It’s no secret that the way we find our information has changed drastically in the last decade. And given that technology today is advancing exponentially we’ve seen search engines have adapted as well. Within the last two years Google has come out with Panda and Penguin updates that have made many SEO’s reorganize their strategies.
Guest Post by Eric Wagner
Google now provides Search Plus Your World, which provides personalized search results based on your connections, history, Gmail, YouTube, locations, and your calendar associated with your Google+ account. This provides them with insights to nearly predict which results would be more relevant to you.
Of course not everyone will have a Google+ account that searches. Google has already started giving preference to localized search results based on the IP address of your computer. And with the improvements in the Knowledge Graph obscure but relevant websites could be ranking higher than ever in association with a search. With these changes the same old SEO may not benefit your website as much in getting consistent and sustainable rankings month-in-month-out.
Here are some metrics SEO’s need to pay attention to when considering Google Search+ results.
Average Ranking
Since search results will be tailored to each user with different factors you will need to compare results from multiple users. Consider doing a few different scenarios based upon your needs maybe with a control search with no location or Google+ profile. Compare these rankings and only use your highest position from each type of search then average them. You can learn more about average rankings at the Google Webmaster Blog.
Impressions
Previously impressions held little weight unless compared to Click Through Rates to develop a conversion ratio. Now that not everyone is getting the same search results via Search+ it is again important to know how many people have seen your URL. You need to know where your site appears as well which keywords. Google considers a URL with sitelinks below it as ONE impression. If you have multiple URL’s listed in the results with your home page and secondary page, then those count as two impressions.
Visitor Growth
Educate your SEO clients on these changes and to have the same long term vision as most SEO’s on building up web traffic gradually. In your Google Analytics reports you can view your visitor growth report. You client may value that you can calculate expected qualified leads from traffic (your reach). Remember to separate your new visitors and repeat because this telling you if your content is great (repeat visitors) or if you have better taglines/headlines (new visitors).
Conversions
Setting specific goals is important because honestly that’s the purpose of many websites, to make that sale and generate revenue. You can evaluate your conversions based on your ad campaign, copy, and keywords. You can use different goals based upon one-per-click based on a single action. Or many-per-click where you want to track someone’s path through a purchase.
Exact Match
Say your established business is rebranding you may want to avoid domains with vague keywords of your business in them if you can. Focus on the brand name; this is what people will search more often. Rather than that EasternChicagoShoeStore.com they would most likely remember the brand name of Footlocker.com. Though using a location keyword in your domain can help narrow down search results based on location like MontannaLumber.com. Based on the URLs you can target them specifically like (/buy-shoes) vs (/buy-shoes.html).
Regular Expressions Match
Consider regular expressions match an extension of exact match. In Google Analytics identify your regular expressions match by typing “^/buy-shoes”. This allows Google Analytics to find metrics on any page under that umbrella of URLs so it would find results for both.
In conclusion SEO in adapting in new ways and your knowledge of advanced metrics can help you leverage these new changes and tools for your URLs. Without educating yourself you could really miss out on unique opportunities to gain ground in your SEO strategies.
What SEO metrics are you tracking? Share in the comments section below…
Learn more about SEO and analytics on the Eric Wagner Marketing website.
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