12 KPIs You Need to Start Tracking Immediately in 2026

It’s no secret that AI Search has already changed how users look for and interact with products and content. But the speed at which it has completely seized the industry is unprecedented. Search is already close to living in the “Google-Zero” reality. AI Overviews, AI Mode, and LLM search engines answer more questions directly on the results page, which means fewer clicks for everyone. 

Recent studies estimate that nearly 60 percent of Google searches end without a click, and that share has been rising since 2024. For queries that trigger AI Overviews, organic CTR can drop by 40–60 percent, with some industries seeing organic traffic declines of 15 to 60 percent after AI summaries rolled out.

In other words, search demand is still there, but your website is no longer the default destination.

If your reporting still treats “organic sessions” and “average keyword rank” as north-star KPIs, you are measuring a world that does not exist anymore. That’s why the AI marketing experts at SteadyRain have created this nifty guide to new Organic KPIs. Read on to discover the playbook for 2026, built for AI search, zero-click SERPs, and the reality of “Google-Zero.”

Why Are Traditional KPIs Failing?

Before jumping into the new metrics, it helps to be clear about what changed.

• Zero-click is the default behavior. Multiple studies show that a majority of Google searches now end without a click, and the gap between impressions and clicks is widening every year.
• AI Overviews soak up the attention. Oversized AI summaries push organic results further down, compress paid and organic CTR, and answer most simple informational queries on the page itself.
• AI citations do not always mirror rankings. Some research finds overlap between AI Overview citations and top organic listings, but as much as 40–46 percent of citations come from URLs outside the classic top web results, which means “top 3 rank” does not guarantee AI coverage and vice versa.
• AI search engines are new referrers. While Google traffic falls for many publishers, referrals from tools like ChatGPT and other AI search platforms are growing quickly.

The question shifts from “How many organic visitors did we get?” to “How visible and persuasive is our brand across search and AI surfaces, and what happens when people do choose to engage?”

That is where the new KPIs come in.

The Importance of Site Visibility

Before you worry about clicks, you need to understand whether your brand is even being seen. Site visibility KPIs shift the focus from “How many visitors did we get?” to “How often are we present when it matters?” In a zero-click landscape, these metrics tell you how frequently you enter the conversation, even when users never leave the results page.

KPIs that measure site visibility include:

Impressions

Impressions are the number of times your content appears in search results, whether users click or not. In practice, this usually means query and page impressions in Google Search Console.

This matters in the era of AI search because:

• AI search and rich SERPs mean many users get value without clicking. Impressions show how often your brand still enters the conversation.
• Rising impressions with flat or lower clicks can indicate that zero-click behavior is growing, not that your content stopped working.
• Impressions help you see the true top of the funnel, even when sessions do not show up in analytics.
  

You can measure impressions by:

• Using Google Search Console.
• Go to Performance, then Search Results
• Filter for Search Type: Web (and Image / Video as needed).
• Tract Total Impressions over time.
• Breaking impressions down by:
• Page: Which URLs drive the most visibility.
• Query: Which topics and intents are expanding, shrinking, or plateauing.
• Branded vs. Non-Branded: Use query filters to separate brand terms from generic ones and report them as separate KPIs.

AI Referrals

AI referrals are visits that originate from AI-powered tools: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Bing Copilot, Google Gemini, and similar. Right now, these are usually labeled as new or unfamiliar sources in your analytics, but they represent people who interacted with your brand inside an AI experience first.

This matters in AI search because:

• Users increasingly ask complex questions in AI assistants instead of “Googling it.”
• When AI tools do show links, the people who click are often highly qualified and closer to taking action.
• Tracking this traffic now helps you understand your early footprint in answer engines before they become a dominant discovery channel.
  

• In GA4, open Reports, Acquisition, Traffic acquisition.
• Add a secondary dimension for Session source or Session source / medium.
• Watch for new sources like perlexity.ai, chat.openai.com, bing, or others that include "ai," "assistant," or "copilot."
• Create an exploration or custom report that:
• Groups these referrers into an "AI referrals" channel.
• Tracks sessions, engagement rate, conversions, and conversion rate specifically for this group.

AI Citations

AI citations are instances where an AI answer references your brand or URL as a source, even if the user never clicks through. Think of the source links in a Google AI Overview or the citations shown under a Perplexity answer.

This is essential in AI search because:

• AI citations are the new “position zero.” They signal that answer engines consider your content trustworthy enough to summarize or quote.
• Even without a click, repeated exposure to your brand name and content builds authority and familiarity.
• AI citations do not always map to traditional rankings, so they are their own performance dimension.
  

• Create a priority list of queries that matter most to your brand.
• Periodically search them in:
• Google with AI Overviews enabled
• Bing Copilot
• A few leading AI search tools
• Record:
• Whether your domain is cited
• Which page is referenced
• How prominently it appears relative to competitors
• Turn this into two simple KPIs:
• AI citation coverage: Percentage of target queries where you appear as a source.
• Citation share of voice: How often you appear versus competitors across those queries.

Measuring Search Engine Results Page (SERP) Features

Ranking in the classic list of blue links is now just one small piece of a very crowded screen. SERP feature KPIs help you understand where on the results page you actually show up (videos, images, AI modules, People Also Ask, knowledge panels) and how much real estate your brand controls. Here’s how to measure visibility across all the high-impact surfaces that users see first.

Video Visibility

Video visibility is how often your brand's videos appear in video carousels or vide-specific result blocks for your key queries. This matters because:

• Many how-to, tutorial, and product comparison queries now prefer video.
• Video tiles occupy significant real estate, especially on mobile.
• Being present there boosts brand recall, even when users do not click your site.
• Most users prefer video content to other forms, and will recall the messages from videos more readily.
  

• Whether a video carousel appears
• Whether any of the videos are from your YouTube channel or domain

• Traffic source: YouTube search
• Traffic source: External, to see how often Google search is driving views

Image Results

Image results refers to the visibility of your images in image packs, Google Images, and visual results for key queries. Image packs often appear above organic listings, especially for style, inspiration, and product queries. This matters because, for many industries, users skim images before they read any copy. Strong image visibility also supports both brand awareness and click-through to product and category pages.

To measure your image visibility, optimize high-value pages with descriptive file names, alt text, and schema where appropriate. Periodically run image-heavy queries related to your products or services and note if:

• An image pack appears
• Your brand's images are visible there

• Impressions and clicks for images
• Top pages and queries driving visual exposure

People Also Ask (PAA) Visibility

People Also Ask is a box that appears in search results recommending related topics based on the query a user searched. It's essential to track how often your content appears in PAA because:

• PAA captures follow-up questions that users might not type directly.
• Appearing in PAA positions you as a helpful expert across a cluster of related questions, not just one head term.
• These answers are often the context AI systems use to understand your topical authority.
  

• Which questions show PAA
• When your pages are pulled into PAA answers

AI Overviews

AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries of answers to the query entered, sitting above everything else on the page and pulling from various websites regardless of organic search ranking. If your brand is not represented in AI Overviews, your chances of a click drop sharply. Being part of the overview helps you influence the narrative even when traditional organic listings are buried.

For a set of high-value queries, check whether an AI Overview appears and if your domain is cited in the list of sources. Use a simple KPI for reporting this. For example, use AI Overview coverage, the percentage of target queries where your site is in the overview citations.

Measuring Engagement Rate

Once someone chooses to click, the question is no longer “How many came?” but “What did they do when they got here?” Engagement KPIs focus on depth, not just volume, showing whether visitors are reading, scrolling, interacting, and finding value. In an era of fewer but more qualified visits, these metrics separate true content performance from vanity traffic.

Engagement Rate

In GA4, an engaged session is one that lasts at least 10 seconds, has 2 or more page views, or triggers a conversion event. Engagement rate is the percentage of sessions that meet those criteria. Engagement rate reflects whether visitors are actually interacting with your content, and in a world where fewer but more qualified users click through, engagement is a better health metric than raw sessions. Tracking engagement rate also helps you spot pages that attract interest but fail to hold user attention.

Here's how you can measure it:

• In GA4, go to Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition, and look at Engagement rate for: 
• Organic search
• AI referrals
• Other main channels
• Create a landing page report that shows:
• Landing page
• Sessions
• Engagement rate
• Conversions
• Use this to identify which organic entry pages deserve optimization for content depth, internal linking, and UX.
  

Dwell Time (Average Engagement Time)

Dwell time refers to the average time users spend actively engaged with your content. In GA4, this is usually average engagement time per session or per user. Dwell time helps you see whether people actually consume your content or just skim and leave. It is especially valuable for guides, resource content, and decision-stage pages where you expect a deeper interaction. It's important to note that longer is not always better, but sudden drops often flag a mismatch between expectation and reality.

To measure dwell time:

• In GA4, add Average engagement time as a metric to:
• Landing page reports
• Content-group or topic-cluster reports
• Compare dwell time for:
• Organic search vs AI referrals
• Different content types (for example, blog posts, guides, service pages, product pages)
• Use low dwell time pages as candidates for:
• Better intros and summaries
• Clearer headings and scannable structure
• Stronger internal links and calls to action

Bounce Rates

In GA4, bounce rate can be considered the inverse of engagement rate, the percentage of sessions that are not engaged. More specifically, it measures the number of users who land on your site and then quickly exit without engaging. It is a quick directional signal, especially when combined with engagement and conversions. A rising bounce rate on key landing pages means new visitors are not finding what they expect.

To measure it, add Bounce rate as a metric in your traffic and landing page reports. Use it with Engagement rate and Conversions to avoid overreacting to any one metric.

Brand Awareness is More Important Than Ever Before

Zero-click search does not eliminate brand building; it simply pushes more of it off your site and into the results page itself. Brand awareness KPIs capture how often people are searching for you by name and how your brand is represented when they do. These metrics bridge the gap between SEO, content, and broader marketing efforts to show whether your presence in search is strengthening your brand over time. The core KPI for measuring brand awareness is branded search term impressions.

Branded Impressions

Branded impressions measure the number of times queries that include your brand name or branded product names appear in search results. Branded search is a strong proxy for brand awareness and consideration. When your content and AI visibility improve, you often see a lift in branded searches even when traffic looks flat. Overall, it connects SEO and content back to upper-funnel activity and offline campaigns.

To measure branded impressions:

• In Google Search Console, open Performance, then Search results.
• Filter Queries using your brand name and close variants.
• Track: Total branded impressions
• Branded clicks and CTR
• Report on branded impressions separately from non-branded. When branded impressions grow, your brand is gaining mindshare, even if not every impression turns into a visit.
  

Organic Conversions Will Always Be a KPI

At the end of the day, visibility and engagement only matter if they move the business forward. Conversion KPIs connect AI- and search-driven discovery to outcomes like leads, demos, and revenue. Instead of obsessing over traffic loss, you can show how organic and AI-powered journeys still produce measurable, bottom-line impact. One very easy KPI to demonstrate how well your sites are converting is conversion rate.

Conversion Rate

Conversion rate is your total conversions divided by total sessions or users for a channel, for example, organic search or AI referrals. It tells you how efficiently you turn search visibility into actual business outcomes. As AI filters out lower-intent searches, your organic and AI-driven visitors may convert at a higher rate. It also helps you show executives that even with fewer clicks, organic is still pulling its weight.

Here's how to measure conversion rate:

• In GA4, make sure you:
• Define key events as Conversions, for example, contact form submissions, demo requests, quote requests, sign-ups, purchases.
• Then in Reports, open Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition:
• Look at Conversions and Conversion rate for organic and your AI referral sources.
• Optionally, create a simple metric like conversions per 1,000 impressions for priority queries by combining GSC impression data with GA4 conversions.
  

Which Organic KPIs Should You Stop Relying On?

Some of the metrics we have relied on for years have not kept up with how search actually works now. Organic traffic and average keyword rankings still have diagnostic value, but they no longer deserve top billing in your reports. This section calls out which legacy KPIs to downgrade so you can make room for the visibility, engagement, and outcome metrics that actually reflect the AI-search reality.

1. Organic Traffic (Clicks and Sessions): Zero-click behavior and AI answers mean fewer visits, even when your visibility and influence are stable or growing. Organic traffic should be a context metric, not your main definition of success.
2. Average Keyword Rankings: SERPs are no longer simple lists of ten blue links. Ads, AI Overviews, carousels, and panels change the meaning of “position one.” AI citations and visibility in features often do not match classic rankings. Use rankings as a diagnostic tool, not your main KPI.

Stay on Top of Your Organic Performance with SteadyRain

Search is not getting simpler; it’s getting smarter. AI Overviews, answer engines, and a growing list of SERP features are changing how people discover brands and make decisions. If you keep judging success by organic traffic and average position, you will miss where the real value is happening, in impressions, AI citations, SERP coverage, engagement, conversions, and branded demand. The marketers who adapt their KPIs to this new reality will be the ones who can tell a clear story about how organic and AI search still move the business.

SteadyRain lives at the intersection of analytics, SEO, and AI. Our team can help you rethink your reporting, identify the KPIs that actually matter for your organization, and build dashboards that reflect how search works today, not ten years ago. Whether you are ready for an AI search visibility audit, want to understand how AI tools are already using your content, or need a partner to evolve your SEO and content strategy, we are here to help. Reach out to SteadyRain today and let's chat about your AI search strategy. Stay visible, relevant, and measurable in a rapidly changing digital landscape!

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