Most SEO stops at rankings. I care about what happens after the click: does the page tell people what to do next, do they trust you enough to do it, and does it turn into a call or a sale? Traffic that doesn't convert is just expensive vanity.
That comes from where I started. Design and UX first, then SEO, then running growth for other people's businesses, where I watched good work die in the handoff between teams that didn't talk to each other. Now I do all of it myself, for small to medium sized businesses.