SEO isn’t slow, but it’s often misunderstood.
In this eye-opening session, Malte Landwehr, VP of SEO at Idealo, challenges outdated thinking around SEO metrics. While many CMOs and growth leaders chase traffic and rankings, Malte explains why these lagging indicators tell you little about the real-time impact of your strategy.
Instead, he advocates for a shift toward leading indicators. These metrics predict future SEO success. This session is a must-watch for performance-focused marketers and enterprise teams navigating the long SEO game with pressure to show short-term ROI.
Watch the interview
Whether you’re managing a global SEO team or advocating for budget at the C-level, Malte’s playbook will help you turn intuition into insight, and then action.
Let’s break down why your measurement model might be holding you back and how to fix it.
Why can’t SEO be measured like paid media?
Unlike ads, SEO doesn’t return immediate feedback. There are three key differences that drive the need to measure separately:
- SEO operates on delay: Results from today’s efforts may take 6–18 months to materialize.
- External forces play a role: Algorithm updates, competitor actions, and crawl/indexing cycles add variability.
- It’s nonlinear: Simply publishing five articles doesn’t guarantee five new traffic sources. The results depend on topic depth, authority, and structure.
That’s why measurements like rankings or traffic tell you more about what you did, and not what you should do next.
The power of leading vs. lagging indicators
So what are the differences between leading and lagging indicators and when should you focus on each of them?
Lagging Indicators reflect outcomes after the work is done:
- SEO traffic
- Keyword rankings
- Share of voice
- Domain authority
These are essential for reporting and evaluating historical success, but always keep in mind that they’re reactive.
Whereas leading indicators reflect efforts you control right now. These are measurables like:
- The number of content pieces published weekly
- The number of backlinks earned
- Percentage of tech pages with full listings
- Bounce rate of SEO traffic
All of these are directly influenceable by your team. When tracked weekly, leading indicators create clarity, accountability, and forecasting power.
How can teams build in leading SEO metrics?
Malte recommends a simple but effective framework:
- Define leading indicators that align with your business model
If you’re an ecommerce site, that might be “product pages with 10+ listings.” Whereas if you’re a SaaS brand, it might be “new guides published for bottom-funnel intent topics.”
- Benchmark and track them weekly
Don’t wait for quarterly reports. Use your weekly check-ins to build a repeatable cadence. Performance = agility + insight.
- Tie budgets to performance forecasting
Don’t ask for your SEO budget in generic terms. Say: “We need $50K to produce 100 articles. Based on past data, each brings in 30K visits in 24 months = $60K in revenue.”
This reframes SEO as an investment with predictable returns and not a gamble.
Remember to align strategy with enterprise goals
Lastly, SEO performance must align with enterprise KPIs to earn long-term buy-in.
Don’t isolate SEO from revenue modeling, instead set up your reporting to demonstrate the direct impact of your efforts. Ensure SEO metrics are a featured part of broader forecasting, attribution, and customer journey analysis.
Key takeaways
- Lagging metrics don’t accurately steer strategy, leading metrics are also vital.
- Track content velocity, backlink growth, and user behavior indicators weekly.
- Use performance modeling to justify SEO budget and resource allocation.
- Forecast SEO like a CFO by basing on predictable business impact.
Semrush Enterprise empowers SEO leaders to move from reactive, one-size-fits-all approaches, to dynamic forecasts and custom reports that resonate with every stakeholder.
Connect the dots between leading and lagging indicators and present SEO as a clear growth driver.
- Simplified reporting with clear ROI: Generate quantifiable SEO reports that demonstrate traffic growth, keyword rankings, share of voice, and more, presented in clean, stakeholder-friendly formats. This boosts visibility into strategy performance and empowers SEO managers to justify budget and resources confidently.
- Data-driven decisions: Analyze SEO performance by period, segment, or topic and compile insights into custom dashboards tailored for different stakeholders, from CMOs to product leaders.
- AI-powered forecasting: Link leading indicators like content velocity and backlink growth to predictive business impact. Semrush Enterprise’s forecasting tools connect SEO activities directly to revenue outcomes, transforming SEO into a boardroom-ready growth lever.
With Semrush Enterprise, SEO isn’t a cost center. It’s a data-driven growth engine that powers the bottom line.
