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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
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 -
Friday -
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!