How do you measure the success of your SEO efforts and what metrics do you track?

What metrics matter to your business?

Keyword rankings are nice, but ranking for a keyword does not put food on the table. When reporting on performance, first identify the metrics that matter to your business and point to success and work backwards.

Here's an example:

I run an SEO coaching + software business. The metrics that matter to me are subscribers and consultation requests.

In order to drive subscribers up, I need to target keywords I can rank for with content that ranks and convert visitors to those content pieces. I'm doing this with blog posts and linking to eBooks and other assets. The metrics I am tracking are traffic to these posts, performance in search results (impressions, clicks), and rank for target keywords. There are other metrics I care about too, but mainly I am focusing on how the pages I am working on are performing, and how they are contributing to my growth.

I also keep track of which pages people land on from Google that drive the most conversions.

So many people will say to focus on keyword rankings or traffic, but without context to your business, goals, and how you define success those are meaningless things. First identify the outcome you want to achieve, work backwards to the steps you need to take to achieve that outcome, and then find a way to attribute SEO to how you make progress towards that outcome.