How to Build an SEO Benchmarking Strategy in the New AI Era

Today, SEO is no longer a guessing game. If you're not benchmarking your SEO performance today, you're likely falling behind. However, your efforts might still fail to garner the expected results because the interface between your audience and your brand has gone beyond the search result page.

Did SEO Benchmark Become Secondary to GEO KPIs?

"Visibility" and 'Authority' have different meanings in search engines today, dominated by retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), embeddings, vector databases, and large language models.

This seismic shift in search has converted the old KPIs into mere relics from the past. Some SEO benchmarks still hold relevance but are secondary to the new performance signals that are better attuned to how information is retrieved and ranked in generative search platforms and presented to users. 

This article will discuss the relevant benchmarking KPIs from traditional SEO and the emerging metrics designed for GEO (generative engine optimisation).

Why SEO Benchmarking Still Matters

SEO benchmarking measures your current SEO performance against a defined set of standards or competitors. Think of it as the compass ensuring your SEO strategy moves in the right direction. Without it, you’re just optimising in the dark.

Differences Between Benchmarks and KPIs

How to Use Benchmarks as a Performance Baseline

Benchmarks aren’t just about data. They give you more clarity. So, use them as a performance baseline in the following manner:

Why You Need SEO Benchmarking Reports

A detailed SEO benchmark report can transform your strategy. Here’s why:

• Improve forecasting accuracy: Predict future traffic and ROI with historical + industry-standard data.

• Prioritise high-impact SEO tasks: Identify what moves the needle fastest based on competitor insights.

• Align SEO with business goals: Use industry benchmarks to justify budget, timelines, and strategy shifts to leadership.

Key Metrics in an SEO Benchmark Report

Your report is only as good as the metrics you track. Here are the essential categories:

Traffic & Visibility Metrics

• Organic clicks & impressions (Google Search Console): Monitor real-time traction on key search queries.

• SERP CTR by position (AWR/SimilarWeb): Compare your click-through rates by ranking them against industry averages.

Keyword & Ranking Benchmarks

• Average position vs. industry competitors: Measure visibility and authority in key SERPs.

• Keyword gap analysis: Spot opportunities your competitors are ranking for that you aren’t.

Technical Performance Benchmarks

• Core Web Vitals (LCP, FID, CLS): Google’s experience metrics must be within the green zone.

• Site speed, crawl depth, index status: Compare how often your site is crawled and indexed compared to the leaders.

Backlink Benchmarks

• Referring to domains vs. competitors: See if your link profile holds up.

• Domain Authority / Rating comparison: Track authority growth over time and against competitors.

Common SEO Industry Benchmarks to Watch

Here are a few common industry benchmarks to watch for your website SEO:

How to Create an SEO Benchmarking Report

Creating your SEO benchmarking report doesn’t require expensive tools, just strategic execution.

SEO Benchmarking Tools to Use

Essential GEO Benchmarks to Focus on in 2025

To thrive in the era of AI-powered search, it’s not enough to rank well; you need to be retrieved well. Besides following the SEO performance benchmarks, you must make your pages AI-ready.

GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) benchmarks shift the focus from traditional metrics to indicators that reflect how often and effectively your content is surfaced, cited, or synthesised by generative engines like Google’s AI Overviews, Bing Copilot, and Perplexity.

Here are essential GEO benchmark metrics to track and improve your pages:

Retrieval Frequency

• What it is: How often is your content pulled into AI summaries or snapshot answers?

• Why it matters: High retrieval frequency equals higher AI visibility and increased brand impressions.

Mention & Citation Count

• What it is: The number of times your brand/content is mentioned or directly cited in AI answers.

Pro-tip: Use unique brand phrasing and optimise structured data to increase attribution accuracy.

Answer Authority Score

• What it is: A composite metric that reflects your domain’s likelihood of being used as a source.

• Why it matters: AI systems favour authoritative, factual, and semantically rich content.

Zero-Click Visibility

• What it is: How much AI surface-level exposure do you get without users needing to click through?

Pro-tip: This isn’t about CTR. It’s about trust and visibility at the top of the funnel.

Semantic Match Rate

• What it is: The percentage of your content that aligns with AI-retrieved search intents.

• How to optimise: Use entities, schema markup, and natural language context matching.

Snippet Quality Index

• What it is: A measure of how structured, concise, and quote-worthy your content is for AI use.

Here's your snippet quality index checklist for high usability:

Prompt Inclusion Rate

• What it is: How often does your site or brand appear as a source when AI answers prompt-style questions?

Pro Tip: Generative search isn’t just search. It’s selection. By aligning your strategy with these GEO benchmarks, you're optimising for bots and the AI that users trust to summarise, cite, and recommend.

Conclusion

The world has entered a new era of discovery governed and controlled by AI. Today, retrieval gets more spotlight than ranking. So, use traditional SEO benchmarking as a guided framework built around the new GEO (generative engine optimisation) KPIs to keep your website afloat in traditional and Gen AI search and your online strategy in sync with the current trend.