seo by the numbers - marketingprofs · 2008-10-23 · seo by the numbers: what really matters ......

© 2008 SEMinhouse.com LLC All Rights Reserved. | 1Making In-house SEO Run Like a Well-oiled Machine

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Presented by:Jessica BowmanIn-house SEO Expert & StrategistFounder, SEOinhouse.com

http://www.jessicabowmanSEO.com

SEO By the Numbers:What Really Matters

Making In-house SEO Run Like a Well-oiled Machine

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Agenda

• Reports to help justify your budget

• Reports to show off your success

• What to track regularly

• The report to use if your analytics suck

• Advanced tactics


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JUSTIFYING YOUR BUDGET


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SEO Costs Decrease Over TimeEspecially when

SEO becomes the

way you build a

great product

Especially when

SEO becomes the

way you build a

great product

Image by:Elliance


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SEO Growth vs. Total Site Growth

• Rate SEO is growing in comparison to the rest of the site

• In the Example:

– SEO is fueling the site’s growth

This is how

you prove the

value of SEO

This is how

you prove the

value of SEO

Users


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SHOWING OFF YOUR SUCCESS


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SEO Traffic Growth & Why it Grew (or didn’t grow)

Link Building Campaign

Started

Link Building Campaign

Started

Page Title Tags OptimizedPage Title Tags OptimizedPage Copy Optimization

Launched

Page Copy Optimization

Launched

Project Gomez launched

w/o SEO

Project Gomez launched

w/o SEO

Project Gomez

enhanced for SEO

Project Gomez

enhanced for SEO

50 SEO pages

launched

50 SEO pages

launched


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Year-Over-Year SEO Traffic Growth Tells you about

seasonality

ups-and-downs

Tells you about

seasonality

ups-and-downs


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METRIC YOU SHOULD KNOW


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Keyword Seasonality Change your focus

throughout

the year

Change your focus

throughout

the year

Source: Keyword Discovery

http://www.KeywordDiscovery.com

Source: Google Trendshttp://www.google.com/trends

Another Good Tool: Hitwise

Know this for your industry.

Keyword-by-Keywords isn’t right for all companies.

Know this for your industry.

Keyword-by-Keywords isn’t right for all companies.


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WHAT TO TRACK REGULARLY


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SEO Traffic Over Time


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Total SEO Traffic by Engine


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SEO Traffic by Search Engine


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Total Pages Driving TrafficGood for

Troubleshooting:

Traffic Increase or

Decrease

Good for

Troubleshooting:

Traffic Increase or

Decrease


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Pages Driving Traffic - SeparatelyGood for

Troubleshooting:

Traffic Shift

Between Pages

Good for

Troubleshooting:

Traffic Shift

Between Pages


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Pages Driving Traffic - CombinedGood for

Troubleshooting:

Cannibalization

between pages

Good for

Troubleshooting:

Cannibalization

between pages


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Rankings

* If you have thousands or millions of keywords – track a sample over time

Date1 Date2 Date3 Date4 Date5

Keyword 1 2 1 1 1

Keyword 24 55 33 22 45

Keyword 4 6 5 4 3

Keyword 6 4 5 4 5

Keyword 7 6 7 4 3

Keyword 43 33 37 67 42

Keyword 16 14 16 12 10

Keyword 33 26 28 15 9

Keyword 3 57 3 2 63

Average 15.2 22.5 15 13.8 20

This alone

isn’t that

useful

This alone

isn’t that

useful


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IF YOUR ANALYTICS SUCK

Hey, it happens.

Here is what you can track…


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Make Your Ranking Data Meaningful

Jan ’08 Feb ’08

Total

KWs

Monthly

Search Volume

Total

KWs

Monthly

Search Volume

Positions 1-4 2 300 5 500

Positions 5-10 5 150 7 400

Page 1 Keywords 15 1,400 20 2,500

Page 2 Keywords 30 6,000 45 8,000

Page 3 Keywords 90 5,000 120 120,000

Page 4 Keywords 60 90,000 150 130,000

Page 5 Keywords 400 180,000 600 230,000

Total 595 120,400 935 490,500


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What you are illustrating…

How much your exposure grows over time.

Month 1

Month 2

Month 3


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Exposure grows because of the Halo Effect

Image by:Elliance


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Query the Web Logs

• Request:

– All traffic from referring URLs that begin with http://www.Google.com

– Excluding any URL with a tracking code claimed by Pay-Per-Click

• To be more comprehensive:Add all traffic from all referring URLs beginning with:

– http://images.google.com

– http://maps.google.com

– http://blogs.google.com

– Add international variations of each.

It’s not perfect.

It’s better than

flying blind.

It’s not perfect.

It’s better than

flying blind.


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Tools to help with SEO Reporting

Site Traffic:

• Microsoft Excel

• Raw Weblogs

• Your Web Analytics Tool

Rankings:

• Search Results Pages

• SEO Book’s Rank Checker (DO NOT RUN FROM YOUR COMPANY NETWORK)http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/

Keyword Seasonality:

• Keyword Discovery http://www.KeywordDiscovery.com

• Google Trends http://www.google.com/trends

• Hitwisehttp://www.hitwise.com


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REPORT TEMPLATES

SEO Report Templates The Reports & Metrics that Matter

www.SEOinhouse.com/products/seo-report-templates

Downloadable Microsoft Excel SEO Report TemplatesJust enter your data and move on.


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ADVANCED TACTICS


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Leverage Keyword Intelligence for Sales

• More specific keywords are from customer late in the buying cycle

• Have your system log the referring keyword with the lead details

– Train sales people on this concept


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SEO to Maximize Conversion Rates

• Some pages convert better for certain keywords

• Know which pages a given keyword is going to from the organic listings, and de-optimize the others


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THANK YOU

Jessica BowmanIn-house SEO Consultant

Founder, SEOinhouse.com

[email protected]

http://www.JessicaBowmanSEO.com

SEM: Making the most of the

numbers

Marketing the Zappos Way

• Smaller budget

• Culture built around customer

service

• Reliance on Word of Mouth

• Strong focus on Direct Response

SEM: What matters

• Stick to your metrics

• Some tools to help you succeed

• Granularity is key

• Understand the value of your keywords

• Keeping your finance team happy

Metrics that work

• When possible get down to the contribution margin.

• Understand seasonal/environmental shifts in

conversion rate.

• Track WoW, MoM and YoY performance

Tools of the trade

• Business intelligence

– Look to your logs for the answers

– Capture referrer traffic

• Competitive analysis

– Know where you stand in the market

– Identify the channels that work for others and jump in

Tools of the trade

• Ad platforms/analytics

– Feed all channels into a single tracking platform

• Limit double counting

• Identify multi-channel “sweet spot”

• SEM platforms

– Automate bidding

– Inventory control

– Bulk editing

– Automated insertion of tracking urls and group structure

Granularity is key

• Track at the keyword level

– Match type

– Ad text

• Are conversions attributed to the time of click or day of sale?

• Where and When do the terms convert best?

– Understanding seasonality

– Geo-target

Granularity is key

• Understanding the path to conversion

– Weight keywords accordingly

Tuesday -

Google

Friday -

Google

Thursday -

Yahoo

Granularity is key

• Landing Pages

– Drill down – Reduce the

path to conversion

– Limit options when

possible.

– Know your landing page

conversion rates

• Test and improve

Understand the value of your keywords

• Does bidding on the brand term help the

bottom line if you’ve achieved top rank in

organic?

– Understanding of this will help shape your SEM

strategy.

• As you expand down the long-tail are you

watching the correlation at the head?

– Break these pieces apart

Understand the value of your keywords

• Use your search logs to mine keywords

– Let the customer tell you what they need

• Make use of your broad match terms as seeds

– Identify the good queries and add them as exacts

– Use the same list to identify the negatives

Tips for keeping the Finance team happy

• Communication is key

– Don’t toggle your conversion window without

communicating this.

– When shifts in ROI are made they want to know.

– Help them to understand the relationship that

exists between head and tail terms

– Point out categories of importance

• They should be aware of keywords that are

used for branding

Thanks!

seo by the numbers - marketingprofs · 2008-10-23 · seo by the numbers: what really matters ......

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