Measuring SEO: Search Console & Traffic
You cannot improve what you do not measure — track rankings, clicks and organic traffic to see progress.
What you will learn
- Name the key SEO metrics to track
- Calculate click-through rate (CTR) step by step
- Know when to use Google Search Console vs Analytics
- Tag a link with UTM codes to track where visitors come from
Why measure?
SEO is slow, so you need numbers to know it is working. Two free tools do most of the job: Google Search Console (how you appear in search) and Google Analytics (what visitors do on your site).
| Tool | Tells you | Example question it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Search Console | How you show in Google | Which searches bring me clicks? |
| Analytics | What visitors do on site | Which pages do people read? |
The key metrics
- Impressions — how many times your link appeared in search.
- Clicks — how many people clicked through to your site.
- Average position — your typical ranking spot for a search.
- Organic traffic — visitors who arrived from free search results.
- CTR (click-through rate) — the share of people who clicked.
Worked example: calculating CTR
Click-through rate (CTR) tells you how tempting your listing is. The formula is clicks divided by impressions, shown as a percent.
CTR = (clicks / impressions) x 100
CTR = (50 / 1000) x 100 = 5 percentNote: Your bakery page appeared 1000 times and got 50 clicks, so its CTR is 5 percent. If you improve the title and description and clicks rise to 80, the new CTR is 80 divided by 1000, which is 8 percent — the same listing, just made more tempting.
Track where visitors come from: UTM links
Sometimes you share a link in many places — an Instagram bio, a WhatsApp broadcast, an email. Analytics will say “200 people visited”, but not which place sent them. A UTM link fixes this. UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) just means adding a few labels to the end of your web address; Analytics reads those labels and tells you the source.
sweetcrumbs.in/eggless-birthday-cakes?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=diwali_offerNote: Everything before the ? is your normal page. After it, utm_source=instagram says the visitor came from Instagram, utm_medium=social says it was a social-media post (not email or an ad), and utm_campaign=diwali_offer names the campaign. Use a different link for each place you post (one for Instagram, one for WhatsApp) and Analytics shows exactly which one brought visitors and orders. The tags do not change the page the person sees.
Tip: You do not type UTM links by hand — use Google’s free Campaign URL Builder: fill in the boxes and it builds the link for you. Keep your labels lowercase and consistent (always instagram, never IG one time and Insta the next) or Analytics will split them into separate rows.
What good looks like over time
Do not judge SEO day by day. Compare month over month. Here is healthy progress for a new bakery page:
| Month | Impressions | Clicks | Avg position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Month 1 | 600 | 12 | 18 |
| Month 2 | 1,400 | 40 | 11 |
| Month 3 | 3,200 | 150 | 6 |
Note: Position is climbing (18 to 6), and impressions and clicks are rising fast. That is exactly the trend you want: better ranking bringing more free visitors each month.
Tip: Set up Google Search Console on day one, even before your SEO is good. It is free, and it quietly collects your search data so you can look back and measure progress later.
Watch out: Do not panic over daily ups and downs — rankings wobble naturally. Judge SEO by the trend over weeks and months, not single days.
Q. Your page got 30 clicks from 1,000 impressions. What is the CTR?
✍️ Practice
- Calculate the CTR (click-through rate) for a page with 80 clicks and 2,000 impressions.
- Build a UTM link for the same page to track visitors from a WhatsApp broadcast (set the source to whatsapp).
🏠 Homework
- Write down the 5 SEO metrics from this lesson and a one-line meaning for each in your own words, then build one UTM link for a place you would share a business page.