Before anyone panics and sends me angry DMs about SEO being alive and well, you can relax.
I’m not declaring SEO officially dead. (We’ve already had about 3,486 articles on that topic, and guess what: it still isn’t.)
But SEO as we know it? That’s changing – fast.
Google’s AI Overviews, Bing Copilot, and shrinking SERP real estate are all changing search faster than your agency’s patience for “just one more question” emails.
It’s all happening. Which begs the question: when the landscape shifts dramatically, how do we measure success in a “post-SEO” world?
Strap in, friends, this is about to get a bit uncomfortable (but in a good way).
Beyond rankings
If you’re still sending clients ranking reports and celebrating when “that keyword” climbs from Position 9 to Position 7, it might be time for a chat.
Ranking positions are nice, a bit like finding $5 in your coat pocket that you forgot was there, but they aren’t the full story, and they never really were.
Let’s face it, no one cares if you are position number one if a) it’s for a phrase no one is looking for or b) it leads to zero conversions.
In today’s crowded, AI-enhanced, zero-click, personalized SERP world (yes, I crammed all the buzzwords in), obsessing over positions alone will leave you frustrated.
Instead, it’s time to think bigger:
- What happens after the click?
- Are people actually engaging?
- Are we making money yet?
Now, I’m not suggesting you ignore them completely, but they just don’t give you the full picture anymore.
The same is true of traffic.
Raise your hand if you’ve had a concerned email in the last six months because traffic has dropped, yet enquiries have stayed the same (or, even better, increased).
Dig deeper: SEO KPIs to track and measure success in the age of AI
User engagement metrics
Post-SEO means stepping outside the comfort of GSC clicks and impressions.
User engagement is no longer a nice-to-have metric. It’s a must-have.
When Google serves AI-generated answers right at the top, you’ve got fewer opportunities to grab attention – so when you do, you’d better hold onto it.
Here’s how we should be measuring success now:
Engagement rate (from GA4)
No more bounce rate, sorry bounce fans.
Engagement rate in Google Analytics 4 actually tells you if your visitors are doing something valuable.
- Clicking around.
- Scrolling.
- Spending quality time together. (It’s the metric equivalent of “hanging out with friends in the pub,” except, y’know, professional.)
Scroll depth and session duration
Yes, really.
- Are people actually reading your content or just skimming and leaving?
- If they aren’t reaching the good stuff, why?
- Are you making your messaging clear and simple (no one needs to read about your [insert acronym] process until they know they’re in the right place from the get-go)?
- How easy is it for people to get to your core content?
- Is your menu easy to follow?
UX isn’t just a phrase to chuck about to make you feel super knowledgeable.
It’s becoming a vital part of any SEO work.
Conversions and micro-conversions
SEO’s end goal was always leads or sales.
Measuring form fills, click-to-call buttons, downloads, or newsletter sign-ups is now essential, not optional.
They’re the real measure of whether your audience cares.
Long gone are the “bish, bash, bosh” days of landing, clicking, and buying.
We need to nurture our visitors.
Dig deeper: 12 new KPIs for the generative AI search era
Customer lifetime value (CLV)
CLV might sound painfully corporate, but stay with me.
SEO is marketing, marketing is business, and business wants to know: is this stuff working?
Tracking organic visitors’ lifetime value means examining how SEO-acquired customers behave long-term.
- Are organic customers more loyal?
- Do they spend more than those acquired through paid or social media?
If your SEO is good (and it better be), your CLV from organic traffic should outpace other channels.
Now that’s a metric worth celebrating.
Reputation and brand
SEO doesn’t exist in isolation anymore.
People:
- See your brand on social.
- Hear about you from podcasts.
- Stumble upon your quotes in industry round-ups.
- Then, Google you.
Or, vice versa.
So the new success markers?
Think:
- Brand searches.
- Direct traffic growth.
- Increases in branded keyword visibility.
- Single-channel marketing is a thing of the past.
Businesses need to embrace the online world in lots of different ways, and it all needs to be cohesive.
Talking about a topic in your latest blog, make sure this is filtered through to the rest of your marketing activity.
You want to work toward being known as the brand for XYZ.
With almost half of all searches being branded, you need to know that people are searching for your brand name – that’s gold dust.
Track it. Celebrate it. Report on it.
Dig deeper: The new SEO imperative: Building your brand
Zero-click visibility
Zero-click searches (thank you, featured snippets and AI summaries) are here to stay.
Frustrating? Absolutely.
But a useful metric if you view it through a branding lens? Actually yes.
Measure these impressions carefully.
They’re like mini brand-awareness campaigns running 24/7 without the budget.
But keep your eyes open.
If your impressions are skyrocketing without any corresponding clicks or conversions, your SERP visibility might be doing a whole lot of nothing.
Time for a deeper dive.
Dig deeper: How to track visibility across AI platforms
How this works in action
We recently worked with a client stuck on old-school SEO reporting.
They proudly waved ranking reports for obscure keywords nobody searched for.
Then, crickets.
So we switched things up. Started tracking:
- Organic lead quality and close rates.
- User engagement rate on landing pages.
- Scroll depth on long-form blog content.
- Brand searches over time.
The results?
Within three months, we identified their most valuable organic traffic segments and doubled down.
Rankings became background noise.
Revenue and conversions became the primary metrics.
Everyone stopped panicking when a random keyword dropped two spots.
Overall inquiry numbers went down, but the quality of the leads was getting so much better.
Instead of sitting on countless discovery calls with the wrong people, we were able to target the right leads.
This is where first-party data becomes more and more important.
It’s also where you need open and honest relationships with clients (agency side) or the sales team if you work in-house.
Tools for measuring success in the AI era
You don’t need fancy, expensive tech to do this. Your existing toolkit already includes the right stuff:
- GA4 (yes, it’s not perfect, but it works): Engagement, scroll, conversions.
- GSC Insights: Brand searches, impressions, CTR.
- Microsoft Clarity: Free, simple heat-maps and user recordings.
- HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, or other CRMs: track organic leads right through to revenue.
- Your own custom dashboards (i.e., Looker Studio): Visualize everything together so it makes sense for your clients or stakeholders.
You already have the data. You just need to use it differently.
Shifting mindset (without losing your sanity)
Clients won’t let go of rankings easily. Rankings are visible, simple, comforting. Who doesn’t like seeing those little green arrows?
But education starts with you.
- Have open conversations.
- Get people on board with the bigger picture – engagement, conversions, brand visibility.
- Give context.
- Talk about AI shifts.
- Offer them numbers they can take to their boss. Revenue, leads, and lifetime value talk louder than ranking fluctuations.
SEO isn’t going anywhere, but it’s changing fast.
The ways we measure our success need to evolve even faster.
We’re not just “SEO people” anymore.
We’re marketers, brand builders, user-experience obsessives, and yes, even amateur psychologists.
The SERPs evolved. Users changed. AI happened.
Time to update our metrics and celebrate what really matters.
Your clients, your stakeholders, and your team (and even your sanity) will thank you.
Rankings? They’ll mostly take care of themselves.