Actionable SEO Insights

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION

“The name… is Dalton.”

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME

Actually, I’m not Dalton. I’m Kerry Dean, SEO. Nice to meet me.

THIS IS MY JAM!

NOT TO BRAG, BUT…

MY EXPERIENCE IS PRIMARILY RETAIL & TRAVEL

NOW LET’S TALK ACTIONABLE SEO INSIGHTS

WE USE INSIGHTS TO DIRECT OUR ACTIONS

TYPICAL SEO ACTION ITEMS

1. Optimize tagging (meta tags, H tags, Alt tags)2. Create content (targeting keywords & topics)3. Make your site faster (reduce pageload times)4. Reduce points of friction during checkout5. Optimize internal linking for crawling & ranking6. Merchandising/Copywriting updates7. Secure your site8. Build links9. Disavow links10.Etc…

FIRST, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KPI’S.

IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND HOW WE GOT HERE…

WE HAVE TO GO BACK, KATE!

IN THE BEGINNING…

THERE WERE “HITS”

AND RANKINGS.

MODERN KPI’s

1. Organic Visits (Sessions, New Visits, New Visitors)2. Organic Revenue3. Keyword Rankings

PRIMARY SEO KPI’s

4. Transactions (Orders)5. Quantity (Units)6. Average Order Value7. Conversion Rate8. Revenue Per Visitor9. Average Cart Size10. Revenue per Unit Sold

ECOMMERCE KPI’s

11. Total # of Keywords Driving Organic Traffic12. Total # of Keywords Driving Organic Revenue

13. Total # of URLs Driving Organic Traffic14. Total # of URLs Driving Organic Revenue

15. Total # of Search Engines Driving Organic Visits16. Total # of Search Engines Driving Organic revenue

ADDITIONAL ECOMMERCE SEO KPI’s

11. Total # of Keywords Driving Organic Traffic12. Total # of Keywords Driving Organic Revenue

13. Total # of URLs Driving Organic Traffic14. Total # of URLs Driving Organic Revenue

15. Total # of Search Engines Driving Organic Visits16. Total # of Search Engines Driving Organic revenue

ADDITIONAL ECOMMERCE SEO KPI’s

NOT PROVIDED?! THANKS A LOT, BIN LADEN.

17. Bounce Rate18. Adjusted Bounce Rate19. Time on Site20. Dwell Time21. Return Frequency22. Scrolling23. Pages per Session/Visit24. Events: Form Submissions, Video Plays, etc…25. Social: Likes/Shares/+’s/Tweets/etc…

ENGAGEMENT KPI’s

26. #OF PAGES INDEXED (OVERALL)27. SITEMAPS DATA• # OF PAGES SUBMITTED• # OF PAGES INDEXED

28. KEYWORD CTR DATA29. KEYWORD IMPRESSION30. KEYWORD CLICKS 31. AVERGAGE POSITION (KEYWORD RANKINGS)32. CRAWL ERRORS33. CRAWL STATS34. STRUCTURED DATA (ITEMS & PAGES)

WEBMASTER TOOLS KPI’S

THE 4 GROUPS OF ORGANIC SEARCH KPI’s

PRIMARY ECOMMERCE

ENAGEMENT WMT

WE TYPICALLY FIND INSIGHTS IN THOSE 4 GROUPS.

WE DISECT SCENARIOS TO FIND INSIGHTS.

Scenario A (Ecommerce KPI’s)

On our weekly report, we noticed organic revenue is up week-over-week, but organic orders are down week-over-week.

Question:

How can revenue increase when the number of orders decreased?

Answer:

This generally happens with an increase in AOV. Perhaps there was a sale on a high-priced item. They didn’t sell many units, but the high cost of the item drove a significant amount of revenue.

Scenario B (Engagement KPI’s)

Our organic search traffic has increased by 5% month-over-month, but our bounce rate has increased 25% during the same time period.

Question:

Why did our bounce rate increase by a much higher % than our organic traffic?

Answer:

We launched a content campaign that attracted a ton of visits, shares, and links. While some of those visitors went on to visit other pages on the site, the majority of the visitors only looked at one page – the page they came specifically to visit. This caused a major increase in bounce rate. [Side note: We set up ‘Adjusted Bounce Rate’ as a new KPI to measure success.]

Scenario C (Using Webmaster Tools KPI’s to Diagnose Issues)

Scenario C (Using Webmaster Tools KPI’s to Diagnose Issues)

Cross-reference ‘URL Errors’ with

‘Index Status’ data in Google WMT.

THE ANSWERS & TRENDS CAN TYPICALLY BE FOUND IN THESE 4 GROUPS.

PRIMARY ECOMMERCE ENAGEMENT WMT

HOWEVER, THAT IS A LIMITED VIEW.

THE SEO MULTIVERSE IS BIG – AND IT’S EXPANDING!

IN 2014, WE HAVE TO DRILL DEEPER.

LUCKILY, YOU WORK WITH A GREAT TEAM.

“I'm only the best because I work with the best.”

BUT SOMETIMES LOOKING FOR INSIGHTS CAN SEEM LIKE THIS.

WE HAVE TO PUT ON OUR THINKING CAPS.

“An alien intelligence has got be more advanced, and that means efficiency functioning on multiple levels….and in multiple dimensions.”

LET’S TALK ABOUT DIMENSIONS.

DIMENSIONS

USING DIMENSIONS FOR MOBILE SEO INSIGHTS

“Mobile is coming faster than anyone

expected.”

YOU ALREADY KNOW ABOUT PRIMARY DIMENSIONS.

YOU SHOULD BE MONITORING THE TRENDS OF ALL MAJOR SEARCH ENGINES.

USE SECONDARY DIMENSIONS TO DRILL DOWN FURTHER.

NOW WE CAN SEE ORGANIC SEARCH BY ENGINE & BY MOBILE DEVICE MODEL.

NOW, WE CAN LOOK AT GOOGLE SESSIONS BY MOBILE DEVICE MODEL.

PLOT IPHONE & IPAD SESSIONS TO SEE HOW THEY TREND OVER TIME.

PLOT THE CONVERSION RATES AND LOOK FOR INTERESTING TRENDS.

1. Mobile Device Types2. Browsers3. Screen Resolutions

3 DIMENSIONS THAT HELP WITH MOBILE INSIGHTS

BROWSERS!

SCREEN RESOLUTIONS!

OTHER INSIGHTS WITH MOBILE SEO DATA

Data Trending by:o Desktopo Mobile Phoneo Tableto “Phablet”

ADDITIONAL MOBILE INSIGHTS

Blade… Laser…. and Blaser.

YoY Revenue Trends

YoY Visits Trends

TYPICAL REPORTING

CHANGE IT UP A LITTLE!

LOOK AT THE GROWTH TRENDS BETWEEN DESKTOP AND MOBILE.SWITCH TO A % VIEW TO SEE JUST HOW IMPORTANT MOBILE HAS BECOME.

BUILD A VIEW FOR REVENUE TRENDS

COMPARE THE GROWTH IN MOBILE REVENUE OVERALL TO THE RATIO OF MOBILE REVENUE TO DESKTOP REVENUE.

WHAT DOES THIS TELL US?

FOR THIS SITE, 41% OF ORGANIC TRAFFIC IS FROM MOBILE, BUT ONLY17% OF ORGANIC REVENUE IS FROM MOBILE. THERE IS WORK TO BE DONE!

BOOM. ROASTED.

“Hey, client. Your mobile conversion rate sucks.”

A QUICK NOTE ABOUT REPORTING

30+ KPI’Sx 3 DEVICE TYPESx 3 OPERATING SYSTEMSx 3 BROWSERSx SOME OTHER DIMENSIONS= A LOT OF REPORTS!

SO MANY REPORTS, SO MUCH TIME…RIGHT?

“Napoleon, like anyone can even know that.”

SEO REPORTS ARE LIKE CATS – YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY.

WELL…UNTIL YOU BECOME THE CRAZY CAT LADY OF SEO.

“Information is powerful. But it is how we use it that will define us.” - @Avinash

#SMALLDATA

LET’S GET THIS TRENDING – AGAIN!

1. DETERMINE WHICH KPI’s MATTER TO YOUR CLIENT.

2. DETERMINE WHICH KPI’s ACCURATELY MEASURE THE SUCCESS/FAILURE OF YOUR SEO CAMPAIGN.

3. DETERMINE WHICH KPI’s ARE ACTIONABLE.

THE GOALS OF REPORTING

WE NEED THE DATA IN ORDER TO TELL THE STORY.

HOWEVER…

“PEOPLE WANT THE STORY. NOT THE DATA.”- @kerrydean

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED

INSIGHTS FROM KEYWORD RANKINGS

+13 more: CH,DK,FI,HK,IE,IL,MX,NL,NO,PL,SE,SG,TR

SEMRush Organic Research Positions

1

2 3

You can download this data by month going all the way back to Jan-2012.

DO IT!

Once you have the data, there is only one thing left to do…

PIVOT TABLES!

First, add a few new columns.

What can you do with this data?

1. Ranking Trends for Keywords (Position Groups)

2. # of Keywords Ranking for a Set of Keywords

3. # of Keywords Ranking for All URLs

3. (CONT…) # of Keywords Ranking for All URLs

4. Keyword Tiers (Y/Y Comparisons)

5. Trended Keyword Tiers

6. Plot URL Ranking Data Over Actual Visits Data

1. Segment groups of URLs by:o Producto Categoryo Sub-Catso Sub-Domains

2. Filter each group by:o Brand vs Non-Brando Search Volume Tiers

The SEMRush Data Allows You To:

INSIGHTS FROM MULTI-CHANNEL ATTRIBUTION

ASSISTED CONVERSIONS

MIND = BLOWN

This is a data goldmine for marketers. More info here.

IN THE YEAR 2000…

Organic Search KPI’s will help tell the overall story.

APPTIONABLE INSIGHTS

LET’S TALK ABOUT APPS

GOOGLE SENDING SEARCHERS TO APPS

“Today, we’re expanding it to work for English content worldwide. And we’re including 24 more apps…

– Google Search Blog (Apr. 3, 2014)

BING IS DOING IT, TOO!

The Path for Organic Searchers is Changing

INITIAL SEARCH

OR

WEBSITEVISIT

APPVISIT

You may notice a drop in organic traffic to your website as Google and Bing begin to send more organic search to your app instead.

IF YOU HAVE AN APP…

AppLaunches

GET YOUR APP INDEXED!

More on APP indexing & structured data from @JustinRBriggs: http://www.slideshare.net/justinrbriggs/increasing-mobile-visibility-with-structured-datao

SEARCH ENGINE #APPTIMIZATION

GET READY FOR THIS

TYPICAL APP ENGAGEMENT METRICS

If organic search begins to drive searchers to your app, you will need to track their behavior in the app.

1. Users2. Session Length3. Session Interval4. Time in App5. Acquisition6. Screen Flow7. Retention8. Lifetime Value9. …and more!

Get ready for App KPI’s. It’s going to get fun.

THE END