After your website is launched, the real work starts: continuously measuring results, spotting problems early and ensuring lasting growth in SEO.
1. Website performance and uptime notifications
When a page loads slowly or is down, conversions and user engagement drop – and search engine optimization quickly catches on.
The following measurements and tools are therefore important:
- Uptime (Uptime): Websites that are down lose both traffic and crawl/indexing capabilities.
- Error codes: Server or client errors such as 5xx or 4xx must be detected and corrected quickly.
- Redirects & internal links: Used or missing redirects and internal links affect both the user and the search engine.
- Page speed and user experience: A stagnant website or heavy load affects conversion and ranking.
Tools that help:
- PageSpeed Insights – provides insights into page speed.
- UpTime Robot, Pingdom, Sitechecker, Semrush Site Audit – monitors uptime, errors and overall technical SEO conditions.
2. Keywords and ratings
An important goal for SEO is visibility – that you show up where customers are searching.
The following parameters should be monitored:
- Current positions for keywords.
- Changes in ranking over time (up or down).
- Understand the “search intent” behind the keywords – whether the user wants information, purchase or navigation
- Average position, distribution of rankings (e.g. how many pages are on page 1 vs page 2), and click-through rate (CTR) from the search result.
Tools that help:
- Google Search Console – provides insight into how you are viewed, how, and where you can improve.
- SE Ranking, Semrush – tools for ranking tracking and search analytics.
3. Changes to the website
Websites are rarely static – you add new content, change the design, adjust technical aspects. You need to keep track of these changes because they can affect location, traffic and user experience.
Check for example:
- Changes to content (text, headings, meta tags).
- URL swaps or new redirects.
- Pace and quality of implementation of new functionality.
By monitoring changes and accompanying this with history, it becomes easier to link a rank change to a – preferably – concrete action.
Tools: Screaming Frog, VisualPing (monitor changes) and Semrush (audit).
4. Leads, traffic and analytics
If the goal of your website is to generate leads, sales or subscribers, then you need to track both visits and what happens after the visit.
Key metrics to record:
- Number of sessions and unique visitors.
- Page views per visit (pages per session).
- Average time on the website (session duration) and “bounce rate” – how many people leave without interaction.
- Traffic sources – where do visitors come from (organic, paid, referral, direct).
- Impressions and clicks from search results (impressions and clicks).
Tools: Google Analytics (e.g. GA4), Search Console, Looker Studio.
5. Backlinks and brand mentions
Links to your website (backlinks) and brand mentions are still important signals in the SEO world.
The following should be monitored:
- Total number of links and number of referring domains.
- Difference between “follow” and “nofollow” links.
- Lost and new links.
- Reviews of the brand – both linked and unlinked.
- Relevance and tone of voice around reviews – is the brand mentioned in a relevant context?
Tools: Semrush, Google Alerts, Mention.
6. SSL, domain expiration and security
It’s easy to overlook, but an expiring domain or SSL certificate can damage both trust and visibility.
Checkpoints:
- SSL certificate status and expiration date.
- Mixed content error (HTTP elements on HTTPS page) and correct HTTPS/redirected.
- Forwarding from HTTP to HTTPS.
Tools: Red Sift Certificates, Host-Tracker, Datadog SSL Monitoring.
Build a monitoring system for lasting SEO growth
Measuring and monitoring your site’s performance is about more than a single number or month-long effort. By establishing routines and tools that continuously record and report status, you will be able to catch problems early, improve the user experience and strengthen your organic visibility over time.