Traffic and pageview metrics have long been treated as key performance indicators in SEO.
But unless your business monetizes impressions (think ad-supported entertainment or news content), traffic is rarely the end goal.
Yes, traffic matters. It’s the first step after someone lands on your site from a search engine or an AI-driven result.
But high traffic can create a false sense of success – especially if those visits don’t lead to deeper engagement, conversions, or meaningful outcomes.
The cost of traffic without impact
To be clear, I’m not dismissing business models that rely on monetized pageviews, nor am I devaluing brand equity, thought leadership, or impression-level goals.
But if those are your focus, I’d still argue they’re part of a broader customer journey – not the end goal.
If you’re a marketing or business leader, a high-traffic page that doesn’t convert or support strategic goals can end up costing more than it delivers.
For SEOs, leaning too heavily on traffic-based KPIs can lead to tough questions later about ROI and business impact.
Whether you’re in SEO, content, web strategy, or demand generation, our work is increasingly measured by outcomes – not just traffic or impressions.
If you’re seeing a drop in traffic due to the rise of zero-click searches – or if you’re simply rethinking how you measure success – here are a few specific ways to audit your top-performing pages and challenge what “performance” really means.
Define what performance really means
This must be defined and agreed upon by all stakeholders involved.
- Is performance about ultimate business outcomes connected to specific content, pages, and traffic?
- Or is it more granular – tied to individual pieces of content and the level of engagement they drive?
Varying expectations can be an issue.
Even if we have a granular definition today, it’s worth revisiting.
Rapid changes in the landscape – like reduced traffic and shifting search behaviors – are forcing a reevaluation.
We need to connect performance more directly to business outcomes, rather than relying solely on indicator metrics or surface-level results.
Dig deeper: How to benchmark your SEO performance in 2025
Separate real wins from vanity metrics
“Vanity” might seem like a harsh term, and I’m not here to belittle or dismiss any KPIs or metrics being tracked.
But once performance is defined across stakeholders, we can more easily separate real value from metrics that just make us feel good.
When we see pages pulling strong visit metrics or gaining visibility in search and LLMs, it’s easy to celebrate.
But if those pages aren’t contributing to the bottom line – if visitors aren’t going deeper in the funnel, returning to the site, or converting in any meaningful way – then those KPIs may be giving us a false sense of performance.
For instance, I had some old blog posts on my agency’s site that, 5-10 years after publishing, were still among the most visited.
Trendy at the time, yes – but completely unrelated to my services.
As a result, they brought no real value: no brand awareness, no conversions, no strategic benefit.
Identify funnel gaps before they cost you
Not every page needs to convert directly, but it still needs to serve a purpose within the customer journey, whether it’s:
- Building brand awareness.
- Answering research-stage questions.
- Encouraging deeper engagement.
- Setting pre-sales expectations.
If the next step or intended action isn’t obvious – like linking to related content, offering a secondary conversion (such as an email signup), or bridging to key pages like pricing or demos – it becomes much harder to track the visitor’s journey.
When there’s no clear follow-up or path forward, visitors are far more likely to drop off entirely.
Missed handoffs in the funnel often lead to missed opportunities.
Dig deeper: Why a content gap analysis should be part of your SEO strategy
Conversions aren’t always obvious – look deeper
In addition to declining traffic from search engines – and the fact that LLMs haven’t made up for the loss – attribution is also getting harder (not that it was ever easy to begin with).
The traffic we get needs to be high-quality and connected to a clear next step or action within the content.
We also need to avoid losing conversions we’ve rightfully earned – especially those that create value for the visitor.
It’s critical to understand your conversion metrics:
- What’s converting.
- What’s assisting conversions.
- What’s contributing in less direct ways.
Even if it feels like all the funnel gaps are filled, you may still need to:
- Fine-tune calls to action.
- Strengthen perceived expertise.
- Build additional trust factors that influence conversions across the journey.
Strong content needs a strong brand behind it
Sometimes, there’s a disconnect between the strength of our content and the strength of our brand.
When that happens, no matter how much traffic a page gets – or how valuable the content is – it may still fail to close the deal or lead the visitor to a meaningful next step.
If we’re not memorable, not transparent, or simply not differentiated, we risk losing the visitor to a single back-click – straight back to the search results or an AI chat.
Even worse, we may leave a great impression of expertise, but not enough brand recall for them to come back. They might:
- Get distracted.
- Do another search later.
- Don’t find us again.
In the end, we’ve helped with the research – but someone else gets the lead or the sale.
Dig deeper: The new SEO imperative: Building your brand
Update, repurpose, or retire content on purpose
Think of the pages on your site like open browser tabs: at some point, each one had value – you kept it open for a reason.
But after weeks (or in my case, I’ll admit, months), that value fades. The content becomes outdated, no longer relevant, or just overwhelming.
Like those forgotten tabs, content needs periodic review.
Some should be updated. Others repurposed. And some, retired.
Expertise and value should be at the core of every decision.
There are plenty of debates about what matters most (i.e., topic relevance, authority, visibility). I won’t get into that here.
But I will say this: Don’t ignore old content.
Don’t let it sit untouched too long without reassessing its relevance.
As search and AI experiences become more fragmented, you could be missing out on small but meaningful traffic opportunities.
Long-tail content that once performed may now be giving the wrong first (or second) impression – and getting overshadowed by your top-performing pages that command most of your attention.
Align content goals with business outcomes
I’ll admit – it used to be easier.
We could more directly map keywords and topics to specific pages, and those pages to defined customer journey stages or conversion goals.
Today, attribution is harder, traffic is less predictable, and the path to conversion is messier.
Still, content remains essential. It:
- Fuels our brand.
- Tells our story.
- Builds the expertise that earns traffic and trust.
We may need to be more flexible now – focusing less on volume and more on quality experiences.
But we still have to be careful not to assume that more traffic automatically means more revenue.
We also need to recognize when to step aside. Sometimes a visitor is ready to convert on a page we didn’t expect.
Helping them make that transition – whether it’s through thoughtful CTAs or clear navigation – is critical to understanding how content truly supports conversions and drives business results.
Dig deeper: SEO execution: Understanding goals, strategy, and planning
Build reporting that reflects true impact
Attribution is tougher – and surface-level metrics just don’t cut it anymore.
While top-of-funnel KPIs still serve a purpose, they’re often too far removed from actual business outcomes to be relied on alone.
Effective reporting needs to go deeper.
Without it, we risk overstating the value of what’s visible and missing the impact of what’s working quietly in the background.
In some cases, this can even lead to cutting content that’s contributing in ways we haven’t clearly measured.
GA4 may not make this easy, and other tools have their limitations too.
But regardless of your platform, the goal is to build a clear connection between content performance and business results. That means:
- Integrating with CRM data.
- Aligning with revenue analytics.
- Moving beyond granular KPIs that require guesswork.
Conclusion
Search has never been easy – and it’s only gotten harder.
But one thing hasn’t changed: quality traffic and meaningful content experiences still drive real results for businesses and organizations.
When it comes to evaluating content and page performance, we have to move beyond vanity metrics.
- Connect the right KPIs to real outcomes.
- Let go of outdated assumptions.
- Stay open to how – and where – conversions actually happen.
It’s not about doing more. It’s about doing better with what you already have and knowing which clicks actually matter.