Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals | Stacey Morgan Smith

Monday afternoon I left the “SEO track” and visited the Analytics room at SMXEast in New York. I spend a lot of time looking at my customers’ analytics to plan the next steps in their SEO, so I attended the the “Actionable SEO Insights from Analytics Data” session.

The session was moderated by Chris Sherman, the Executive Editor of Search Engine Land. Notes from each speaker include:

John Maxson, Manager, Natural Search Optimization, iCrossing
Challenges with using analytics include the difficulty of verifying accuracy, the data is sometimes too complicated to analyze, and one can’t drill into the data. Actions: when you find strong-performing keywords, add additional content around those keywords. For poorly performing keywords, there probably isn’t enough content or content isn’t really focused on that theme. Monitor your own site like a competitor’s site. You may not always be aware of changes to your own site.

Taylor Pratt, Senior Search Specialist, nFusion
Use site search to see what language customers are using and if they are converting for that language. For more keywords, look at paid search keywords and how they are converting. Analyze your referring domains. Don’t just look at top traffic content. Look at weekly, biweekly, or monthly TREND reporting, not numbers. Form a hypothesis and test it.

Mike Tekula, President, Unstuck Digital
Look at the metrics for longtail keywords. Per-visit value is priceless. Look at keyword data – bounce rate PLUS pages per visit. Look at users who viewed X pages to find keywords that refer most engaged users.

In this session I picked up a few new ideas for using analytics. If you aren’t using analytics in your own search engine optimization, you aren’t seeing the whole picture. Analytics will help you get a baseline measurement, help you measure performance, and help you correct your course.

– Stacey Morgan Smith