Track four numbers, and read them per page, not per site: impressions in Search Console, clicks, the enquiries a page produces, and the mentions of your name that appear off your site. Everything else in the dashboards is either a version of those four or noise. AI answers get no separate dashboard, because checking them is a monthly habit, not a metric.
The page ledger
I keep the numbers in what I call 'the page ledger': one row per page, one column per number, one line added per month. It fits in a spreadsheet, and it answers the only question that matters at the end of a quarter: which topic is producing customers, and which is producing readers.
The rule: read every number per page, and connect the last column to money. The consequence is that a site total never tells you anything. Total traffic up means nothing if the growth is on the Learning pages and the near-money pages are flat. The ledger shows it per row. And because impressions move months before clicks, and clicks before enquiries, the ledger tells you the plan is working long before the bank account does.
| Number | Where | What it tells you | What it does not |
|---|---|---|---|
| Impressions per page | Search Console, Pages report | Google is showing the page for its questions. The first thing that moves | Whether anyone arrived |
| Clicks per page | Search Console | People arrived | Whether they were the right people |
| Enquiries per page | Your form, phone log or analytics goal, with the landing page recorded | The money. It comes last and the numbers are small | Anything quickly |
| Mentions off your site | A monthly search of your name in quotes, plus the forums | The corroboration growing | Precision. It is a trend |
Ignore, and stop paying for: domain authority and domain rating (a vendor's estimate of a number Google does not use), total keywords ranking, total traffic, average position across a mix of pages, daily rank checks, and any single "AI visibility score".
This confuses people: how do you measure AI citations, then? It's simple. Once a month, ask the same ten questions from your map in ChatGPT, Gemini and Google, and write down whether you are cited and for which question. Single answers vary from day to day. The monthly pattern does not. It goes in the ledger as a fifth column. Tools that sell an AI visibility score run the same prompts at scale; for ten questions you do not need one.
Reading three rows. High impressions, few clicks, position on page one or two: the page is being shown and not chosen. Rewrite the title and the first two sentences, nothing else. Clicks but no enquiries on a near-money page: the page answers the question and never says that you repair machines or sell them. Add the offer and a way to ask. Cited by an AI answer but not ranking: the lift-out works and the site is thin around it. Finish the topic. Each pattern points at one fix, and none of them is "publish more".
Worked example: three ledger patterns and the fix for each
The one-hour setup
- Open Search Console, Pages report, and note impressions and clicks for each page on your map. Once a month, same day. That is two of the four columns.
- Record the landing page on every enquiry. A hidden field on the form, a question on the phone, a goal in your analytics. Without this column the ledger is a traffic report.
- Add "how did you find us?" to the enquiry form. The answers name pages no analytics tool can see.
- Once a month, search your name and your shop's name in quotes and count new mentions. Note where they are. That is column four.
- Once a month, ask your ten map questions in ChatGPT, Gemini and Google. Cited or not, per question. Column five.
- Read the ledger per topic, not per page. Which topic is producing enquiries? That is the answer to "what next" on the map.
- Delete the dashboards you no longer read. The vanity numbers are not wrong. They are just about nothing you can act on.
When you need this, and when you don't
You need the ledger from the first page, one hour a month. It is the only way to know which topic to build next, and it is the only report a client or a boss actually needs.
You don't need to look at it weekly, and you do not need daily rank tracking. Rankings move every day and mean something every quarter. The next page is about which number should be moving when.
Next
- Next page: How long it takes: the 12-month timeline. Impressions first, then clicks, then enquiries, and when to worry.
- SitePerfector lays your own rankings over the topic map, so you read them per topic instead of per keyword: Rank tracking.