This is my presentation from State of Search 2015 in Dallas, TX. [Nov. 16, 2015]

1. REPORTING!
REPORTING!
REPORTING!

2. I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING…

3. DATA DOESN’T HAVE ANY RELATIVES.

5. DATA DOESN’T HAVE A BEARD.

7. DATA DOESN’T HAVE EMOTIONS.

9. IT’S JUST A BIT. LET’S ROLL WITH IT.

10. 10
“HI, I’M KERRY DEAN.”

11. You might remember me from such
conference sessions as “The Best
SEO Advice You Will Never Hear” at
State of Search 2014.

12. Or perhaps you remember me
from such Instagram hits
(@fortworth) as “Throwing a
Scorpion into a Spider Web.”

13. Or perhaps you know me from the
mega-popular Twitter episode: “How
to Lose Credibility AND Followers
by Live-Tweeting the Royal
Rumble” (@kerrydean).

14. Actually, unlike Jack Hartounian,
I prefer to keep a low profile.

15. THESE ARE MY JAMS:

17. BUT MOST OF
ALL, HE LOVES..
SAN DIMAS!

19. MY SEO EXPERIENCE IS PRIMARILY IN RETAIL & TRAVEL.

21. ONE QUICK NOTE ABOUT SEO IN 2015:
IT’S NEVER THE SAME FROM BRAND TO BRAND,
SITE TO SITE, PLATFORM TO PLATFORM, OR
INDUSTRY TO INDUSTRY.
EVERY SITE REQUIRES A UNIQUE STRATEGY.

22. ENOUGH ABOUT ME.
LET’S TALK ABOUT SEO REPORTING.

23. “The only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing.” - @Socrates

24. WITH THE UTMOSTRESPECT TO SOCRATES, I BEG TO DIFFER.

25. “Data is the new currency and
is a medium of exchange of
value between marketers and
consumers.”
Lisa Utzschneider (@Lisa_Utz)
Chief Revenue Officer
Yahoo
Nov. 10, 2015
When it comes to audience targeting, she said, data can confirm
marketers' assumptions about consumers or it can surprise marketers
about consumers. http://focustaiwan.tw/news/ast/201511100021.aspx

26. DO YOU SEE HOW
BADASS THAT BIRD IS?
THAT’S HOW BADASS YOU
CAN BE IF YOU CAN TELL
A STORY WITH DATA.
#BirdsWithArms

27. MRW I get access to a client’s analytics data & platforms.

28. Data gives you power, but don’t be a jerk about it.

29. SO WAIT…
THE MORE DATA I HAVE, THE
MORE POWERFUL I BECOME?

30. I DON’T
THINK SO,
TIM.

31. BIG DATA ISN’T COOL…
YOU KNOW WHAT’S COOL?
#SMALLDATA

32. “CLIENTS WANT THE STORY, NOT THE DATA.”
– KERRY DEAN, SMX East 2012
HEY, HE’S
QUOTING HIMSELF.
HE CAN’T DO THAT.

33. #SMALLDATA OFTEN MAKES IT EASIER TO
FIND THE STORY THAT NEEDS TO BE TOLD.

34. LET’S TAKE A LOOK AT TRADITIONAL SEO REPORTING.

35. CHANNEL REPORTING

36. 36
• SESSIONS DATA: VISITS, VISITORS, NEW VISITS, UNIQUE VISITORS, ETC…
• REVENUE DATA: REVENUE, TRANSACTIONS (ORDERS), QUANITITY (UNITS)
• ECOMMERCE DATA: AOV, REV. PER VISIT, REV. PER UNIT
• USER/UX DATA: CONVERSION RATE, BOUNCE RATE, TIME ON SITE, DWELL TIME
• EVENTS DATA: FORM SUBMISSIONS, SIGNUPS, VIDEO PLAYS, SCROLLING
• URL DATA: # OF URLS DRIVING VISITS (DISCOVERY), REVENUE, CONVERSION
• RANKINGS DATA: DESKTOP RANKINGS, MOBILE RANKINGS
STANDARD KPIs FOR ORGANIC SEARCH REPORTING

37. BASIC ORGANIC SEARCH SESSIONS DATA

38. SEO IS NOT AN ISLAND.

39. SEO IS PART OF AN ECOSYSTEM.

40. ADDING IN TOTAL SITE DATA FOR TREND COMPARISON

41. ORGANIC SESSIONS AS A % OF TOTAL SITE SESSIONS

42. LOOK AT THE % CONTRIBUTION OF ALL CHANNELS.

43. OFTEN A CLOSE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PPC & SEO

44. WE HAVE ALWAYS VIEWED KPIs BY ENGINE.

45. ORGANIC SESSIONS BY SEARCH ENGINE

46. MONITORING
TRENDS BY
ENGINE
MONITORING %
CONTRIBUTION
BY ENGINE

47. ORGANIC DATA DASHBOARD BY SEARCH ENGINE
Who’s visiting?
Who’s spending?
Who’s converting?
And how much?

48. AFTER ALL THAT DATA, THE CLIENT WILL ASK:

49. DEVICE REPORTING

50. ORGANIC SEARCH SESSIONS BY DEVICE TYPE

51. ORGANIC SEARCH SESSIONS BY DEVICE TYPE (TREND)

52. ORGANIC SEARCH % CONTRIBUTION BY DEVICE TYPE
SEEING THIS TREND ACROSS
MULTIPLE CLIENTS

53. UX DATA BY DEVICE TYPE CAN OFTEN BE A CLUE
because these things matter to the machine learning algos.

54. WHAT IS CAUSING ORGANIC MOBILE
SESSIONS TO DROP SO QUICKLY?

55. 1. LOCAL PACK MOVES ABOVE ORGANIC RESULTS
May-2015 Nov-2015
PAID
LOCAL
ORGANIC
query: motel 6 austin

56. MOBILE SERPS MAKE ME FEEL LIKE ARIEL
Nov-2015
Up where they walk, up where they run
Up where they stay all day in the sun
Wanderin' free - wish I could be
Part of that world

57. ARIEL NEEDS A NEW SEO-THEMED HASHTAG
#UnderTheSea #BelowTheFold

58. RECENT HEADLINE
“As far as SEO is, my view on that is it’s more of a desktop thought because as the
devices get smaller and smaller and smaller, the number of choices from an SEO
perspective on mobile decline dramatically. And so I believe it is a paid
world. Google is an advertising engine and they drive paid traffic to advertisers.
And I think that’s going to continue for quite some time. We will do our best to play
in that environment.”
- Paul Hennessy, CEO, Priceline.com

59. AGREE TO DISAGREE

60. SEO ISN’T DEAD. IT’S MORE LIKE THIS:

61. 2. MORE PAID ADS & MORE PAID SITELINKS
PAID:
2 ads
No sitelinks
ORGANIC
PAID:
3 ads
2 rows of sitelinks
ORGANIC
May-2015 Nov-2015query: running shoes

62. ANOTHER EXAMPLE
ORGANIC
ORGANIC
PAID
2 ads
4 rows of sitelinks
query: j crew sweatersMay-2015 Nov-2015

63. 3. INCREASED PLA REAL ESTATE
PAID:
2 ads
No PLAs
ORGANIC
PAID:
PLA Carousel
1 Ad
4 Sitelinks
ORGANIC
query: wireless speakers

64. THESE CHANGES TO THE SEARCH LAYOUTS &
AD FORMATS HAVE CAUSED A SIGNIFICANT
SHIFT IN BRAND & NON-BRAND SESSIONS
FROM ORGANIC LISTINGS TO PAID LISTINGS.

65. “ALL RIGHT, WE’LL CALL IT A DRAW.”

68. GOOGLE MAY NOT BE A MONOPOLY, BUT…
THEY ARE PLAYING
MONOPOLY WITH THE
REAL ESTATE IN THE
SERPS.

69. THE DESKTOP SERPS
WERE *SO* MUCH
EASIER IN 2001.

70. WHEN I TALK ABOUT THE PAST, I FEEL LIKE AN OLD MAN.

71. THE REALITY IS:
GOOGLE SOLD ALL THE REAL ESTATE.

72. KEY TAKEAWAY:
IF YOU ARE SEEING
YEAR-OVER-YEAR
GROWTH IN BRAND
AND/OR NON-BRAND
ORGANIC SESSIONS,
YOU ARE FRIGGIN’
AWESOME.
#BelowTheFold

73. #BelowTheFold

75. Here’s Google
ranking
themselves #1
for flights

76. “If you’re a 3rd party aggregating site
and/or comparison shopping, you’re in a
dying model. Google has been
cannibalizing those because Google
wants to be that 3rd party aggregator.
You need to adjust your business model
because it’s just going to keep going:
travel, education, comparison shopping,
it goes on…”
- @GregBoser
SMX Advanced 2012
WE WERE WARNED.

77. ANNNNNNDDDD – WE HAVE DERAILED.

78. LET’S GET THIS TRAIN BACK ON THE TRACKS.

79. URL-LEVEL REPORTING

80. 80
Traditional
SEO
Technical
SEO
Mobile / App
SEO
Local
SEO
Digital Asset
Management
International
SEO
Digital
Content
UX + IA +
CRO
SEO IS BIG – AND GETTING EVEN BIGGER!

81. ALL REPORTING MUST ALIGN WITH A
STRATEGY AND/OR A PROJECT.

82. OR ELSE YOU RUN THE RISK OF WASTING
YOUR TIME REPORTING ON KPIs THAT DON’T
MATTER TO THE STRATEGY AND/OR PROJECT.

83. CASE STUDY: ORGANIC SESSIONS GROWTH

84. For the first 9 weeks of FY’16, we are averaging 25% growth vs FY’15.
That is an additional 20,000+ visits each week from organic search – for a
total of 185k additional organic search visits in FY’16.
ORGANIC SESSIONS BY WEEK (YoY)

85. Non-Brand rankings grew steadily during the past 12 months. This trend aligns with the growth we are seeing in organic traffic
and revenue. There are 780 additional keywords – an 84% increase – ranking on Page 1 in Google. Page 2 saw 43% growth.
GOOGLE RANKINGS (15-MONTH TREND)

86. First 9 weeks of FY’15. First 9 weeks of FY’16.
4 MAIN BUCKETS:
1. HomePage
2. Category Pages
3. Product Pages
4. All Other Pages
ORGANIC SESSIONS BY URL GROUPS

87. SEO STRATEGIES GENERALLY AIM TO
DRIVE MORE ORGANIC SESSIONS TO
PRODUCT AND CATEGORY PAGES.

88. ORGANIC SESSIONS GROWTH TO HOMEPAGE
HOMEPAGE SAW 7%
GROWTH YOY.

89. Category Pages: +7,597 visits/wk Product Pages: +7,250 visits/wk All Other Pages: +3,190 visits/wk
Category Pages & Product Pages are accounting for 72% of YoY growth.
ORGANIC SESSIONS GROWTH TO 3 URL GROUPS

90. CASE STUDY: ORGANIC SESSIONS DECLINES

91. INTERESTING/TERRIBLE TREND GOING ON

92. HOW ABOUT THE ENGINE DATA?

93. LOOKED AT THE GOOGLE RANKINGS DATA
4 MAJOR DROPS

94. PAGE 1 RANKINGS DECLINING SINCE MAY

95. PAGE 2 RANKINGS DECLINING SINCE MAY

96. FINAL THOUGHTS

97. 97
• Establish the metrics & KPIs that matter - before you create strategies.
• If it can be measured, measure it.
• If a tracked KPI is not needed for reporting on any of the established goals, remove it from the
standard reporting.
• Use any & every data source to help tell the story that needs to be told.
• Monthly reports are valuable to diagnose success, failure & issues.
• Many strategies need their own custom reporting to measure success.
• Be open to incorporating new KPIs into reporting as the search industry changes (ex. bounce
rate, time on site, sitespeed, engagement metrics, etc…).
HAVE A DATA PHILOSOPHY

98. SOON ENOUGH, GOOGLE
WILL USE MACHINES TO
DO EVERYTHING.

99. 99
• Is your site crawlable & indexable?
• Does your store locator work? Is the store information accurate?
• Do your products and categories have optimized names, descriptions and images?
• Are your XML sitemaps accurate and fresh?
• Do you have a steady stream of new content being published on your site?
• Is it easy for a visitor to find what they are looking for on your site?
• Is it simple to buy complete a purchase on your site?
• Are there any friction points for desktop / mobile / tablet users?
BUT FOR NOW, HAVE THE BASICS NAILED DOWN.

100. CHEERS!