All B2B Marketer’s know that SEO matters but we often measure it in ways that make us look busy rather than useful. Rankings go up, traffic goes up, and yet nothing changes commercially. Eventually someone senior decides SEO is a hobby and cuts it.
So, let’s be clear on what success actually means.
In our world, winning in SEO does not mean ranking first. It means earning a disproportionate share of visibility and trust for the prospect questions that matter and doing so consistently enough to influence real buying decisions over time.
Start by separating leading and lagging indicators
This distinction really matters because it prevents good work being killed too early.
Leading indicators are early signals that progress is happening before revenue shows up.
Lagging indicators are outcomes that arrive later, such as pipeline and revenue.
In B2B, lagging indicators move slowly because buying cycles are long. If we only measure lagging indicators, we risk concluding SEO is failing long before it has had a chance to work.
Reality Check
If leading indicators are not improving, SEO is probably not working.
If leading indicators are improving but revenue has not arrived yet, be patient.
Decide what SEO is meant to achieve commercially
This is where many teams go wrong. They measure whatever a dashboard makes easy to measure.
Common B2B objectives include:
• Increasing qualified inbound enquiries from target prospects
• Improving conversion rates on high intent pages
• Reducing friction in sales conversations by educating prospects earlier
So it’s best to build your reporting with this in mind and being ruthless with vanity metrics.
Use Search Console as your source of truth
Google Search Console is obviously their own reporting tool for how your site performs in Google Search. It is not perfect, by any means, but it is the closest thing you have to ground truth for organic visibility.
Here are the Search Console metrics that matter, explained plainly.
Impressions
An impression is counted when your page appears in a search result. In plain English, this reflects visibility, not interest.
Clicks
A click is when someone selects your result and lands on your site. This reflects interest turning into action.
Click through rate
Click through rate is clicks divided by impressions. It reflects how relevant and credible your result appears in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).
Average position
Average position is the average ranking of your result across impressions. It is a rough indicator of competitiveness but can be misleading when rankings fluctuate or when multiple URLs rank.
Query
A query is the exact phrase typed by a searcher. This is how prospects describe their problem in their own words. Super insightful for marketers.
Landing page
A landing page is the page that earns the impression or click. This is the asset doing the work.
Measure success in a clear hierarchy
To avoid dashboard sprawl, measure SEO in this order.
Visibility for the right problems
Impressions growth for priority topics and prospect questions.Trust and engagement signals
Click through rate improvement, ranking stability, and repeat exposure in relevant SERPs.Commercial contribution
Assisted conversions, conversion rates on high intent pages, and pipeline influence.
These signals reflect progress and help so much in demonstrating marketing’s value.
Measure at three levels: query, page, and topic
Query level
This shows which prospect questions you are earning visibility for.
Track:
• Impressions for priority query groups
• Click through rate changes on high intent queries
• Query breadth, meaning how many related queries you appear for
Query breadth is an indicator of topical authority building, not proof of it.
Page level
This shows which pages earn trust over time.
Good things to track include:
• Clicks and impressions per page
• Click through rate per page
• Average position trends
• Ranking stability, meaning how steady positions are rather than volatile
Unstable rankings often correlate with weaker authority in that SERP.
Topic level
This shows whether authority is compounding.
It’s useful to track:
• Impression growth across a topic cluster
• Query expansion, meaning ranking for terms you did not explicitly target
• Internal linking impact across related pages
These trends indicate whether search engines are increasingly associating you with a topic.
Use SERP checks to validate your data
A SERP is a Search Engine Results Page.
You cannot measure SEO properly without looking at the SERP itself. The SERP shows what Google believes the searcher wants at that moment.
So, check:
• Whether your content type matches what ranks
• Whether SERP features absorb clicks
• Whether you are competing with publishers, vendors, or communities
Reality check
If metrics look healthy but prospects do not convert, you may be winning visibility for the wrong intent.
Connect Search Console to GA4 to measure behaviour
GA4, Google Analytics 4, measures what people do after they land on your site.
This is where SEO begins to connect to observable outcomes.
Key terms to understand.
Conversion
A conversion is a tracked action that matters commercially, such as a demo request or pricing page view.
Attribution
Attribution is how credit for a conversion is assigned across touchpoints.
Assisted conversions and why they matter in B2B
An assisted conversion is when organic search helps move a prospect towards a conversion, even though it was not the final interaction before they converted.
In plain English, SEO helped, but it did not get the credit.
This happens because most analytics tools default to last click attribution, which only gives credit to the final touchpoint. In B2B, that final touchpoint is often direct traffic, email, paid media, or sales outreach.
A simple example makes this clearer.
A prospect searches for a problem they are trying to understand and finds your content via organic search. They read it, learn something, and start to trust your thinking. Days or weeks later, they return via a branded search, a LinkedIn post, or a sales email and request a demo.
In that journey, organic search played a critical role, but it was not the last click. That initial organic visit is recorded as an assist, not a conversion.
This is why SEO often shows up as an assisted conversion in B2B. Prospects use search to research, learn, and validate long before they are ready to act. By the time they convert, they already know who you are.
Reality check
If you only measure last click conversions, you will almost always undervalue SEO in B2B. Assisted conversions are where SEO’s real influence usually shows up.
Be honest about CRM and pipeline influence
SEO rarely closes deals directly in B2B.
Its value more often shows up as
• Better educated prospects
• Higher quality conversations
• Improved sales velocity
• Increased deal confidence
If organic search never appears in assisted conversions or influenced pipeline, either SEO is underperforming or tracking is incomplete. And that’s an important distinction for you to bear in mind.
Metrics that can misdirect us
If you want to spot misleading reporting quickly, it often includes:
• Vanity ranking snapshots without context
• Total organic traffic without intent segmentation
• Single KPI SEO scorecards
• Last click only conversion reporting
They may make us feel better and be easier for other stakeholders to understand, but they will not be optimal.
Tools that help
Here’s some tools that I use:
Google Search Console for visibility and authority signals.
GA4 for behaviour and conversion analysis.
Looker Studio for combining data sources into one narrative.
Ahrefs or Semrush for competitive context and ranking stability.
But remember, tools cannot tell you what to be known for and can’t judge a propsect’s trust. That’s all done to you!
The simple rule to remember
If your SEO reporting would impress someone who does not understand your prospects or your revenue model, it is probably not the reporting your business needs. Its too complicated and too nuanced for that.
Measure visibility first, then trust, then commercial impact. In that order.
Call to action
If we are serious about measuring SEO success in B2B marketing, it’s important we don’t hide behind rankings.
A good plan would be to pick three topics you want to be known for. Track impressions, click through rate, query breadth, and ranking stability for those topics. Then connect Search Console to GA4 and define conversions that reflect real prospect intent, not vanity engagement. Learn and refine as you go.
If you want help building an SEO measurement framework that senior stakeholders will respect, get in touch and we will introduce you to people who genuinely know what good looks like.
