Some FnB business owners thought that getting more followers on Instagram was a key performance indicator (KPI) they’d achieved through search engine optimisation. But today it ain’t enough, because now KPI is a number which actually fills your café seats and fattens your bank account.
I define a branded search click as about 1k monthly, with growth of 10% next month, as a good example. The other good one is a direct traffic session about 800 monthly in this quarter, which jumped to 880 in the next quarter.
You can also recognise AI mentions as an SEO KPI, but you should confirm that there is an increase in the share to call it a good example. The example will be even more impressive if conversion rates from organic leads are higher than in previous periods. They’re all the ingredients that reveal whether your online presence pulls customers through your door or just racks up meaningless eyeballs.
Bakery Visibility Metrics That Mislead You
A few bakers who seem to have just learnt about Instagram can grin like they’ve just won the lottery as they look at their Insight menu. “We get more followers than a month ago!”
But when they’ve asked how many increase in the monthly total check, their smile can collapse faster than under-proofed sourdough.
Are you one of these bakers who celebrate empty numbers, while the customers of your competitors are making real orders of almond croissants in boxes? See, getting pumped about rising followers feels great, until you realise those numbers ain’t filling tables or moving pastries.
Most bakeries, and even most F&B business owners, confuse visibility with profitability. They think if more people see their brand, revenue automatically follows. But it doesn’t work that way.
This confusion stems from chasing vanity metrics instead of meaningful SEO KPIs. One looks sexy in screenshots for your business partner, but the other predicts whether you’ll make rent next 5 years.
Recognising Vanity Metrics in SEO
Vanity metrics are window shoppers who pause at your café, snap an Instagram Story of your window, then walk next door for actual coffee. These are examples of vanity metrics.
Clicks, which look impressive but deliver nothing tangible. Your seasonal almond croissant page gets 1,000 clicks, but only four people order it.
Social media likes, which feel validating, but don’t pay rent. They create the illusion of success while your actual revenue stays flat, or even drops.
High traffic without conversions wastes your marketing budget. You keep pouring money into tactics that generate attention, while competitors with lower traffic but higher conversion rates bank actual profit.
That traffic didn’t cover one bag of flour, let alone your waiter’s hourly wage. The smell’s fantastic, the effort’s impressive, but the food sits there getting cold while your costs pile up.
Click here to find more bad examples of KPIs in SEO.
- Getting 1,000 total clicks from Google, including pages about products that you don’t offer anymore.
- Getting 1st or 2nd position in Google for search queries with almost zero impressions.
- Getting 1,000 pageviews, with average session duration not exceeding 5 seconds.
Identifying the Right SEO KPIs
The KPI depends on what SEO goal you want to achieve. But today, it can be increased brand search clicks, direct traffic sessions, and AI mentions share.
Let’s cut through the noise. These are examples of the correct SEO KPIs.
The total number of branded search clicks is about 1,000 per month, and this will grow by 5% next month. Search click is a metric which counts how many people specifically search for a word in a search engine, e.g “almond croissant in Surabaya”, and click through it. Branded search counts how many people specifically search for a brand name in a search engine and click through to the brand’s site. For example, if your bakery’s name is Morgan Bakery and your product is an almond croissant, then you look for “Morgan croissant almond”.
Your increased branded search click means more people click through to your brand name when they specifically search for it in the search engine. This signals established recognition and deliberate interest. Someone is craving your almond croissant —not just any almond croissant from whoever shows up first.
The total number of direct-traffic sessions is about 800 per month, which will increase to 850 next month. Session is a metric which counts how many people visit your website. Direct-traffic sessions mean visitors typed your website URL because they already know you exist. This can happen if they read the address of your website somewhere, e.g www.morganbakery.com.
If you get more direct traffic sessions than in the previous period, that’s recognition you can actually measure and bank on.
Total AI mentions account for about 5% of shares in a quarter, which will rise to 7% next quarter. AI mentions refer to how often your business is cited in AI-generated answers. While AI mentions share tracks how often your business gets cited in Google’s AI Overview, ChatGPT, Perplexity, etc, compared to your competitors.
You need to ensure that this quarter’s AI mention share of your brand is higher than before.
What tool can measure those SEO KPIs? Click this panel to find out.
Branded click search can be found in Google Search Console. Direct-traffic sessions can be recognised in Google Analytics 4. There are also many AI monitoring tools to track your brand’s AI mention share.
Inconsistent Tracking Slows Café Growth
These KPIs provide direction rather than delusion. They connect digital performance to real revenue, which is literally the whole point of tracking anything.
Most business owners who have a website still lack the time to track their SEO performance. This makes them underprioritize the tracking, such as checking them in very late.
You probably discover six months late that a competitor dominated AI Overviews for “almond croissant in Surabaya Timur” while your baker completely vanished. By then, they’ve scooped up hundreds of new customers through voice search. You’re scratching your head, wondering why weekend traffic dropped 20% from last quarter, but actually, the problem started half a year ago.
Checking analytics only every few months is in vain after you’ve done the same post publishing multiple times. By then, it’s way too late to fix what’s broken.
Vicky Laurentina, 2025
Sporadic monitoring means you miss critical warnings about what’s working, what’s dying, and where competitors are quietly stealing your lunch crowd.
Inconsistent tracking robs you of real-time intel. AI share of voice and AI visibility shift constantly based on the content you publish and the mentions you get. Ignore them for three months, and you’re flying blind through a thunderstorm.
Share of voice measures how often your domain appears as a citation in AI answers compared to competitors. You can track this in specific tools and benchmark against rivals. If your share dropped from 10% to 5% over two months, something shifted, which may have been caused by competitors who published a post of a more trending croissant.
Without consistent tracking, you’d never catch that decline until revenue already nosedived. Then you’re scrambling to diagnose the problem while losing customers.
Other sections that owners often neglect are Knowledge Panels and People Also Ask. These sections are prime real estate in search results, where everyone can see you earlier than they see competitors. But if you ain’t checking monthly to see if you occupy these spaces, you won’t know when you lose or gain that visibility.
Do your competitors consistently show up in AI Overviews while your bakery stays invisible? It ain’t bad luck. That’s trackable, fixable, and entirely preventable with monthly monitoring.
How often do we run an SEO check on our website? Find out by clicking here.
Checking SEO is ideally done in separate periods, depending on the metric you need to find.
To check technical issues, check it daily. To check changes in lead to conversion, evaluate it weekly. To check changes in AI visibility, measure it monthly.
Bakeries that track SEO KPIs more quickly can pivot quickly, such as adjusting content and tweaking local SEO, before losing traffic. Those who check sporadically react to problems months after damage began, when recovery costs triple the effort and budget. Small visibility losses snowball into major revenue disasters.
Turning SEO KPIs into Café Conversions
Converting SEO KPIs into actual reservations and catering bookings requires consistent measurement, smarter content, and knowing when to hire expertise. You can start by creating content optimised to attract people who use search engines.
Creating content that delivers SEO KPIs can begin by ideating topics that match search intent, writing content that can convert visitors, and optimising it for long-term visibility.
Know that working with a content strategist who gets both SEO mechanics and food business realities accelerates everything. I usually pinpoint which metrics predict revenue, which content drives those metrics, and I can refine your approach based on what the data screams at you each month.
Ideate Topics That Match Search Intent
Content ideation starts with understanding what questions your customers actually ask. Stop guessing. There are specific tools that show the exact queries people type when hunting for bakeries or brunch spots.
My content strategy will include identifying conversational questions appearing in AI Overviews and related to your business. These questions can be “Where can I buy an almond croissant?” which is searched by an averagely of 50 people monthly.
Or, I’ll tell you that the “How many calories in an almond croissant?” question is searched by an averagely of 260 people monthly.
Then check the search engine and AI by typing those questions. If your bakery’s brand appears as a citation of those questions, then you’ve done it well.
But if your brand hasn’t shown up, it means most croissant cravers don’t know you serve killer almond croissants. Then your content team should optimise your website pages for those keywords.
Map your menu, vibe, and expertise to the search intent behind customer queries. Are there about 20 searchers who type “Do bakeries sell coffee?” and you offer a good cafe latte? As a content strategist, I’ll plan content that showcases a cup of your cafe latte with your bakery vibe as the background.
Intense ideation ensures we create content people actually want to find.
Write Content That Converts Visitors
To create the content, I usually balance creativity with measurable outcomes. I craft resources that answer questions, then solve problems. For your bakery business, a good writer should gently guide readers toward choosing your bakery over the competition.
Content that delivers marketing KPIs, like conversions, integrates subtle calls to action throughout. After explaining pairing principles: “We serve all these combinations at Morgan Cafe, swing by Monday through Sunday, 10 AM to 10 PM.” Informative first, promotional second.
This respects reader intelligence while naturally directing them toward your business.
Track engagement through custom GA4 events like this. These metrics reveal quality way better than raw page views.
| What to Track in GA4 | What It Tells You |
| Scroll depth exceeding 50% | Readers consumed most of your content instead of skimming the intro and bouncing. |
| Session duration exceeding 5 minutes | Readers spend more extended time consuming the content inside your website. |
| Ordering from organic traffic | Which content pieces actually drive inquiries and potential customers. |
Suppose you write “Coffee Pairing Tips for Morning Croissants.” Most readers scroll through entirely and spend two minutes reading? That’s valuable content.
They bounce after five seconds? Either your content didn’t match their expectations, or your hook overpromised. Adjust and test again.
Optimise SEO KPIs for Long-Term Visibility
Optimisation evolves with performance data and competitor moves. Refining content based on SEO KPI results separates bakeries that maintain visibility from those that fade into digital obscurity.
Benchmark topic coverage regularly using tools that can measure it. Measure what percentage of relevant keywords in your category that feature your bakery versus competitors. Do competitors dominate “almond croissant” keywords while you barely register? Strengthen content in that area immediately.
Track AI mentions share monthly. How often does your bakery appear as a source in AI responses versus last month? Do mentions jumped 7%? Whatever you published recently resonated, double down on that approach.
What if the mentions dropped? Investigate if competitors published stronger stuff or if your content aged poorly.
The Perfect Recipe Demands Consistency
Understanding SEO KPIs needs consistency, careful testing, and genuine attention. Business owners who track meaningful metrics weekly, create helpful content monthly, and optimise based on quarterly data inevitably crush those who check randomly or quit after eight weeks.
Your bakery’s digital presence is the bridge connecting hungry, croissant-obsessed customers to your door. Build that sturdy bridge by measuring branded searches that prove people remember you and scores that ensure you surface in relevant results. Visibility in AI puts your name front and centre even when searchers don’t click through.
Ready to transform vague analytics into revenue drivers? Start tracking the SEO KPIs that fill your tables. Find resources that navigating SEO’s constantly shifting landscape.
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