The value of keyword ranking reports has been hotly debated over the years. Many search marketers argue that traditional ranking reports offer little value and provide a short-sighted view of your overall organic search visibility. Marketers can be mislead when top rankings are being reported, but for keywords with little to no search traffic volume. The emphasis of keyword ranking monitoring should be focused on the right keywords, actually driving traffic and conversions.

Google Referrer String Change

Google has recently begun rolling out changes to its referring URL format to include some small changes and the addition of several new parameters. One of the new data points included in this new referrer string is search ranking data. That’s right, search ranking data. This ranking data tells you exactly where in the search results your listing appeared when the user clicked.

Example of new Google referrer strings:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=7&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yoursite…

The “cd” parameter in the referrer string above identifies the search listing ranking that appeared when the user clicked through to the site (i.e. search ranking = 7)

New SiteCatalyst Reporting

Omniture recently announced that we are providing new reporting capabilities in SiteCatalyst to segment reports by organic keyword rankings, based on this new Google referrer string change:

This new functionality allows clients to breakdown keywords by the actual search engine rankings driving traffic to their sites. This solution will be provided through our Engineering Services Group at no cost to our clients.

This first iteration is still a work in progress and we are actively testing new advanced solutions to make this data more actionable (e.g. trending average keyword rankings, utilizing alerts to track top keywords, etc…). Stay tuned to this blog for an additional post with more details on these advanced solutions.

Our hope is this new functionality will provide our clients a deeper level of insight into their organic keyword optimization efforts and can help better balance their organic vs. paid search efforts, further optimizing ad spend.

Important Issues to Note:

1. For more information on getting this report implemented, please reach out to your Account Manager
2. There is no guarantee this ranking data will be permanently included by Google in their referrer strings. Our hope is that Google will continue to provide this useful information, which could also help lessen the burden expended by automated keyword ranking query tools on their data centers.
3. Google has not rolled this out completely. The roll out is currently limited to the US-only and is currently impacting only ~10% of searches
4. Ben Gaines will soon be posting more information on the Omniture Blog regarding additional “gotchas” and FAQs regarding this new solution.

To better understand this issue, it’s helpful to give some background on how Omniture interprets search engine traffic. Search detection in SiteCatalyst relies primarily on the referring URL, which is passed into SiteCatalyst on each page view. If the referrer matches a search engine with its corresponding keyword query parameter (e.g. “http://www.google.com/search?q=web+analytics“), then the referrer and keyword are properly classified.

Because the referring URL is the same for both paid and organic click-throughs, all search engine traffic is classified as organic traffic, unless the paid search landing page URL is tagged with a campaign tracking identifier. When a paid search campaign is not tagged, or the paid search detection filters in SiteCatalyst are not setup properly, search engine traffic is not segmented correctly. As a result, organic and paid search traffic numbers will not be accurate.

Improper reporting of search traffic can cause major problems for execution, planning, and budgeting of your search marketing programs. This can often lead to the misappropriation of large (sometimes multi-million dollar) paid search campaign budgets. For this reason, paid search should be tagged and tracked like any other campaign. For more details on general campaign tracking see Adam “Omni_man” Greco’s recent post about the value of campaign tracking and how to track them effectively in SiteCatalyst.

Tagging your paid search campaigns involves just a few steps:

• Step 1: Create paid search identifier: Decide on a scalable tracking identifier that web analysts and search marketers can both agree upon. The simpler the tracking code the better:
  • Example: http://www.yourdomain.com?kwid=widgets

• In the example above, the “kwid” query string parameter will be used to identify paid search referrals.

• Step 2: Setup the paid search detection filter
  • Log in to the Omniture Suite.
  • Click Admin > Report Suites
  • Select the desired report suite.
  • Click Edit Settings.
  • Select General.
  • Click Paid Search Detection. Once in this section you can setup paid search detection rules with your designated query string identifier.

• Step 3: Deploy paid search tracking on all destination URLs: Once you’ve decided on a paid search identifier and set them up properly in SiteCatalyst, you need to deploy these tracking codes on all of your paid search landing pages (destination URLs):
  • Examples:
    • http://www.yourdomain.com?kwid=widgets
    • http://www.yourdomain.com?kwid=cranks
    • http://www.yourdomain.com?kwid=gears

• In this example, I’ve included the paid search identifier, “kwid” followed by a basic keyword value (i.e. widgets, cranks, gears, etc…). This level of tracking can be expanding to include ad groups, text ad ids, etc… The manual process of updating destination URLs is a time-consuming yet worthwhile task that ensures SiteCatalyst can properly identify your paid search traffic. It’s important to note that SearchCenter automates this process by tagging all landing page URLs for you.

• Step 4: Regular follow-up with Search Marketing Team: Once you’ve fully deployed your paid search tracking codes, frequently validate their maintenance with your search marketing team. Many of the problems with inaccurate paid/organic search tracking come from the mismanagement or omission of tracking codes on destination URLs. This can be easily avoided through regular follow-up.

The issue of paid search tagging may seem simple and obvious to some, but just one misstep can lead to major inaccuracies in your data. Follow these recommendations and you can sleep soundly knowing that you are properly tracking and classifying your search engine traffic.

As a senior consultant for Omniture Consulting Services, Jordan LeBaron leads SEO consulting services, providing Omniture clients guidance on site optimization strategies and leveraging their web analytics to drive their SEO efforts. Follow Jordan on Twitter or connect with him on LinkedIn.

The dart game looked easy enough, so I exchanged money with the game attendant, was handed a dart, and preceded with my pathetic attempt to win a prize for my child. After standing there for a few seconds I realized that with over a hundred targets to choose from, it was difficult to decide where to focus my attention. I blindly threw the dart and didn’t come close. Sadly, it took me two more tries before dumb luck allowed me to eventually connect with a star. I begrudgingly handed the $.05 prize to my excited son and headed back to the funnel cakes.

Looking back I couldn’t help but realize how much more difficult that carnival game was compared to playing darts on a standard dart board. Having a clear target, like a dart board, allows you to better focus your attention and play with more confidence.

Targeting the Right Keywords

Targeting the “right” keywords is the most important first step to any SEO project. For some, this might seem like a blatantly obvious principle, but you’d be surprised at how many organizations have dropped the ball with this critical first step.

What are your “money” keywords? Which are your top converting keywords from organic search? If you can’t answer these questions, you may be in need of some focused keyword research.

Moving forward with SEO before doing comprehensive keyword research is like promoting a huge Mixed Martial Arts event on The Lifetime Channel- you’re wasting valuable resources on the wrong audience. Selecting the best keywords will allow you to reach the best prospects.

Keyword Mining

• Internal Mining: The first step in this process is a good old fashioned brain dump. Brainstorm every possible variation you can think of - this process is designed to help you define your organization’s internal terminology. It’s important to avoid the web during this stage, as you don’t want any outside influences to impact this internal brainstorming process. I suggest you avoid your computer entirely and just use a white board or a piece of paper to jot down all your thoughts and ideas. During this process it’s often helpful to group your keywords into logical categories to help your research be more focused as you move through the research process.

• Competitive Mining: During this next step you’ll review your top competitors’ sites to identify additional keyword variations. Using tools such as SEO Digger, Compete, or Google AdWords Keyword Tool can be very helpful in mining your competitor’s site for keyword data.

• Search Data Mining: Reviewing search engine data is the last step in the research phase. This search engine keyword data provides insight into what common keyword terms users are actually searching. Most tools provide estimated search volume estimates for each keyword, as well as keyword ontology/suggestion functions. This process is typically the most helpful in discovering gaps in your keyword research.

Some of the best research tools include: Google AdWords Keyword Tool, Microsoft adCenter Labs, Keyword Discovery, and Wordtracker, among others.

A screenshot of Google AdWords Keyword Tool

Once you’ve mined all of your potential keywords, it’s time for a critical review of your keyword list. If you haven’t already done so, you should logically group or silo your keywords by topical categories. You should also review the list for any unrelated or negative keywords which don’t apply to your business. Once you’ve finalized this list it’s time to move on to testing.

Testing & Analyzing your Keywords:

Simply put, you need to test the effectiveness of your keywords before you begin to optimize your pages.

The easiest way to test is to analyze your existing data. Your web analytics data can be a rich source of data regarding past keyword performance from both organic search and paid search. Evaluate the success of these keywords based on key performance indicators tied to true company objectives (i.e. orders, revenue, leads, etc…).  Don’t fall into the trap of measuring success by traffic alone, as this can often lead to problems.

If you don’t have data to measure past keyword performance, I highly recommend you move forward with a paid search campaign to gather the data you need. This can often be a costly project, but it is well worth the investment. The information you will gather will help you discover your money keyword terms. With this knowledge you can confidently move forward with the optimization of your site.

Optimize & Monitor:

Now that you’ve finalized your keyword list through thorough discovery and analysis, it’s time to move forward with optimization of your site. While you’re working to optimize the various pages on your site for your “money” phrases, you should also be planning a careful strategy to accurately measure the performance and these pages and keywords. Closely monitoring the performance of the pages and keywords will allow you make changes to your plan when needed and be prepared to deploy appropriate resources.  SEO is not a “set it and forget it” process.  When your performance is measured, your performance will improve.

Whether you’re in the process of developing new content, launching a new site, or even re-visiting your existing keyword strategy, remember to follow the steps I’ve outlined above before moving forward. Following these basic keyword research guidelines will save you valuable time and resources, helping you target the keywords that will drive success for your business.

Because I spend most of my time drilling down in search, I focused my takeaways on the measurement challenges as they apply to natural search and SEO.

The speakers were: Jim Sterne, chairman of the Web Analytics Association; Matt Bailey, president of SiteLogic; Avinash Kaushik, author and blogger; and Marshall Sponder, senior Web analyst for Monster.com. (Richard Zwicky, founder and CEO of Enquisite, moderated.)

Overall, the speakers felt that today’s measurement challenges include:

• Content is being created, distributed and consumed in new ways — how do we measure effectively?
• We have an overwhelming amount of data — what do we measure?
• Economic challenges are forcing more focus on profitability — how do we ensure that each campaign is pulling its highest possible ROI?

In order to meet these challenges, marketers must:

• Embrace the idea of “multiplicity.” A single tool may not be enough to measure everything. Begin with a web analytics solution, but be prepared to fill in the gaps with additional tools.
• Use advanced keyword reporting and segmentation, focusing on reports that drill down on profitability.
• Look at not only which keywords are most profitable. Ask: Which keywords are selling my most profitable products?
• Segmenting data can result in valuable insights. Remember to ask questions, then take appropriate action.

Web 2.0 is about empowering people. As they gain greater control from new tools and capabilities online, marketers must continue to discover the complete story, because only by doing so can we truly understand whether we are giving users the content, products and services they desire. By asking the right questions and using a variety of analytics solutions to find the answers, we can uncover actionable data that will lead us to increases in ROI.

According to comScore, in August 2007, over 61 billion search engine queries were conducted worldwide from over 750 million searchers.  These staggering search user trends have shown continued growth year after year.  Many studies have also concluded that the majority of searchers will choose an organic search listing over a paid listing.  This data demonstrates the huge potential that organic search offers and reinforces the fact that any organization not focused on SEO is missing out on a tremendous opportunity.

What impact can SEO have on your business?

Let’s be honest, it’s very difficult to get the budget and resources to move forward with SEO if senior management can’t see the big picture.  You must be able to clearly demonstrate the financial impact that investing in SEO will have on your business. You need to know how much money you’re currently leaving on the table by ignoring SEO.  The best way to understand this involves a two step process:

1) Turn to Your Web Analytics
2) Conduct an SEO Site Audit

Step 1: Turn to Your Web Analytics

Using web analytics will allow you to accurately measure the performance of your organic search channel and make informed decisions about what and how to optimize.

Omniture SiteCatalyst (sample data)

Use your web analytics to answer these key business questions

• What percentage of your traffic comes from organic search?
• What are your top performing organic search keywords?
• Is the majority of your keyword traffic coming from brand specific keywords?
• What is the current search traffic and revenue contribution from organic search?

By answering these simple questions you can begin to gather critical data to help prepare a reliable SEO value pitch.

Step 2: Conduct an SEO Site Audit

Conducting a simple site audit will give you insight into the SEO health of your website and help you identify any obvious performance gaps.  The audit should evaluate both on-page optimization (title tags, keyword usage, site structure, etc…) and off-page optimization efforts (link popularity, social media, etc…).  This SEO scorecard will not only assist with the development of an SEO value pitch, but it will provide a valuable blueprint for your future SEO program.

By combining the discovery data you’ve gather from your web analytics, along with SEO scorecard conclusions from the site audit, you can gain a holistic view of your existing SEO strategy and help you formulate a trusted estimate regarding the organic search growth opportunity for your site.  Listed below is a basic example of how to use the discovery data to formulate a high-level estimate to demonstrate the impact of SEO to senior management.

Example Organic Search Traffic/Revenue Estimate:

It’s essential to understand the impact organic search can have on your business.  Early adoption of SEO will have long-term benefits for your business and allow you to stay ahead of the curve and your competition.

If you can demonstrate a solid estimate of revenue impact for SEO to senior management or the HiPPO, you should be well on your way to getting the approval for budget and resources to begin investing in SEO.