Even when logged out of Google and with a clear cache and no cookies, Google is still personalizing search results for each user based on the search history of each IP address and your geographic location.

This question is increasingly common for people reporting rankings to their SEO clients. As mentioned before, I am NOT IN FAVOR of relying solely on search rankings. There are plenty of other, more meaningful metrics.

Here’s my response, which I felt was worth sharing:

For consistency reasons (and time constraints), I’ve stopped using rankings as an indicator of SEO results.

When I do look at them, I use SEOMoz Pro and WebPosition (webposition.com). There’s no way around the IP-level personalization that I’ve found that still simulates real-life search patterns.

Using 2 data sources gets you a couple different data points. They hardly ever match, so I look at trends over several months and not particular data points from an exact moment in time.

Try reporting on organic, non-branded keyword visits and the number/type of unique landing pages from that traffic segment. If you have conversion data, all the better. Rankings are meaningless unless you are actually attracting qualified traffic and generating sales/leads/whatever. The landing pages reports show how much of your content is exposed in search engines, and where you might be missing opportunities to attract new visitors by focusing on some internal pages or sections.

It’s a lot more work, but I’ve found that clients appreciate tangible results in addition to (or instead of) showing rankings. Anything that keeps the SEM industry more accountable and transparent is a good thing, in my mind.

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Google’s big on privacy these days. It’s no surprise, considering the blowback they’ve received on Google Buzz and their impending antitrust investigations.

Even so, I was a very surprised to hear Google announce that they are going to stop reporting which keywords drove traffic to sites in Google Analytics if the searcher A) is logged into Google, and B) clicks on a link to your site in the organic search results.

The goal is to make searching more secure. Google suggests this will only impact a small percentage of visitors, but the ramifications extend beyond Google.com and affect anybody that relies on Google Analytics.

How It Works

To protect Google users’ privacy, Google will encrypt the data transfer between their browser and Google. This makes it harder for somebody to capture and “read” your data as it is transmitted from your computer to Google and back.

Bad For SEO And CRO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is complicated enough, but when Google removes some crucial keyword data from the Google Analytics, it becomes much harder to analyze results and know what is working (and what isn’t).

To help you better identify the signed in user organic search visits, we created the token “(not provided)” within Organic Search Traffic Keyword reporting. You will continue to see referrals without any change; only the queries for signed in user visits will be affected. Note that “cpc” paid search data is not affected.

Even though I don’t do much SEO work for clients these days, the organic search traffic data is extremely valuable for planning, managing, and optimizing PPC campaigns. It helps us define a campaign structure and set initial bids for new advertisers. PPC data, when compared to SEO data for the same keywords, can really improve campaign efficiency and effectiveness.

Boon For PPC?

Despite the drawbacks for SEO folks, marketers can look at this as just one more reason to invest in PPC.

From the Google.com blog post describing the change:

If you choose to click on an ad appearing on our search results page, your browser will continue to send the relevant query over the network to enable advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and to improve the ads and offers they present to you.

Markets always seek efficiency. If PPC marketers can demonstrate greater efficiency than SEO because they have more data, rational companies will invest where they can get the greatest return.

(CC photo credit)

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Just a quick post to bring you up to speed on a situation I’ve been monitoring this week.

Google Analytics, which measures website activity on millions of sites, is in the process of fixing a reporting error within their systems that may have resulted in missing and/or incomplete data in dashboard reports, advanced segments, and Google AdWords integrations since around April 20th.

This may result in lower-than-average conversions or visits to your site.

No data has been lost, it’s just not showing up in the reports for some date ranges and segmented report structures. All reports will eventually be complete and accurate. Their ETA for resolution is 5/24.

You can check their status at any time here, or visit the official Google Analytics blog for updates.

P.S. If you were a client of mine, I would have alerted you about this already via email. Not a client? You can still sign up to receive my client newsletter here.

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I had a great time presenting to the AMA Richmond chapter this morning. Huge thanks to Studio Center for hosting and Mike Rose for organizing.

P.S. If you are looking to hire an experienced senior marketing exec, Mike is your man.

P.P.S. The picture on slide 3 is my son…you had to be there.

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To the uninitiated, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) can feel like staring into an abyss.

How deep does it go? Where does it start and end? How do I avoid getting swallowed alive? What happens if I get in over my head?

There are countless consultants, companies, and software tools that can help you navigate these waters, but it helps to have a reliable map and a good compass to avoid being lead astray. The following tools are provided by the search engines themselves and are a great head start towards improving your company’s visibility in a wide variety of search results.

Even (especially) if you are planning on hiring somebody else to manage your search engine marketing, you need to familiarize yourself with the tools of the trade.

Search Engine Optimization

Once you verify ownership of your site, search engines will share a lot more inside information about how they view your site and content. The following are must-have tools for any website owner that wants to know how their site is perceived by search engines, any obstacles that their crawlers encounter, and who’s linking to you.

1. Google Webmaster Tools – Shows obstacles uncovered by their crawlers, search queries that your site ranks for, and allows for some control over your site’s appearance in search results.
2. Bing Webmaster – Similar to Google’s tools, but don’t always assume the results will be the same. Each search engines views sites differently, so it’s best to get a “second opinion” from Bing. Also, since Bing now powers Yahoo search results, you can diagnose problems on both engines in one place.
3. Yahoo Site Explorer – Since the Bing/Yahoo alliance began last year, the Yahoo Site Explorer tools have been largely replaced by Bing Webmaster data. However, Yahoo Site Explorer still shares extremely useful inbound link data.

Website Analytics and Testing

Websites are nothing more than digital brochures unless you measure how well they are performing and make changes to improve the results. These tools provide insights into your visitors’ behavior so you can make more informed business decisions.

4. Google Analytics – By far the best web analytics tool on the market for small- medium businesses. It allows you to analyze the “who, what, where, why, when and how” of your website’s visitors. It helps you understand how they got to your site and what they did once they got there. Plus, it’s completely free!
5. Yahoo Web Analytics – While it’s only available to Yahoo advertisers or hosted e-commerce sites, it goes a step beyond Google Analytics to provide demographic and psychographic data about your visitors in real-time.
6. Google Website Optimizer – A free, relatively simple tool to A/B test different elements on a web page (images, text, buttons, forms, etc.) to mathematically determine which combination leads to the highest conversion rates. The numbers don’t lie, and it minimizes the risk of “going with your gut” or assuming that the web designer (or design by committee) nailed it the first time.

E-Commerce Product Listings

You mean people actually buy stuff online? Sure they do! And they frequently start their search on a major search engine. Conveniently, it’s easy (and free) to list your products in their shopping engines.

7. Google Merchant Center – Do you sell products online or in a retail store? Did you know you can list them on Google’s product search engine for free? These results frequently appear in Google’s web search results so you could receive additional free exposure and traffic.
8. Bing Shopping – Upload your products through Microsoft adCenter and your products can appear in Bing and Yahoo search results.

Multimedia Search

Sure, people waste a lot of time online “researching” the latest viral videos. However, if your company has digital content such as photos or videos, a little legwork can make sure potential customers can check out your assets.

9. Flickr – A free photo-sharing website owned by Yahoo that allows members to upload and share their images. If your business or products are highly visual, this can be a great way to build awareness and connect with people searching Flickr or the general web since images frequently show up in web and images search results.
10. YouTube – The world’s largest video-sharing website. Your video content is discoverable by people searching YouTube or presented in Google search results when people search for related keywords. Video can be a powerful sales tool when done right, and picking a distribution channel is an important part of getting it right.
11. Google Images – Insure that photos on your website incorporate SEO best practices to increase the likelihood of them ranking well in Google’s image search engine. This can increase traffic and awareness from highly competitive keywords.
12. Yahoo Image Search – Similar to Google Images, but with better grouping of thematically related images. For example, a search for “Richmond, Virginia” also displays options to view nearby landmarks, neighborhoods and events.
13. Bing Image Search – A more visually appealing layout of image search results that focuses on creating a rich experience for searchers.
14. Yahoo Video – A good source for commercially produced video content with less of a focus on user-generated content than YouTube.

Local Search

Claiming your business’ listings in each of the major search engines insures that your details are accurate and up-to-date. This is especially important as their databases are often pulling from outdated sources. Plus, you can upload photos and videos to make your listings stand out.

15. Google Maps / Google Places
16. Yahoo Local
17. Bing Maps
18. Yelp – A different type of search engine, Yelp is a leader in the customer reviews space. Businesses can claim or create their listings to better manage their listings and promote offers.
19. Reviews Sites & Directories – This is where it gets hairy. There are literally thousands of reviews sites, local directories, and internet yellow pages sites. It is impossible to find and keep track of all of them, but start with the obvious and try to check and update a few each week. Most offer ways to claim or edit your business listing so be sure to fix anything that is wrong. One word of warning, every one will try to up-sell premium listings. You could go bankrupt paying for all of them, so use your judgment (and web analytics reports) to figure out which ones send the highest quality traffic and start there.

News Search Engines

Each of the major search engines crawl news sites and curate their own news search sites. If you are a publisher or media site, you need to insure your content, site maps and data feeds are structured properly to maximize your exposure in news search results, which are also frequently positioned prominently in web search results for timely or newsworthy searches.

20. Google News
21. Yahoo News
22. Bing News

Paid Search Advertising

These technically are not free services, but I cannot overstate their importance. The list of benefits reads like a marketer’s wish list: immediate exposure to people that are searching for your products or services, real-time performance data, accountability, immediate on/off controls, geographic targeting, and relatively simple ROI calculations. I could go on, but the important thing to remember is that paid search is highly effective for those willing to invest the time or money in managing it properly and optimizing for better results.

23. Google AdWords
24. Microsoft adCenter

Bonus Level! Keyword Research

25. Google AdWords Keyword Tool – This is the first stop for most search marketers that need to know how many people search for specific keywords in an average month. By comparing keyword variations (plurals, synonyms, geographic modifiers, etc.), marketers can determine where to allocate their SEO and SEM resources. It’s free, but the data provided are invaluable.

Utilizing these (mostly) free search engine tools, any company can improve its standings in search results and attract more qualified visitors to its website.

The biggest mistake I see people making when embarking on a search marketing journey is putting all their eggs in one basket. Don’t fall victim to the temptation to focus only on Google, or ignore the traffic-driving potential of your other digital assets.

How many of these tools have you used? What would you add to this list?

(CC Photo Credit: Landfeldt on Flickr)

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Visits increased last month! Visitors spent more time on the site and viewed more pages per visit.

Congratulations!

What do you do with that information? If you’re stumped, please keep reading. If you never get past your Google Analytics dashboard, please keep reading. If you still refer to website visits as “hits”, please keep reading.

The Most Costly Mistake Website Owners Make

There are countless ways to spend your marketing dollars. It doesn’t matter which tactics you deploy, the biggest mistake you could make is not measuring how well each marketing dollar performs.

I’m not just talking about overall visits, page views or time on site. The most important metrics are based on outcomes, such as a lead form completion, phone call, e-commerce transaction, or white paper download.  These are the visitor actions that actually propel your business forward and generate sales. We call them “conversion events” or simply “goals”.

How to Measure SEO Campaigns

SEO campaigns are a bit trickier to measure than a normal advertising campaign. It can be hard to tell what constitutes a successful SEO strategy, but we have a few tricks that will help you understand how effective your efforts are.

Metric 1: Organic, Non-Branded Visits

Let’s break this down. “Organic” visits are simply clicks from a search engine’s primary search results, not the sponsored links. “Non-Branded” refers to clicks on keywords that don’t contain your company name or other clues that could indicate the visitor already has some awareness of your company and was seeking you specifically.

For example, Bob’s Used Autos in Miami would want to increase traffic from non-branded keywords such as “used car dealers in Miami”. An increase in searches for “Bob’s Used Autos in Miami” might indicate his TV ads are helping build awareness, but the non-branded traffic is purely incremental.

To track this metric, filter your Traffic Sources > Keywords report by “non-paid” visits:

Next, exclude your brand names in the Keyword Filter at the bottom of the list:

Finally, you’ll have an accurate count of organic, non-branded search visits:

Advanced Tip: Set up an Advanced Segment to make this analysis easier in the future, and to compare goal conversion rates for this segment against branded terms, PPC traffic and other sources.

Metric 2: Unique Landing Pages

To get an idea of how Google values your content, you’ll want to know how many unique pages are receiving organic, non-branded traffic. This is a great indicator of how many pages rank well enough in Google to get clicks.

If your site has 10,000 product pages, wouldn’t you want to know if only 100 of them are getting any traffic from your SEO campaigns?

To track this metric in Google Analytics, use the Content > Top Landing Pages report and change your Advanced Segments to Non-paid Search Traffic:

Now, your Top Landing Pages report will show your most popular landing pages for organic search traffic:

Spend some time reviewing this list and looking for gaps in your site structure. You might be able to identify pages or sections of your site that are noticeably absent.

Over time, you can use this report to see if Google is sending traffic to more of your pages as your search visibility improves. If not, re-consider your SEO strategy and focus on filling in the gaps.

Advanced Tip: Compare bounce rates on your top landing pages to identify pages where visitors land but immediately leave without clicking deeper into your site. Are you missing any opportunities to convert them into customers?

Metric 3: Goal Conversion Rates

Traffic is good, but conversions are the real reason your site exists. If your site isn’t converting visitors into customers efficiently, you may be wasting money and missing opportunities to grow your business, lead pipelines, or ad revenue.

Website objectives depend on your business objectives.  If you need sales leads, measure lead form completions and track phone calls. If you sell products online, measure your e-commerce transaction rates and ROI. Whatever it is, it can be measured.

If you don’t know how to measure your desired outcomes, consider hiring a web analytics consultant to configure your site to track these events and design a simple reporting structure that shows you the information you need to make more informed business decisions.

By comparing the conversion rates from your organic, non-branded search visits over time, you can see whether or not your SEO efforts are attracting higher quality traffic in addition to (or instead of) higher quantities.  Quality always trumps quantity.

Advanced Tip: Assign dollar values to goals that don’t necessarily generate direct revenue so you can measure the impact of your traffic sources and compare them apples-to-apples. For example, if 10% of the people who download your white paper become customers, and a new customer is worth $100 to your business, assign a goal value of $10.

Wait, What About Search Rankings?

Try searching for a keyword from your office computer and compare it to results you see at home. Search while logged into Google and when logged out. Compare your search results pages to your office-mates. They will be tailored to each person’s search history and preferences.

Higher rankings make us feel better, but if traffic, sales and other metrics are not improving, your business is no better off in position 1 than position 100.

In Conclusion

Sales matter. Leads matter. Total visits and rankings are fun to look at but provide no real insight into how well your website is performing. Focus on the metrics that drive your business and adjust your strategies to continually improve them.

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I’ve been a little quiet on this blog lately, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped sharing my innermost thoughts on SEO and web analytics. Okay, maybe not innermost but certainly some detailed, juicy morsels of insight.

I would encourage you to read my latest entries, “Adding Phone Call Tracking to the Conversion Optimization Mix” and “SEO for Mid-Sized Businesses – All Aboard!”

I also want to thank Unbounce.com for the opportunity to share some call tracking knowledge with their incredibly passionate and forward-thinking audience of conversion optimization experts. And of course my friends and partners at Wax Custom Communications for allowing me to evangelize Search Engine Optimization to their diverse set of healthcare, insurance and corporate clients.

Happy reading!

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