The Ultimate Guide to Key SEO Metrics for Measuring Website Redesign Success from a User Experience Perspective

When measuring the success of a website redesign, focusing on key SEO metrics that reflect user experience (UX) is critical. These metrics provide objective data to evaluate how well your redesign improves organic visibility, engagement, and conversions while creating a seamless experience for your visitors.

1. Organic Traffic

Organic traffic shows how many visitors find your site through unpaid search results, making it a fundamental SEO metric tied to UX improvements. A positive redesign should increase or maintain stable organic sessions, reflecting enhanced navigation, content clarity, and site usability.

Track:

• Total organic sessions and new vs. returning users
• Organic traffic segmented by device and landing pages

Tools: Google Analytics, Google Search Console

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2. Bounce Rate & Dwell Time

Bounce rate measures visitors leaving after viewing one page, while dwell time gauges how long users stay engaged. Lower bounce rates and longer dwell times post-redesign indicate improved UX—such as clearer content, better layout, and faster load speeds—that encourage exploration.

Track:

• Site-wide and page-level bounce rate
• Average session duration and time on page
• Device-specific bounce rate (desktop vs. mobile)

Tools: Google Analytics

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3. Page Load Speed & Core Web Vitals

Page speed and Google's Core Web Vitals directly impact UX and rankings. Faster load times reduce drop-offs, while metrics like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) quantify loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability.

Targets:

• LCP under 2.5 seconds
• FID under 100 milliseconds
• CLS under 0.1

Track these metrics pre- and post-redesign using Google PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse to confirm UX enhancements.

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4. Mobile Usability Metrics

Mobile friendliness is essential since most users browse on mobile devices. After a redesign, improved mobile usability should reflect in increased mobile organic traffic, lower bounce rates on mobile, and a reduction in mobile usability errors reported in Google Search Console.

Track:

• Mobile vs. desktop bounce rates
• Mobile usability issues in Search Console
• Mobile traffic share

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5. Crawl Errors & Indexation Issues

Technical SEO errors can disrupt UX by causing broken pages or inaccessible content. Monitor crawl errors (4XX/5XX), redirect chains, and indexing status to ensure the redesigned site is fully discoverable and error-free, preventing a poor user experience.

Tools: Google Search Console

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6. Conversion Rates from Organic Traffic

Higher conversion rates signal that visitors not only find your site but also engage meaningfully. Track conversions (sales, signups, leads) attributed to organic search, along with changes in conversion rates per landing page, to validate that UX improvements facilitate user goals.

Track:

• Organic goal completions and ecommerce transactions
• Funnel conversion rates
• Average order value or lead quality

Tools: Google Analytics

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7. User Engagement Metrics (Pages per Session, Scroll Depth)

Engagement metrics reveal how effectively the site design encourages exploration. Pages per session and scroll depth—tracked via analytics or heatmaps—demonstrate whether users interact with content deeply, reflecting intuitive navigation and engaging layouts.

Tools: Google Analytics, Hotjar, Crazy Egg

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8. Search Rankings for Target Keywords

Keyword rankings measure your site’s discoverability changes post-redesign. Improvements suggest better site structure and content relevance benefiting UX, while drops may indicate SEO or usability issues.

Track:

• Positions of targeted keywords
• Presence in rich results and featured snippets

Tools: SEMrush, Ahrefs, Moz

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9. Backlink Profile & Domain Authority

Maintaining or improving your backlink profile post-redesign protects SEO authority. Monitor referring domains, link quality, and domain authority to ensure URL changes don’t cause lost link equity, which can diminish organic visibility and indirectly hurt user experience through lowered rankings.

Tools: Ahrefs, Moz, SEMrush

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10. User Feedback & On-Site Polls

Quantitative SEO metrics are essential but combining them with qualitative user feedback uncovers UX issues or successes that data alone may miss. Implement on-site surveys or polls to gather real-time visitor insights on navigation, content clarity, and overall satisfaction.

Tools: Zigpoll, Hotjar Surveys

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Bonus: Technical SEO Performance Post-Redesign

Ensuring technical SEO health supports user experience and rankings after a redesign. Monitor:

• XML sitemap updates and submissions
• robots.txt file status
• HTTPS implementation
• Structured data markup correctness

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How to Monitor and Report SEO Metrics for UX Effectively

• Use Google Analytics for organic traffic, bounce rate, session duration, conversions, and engagement.
• Leverage Google Search Console for crawl errors, mobile usability, indexing, and rankings.
• Employ PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse to analyze Core Web Vitals and page speed.
• Utilize heatmap tools like Hotjar or Crazy Egg for scroll depth and user interaction insights.
• Track backlinks and rankings with SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Moz.
• Gather direct user input via Zigpoll or similar feedback tools.

Conclusion: Integrating UX-Centric SEO Metrics to Measure Website Redesign Success

Measuring website redesign success through UX-focused SEO metrics ensures your site enhancements translate to tangible improvements in search visibility and user satisfaction. By prioritizing organic traffic, bounce rate, page speed, mobile usability, engagement, conversions, and combining these with user feedback, you create a comprehensive picture of how well your redesign serves both users and search engines.

Continuously monitoring these metrics enables data-driven decisions that optimize your redesigned site for superior performance, higher rankings, and stronger conversions.

Ready to capture real user insights alongside SEO data? Start using Zigpoll today to gather instant feedback and elevate your user experience.