance. Add a Query filter, Exclude, your brand variations and misspellings. Save the filter as a tab named Non-brand.

2. 2

   Define the signup event

   In GA4 or product analytics, mark signup or free trial as a conversion. Check it fires on /signup complete, not on /signup view.

3. 3

   Segment by channel

   In GA4, build a report by Session default channel grouping. Keep Organic Search only. In PostHog or similar, filter Source contains google or Organic.

4. 4

   Join revenue to sessions

   If you run Stripe or a billing API, pass a session or user id with the order. In GA4, use ecommerce events. Choose a model you can explain and keep it.

A worked example: yourproduct.com tracks non-brand clicks for 28 days. You set a goal to reach two hundred a week by March. You then track signups and revenue on the same dates.

Goals are a figure and a date for a KPI. Never a position on one keyword. Write them where you will see them.

• Non-brand clicks: “Two hundred a week by March.”
• Signups from search: “Thirty a week by June.”
• Revenue from search: “Ten thousand a month by Q4.”

Use one dashboard. Looker Studio connects to Search Console and GA4 for free. Many small sites can use Search Console alone as the weekly view. Keep one page per KPI with the saved filters you made. Add a simple table for the last 28 days and the previous 28 days. You are reading trend and order of magnitude, not noise by day of week.

When a KPI goes up or down, open the right diagnostics. Read causes, not just charts. Fix the part that blocks the next gain.

If nothing obvious moved, read your release notes and your link notes. Deploys and mentions explain many shifts faster than charts do. Check rivals on the results page for your head terms. A new entrant can change click share without moving your position.

1. 1

   Read the three KPIs

   Open your saved non-brand tab in Search Console for clicks. Open signups and revenue from Organic Search in your analytics. Note up, down, or flat.

2. 2

   Scan top movers

   In Search Console, sort pages by clicks, compare last 28 days to previous 28. Open one riser and one faller. Note the queries behind them.

3. 3

   Check one technical health light

   Open Core Web Vitals or Coverage. Look for any new red rows. If yes, create a task, not a rabbit hole.

4. 4

   Write one line

   Add a line to a running doc: date, the three numbers, and one reason. This feeds your monthly report.

5. 5

   Choose one action

   Pick one change you can ship this week: a title fix on /pricing, an internal link from /blog/post to /guides/tool, or remove a script on /signup. Ship it.

That is it. Protect the ten minutes. The rest is building pages, improving offers, and earning mentions in your work time, not in reporting time.

Your strategy answers three questions. Which searches you want, which pages will answer them, and how the site will earn links and mentions. Write it once a year and read it every month. Keep it short and concrete: one page per topic, not a slogan.

• Searches you want: the category and best-of lists, the alternatives and comparisons, the jobs the product does, the integrations, the brand.
• Pages to build: one page per topic. For example, /comparison/you-vs-competitor, /integrations/slack, /guides/getting-started.
• Links and mentions: launches, listings, tools, data. For example, a free comparator, a small dataset, or a Product Hunt launch when you ship a new feature.

A plan is the strategy with dates and an order. The pages to write this quarter, the pages to refresh, the technical debts to clear, and who does what. A roadmap is the plan over quarters. Your three KPIs tell you if the plan is working. When clicks rise but signups do not, you refresh pages. When signups rise but revenue does not, you work on plans and pricing pages. When nothing moves, you add pages for searches you do not yet cover.

Many founders overcount by including brand searches. You want demand from people who did not type your name. Set the filter once, then keep it consistent.

1. 1

   List brand terms

   Write your brand, product names, and common misspellings. Add your domain without the dot. Add your founder’s name if it ranks.

2. 2

   Build the filter

   In Search Console Performance, Queries, add a filter: Exclude, containing, and paste each term as its own filter. Save the tab as “Non-brand.”

3. 3

   Exclude navigational home queries

   Check if queries like “yourproduct pricing” are counted. Decide if you treat them as brand or non-brand. Document the choice and keep it.

Revisit the list when you rename a plan, launch an integration, or see a new misspelling in the Queries table. Keep a short changelog so your weekly number stays consistent over time.

Your monthly report fits on one page. It says what changed in the KPIs and why, what was shipped, what the next month does, and shows the figures as a table. That is enough to run SEO as a process for a small product.

• KPIs: non-brand clicks, signups, revenue. Current and previous 28 days, and the goal line.
• Why: two sentences with the top driver. A deploy, a link, a new page, or a rival change on a head term.
• Shipped: bullets of pages, fixes, links earned, and where they were listed.
• Next: the one or two actions that will most move a KPI next month.

Keep an archive. The archive becomes your judgement. It helps you size budget, choose between a consultant, an agency, or in-house work, and spot red flags in vendor promises later. It also feeds a simple Looker Studio page if you want charts by month later.

SEM is search engine marketing. Many use it to mean paid results. PPC is the paid model. Organic results come from ranking. Paid results come from an auction on the query in Google Ads with a cost per click. Paid stops when the budget stops. Organic keeps sending clicks after the work. A new product often runs both: paid to learn which queries convert, organic to hold them. Use your three KPIs to judge the split. If paid is finding converting queries fast, prioritise building the matching organic pages next quarter.

Size budget by work, not by invented averages. Count pages to write and refresh, the technical debts to clear, and the links to earn. Then look at what a search click earns your business. Choose help by what you need: a consultant sells judgement, an agency sells execution, an in-house hire sells continuity, a report sells the judgement once. Agencies bill retainers, freelancers bill hourly, daily or per project, tools bill monthly. Prices vary by country, scope and seller.

• DIY SEO is realistic with Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, PageSpeed Insights, the results page, and a crawler’s free tier. One hour a week moves a small site.
• What DIY cannot do: write forty good pages a month, or earn links without a product worth linking.
• Red flags from Google: guaranteed rankings, secret techniques, links for sale, a promise of the first position on a keyword.