essential seo analytics: the performance metrics that truly count
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OfficSession description:TRANSCRIPT
ESSENTIAL SEO METRICS: The Performance Metrics That Truly CountSMX West 2013@Rhea @outspokenmedia
“Welcome to the new age.”
Lyric/album credit: Imagine Dragons
It used to be so easy to demonstrate SEO value.
Today it’s much more complicated and difficult to track (the old way)
Why?
It isn’t impossible to track performance, but we have to evolve.
Every campaign must
include these 3 things:
Metrics guidelines to follow:
1. Get leaders involved. 2. Visually represent your metrics. 3. Metrics must respond quickly.4. Metrics must be simple. 5. Metrics should drive only
important activities.6. Limit the number of metrics. 7. Take corrective action.
University of Delaware:http://www.buec.udel.edu/kmetzj/business_consulting/Business_Metrics.doc
Putting those metrics to work:
Business Objective Business Metric SEO Metric
Grow online revenue
20% increase in conversions from organic search
1,000 annual conversions1,200 goal
16,667 annual increase in traffic from organic search (~1,389 more visits per month)
Current organic search conversion rate is 1.2%
83,333 annual search traffic100,000 desired search traffic
Not the best at calculating percent and amounts? Check out: http://www.percentagecalculator.net/
Closed Loop Marketing Cycle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_loop_marketing
Now we have context and our metrics aren’t
arbitrary.
Why is this important?
Operating in a vacuum will harm your business.
How we usually measure results:
• Rankings • Link quantity
Dangers:
• Loses sight of the business objective
• Focus is on the wrong metrics• Motivates team with risky
methods
What you need:
Increase online
sales by 20%
SEO SOCIAL
Increase online
sales by 20%
What happens in 6 months:
SEO SOCIAL
Google Penguinfor YOU!
Manual penalty for YOU!
Photo credit: http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/seo-lessons-through-cutts-picture
Because what they heard was:
More links! More mentions!
SEO SOCIAL
And what they did was:
Link building:100 PR3+ links
40 sponsoredposts on mom
blogs
SEO SOCIAL
When they needed to:
Communicatewith social
Communicatewith SEO
SEO SOCIALEXECS
Don’t forget
us!
Integrated marketing campaign:
QUALITY METRICS:• Link quality• Relevance to
brand• Social factors
PERFORMANCE METRICS:• Outreach
quantity• Response rate• Social
engagement
How do we use metrics to
demonstrate value?
Link building SUCCESS story:
We were asked to measure results by link
quality.
Relevance
EngagementBacklinks
Blogger Outreach Quality Matrix
Developed a combination of:1. Backlinks – Citation Flow from Majestic SEO2. Engagement – Avg of Engagement Per Post (EPP)
w/3 posts3. Relevance – 3 tiers affect minimum thresholds for
CF and EPP
@Rhea | #searchfest
Benefits:• Builds relevance and trust long-term• No footprints, because it’s natural • Doesn’t invite risk approaches• Drives social media success, which
helps with SERPs and personalization• Motivates team to achieve the right
metrics • Forces open communication between
vendors/departments
Problems:
• Process overlapped w/other depts.
• Asked us to just target mom blogs (We said NO!)
• Couple week hiatus for internal education and process development
• Outreach list to avoid
Results:
• Helped define internal process• Educated team on dangers
• Exceeded link quantity goal• Drove brand awareness• Positive reputation management• Community development• Attribution difficult to track
BUSINESS OBJECTIVE MET:
Grow organic search performance without
risk.
Learn more about Google updates at 1:30pm in SEO Track.
Client
What do you need to see similar success?
Internal champion
We
X
Stand your ground
NO! I won’t build linksfrom crappymom blogs.
Reactive organization
Metrics only matter if you do something with them.
Here are my favorite 4 metrics you can do
something with (with a twist):
1. ORGANIC TRAFFIC
By: search engine, category, season, persona
Why? Locate problems/opportunities with: Analytics Google updates Technical changes
2. CONVERSIONS
By: search engine, category, season, persona
Why? Locate problems/opportunities with: Usability concerns Product stock Technical issues
3. BACKLINKS
By: quantity, quality, relevance, location, anchor text distribution, domain authority
Why? Locate problems/opportunities with: Negative SEO Agency accountability Enterprise-level accountability
4. INDEXED PAGES
By: site-wide, subdomains, main templates/categories
Why? Locate problems/opportunities with: Manual penalties Algorithmic updates Technical issues Duplicate content
“Welcome to the new age.”
Lyric/album credit: Imagine Dragons
Metrics must be informed by business objectives.
Metrics can’t be defined in a vacuum.
Metrics need to demonstrate value.
Metrics only matter if we do something with
them.
