Making Analytics Actionable How to Improve SEO by Employing Data & Metrics

1. Making Analytics Actionable How to Improve SEO by Employing Data & Metrics Rand Fishkin – February 2010

2. Content in this Presentation • Search Referral Analytics • Keyword Referral Analytics • Engagement Analytics • Latent Conversion Tracking • ROI Analytics • Q+A

3. To Make Analytics Actionable Always Ask: #1 - “Why am I measuring this?” #2 – “What would I do if results were different?”

4. Search Referral Analytics

5. # of Visits Per Search Engine Over Time

6. Action: Measure against search engine market shares & volume to determine whether you’re making positive strides

7. # Pages Getting Search Referrals Over Time Measure this number on a weekly/monthly basis

8. Action: Discover if indexation is an issue worth effort This number sucks. Learn more about why at: www.seomoz.org/blog/indexation-for-seo-real-numbers-in-5-easy-steps

9. # of Keywords Sending Traffic from a Search Engine over Time

10. Action: Determine if content additions are accretive and what drives growth/shrinkage in search traffic Did rankings fall? Or is demand down?

11. Search Referral Analytics

12. # of Visits per Keyword

13. Action: Analyze top traffic drivers from a value perspective, check rankings for potential easy wins & get answers if traffic dips “SEO Tools” is a big win and we could rank higher

14. First-Time vs. Returning Visits per Keyword The keyword “SEO” leans toward first-time visits

15. Action: Determine value of reaching new visitors vs. converting branded users (focus efforts on the more valuable one) This metric speaks to business strategy about converting existing fans vs. reaching new customer segments

16. Distribution of Keyword Referrals

17. Action: Discover strengths vs. opportunities (60-70% of traffic is typically in the long tail and it converts better)

18. Keyword Rankings www.seomoz.org/rank-tracker

19. Action: Know if traffic spikes/dropoffs are from rankings, indexation or search demand shifts Rankings and Traffic both Dropped

20. Page Two Rankings Referrals from Page 2

21. Action: Identify low hanging fruit that can be optimized quickly Could totally 301 this to www.opensiteexplorer.org

22. Engagement Analytics

23. Time on Site

24. Action: Compare to ROI metrics; if they correlate, improve on keywords/landing pages with low time on site Average “upgrade to PRO” visitor spent a whopping 44 minutes on SEOmoz!

25. # of Page Views

26. Action: Depending on your metrics, a “sweet spot” of pages browsed often dictates a conversion event – optimize towards it Average “upgrade to PRO” visitor visits 12X the pages of an average visitor

27. Repeat Visit Ratio

28. Action: Find what content/activities/referrers send engaged traffic and copy those while improving subpar pages

29. Sharing/Linking Activity “Sharing Activity” Conversions

30. Action: Find patterns/sources that predict sharing activities (both content and CTAs) and make them testable conversion events GA allows you to set custom actions as “goals” then filter, monitor and improve on these metrics

31. Latent Conversion Tracking

32. Removing Last-Click Attribution

33. Full Path Analysis

34. Initial Referrer www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-get-past-last-touch-attribution-with-google-analytics

35. ROI Analytics

36. Lifetime Customer Value

37. Cost of Acquisition

38. Return on Investment No. No. No. Yes. Yes. Yes. ROI = CLTV - CAC

39. Always Be Asking “What’s the ROI?” Get the ROI for every category (and subset)

40. Q+A