Common SaaS SEO KPIs and metrics include rank position, impressions, clicks, trial signups, demo’s scheduled, and new customers. There are a number of other SaaS SEO metrics that can be measured to determine the effectiveness of organic search as a channel.
KPIs and metrics for any SaaS SEO campaign can be broken up into pre-visitor and post-visitor metrics. Pre-visitor metrics would include things like number of keywords a given SaaS companies domain ranks for or the number of keywords that rank position one through three. And post-visitor metrics would include things like bounce rate, engagement rate, internal clicks throughout the SaaS website, and ultimately trial signups, demo’s, or customers (leading to revenue figures like MRR/ARR).
Key Takeaways
- KPIs and metrics like rank position, impressions, clicks, traffic by organic source, trial signups, demo’s scheduled, MQLs, conversion rate, and customers are all key metrics that any SaaS SEO campaign should be tracking.
- There are two types of metrics that any SaaS SEO campaign should track: metrics that happen before a visitor comes to the website and metrics that happen after the visitor comes to the website. Pre-visitor would include the number of keywords a domain ranks for or impressions that a website sees in Google Search Console. While post-visitor metrics would include demo button clicks, trial signups, or other leading indicators that a visitor might turn into a customer (leading to MRR/ARR revenue metrics).
- CAC (customer acquisition cost) and CLTV (customer lifetime value) are also important metrics that inform how well the marketing source produces profitable customers for a given SaaS business. This will be determined based on the average contract value (ACV) of the SaaS business and the persona the campaign aims to target.
Common SaaS SEO Metrics
Here are some common SaaS SEO metrics that are tracked:
Rank Position
Rank position tracks the number of keywords that a given SaaS website ranks for. Usually, these are highly targeted keywords where the ideal customer persona (or audience) may be. An SEO campaign will want to track rank position of pages as it then influences impressions and clicks, which are precursors to any new customer metrics.
Impressions
Impressions are the number of people (or eyeballs) that are seeing a given website in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Impressions are easy to see in Google Search Console and only appear when rank position is increased through the SEO campaign.
Clicks
Once a certain number of people start seeing a website as an option to address their question in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), clicks to the website become the next metric to track.
Trial Signups or Demo’s Scheduled
If you have a SaaS product, most likely you’ll be offering a demo that needs to be scheduled to learn more about the software. Or a free trial option that lets customers self-serve and try out the product. If the SEO campaign is designed correctly, then this will be the next metric that will want to be tracked. It allows a marketing team to see how effective the SEO campaign (or organic search as a channel) is at attracting the right types of people.
MQLs
MQL stands for Marketing Qualified Lead. In some cases, depending on the type of software business that you have, an MQL might equal a major opportunity. MQLs are more designed for software or SaaS businesses that are targeting larger contract values. Usually, in the multiple thousands to millions. Attracting the right customer to learn more about your business may be a strong SaaS SEO metric that you’ll want to track.
Phone Calls
If you're using MQLs as your source for customer acquisition, then looking at the number of phone calls that your BDR or SDR team has based on their original lead source will be an important metric to track. This includes those who are executing SaaS SEO campaigns. Any SaaS marketer is going to want to know that the leads they are sending to sales people are turning into real phone calls.
Closed Won
If you're a SaaS business that runs on long-term contracts, then you may be looking at the closed won ratio. This is when sales people are able to get the leads that were acquired through SEO (or search) and turn them into real closed customers.
Customers
At the end of the day, MRR and ARR are two metrics that SaaS companies look at. Monthly Recurring Revenue and Annual Recurring Revenue. New customers will equal or produce an increase or growth in these numbers.
Traffic
While this should go without saying, the number of visitors that you’re driving from organic search as a source is going to be a key metric that most SaaS SEO campaigns will be looking at. However, the number of demo’s, trial signups, or other metrics closer to leads becoming customers are going to be looked at more closely.
How These SaaS SEO KPIs Get Tracked
Most commonly, SaaS SEO KPIs are tracked using a variety of tools and reporting. Initial tools to track rank position may include things like Ahrefs or SEMRush. This will help a SaaS company better understand how many keywords they’re ranking for and whether the rank position is increasing as an overall index.
Once that’s obtained, the SEO campaign should start to use tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to understand how those rank position increases are turning into impressions and real clicks.
Google Analytics can help to determine that a visitor came to the website and that the bounce rate stayed low (meaning engagement rate stayed high), resulting in metrics that Google and other search engines like to see (engaged visitors who are getting their questions answered).
Finally, depending on the type of SaaS company that it is, other tools like Hubspot or even Google Analytics itself can get used to understand how many trial signups, demo’s, or MQLs are getting generated on a monthly basis from the acquisition channel.
Common Questions
Questions and answers about SaaS SEO KPIs:
How is CAC part of a SaaS SEO campaign?
CAC stands for Customer Acquisition Cost. And is usually a blended-metric that includes a rollup of all marketing activities and their costs. For SaaS companies that might be hiring an agency, they’ll use that as one of the main contributors to their CAC. In addition, if they have sales people (like sales development representatives) that are nurturing the channel, their average salary figures may be included in the total CAC figure.
Ultimately, a SaaS company is going to want to know that there is ROAS (return on advertising spend) for the channel’s focus. Meaning, if they’re paying a SaaS SEO agency $10,000 per month to assist them. And the agency projects it will require 6-months of time to see results, the SaaS business is going to determine their average CAC figures along with this fee.
Because every SaaS business has different pricing and LTV (lifetime value) figures for each customer, it will be a figure that’s highly important for marketing executives to track and keep close watch of.
Is conversion rate an important metric to track in SaaS SEO campaigns?
Generally, yes. However, if you’re looking at trial signups, demo’s scheduled, or some time of artifact that is considered to be your “customer lead,” then you’re essentially tracking some type of conversion rate.
You’ll want to see the number of visitors coming into a website and how many of them are requesting to learn more about your SaaS business in the many ways that are available to them. If you know you’re attracting the right customers through persona research, keyword research, and product/market fit knowledge—then you might want to perform some type of conversion rate optimization on your website to see if you can send more visitors to become customers.
Other SaaS SEO Resources
Written by Joshua Davis
VP of SEO
September 9, 2024
