Benchmarking, in an SEO context, refers to comparing a website’s performance metrics — traffic, rankings, conversion rates — against relevant reference points, such as direct competitors, industry averages, or the site’s own historical performance.
Benchmarking provides essential context for interpreting whether a given level of performance is genuinely good, average, or concerning, since raw numbers alone often don’t reveal whether results represent strong or weak performance relative to a realistic comparison.
Effective benchmarking requires choosing genuinely comparable reference points, since comparing a small local business against an industry giant’s traffic, for example, wouldn’t provide a meaningful or actionable comparison.
Benchmarking is a standard part of our SEO Audits & Reporting service.