Deborah Carver & Katie Pennell: Humans Make Search Happen – Behavioral Data to Debunk SEO’s Sullied Reputation

Deborah Carver, Content Marketing Manager, and Katie Pennell, Senior Content Marketing Specialist, both with Nina Hale, Inc., drop some SEO protips.

Chapter 1: SEO’s Reputation & How Google Works

• 12 billion worldwide unique searches on Google every month
• 51% of traffic to websites comes from organic search
• Top 5 spots take majority of traffic
• Google driven by robots mimicking humans, not by humans mimicking robot behavior
• Search data is behavioral data
  • Frequent
    • People use Google multiple times per day
  • Unguided
    • No one tells you what to enter in search bar
  • Reliable
    • Massive, repeatable sample size

Top 4 Organic Ranking Factors

1. Click-Through Rate
   • % of people who choose your search result after seeing it in results page
   • Found in GWT (Google Webmaster Tools)
2. Co-Occuring, Relevant Terms
   • How people use the same words related to your topic without using the synonyms themselves
     • Your target KW: birthday cake
     • Related terms: chocolate; recipe
   • Google’s authority metric (TF-IDF) is not publicly available
3. Social Sharing
   • How many people think your content is good enough to share
   • Found in Google Analytics referral traffic and social analytics tools
4. High-Quality Backlinks
   • Good backlinks are built on quality content and relationships
     • News websites
     • Influencers in your vertical
     • Well-known brand links
   • Found in Google Analytics referral traffic and other tools (e.g., Majestic)

Chapter 2: What to Measure & How to Find Metrics

• Know your goals. Love your goals.
• Data useless without knowing what goals they map to

Tools

• Google Analytics (GA)
• Google AdWords Keyword Planner (GAKP)
• Google Webmaster Tools (GWT)

Data Balancing Act

• Keyword-Level Metrics
  • GWT
  • GAKP
• Page-Level Metrics
  • GA
  • Other tools

Content Metrics in People Terms

• How are people finding my content? 
  • Avg. monthly search volume
    • GAKP
  • Website impressions
    • GWT
  • Social trackbacks
    • GA
  • Impressions by keyword
    • GWT
  • Referral source
    • GA
• What content do people find most often? 
  • Unique visits
    • GA
  • Pageviews on top organic pages
    • GA
• Is my content valuable and engaging? 
  • CTR
    • GWT
  • Bounce rate
    • GA
  • Session duration
    • GA
  • Social shares
    • Individual social tools
• Are people interested enough to convert? 
  • Email sign-ups
    • GA
  • Lead forms
    • GA
  • Revenue per page
    • GA

Content Groups

• Tool within GA
• Any consistent naming taxonomy that lets you look at multiple aspects of content and their measurements simultaneously
• Each group has page, keyword, and core conversion KPI

Channels

• Paid
  • Paid Search
  • Paid Social
• Owned
  • Website
  • Email
• Rented
  • Social Profiles
• Earned
  • Social Shares
  • Referrals

How to Benchmark

Focus here: owned channel (your website)

• Look at data from past year
• Take seasons and fluke days into account
• Discern a reasonable average

Chapter 3: Search Metrics in the Real World

Data stories validate your content decisions.

The Case of the Lone Metric

• Problem: One single metric is out of whack
  • E.g., bounce rate is high
  • Other organic metrics are in line with or better than benchmarked expectations
• Solution: This page has an introductory purpose in the content ecosystem
  • Examine several before disregarding content with a high bounce rate, lower than average pageviews, etc.
• Moral of the story: don’t look at this one metric without context

The Case of Unexpected Interference

• Problem: organic revenue is down compared to the benchmark
  • Revenue from other channels are on par with the benchmark or better.
• Solution: Paid campaigns are influencing organic revenue
  • Look into recent changes in paid campaigns
  • Ensure you’re employing an efficient media mix

The Case of Apples and Oranges

• Problem: Two separate content groups are behaving complete differently
• Product page group has high conversion rate
• Idea page group doesn’t have high conversion rate
• Solution: Content types are producing different engagement
  • Tweak ideas page to promote more conversions
  • Link product pages back to your idea pages clearly
• Moral: each content type produces unique combinations of engagement metrics

The Case of the Star Player

• Problem: Social engagement is way up. Social referral traffic and social conversions are down.
• Solution: Aren’t enough backlinks in social posts.
  • Link to your website in social posts using keywords
• Moral: Even when rented channels are doing well, your owned channels still matter.
  • Talk to all your teams. Collaborate.

The Case of the New Kid on the Block

• Problem: Social referral traffic is way up. All other organic metrics are stable.
• Solution: Something happened in the social realm
  • Determine the source of the spike
  • Either create a profile or optimize your current profile
• Moral: Your content doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Chapter 4: How to Tell Your Own Data Story

Justify your content with numbers that matter.

1. Establish your benchmarks.
   • Start small and scale up
2. Consider all the metrics that lead to conversions
   • Set up analytics to help your data stories
   • All metrics matter as long as you put them in context
3. Consider how much time you spend on your content
   • The content comes from somewhere and that somewhere is your department
4. Graph it out with multiple metrics
   • Weaving together multiple metrics gives fuller picture of what’s happening with your content
5. Tell your data story
   • Explain your story in terms of people, not numbers.