This document discusses key metrics for SEO campaigns beyond keyword rankings. It notes that keyword rankings are no longer the best metrics due to changes by Google. Instead, it recommends focusing on metrics like organic traffic volume, share of traffic, time on site, bounce rate, social shares, conversions, and ROI. These provide a more complete picture of campaign success. The document also reviews how search engines like Google have evolved and the need for a holistic internet marketing strategy.
1. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
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2. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
OUR PRESENTERS
Mike Puzo, VP of Strategy & Consulting – As WebiMax's VP of Strategy &
Consulting, Mike Puzo is responsible for overseeing the entire consulting
department as well as WebiMax's R&D efforts. Mike also works very closely
with the Project Management and Sales teams to coordinate strategies
that ensure that every campaign is expertly developed and implemented.
Chris Surovick, Director of Project Management - Chris Surovick joined
WebiMax with a concentration in new customer acquisitions, e-commerce
and SEO; Chris has been involved with startups to fortune 100 companies
and everything in between. Educating clients is a top priority of Chris’s as
he develops strong relationships with each client, helping them to reach
and exceed their online goals. As WebiMax’s Director of Project
Management, Chris supervises our entire project management team,
supporting our team with analysis and strategy.
3. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
WHO IS WEBIMAX
WebiMax is a full service internet marketing firm specializing
in Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click Advertising,
Social Media Optimization, Reputation Management and Web
Design.
Founded by Ken Wisnefski in 2008, on the core principles of
providing a service that helps clients succeed in the online
space.
4. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
GOAL
The goal of this webinar is to shed light on practical, easily
traceable metrics to help business owners determine how
well their Organic Internet Marketing Campaign is
performing.
Through the use of Google Analytics, Webmaster Tool and a
couple free 3rd party tools, you can easily track campaign
success.
5. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
REMEMBER WHEN…
Remember when SEO was “easy”?
Before Panda's and Penguin's? Before Encrypted Search and Not
Provided Data?
Getting desired Keyword Rankings and tracking the traffic they
provided was simple.
6. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
REMEMBER WHEN…
Algorithms were "basic" by todays standards and those
practicing SEO were able to manipulate search results
relatively easily with most search terms.
If you wanted a page to rank for a specific term, you would
repeatedly stuff the term in all key places and then build a
ton of links with exact match anchor text in your desired term
and you were there competing on Page 1 in the SERPs a
couple months later.
7. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
REMEMBER WHEN…
Great for the owner of the optimized site but not so much
for the visitor or Google.
By manipulating the SERPs through keyword stuffing and
mass link building, many Google users were landing on
pages they had no use of or were far from the best option
for the desired action.
8. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
GOOGLE’S MISSION
In a nutshell Google wants to provide it’s users with the best
possible results for search queries.
Spammy search results would hurt their mission, reputation
and market share.
9. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
GOOGLE’S RESPONSE
To prevent this from becoming a large spread problem and to ensure
their search results are the best they can be, Google began
implementing Algorithm updates to further refine their ranking
factors and prevent spammy duplicate, or thin content from ranking
well.
They have also taken steps to prevent the abuse of unnatural link
building to manipulate a sites rankings.
10. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
THE EVOLUTION OF GOOGLE
The Panda Update
Google’s Panda update was a filter developed to prevent low
quality, over optimized content sites like those containing
spam, duplicate and thin content from ranking well in the
Search Engines.
Standing outside the algorithm, it originally rolled out in
February of 2011, and was updated almost monthly until in
March 2013 Google announced that future updates would be
integrated directly into the algorithm.
11. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
THE EVOLUTION OF GOOGLE
The Penguin Update
Released in April of 2012, the Google Penguin update is
aimed at decreasing search engine rankings for those site’s
who violate Google’s Webmaster Tool Guidelines.
Specifically through manipulating search rankings for a
page by creating large amounts of “unnatural” links.
Anyone who has received the unnatural link warning in
their WMT accounts knows that recovery from a Penguin
penalty is a long, expensive process.
12. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
THE EVOLUTION OF GOOGLE
The Hummingbird Algorithm
Unlike the two previous updates, Hummingbird is a new algorithm
itself that Google is using to determine search results.
Hummingbird is able to determine the semantic relationships of
the terms in search queries allowing it to focus on the users
intent instead of the individual search terms.
This ensures that the entire search is taken into account rather
than just a few words.
13. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
THE EVOLUTION OF GOOGLE
Additional Key Updates
Other updates without fancy animal names include the Page
Layout Update, which aimed at sites with too many ads above
the fold. As well as the Exact-Match Domain (EMD) update which
significantly devalued the exact match domains as a ranking
factor.
14. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
THE EVOLUTION OF GOOGLE
The Search Engine Results Page
Not only has they way Google determines the search results
changed drastically in the past few years, but so has the way
Google presents the information to it’s users.
The SERP has moved from 10 consistent results for everyone to a
much more personalized search experience for the user.
15. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
THE EVOLUTION OF GOOGLE
The Search Engine Results Page
Changes include updates to improve the user experience through
Google Instant.
Altered results based on User Context to provide more relevant
listings based on geographic region, web history, and other
factors.
Other SERP updates to improve the results in general include the
inclusion of Google’s Knowledge Graph, the encouraged use of
Rich Snippets and blended search results that include news,
products, images and more in the results based on relevance to
the search query.
Most recently is the Title & Meta Description SERP snippet
presentation by pixel update.
16. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
ENCRYPTED SEARCH
Love or hate the changes, all of these updates have resulted in
Google achieving their main goal: To provide better search
results for their users.
However the Encrypted Search update has caused significant
problems for business owners trying to determine the success of
their SEO campaign.
This update prevents the keyword search data from any Google
user signed in from being tracked, causing a sky rocking of "Not
Provided" visits in everyone analytics accounts.
17. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
ENCRYPTED SEARCH
Because of this, many business owners have lost as much as
80% of their organic keyword data.
This data had previously been use to tie specific keyword
ranks to online conversion and revenue.
Also just recently confirmed in that Google is now not
passing referrer data to AdWords advertisers log files, web
servers and analytics packages. So, AdWords has also gone
“Not Provided”.
18. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
SOLUTIONS?
Several SEO’s have claimed they have solved the not provided
issue, but these are all some sort of technical estimations to
give business owners an educated guess.
In the end, there is no substitute for accurate, real data.
19. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
ARE KEYWORDS DEAD?
No! Keywords are not dead. They still play a vital role in any SEO
campaign.
However even prior to the increased "Not Provided" results we
never recommended specific keywords ranks as a Key Performance
Indicator because KPI's determine if you are reaching your goal and
specific rankings are not the goal of a successful SEO campaign,
increased visitation and conversions from organic traffic is.
Restricting your view to rankings of specific terms can sell your
campaign considerably short.
20. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
TRAFFIC VOLUME METRICS
When reviewing campaign health it’s important to focus on more
quantitative KPI’s like the different dimensions of Search Engine
Traffic and how they are performing. These Include:
• Organic Volume - the most basic of these KPI’s.
• Share of Organic Search volume compared to other
channels.
• Share of total traffic referred by the search engines and
how that compares to the current SE market share can
also help determine campaign health.
21. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
TRAFFIC VOLUME METRICS
Organic Traffic Volume
Is Organic Traffic Volume up this month compared to last month
or for seasonally effective websites, is Organic Traffic Volume up
compared to this month last year?
How do "New Visits" look, are they increasing when compared to
the previous date?
These are what Google Analytics calls "Acquisition Metrics" and
are outlined in just about any view in Analytics. Examination of
these metrics by source will give you a broad look at overall
organic traffic and how it is trending.
22. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
TRAFFIC VOLUME METRICS
Share of Total Site Traffic
Organic Traffic's share of the site's total volume as compared to
Referral and Direct traffic is also a good metric to be tracking.
Ultimately you would want to see the share of Organic traffic as it
contributes to the whole increasing in it's percentage but note large
increases to paid campaigns or new referral programs need to be
considered because they can skew the metric.
23. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
TRAFFIC VOLUME METRICS
Share of SE volume vs. Market Share
Traffic Referred From Specific SE compared to that SE’s market is
another strong metric, this information can be used to find gaps in
the campaign and opportunities on specific SE’s.
You can get monthly estimates for SE market share from
ComScore.com. Compare those percentages to the SE traffic split
for your own site, how do they compare?
24. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
TRAFFIC VOLUME METRICS
Organic Traffic Percentages by SE
SE Site Volume As a % of Total SE traffic com Score Search Share Feb-14
Google 715620 85.73% 67.60%
Bing 64560 7.73% 18.30%
Yahoo 51928 6.22% 10.40%
AOL 1592 0.19% 2.40%
Ask 1003 0.12% 1.30%
Total 834703 100.00% 100.00%
25. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
TRAFFIC VOLUME METRICS
Local Volume
From a Local Business perspective, it is also important to track
volume specific to your area.
Google Analytics will breakdown traffic by location all the way
down to the city level.
26. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
TRAFFIC QUALITY METRICS
Google Analytics provides several metrics to help determine the
quality of a visitor:
– Pages Per Visit
– Bounce Rate
– Average Visitor Duration
– Social Shares
27. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
TRAFFIC QUALITY METRICS
Time on Site & Pages Per Visit
These are two great metrics for determining visitor quality.
Of course you want to see these numbers increase but the story
they tell is also important.
These metrics help measure several items related to your
campaign…
28. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
TRAFFIC QUALITY METRICS
Time on Site & Pages Per Visit
Content Consumption
A spike in these metrics after a content overhaul of a URL or the
site means you have accomplished your goal of making your
content more engaging as people are consuming more.
You can take this tracking one step further by setting up specific
tracking events like the playing videos to test engagement with
specific site elements.
Organic Theming
Increases to these metrics from your organic traffic while others
remain consistent points to a high quality visitor visiting your site
than before which would be a product of your site coming up in
much more relevant searches.
29. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
TRAFFIC QUALITY METRICS
Bounce Rate
A URL's bounce rate is the percentage or visitors that landed on this
URL as there initial entrance point but did not click through to any
other pages of the site, they left from there.
The lower the bounce rate the better, this can be a good indicator as
to if the content on the URL is enticing or useful enough to motivate a
thorough click through.
30. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
TRAFFIC QUALITY METRICS
Social Signals
Signals like Likes, Shares, ReTweets & Google+1’s are big factors in
Google and Bing’s algorithm, therefor Social Media plays a huge part
in any SEO campaign.
When it comes to SEO these days, you need a complete internet
marketing strategy and that includes both SEO and Social Media.
31. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
CONVERSION METRICS
Conversion Metrics are some of your most important because these
are specifically measuring your bottom line. In Google Analytics,
these are specified by setting up goals.
Goals will always vary depending on the type of site but
determining your site’s goals and getting them setup should be
discussed. Goals can be added at any point during the life of your
marketing campaign, knowing that they change periodically and
vary depending on certain factors.
32. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
CONVERSION METRICS
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors that actually convert
or complete a specified goal.
This can be tracked on the URL, Channel and even keyword level
however the Not Provided issue greatly distorts that last metric.
33. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
CONVERSION METRICS
Goal Completions from Organic Traffic
Total goal completions from organic traffic is another great
metric for reviewing campaign health.
• Are the number of completed goals increasing when
compared to the past period?
• How many goals completed from organic traffic?
34. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
CONVERSION METRICS
E-Commerce Tracking
If purchases can be made directly on your website you will want to
make sure to set up Ecommerce tracking so you can track transactions
and revenue generated right in analytics.
• Are the organic channels producing revenue?
• Is it increasing compared to the previous period?
35. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
CONVERSION METRICS
ROI
This are good for determining the bottom-line profit from your
organic internet marketing campaign.
For E-commerce simply take total monthly revenue from organic
traffic minus the monthly costs.
For lead generation sites you will want to fix a dollar amount to
each lead estimating what they are worth on average. Multiply that
by number of leads in a month and subtract your Internet Marketing
costs, there is your estimate ROI.
36. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
CONVERSION METRICS
CPA
To calculate your CPA (Cost per Acquisition) divide the cost of
your internet marketing by number of leads for the month and
you have your CPA.
Is this growing or decreasing month over month?
37. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
URLS INDEXED
The number of pages indexed is a metric that can be found in
Webmaster Tools.
As you correct issues related architecture, meta data, duplicate
content, and so on, the number of indexed pages should steadily
rise, showing that Google is including more and more of the pages
within it's index.
38. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
DOMAIN & PAGE AUTHORITY
Domain Authority & Page Authority, metrics that stem from Moz,
are two metrics that you should always be tracking; these
measure the sites strength within the SERPs.
Building links help influence these metrics and if your link
building plan is working effectively then these numbers should
grow over time.
39. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
WHAT ARE KEYWORDS GOOD FOR?
As mentioned before Keywords make a bad KPI. This is because it
is hard to measure them accurately and it's impossible to track
rankings for all keywords that are bringing traffic to the site.
It doesn't tell the entire story so it is essential that you go deeper
and look at the actual organic traffic metrics.
Keywords should still be tracked, but using there placement as a
KPI is not useful in determining how effective a campaign is
performing.
40. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
WHAT ARE KEYWORDS GOOD FOR?
Keywords definitely have their uses and are still an important part
of strategy:
• Keyword ranking information can help inform content
theming for specific URL's and landing pages and very large
shifts in rankings can help identify problems or penalties
placed on the site.
• Keyword data from WMT's can be exported and ran through
a rank checking program to determine the ranking URLs for
each term. This gives insight as to how keywords are
performing on the URL level and where opportunities may
exist organically.
41. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
FUTURE OF SEO STRATEGY
Not SEO but Internet Marketing
The Implementation of Hummingbird and secure search by Google
means we not only need re-think the metrics we track but also
need to re-think our strategies.
To be successful in 2014 SEO, you need a complete organic internet
marketing plan with integrated parts that support one another.
42. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
FUTURE OF SEO STRATEGY
Rich Snippets & Google+
Implementation of Microdata and Rich Snippets is going to be key
to helping your site standout on SERP's
Also because Google can easily pull structured data from Google+
profiles to place in the SERPs, business should not ignore the
usefulness of having a profile.
43. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
FUTURE OF SEO STRATEGY
Mobile is Now!
Your site needs to be mobile friendly!
Online traffic from mobile devices has been increasing
exponentially over the past few years.
If your site's design is not responsive to browsers or at the very
least has a mobile app you neglecting the fastest growing online
traffic source.
44. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
METRICS SUMMARY
Traffic Volume KPI's
• Organic SE Traffic Volume Growth
• Organic SE Traffic - Share of Total Traffic Volume
• Visits Referred by Specific SE's and How it compares to Market Share
• LOCAL: Google Plus for Business Referrals
Content & Engagement KPIs or Traffic Quality
• Organic Traffic Time on Site
• Organic Traffic Pages Per Visit
• Organic Traffic Bounce Rate
• Social Shares
Conversion KPI's
• Conversion Rate
• Goal Completions
• Revenue and Transactions
• ROI - Return on Investment
• CPA - Cost Per Acquisition
• Leads Generated Organically
45. SEO 2014 – The Key Metrics Beyond Rankings
CLOSING THOUGHTS
2014 brings lots of changes to the online space, how we approach
our strategies and the metrics we use to determine there
successfulness.
You never know what Google is going to throw at you so need to be
able to adapt your strategies quickly but with the proper internet
marketing campaign almost any site can be successful online.