Spend an hour on r/SEO or r/TechSEO and you’ll notice something odd: ask ten people how they measure SEO results and you’ll get ten different answers. Some live in rank trackers. Others swear by organic sessions in GA4. A few only look at Search Console clicks, and the more business-minded crowd talks about leads and revenue.
None of these are wrong, but they measure different things. Rankings tell you visibility, not value. Traffic tells you volume, not quality. And clicks in Search Console rarely match sessions in analytics, which is where a lot of confusion starts.
Our take: pick the metric closest to money that you can reliably track, then use the rest as diagnostics. If organic leads are up, a ranking dip matters less. If rankings climb but revenue doesn’t, that’s your real signal.
Measure what the business feels, not what the dashboard flatters.
Written by
Adriaan
Adriaan leads Stijg Media and works directly on search, AI visibility, websites, and local growth strategy.
Meet Adriaan
