How can you evaluate the performance of your website’s existing keywords?

To evaluate your website’s existing keywords, first specify the queries, corresponding pages, and observation period, then examine rankings, impressions, click-through rates, and engagement after visitors arrive. High rankings do not necessarily mean more traffic, and increased impressions do not necessarily mean more clicks. What matters is whether your website appears in relevant searches and whether those searches attract the visitors you want to reach.

Turn “Is it performing well?” into specific questions

A discussion on Webmasters Stack Exchange emphasizes that evaluating SEO requires clearly identifying target keywords and considering which page searchers should reach. Simply saying “the whole site ranks poorly for keywords” is not enough to identify which page has a problem or which search need is involved.

For example, suppose your website already appears for the query “Taipei coffee courses.” You could frame the question as: “From October 1 to 31, 2026, how many impressions and clicks did this term bring to the course information page?” This is only an evaluation example, not actual website performance data. At a minimum, record:

• Keyword: Use the exact query text rather than a broad label such as “course-related.”
• Page: Check whether the page appearing in search results is the one you want searchers to visit.
• Period: Specify start and end dates to avoid mixing data from different periods.

Consider rankings alongside search demand and keyword relevance

A discussion on PTT points out that whether rankings generate traffic also depends on how often a term is searched. A high ranking alone therefore does not establish that a keyword delivers sufficient value; when search demand is low, its traffic potential remains limited.

A 2021 Semrush article recommends using query data from Search Console to check which searches your website appears in. If the main queries are unrelated to your business, or the queries for a single page span too many unrelated topics, revisit the page’s focus rather than simply pursuing more impressions.

Look at impressions, clicks, and click-through rates together

According to the approach outlined in that Semrush article, impression data shows which searches a page appears in, while click data shows which queries bring users to the website. A high click-through rate may indicate that a page matches search intent. If impressions are high but the click-through rate is low, check whether the keywords are relevant to the page and whether its title, description, and content meet searchers’ needs.

However, a low click-through rate does not necessarily mean there is a problem with the content. Ahrefs research from September 2026 found that some of the websites observed had declining click-through rates even though their impressions had not fallen. The declines were larger among websites with greater exposure to AI Overviews. This makes the search results layout worth examining, but it does not directly prove that your website is losing clicks for the same reason.

After the click, look at what visitors do

Clicks only answer “Did anyone visit?” They do not yet answer “Did those visits help achieve the website’s goals?” The 2021 Semrush article recommends that, if you run Google Ads, you also examine advertising search query data in Analytics to see whether visitors browse other pages, engage with content, and enter the conversion funnel. However, this assesses advertising traffic; it cannot be treated directly as evidence that organic search keywords led to conversions.

The same article also notes that Search Console and Analytics base their reports on different data, so their figures may differ. When compiling results, note the data source and traffic type rather than forcing the two sets of figures to match.