How do you know whether SEO is working?

The short answer: SEO works when the whole journey improves, not one isolated metric

We can divide measurement into five levels:

1. Indexing: Google can find and process the URLs we want to rank.
2. Visibility: those pages begin appearing for searches connected to the business.
3. Traffic: some of those impressions turn into clicks to the website.
4. Behaviour: the user finds a page that matches what they searched for.
5. Conversion: some visits end in a valuable action: enquiry, call, WhatsApp, booking, purchase or request.

Not every company can measure all five levels perfectly from day one, but this structure prevents a ranking increase from being confused with a commercial result.

1. Check whether Google can find the important pages

Before measuring traffic, check that the URLs that should compete are available to Google and indexed correctly.

Search Console lets you review the status of a specific URL through its inspection tool. This can reveal indexing, canonical, crawling or other issues that may prevent a page from appearing correctly.

A strategy cannot be considered to be on the right path if important commercial pages are not available to compete for the searches they are meant to answer.

If this is exactly your problem, start with why a company does not appear on Google .

2. Review impressions and queries: is Google connecting the website with the right searches?

An impression means that a result from your site appeared on Google according to Search Console measurement rules. It is one of the first signals we can use to check whether a page is gaining visibility.

But the total number of impressions is not enough. Open the queries and ask questions such as:

• are these searches related to services the company genuinely offers?
• is Google showing the correct URL for each query?
• are new searches with commercial intent appearing?
• are different pages competing for the same intent?
• are important queries showing a growth trend?

If impressions increase only because of irrelevant queries, the graph can rise without the strategy moving any closer to the objective.

3. Analyse clicks, CTR and the pages that are actually attracting traffic

Once Google is showing a page, the next step is to check whether users click. Search Console lets you analyse clicks, impressions, CTR and position, as well as filter data by query, page, country, device and period.

Clicks indicate real traffic from Google

If clicks increase on pages connected to priority services, that is a stronger signal than impressions increasing on their own.

CTR needs context

CTR is the relationship between clicks and impressions. It can help identify results that appear frequently but receive few clicks, although it should be interpreted alongside the query, position and the type of result Google displays.

Average position is a trend, not a fixed ranking

Search Console calculates an average position from recorded impressions. That means an “8.4” should not be read as if the website permanently occupies position 8. It is more useful to compare the evolution of a page or query over equivalent periods and look at it together with impressions and clicks.

4. Check what happens after the user enters the website

Search Console explains what happens before the click: queries, impressions, positions and clicks. Google Analytics helps explain part of what happens after the person arrives.

Instead of turning one behaviour metric into a score of “good SEO” or “bad SEO”, it is better to analyse the page according to its purpose.

For example:

• whether a service page receives traffic but nobody reaches a contact action;
• whether an informational guide receives visits but leads nowhere towards a related commercial page;
• whether mobile users encounter friction before the form or WhatsApp;
• whether a page attracts an intent different from the one its content is trying to solve.

I would not use “time on page” or an isolated engagement rate as proof that Google is rewarding or penalising a URL. Those data help understand the experience, but they do not replace search analysis.

5. Connect SEO with enquiries, opportunities and sales

For a company, this is the most important layer. If conversions can be measured, we should try to connect organic traffic with actions that have commercial value.

Depending on the business, those can include:

• submitted forms;
• WhatsApp clicks or conversations when they are measured correctly;
• calls;
• bookings;
• quote requests;
• purchases;
• leads that later become clients.

This reveals an important distinction: SEO can be generating the right traffic while the website still has a conversion problem. If interested users arrive but the page does not build trust, explain the service or make contact easy, increasing traffic further will not solve the problem on its own.

In that situation, it makes sense to review why a website receives visits but does not get clients .

Separating brand searches and service searches prevents misleading interpretations of growth

Imagine a campaign outside Google causes many people to start searching directly for the company name. Search Console may record more organic impressions and clicks, but that does not necessarily mean the website has gained visibility for its services.

That is why it is useful to compare:

• brand searches: company name, domain, products or names already known;
• searches not directly related to the brand: services, problems, needs and queries through which we want to be discovered.

Both have value, but they represent different phenomena. Separating them helps show whether we are capturing demand from people who already knew the company or appearing in front of people who were still searching for a solution.

7 mistakes when measuring whether an SEO strategy is working

1. Watching one keyword

One query can improve while other important pages lose visibility. Performance should be analysed by intent, pages and groups of relevant searches.

2. Looking only at the website’s average position

An average mixes many queries and pages. It can change even when the searches that actually matter remain the same.

3. Celebrating any traffic increase

More visits do not always mean more opportunities. First check which searches and pages produced the growth.

4. Counting “ranking keywords” without analysing which ones they are

Ranking for hundreds of irrelevant queries can inflate a report without bringing the company closer to potential clients.

5. Mixing brand traffic with discovery of new services

If they are not separated, an increase in brand awareness can look like a general SEO improvement.

6. Measuring local SEO in exactly the same way as general organic SEO

When there is a local strategy, it is also useful to observe Google Business Profile and actions connected with nearby searches.

7. Drawing conclusions from a few days

Search changes, seasonality exists and recent data can fluctuate. It is better to compare equivalent periods and look for sufficiently clear trends.

How to interpret what you see: 5 common scenarios

How to compare periods to determine whether there is a real trend

Good measurement needs time context. I would not automatically compare the last seven days with any previous week or interpret a temporary decline as failure.

I would try to keep conditions comparable:

• the same number of days;
• separate mobile and desktop when there is an important difference;
• take seasonality and public holidays into account;
• compare pages or page groups with the same intent;
• record important changes made to the website;
• check whether Google or Search Console has reported data incidents;
• avoid attributing an improvement to one action when many things changed at the same time.

Search Console lets you compare periods and filter by query or page. That combination is much more useful than watching one global number.

So when can we say SEO is moving in the right direction?

I would look for a coherent chain of signals: priority pages are indexed correctly, they are appearing more often for relevant searches, those searches generate clicks and the traffic begins producing valuable actions.

Those signals do not all have to grow at the same speed. A website may start by increasing impressions before gaining more clicks, and it may need conversion improvements after traffic grows. The important thing is to know where the bottleneck is in the journey.

If you are still in the first months, the guide on how long SEO takes to show results may also help.