Search Engine Watch

Tag: data analytics

  • Bounce and exit rate analytics: measure, assess, and audit to increase conversions

    Bounce and exit rate analytics: measure, assess, and audit to increase conversions

    Bounce and exit rate analytics measure, assess, and audit to increase conversions

    30-second summary:

    • Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page
    • This metric helps measure visit quality and relevance
    • Exit rate is a metric that identifies the number of exits from your site, and, as with entrances, it will always be equal to the number of visits when applied over your entire website
    • Use this metric in combination with particular content pages in order to determine the number of times that particular page was the last one viewed by visitors
    • Pages that fail to meet visitor expectations, don’t provide clear navigation, talk about features rather than benefits, and content that’s not actionable all increase bounce rate

    Google Analytics provides valuable intelligence into how visitors find, interact with and leave your website. This intelligence is central to improving both user experience and the profitability of your website. Google Analytics provides many useful metrics that help you do this and two of the most useful are the bounce rate and exit rate.

    The difference between a bounce and an exit can be confusing, especially if you are new to analytics. The goal of this article, then, is to demystify the two and explain why they are important. It also acts as a guide to interpreting bounce and exit data and how to lower them in order to improve the performance of your website and increase conversions.

    Making an entrance that counts

    Before you can understand and calculate bounce rate you need to know a little about entrance pages, also referred to as landing pages and entry pages. Google defines an entrance page as:

    Entrances

    This metric identifies the number of entrances to your site. It will always be equal to the number of visits when applied over your entire website. Thus, this metric is most useful when combined with particular content pages, at which point, it will indicate the number of times a particular page served as an entrance to your site.

    In short, an entrance page is the first page a visitor lands on when visiting a website. Entrances are, as we will see, a key factor in calculating bounce rate.

    How to view your entrances?

    In Google Analytics, you can easily view your entrances by following these simple steps:

    1. Go to “Behavior,” under “Reports”
    2. Click on “Site Content”
      site content
    3. Click on “All Pages”
      all pages
    4. View your “Entrances”
      view entrances - step 4 to understanding bounce rate

    Entrances are particularly helpful since they can show you which pages are bringing the most visits to your site. They can also tell you the opposite and help you identify the weakest pages with lower bounce rates.

    Well, what is a bounce?

    A bounce is a single-page visit. A bounce occurs when a visitor enters and exits a website viewing no other pages other than the entrance page.

    And, what is bounce rate?

    If, for example, 100 visitors enter your site via Page “A” and 20 of them leave without clicking through to any other page, page “A” would have a bounce rate of 20 percent.

    what is a bounce rate - site wide averages

    The above figure shows site-wide averages.

    Some of the reports Google Analytics generates will give site-wide averages. The screen grab above has been taken from the ‘Top Content’ report which can be found by clicking the Content tab in your Google Analytics dashboard.

    The first thing you might notice is that when you add the average bounce rate and the average exit rate together the result is greater than 100 percent. If bounce rate and exit rate are measures of how many people leave your site, how can the total be greater than 100 percent. The answer is that it can’t.

    You might be fooled into thinking that bounce rate is calculated as a percentage of Pageviews. This is a logical thought since it is figured in the report. However, when added together, bounces and exits would again be greater than the total Pageviews.

    Bounce rate is not based on the number of visitors or the number of page views it’s based on entrances.

    Why do people bounce?

    People bounce because of many reasons the key to reducing your bounce rates lies in identifying and addressing the most common ones:

    1. When pages don’t meet expectations

    Let’s say, for example, that you are looking for a new air fryer. So you Google “buy air fryers free shipping”. You see an ad that says “air fryers With Free Shipping”. So you click on it. But when you click on the ad, instead of a landing page about different air fryers, you’re on the site’s homepage. What are you going to do? Bounce back to Google and make a new research to find a page that is 100% about air fryers.

    2. When design is ugly

    Having an ugly design can also lead users to bounce back. People largely judge websites first, based on design, and second on the content.

    3. When the page gives users what they’re looking for

    Yes. Not all bounces are “bad”. A bounce can be, in fact, a sign that your page gave users exactly what they were looking for.

    For example, I have been looking personally over the last few days for a low-carb chicken soup recipe and I landed on this recipe page. This landing page had everything I needed to make the recipe: ingredients, detailed instructions, and pictures. So, as soon as I got my soup to simmer over medium-low heat, I closed the page.

    Despite the fact that this single-page session is “technically” a bounce, it is not because that website suffered a bad UX or an ugly design. It’s just because I got what I needed.

    Identifying pages with high bounce rates

    Notice the figure below that shows sitewide entrances and bounces.

    identifying pages with high bounce rates

    To get at the real numbers that contribute to bounce rate you need to dig a little deeper. The screen grab above has been taken from the ‘Top Landing Pages’ report which can also be found by clicking the Content tab in your Google Analytics dashboard.

    As you work your way down the report you can also view bounce rates for individual pages.

    Viewing bounce rates for individual pages

    The above figure shows the bounce rate at a page level.

    The ‘Top Landing Pages’ report helps identify pages with high bounce rates that might require further investigation.

    You can clearly see from Figure three how the bounce rate is calculated for a single page: (283 bounces / 303 entrances) * 100 = 93.39939939934% which analytics has rounded up to 93.40%. As interesting as this is, it tells us nothing about what is driving the bounce rate and what steps to take if any are required to lower it.

    Bounce rate through poor user experience

    Pages that fail to meet visitor expectations, don’t provide clear navigation, talk about features rather than benefits, and show content that is not actionable – all increase bounce rate. Not all visitors on your site are using desktop machines with ultra-fast connections and will abandon your site if a page takes too long to download. If you have been over-zealously linking to your site, links from pages that are not closely related can also increase the bounce rate. These are all things you can test for and fix to a degree.

    Missing timestamps and the pages time forgot

    Google Analytics reports the time visitors spend on pages by comparing timestamps. When a visitor lands on a page a timestamp is created which records the precise time they arrived.
    If a visitor arrives at page “A” at 13.45 and clicks through and lands on page “B” at 13.47 two timestamps will be created. By subtracting the time the visitor lands on page “A” from the time they land on page “B” you arrive at the time spent on page “A”:

    13.47 – 13.45 = 2 minutes spent on page “A”.

    If at 13.50 the visitor leaves your site completely no timestamp is created and there is no way to tell how long the visitor spent on page “B”.

    Why was no timestamp created? If the page was outside the scope of your analytics account, on another domain for example, the timestamp can’t be accessed by your analytics account. Therefore, the time spent on that page can’t be determined for that page view.

    Similarly, the time spent on a page by visitor who enters a site and bounces without visiting any other page cannot be measured either.

    Cookies, sessions, and timeouts

    Google Analytics uses cookies to track the activity of visitors to your pages and report those activities back to their server. Cookies enable Google to distinguish the activities of each visitor individually and track sequential page visits made by the same user during their time (session) on your website. This information is then reported back to you when you log into your Google Analytics account.

    Every bounce or exit is the result of a session timeout. In Google Analytics, a session will timeout after 30 minutes of browser inactivity. If a visitor navigates to another website, the session will still continue for a maximum of 30 minutes before registering a bounce or exit. As long as the visitor returns before the session times out and clicks through to another page of your website, it will not be considered as either a bounce or an exit.

    • Each and every visit to your site culminates in a session timeout
    • A session that times out after a single page view is classed as a bounce
    • A session that times out after multiple page views are classed as an exit

    Have a look at the tabs open in your browser right now – how many have been open for more than 29 minutes without any activity? Despite the page still staying open in your browser, some of the sessions associated with individual pages might have already timed out causing an exit or a bounce. Also closing your browser, disconnecting from the internet, or hitting the back button will all cause a session to time out which will likely be recorded as a bounce or an exit in someone’s Analytics.

    Jacob McMillen is a copywriter, marketing blogger, and inbound marketing consultant.

    Subscribe to the Search Engine Watch newsletter for insights on SEO, the search landscape, search marketing, digital marketing, leadership, podcasts, and more.

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  • Google Data Studio reporting: Nine features your clients will dig

    Google Data Studio reporting: Nine features your clients will dig

    Google Data Studio reporting Nine features your clients will dig

    30-second summary:

    • Clients and senior management want insights and not data
    • As SEOs and digital marketers we spend hours swimming in data but how do you get smart about your reporting?
    • Alex Medawar helps you use Google Data Studio features to transform boring and confusing data into meaningful, presentable, and interactive reports your clients will love

    Google Data Studio is a powerful and versatile reporting tool that can be used to create insightful and visually appealing reports for your clients.

    The “old school” way of reporting and sharing analytics with clients typically entails the long and tedious process of manually downloading analytics and search data, then filtering and formatting the data in a spreadsheet, creating visuals from scratch, and typing out insights.

    A few hours later, you have a bunch of data that you then have to make presentable and easy-to-understand for clients.

    With Google Data Studio, you can easily create reports that are visually appealing and easy to understand.

    You can even match all your colors and fonts to give your reports a more polished look.

    Google Data Studio reports and dashboard

    It’s easy to see, whether you’re an agency or freelancer, that the old way of reporting is not only time-consuming, but it’s also prone to extra confusion and questions from clients.

    So much so, that you may even limit reporting altogether to top clients or retainers above a certain threshold.

    Google Data Studio offers a much easier and faster way to create and even automate reports.

    With Google Data Studio, you have a free and versatile dashboard to transform boring and confusing data into meaningful, presentable, and interactive reports your clients will love.

    With Google Data Studio, you can easily create reports that are visually appealing and easy to understand. You can even match all your colors and fonts to give your reports a more polished look.

    This way, you can spend more time on strategy and analysis, and less time on data crunching.

    1. Report on almost anything

    First and foremost, google data studio allows you to connect to a variety of data sources, including google sheets, google analytics, and google ads.

    Focusing on google analytics data, Google Data Studio gives you the ability to report on almost anything you can think of from your client’s website.

    This includes website traffic, conversions, ecommerce transactions, and even custom events.

    The possibilities are endless!

    Featured Google and partner connectors

    • Google Ads
    • Google Analytics
    • Google Search Console
    • Youtube Analytics
    • Facebook Ads
    • Google Trends
    • TikTok
    • SEMRush
    • Mailchimp
    • DCM (Campaign Manager 360)
    • SA360
    • DV 360 (Display and Video)
    • And 600+ more

    2) Add custom graphs and charts that impress

    Another great feature of google data studio is the ability to create custom graphs and charts.

    This can be extremely helpful in conveying complex information in an easy-to-understand visual format.

    Your clients are sure to appreciate being able to see the data that they care about most presented in a visually appealing way.

    Create interactive and filterable reports

    Another great feature of google data studio is the ability to create interactive and filterable reports.

    This means that your clients can easily filter the data that they want to see and interact with the reports in a way that makes sense for them.

    This is a huge step up from traditional reporting!

    3) Seamlessly share and control access

    Gone are the days of having to send large and unwieldy Excel files back and forth between you and your clients.

    With google data studio, you can easily share reports with your clients in just a few clicks. You can also limit what data your clients have access to, so that they only see the information that is relevant to them.

    Google data studio offers a variety of ways to share reports with your clients.

    Reports can be easily exported as PDFs, images, or they can be shared directly through google drive. This makes it easy for your clients to access their reports from anywhere, at any time.

    Seamless access and conrtol to website data

    With just a few clicks, you can share your reports with anyone, privately, or through a link, without having to worry about large file sizes or compatibility issues.

    Need to give someone edit access? No problem.

    Google Data Studio makes it easy to add and remove users from your reports.

    Extracting user reports in Google Data Studio

    Don’t sweat the price – it’s free!

    One of the best things about google data studio is that it’s free to use!

    Your clients won’t be billed to access their reports, no matter how often they view or download them.

    This makes google data studio an extremely cost-effective solution for report creation and sharing.

    4. Utilize done-for-you templates

    Google data studio offers a variety of templates that you can use to create your reports.

    These templates are great for getting started, or for creating reports in a hurry.

    All you need to do is select the template that you want to use and then customize it to match your needs. It’s really that simple.

    There are currently over 100 templates available, with more being added all the time.

    Whether you’re looking for a simple report template or something more complex, google data studio has you covered.

    Templates include:

    5. Add custom branding for you (and your clients)

    One of the best things about google data studio is that you can easily add your own branding to your reports.

    This is a great way to make your reports stand out and to show your clients that you’re serious about your business.

    With google data studio, you can easily add your own logo, color scheme, and even custom fonts. This makes it easy to create reports that are truly unique and that reflect your brand.

    Easy to brand and customize for your clients - Google Data Studio

    6. Answer questions ahead of time with built-in insights

    It’s not always possible to be available to answer your clients’ questions 24/hours a day. But with google data studio, you can be!

    Google Data Studio offers the ability to add built-in insights to your reports.

    Worried about your clients not understanding something?

    With google data studio, you can add text or video annotations to your reports. This is a great way to explain complex concepts, or to provide additional information that might be helpful to your clients.

    7. Make your reports stand out with powerful cross-channel comparisons

    Get the whole picture with a 360-degree view!

    Google data studio gives you the ability to see all of your data in one place.

    This is a great way to get a complete picture of your business, and to identify any potential areas of improvement.

    Easily connect to multiple sources of data, including google ads, google analytics, google search console, facebook, and more.

    You can then use this data to create reports that show how your business is performing across all channels.

    This is a great way to identify any areas of improvement, and to make sure that your clients are getting the most out of their data.

    8. Save time by automating your reporting process

    Emails, texts, and social media posts can be a great way to keep your clients up-to-date on your business. But what if there was an easier way?

    You can easily automate and schedule reports.

    This is a great way to make sure that your clients always have the most up-to-date stats.

    Embed on your website

    Google data studio makes it easy to create reports that can be embedded on your website.

    There are a number of reasons why embedding a google data studio report on your website can be beneficial for your clients.

    First, it can help to increase transparency and trust.

    By displaying reports on your website, you’re giving your clients easy access to all of the data they need in one place under your brand name.

    Second, assuming your client is sharing your report with relevant stakeholders, they will be sharing your website link instead of a Google link.

    This can in turn, improve traffic to your website and increase the likelihood that they will return.

    9. Get important feedback from your clients

    Additionally, by embedding a Google form survey url at the end of your google data studio report, you can gather important feedback from your clients.

    This can help you to identify any areas of improvement and ensure that you’re providing the best possible service to your clients.

    Embedding reports and forms on your site

    Final thoughts

    This is a powerful reporting tool that can be used to create stunning reports for your clients.

    By taking advantage of the features and tips listed above, you can create reports that are truly unique and that will impress your clients.

    Alex Medawar is Senior Media Manager at Performics and creator of Alex Medawar.com. As a seasoned digital media expert, Alex Medawar focuses on B2B paid search campaign management and strategy for global brands in the tech space. Utilizing a data-driven approach, Alex believes that both small businesses and large enterprises alike can speak to their audience and drive results within the digital media landscape.

    Subscribe to the Search Engine Watch newsletter for insights on SEO, the search landscape, search marketing, digital marketing, leadership, podcasts, and more.

    Join the conversation with us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

  • Six data-driven SEO strategies that optimize conversion rates

    Six data-driven SEO strategies that optimize conversion rates

    Six data-driven SEO strategies that optimize conversion rates

    30-second summary:

    • Since Google now focuses heavily on user experience, using data as a pillar to uncover consumer insights will drive your digital marketing success
    • However, marketing teams still need to understand these sources and their areas of impact on the consumer’s experience
    • Atul Jindal helps you cover the ground with his advice and case studies

    Studies have shown that businesses using data-driven strategies experience five to eight times higher ROI. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a process that largely depends on data. The core focus for most CRO strategies is to use consumer data to make their customer journey smoother and experience better.

    With search engines also increasing emphasis on user experience, we find a point where SEO strategies start to complement CRO strategies.

    But your SEO tactics can truly augment your CRO efforts when driven by data.

    In this article, I share six data-driven SEO services strategies to supplement your CRO efforts.

    From content audit to website personalization, read till the end to find out how you can boost your search engine rankings and conversions altogether!

    Data-driven SEO strategies to supplement CRO

    Data-driven strategies are online marketing tactics fueled by consumer data. Unlike traditional marketing strategies, data-driven strategies are based on data-backed hypotheses rather than assumptions.

    This reliance on solid data makes such strategies the star of the modern marketing world.

    Here are six data-driven SEO strategies to make your CRO efforts more promising:

    1. Website analysis and optimization

    Website analysis is a process through which you test various elements of your website. It analyzes the overall performance of your website and highlights areas of improvement.

    The elements that web analysis takes into account include the website’s on-page optimization and technical SEO, finding out about the keywords it ranks for, and what rank it has for different keywords.

    Using various web analytics tools, this process also uncovers sources where your website gets traffic from, highlights the flaws in your website’s usability and UX, and provides the basis for the website’s load speed optimization.

    Through all of these elements, it helps in enhancing your website’s overall user experience and contributes towards conversion rate optimization.

    Additionally, it also provides your web traffic’s demographic and interest data, enabling you to optimize the website for a more relevant user experience.

    Google Analytics is the most comprehensive and reliable tool to support your website analysis and optimization efforts. It integrates with your website and tracks all the data you need to optimize your website for an enhanced user experience.

    A leading marketing automation software company experienced 10x higher conversion rates when they integrated their native real-time personalization tool with Google Analytics to use the personalization data. This was paired with the Google Analytics information to serve personalized remarketing ads through Google AdWords.

    Not only did they experience higher conversion rates, but with the effective use of web analytics data, like demographic and behavior information, they also experienced a 107 percent YoY increase in qualified leads.

    2. Content analysis and optimization

    Content analysis is similar to website analysis, but instead of testing your website’s technical elements, it analyzes your website’s content and overall content strategy to uncover areas of improvement.

    Conversion rates are almost six times higher for businesses that invest in content marketing. But results like this manifest only when your website brims with optimized content.

    The purpose of your content is to compel users to take the desired action, or in other words, convert.

    Content analysis finds out how well it serves this purpose.

    You can uncover various metrics with content analysis, like which content type is the most popular among your audience, which content is bringing you closer to your marketing objectives, and which needs more work.

    For example, a marketing optimization software company may have blogs and case studies in its content strategy. Their web analytics may reveal that case studies drive more conversions while blogs get the most social shares.

    With its content marketing objective being increased conversions, content analysis will help them focus more on publishing more case studies.

    An effective content analysis will also uncover whether or not your content matches the search intent of your target search queries. And therefore, whether or not you need to find new SEO keywords and re-optimize. If your content doesn’t match the search intent perfectly, even if it gets traffic, those users will not convert.

    So, in essence, content analysis will help increase conversions by helping you create content that is proven to drive results. It will also help save time and resources from being spent on less-profitable strategies.

    Here’s a case study discussing how changing content on your website can reflect a spike in revenue.

    Brookdaleliving.com, a website offering community living solutions for the elderly, had a disappointing website conversion rate. But then, their website had nothing that would drive conversions.

    The digital marketing experts they hired revamped their website and tested two different content types on their landing page – an image and a testimonial video – to see which one performs better.

    Ironically, the web page with an image drove 3.92 percent higher conversions than the original page. This may seem like a small increment, but it resulted in additional revenue of $106,000.

    3. Website design optimization

    Tests like usability testing and A/B testing provide the data that drives website design optimization to improve a website’s design and enhance its user experience.

    The purpose of CRO is to make the user journey smoother and experience better.

    Website design optimization supports CRO by removing frictions in the buyer’s journey and making it easier for them to accomplish their goals.

    But there are a couple of best practices the website design must adhere to to ensure that it really contributes to your CRO efforts.

    1. The design should be simple and somewhat similar to what the users are accustomed to
    2. The navigation bar should be designed intuitively, with the user’s search intent in mind, so they can quickly find what they came looking for
    3. The content arrangement should follow proven design techniques that enhance content readability and value delivery

    For your web design to truly serve your business, you will have to continue to test various combinations of website elements, their placements, and designs.

    Regardless of how you go about your web design, making the target audience’s journey easier should be at the heart of all your efforts.

    Trucker Reports, a trucker’s community that helps truck drivers find jobs, struggled with low conversions.

    The CRO experts they hired performed a web design audit and discovered multiple opportunities. Based on these opportunities, they tested different hypotheses.

    They tested three different designs against the original ones in their final test and found out that the final design had 79.3 percent higher conversions.

    Do you know why?

    Because this last design had the least friction and made it easier for the users to convert.

    4. Audience analysis

    Audience analysis, commonly known as audience research, is the process through which you dig up information about your prospects so you can develop targeted marketing campaigns.

    Since user experience is a massive part of SEO and CRO alike, audience analysis holds an important place as a data-driven SEO strategy for conversion rate optimization.

    This process uncovers a wide variety of data, from core demographic information like age, gender, marital status, income, education, etc., to online behavior, internal and external challenges, and more.

    Audience analysis helps develop a buyer persona, which then becomes the foundation of a highly-targeted marketing campaign.

    Audience analysis is a core element of a successful CRO campaign because it makes your website relevant to the users. You find out about their pain points and struggles and are better equipped to address them through your content.

    This shows that you care about your customers and inevitably builds trust between your brand and its prospects. Given that the modern customer prioritizes their connection with the brand when making purchase decisions, this bond of trust and reliability results in higher conversions.

    Data-backed audience analysis also allows you to segment your audience based on their demographic information and interest. With this level of segmentation, you spend your efforts and resources on people you know matter to your business.

    This is why studies indicate a 56 percent reduction in marketing costs for businesses that use audience analysis as a basis for all their marketing efforts.

    5. Testing and optimization

    Testing is the life of conversion rate optimization. You put samples of your content and design arrangements to test to see which one performs better and optimize using the results of these tests.

    These tests are all data-driven, that is, they are based on hypotheses generated from existing data and provide insights into how valid the hypothesis is.

    For example, data may show a higher conversion rate on websites with explainer videos. This forms the hypothesis of your test. So, you develop two different landing pages, one with a video and another with an image, to see which performs better. If the videos result in higher conversions, you know what to continue optimizing with!

    You can perform different kinds of tests when optimizing websites for conversions. Two of the popular ones include usability testing and A/B or split testing.

    Search engines also recommend A/B and multivariate testing for SEO as it improves user experience, which search engines pursue in the websites they index.  

    NatureAir performed A/B testing on their landing page to increase conversions. One of the samples had a CTA on the side, while the other had a CTA prominently placed in the content area.

    Once the test results were in, they found that placing CTA in the content area increases conversions by 591 percent!

    That’s how potent A/B tests can be!

    6. Website personalization

    According to Google, 90 percent of marketers believe personalization results in business profitability. And why shouldn’t it? In an era with so many similar websites, a web page that offers a customized experience deserves to make better revenue.

    Website personalization is a relatively complex process through which you can serve a unique experience to each visitor. These experiences are designed based on consumer data, including their demographic data, interests, search history, and online behavior.

    75 percent of consumers prefer that online sellers use personal information to enhance shopping experiences.

    People want you to make shopping easier for them, adding a personalized product recommendation on your website will help improve your user experience and could boost sales. They don’t want to go out and search for what they want. They want you to know what they need and bring it to them. And that’s what website personalization empowers you to do.

    It improves overall website experience, lowers bounce rates, boosts SEO, and of course, increases conversions.

    Serving dynamic content makes the customer’s experience more intuitive and relevant. It lets you put out the content that interests them the most, and hence, contributes to better revenue.

    Conclusion

    The goal of an SEO and a CRO campaign have become somewhat similar ever since search engines have started giving value to user experience.

    There are many SEO strategies focused on improving UX. And these strategies, when backed by data, can lead to increased conversion rates.

    Therefore, I have discussed some of the most promising data-driven SEO strategies that can drive conversions in this article.

    But the true results of a strategy depend on how well you implement it. So, ramp up your data analysis game, derive insights, implement them, and optimize your strategies for better results.

    Atul Jindal is a web design and marketing specialist, having interests in doing websites/apps optimized for SEO with a core focus on conversion optimization. He creates web experiences that bring conversations and transform web traffic into paying customers or leads.

    Subscribe to the Search Engine Watch newsletter for insights on SEO, the search landscape, search marketing, digital marketing, leadership, podcasts, and more.

    Join the conversation with us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

  • The importance of accurate keyword difficulty scores

    The importance of accurate keyword difficulty scores

    30-second summary:

    • Keyword difficulty (KD) scores help digital marketers understand potential search engine performance
    • KD scores are useful in building SEO strategies, filtering out ineffective keywords
    • Low competition keywords give an advantage in attracting traffic
    • Some KD calculating tools may be inaccurate due to the use of limited parameters
    • Semrush has developed a new formula for KD score calculations that it says has improved accuracy

    With countless companies competing for the same audience, digital marketers need to develop a highly effective and targeted content strategy to find a way through the crowded market and connect with potential customers. Keyword difficulty (KD) is an essential metric to assist marketers in formulating an effective SEO strategy for reaching the top of search engine results pages (SERP).

    Focusing on a keyword with a low KD score can achieve faster results with traffic from search engines as there is less competition. Whereas keywords with a higher KD score will typically have far more competition in search results, making it much harder to appear near the top of SERPs in the short term. Long-term improvements are achievable but will take time and require multiple SEO measures to be implemented.

    KD calculation tools can determine how effective a keyword may be in search results. However, a lot can depend on the SEO tools that digital marketers are using. Such tools are not always accurate due to the limited parameters that can vary from developer to developer. The result is that the KD calculation may be inaccurate and even lead a digital marketer to believe that their keywords will perform better in practice than in reality.

    Content created in partnership with Semrush.

    Semrush, an online visibility management platform provider, has developed what it says is a proven formula to achieve an accurate KD percentage score based on in-depth research into SEO patterns and client feedback.

    How Semrush’s Keyword Difficulty platform works

    This year, Semrush released an updated version of its KD metric. The new formula was the result of extensive lab testing by the company’s team of data scientists and engineers. They studied patterns of SERP activity for approximately 120,000 keywords, covering more than 100 parameters and varying contexts to determine an accurate KD value. Alongside this, the teams analyzed the data to determine the difficulty that keywords would face in using SEO to appear on the first page of search results.

    The three steps to decode your SERP standing and opportunities

    Semrush’s platform has three steps to calculate the formula.

    1. SERP analysis

    The first involves SERP analysis, where the median value is identified for three metrics throughout URLs on the first page of search results. The three median values are:

    • The number of referring domains pointing to the ranking URLs
    • The authority score of the ranking domains
    • The ratio of follow/no-follow links to the ranking URLs

    2. Keyword parameter analysis

    The second step is an analysis of keyword parameters. This considers the above SERP factors, alongside a closer inspection of individual keywords. All factors are weighted differently in Semrush’s formula regarding the likelihood of influencing the first-page ranking.

    The parameter weighted the highest by some way is the median number of referring domains for ranking URLs, totaling 41.22 percent. While the second-largest weighted share is the median authority score for ranking domains at 16.99 percent. Search volume is third with 9.47 percent, and the median follow/no-follow ratio for ranking URLs is a fraction lower in the fourth position at 9.17 percent.

    Other parameters include featured snippets, branded keywords, and site links, with the weighted share becoming progressively smaller. Factors that can harm the KD score are keywords with a high word count and no SERP features.

    3. The calculations

    The third step is the calculation itself. The formula also adapts for each country, taking a nation’s population size and the number of websites into account when calculating the KD score based on Semrush’s regional database.

    What KD scores mean for your SEO performance

    On Semrush’s KD platform, the user can enter up to 100 keywords at a time to check the KD score. Crucially, the platform can help the user find valuable low-competition keywords. KD scores can also be calculated for both long-tail and local keywords. In addition, the tool allows the user to compare their SEO strategy with competitors to see what is performing well and identify any keyword gaps.

    The results provide the user with the KD rating and advice on what they need to do next to gain hits. At the lower end of the scale, scores of 0-14 percent are classed “very easy” with the strongest likelihood of new pages appearing near the top of Google rankings without the need for backlinks.

    The next step up is 15-29 percent, which is considered “easy”. While there may be some competition, it remains possible to achieve a high ranking for new web pages. However, this will require quality content based on the keywords.

    Things get progressively harder as the KD scores get higher. A score of 85-100 percent, for example, is classified “very hard”, where keywords face the strongest competition and the odds are stacked against new websites breaking through. A ranking is still possible through features such as on-page SEO, link building, and campaigns to promote content. In this instance, pay-per-click advertising may prove more beneficial.

    To find out more about Semrush and its Keyword Difficulty platform download its recent whitepaper.

  • Using SEO data analytics to identify business gaps

    Using SEO data analytics to identify business gaps

    30-second summary:

    • Are your leads slipping through the cracks in these business gaps?
    • SEOs have a great vantage point in the form of data that actively helps identify business opportunities and gaps
    • SEO pioneer, serial entrepreneur, and best selling author, Kris Jones identifies three critical aspects that can be fixed to create the foundation of a successful SEO strategy in 2021

    One of the strangest things to try to explain to someone who isn’t so familiar with digital marketing is how business owners can start targeting business opportunities that aren’t currently on their radars. After all–if we consider the problem semi-philosophically–how can we know what we don’t know? Relying on human logic alone would make that task quite difficult.

    Thankfully, as SEOs, we have plenty of tools available that can help us identify business opportunities and gaps. That means keywords we aren’t targeting, audiences we aren’t going after, backlinks we aren’t getting, and content topics we aren’t covering on our websites. In other words, these are the foundations of a successful SEO strategy in 2021, and you could be missing out on leveraging them for yourself. Here are three pointers for using SEO analytics to identify your business gaps, in the area of keywords, content, and backlinks.

    Find your keyword gaps

    Digital marketers know the fluctuation in the importance of keywords since the late 1990s. But no matter how much that has changed, you still need to be ranking for the right keywords, or else you won’t be showing up for anything.

    But have you ever done a few searches for keywords you want to rank for and not even been able to find your website in the SERPs? Doesn’t it frustrate you to see your competitors on page one?

    You can be as good as they are. The way to do it is to run a keyword gap analysis in a tool such as Semrush or Google Search Console (GSC).

    Semrush is better and more user-friendly for this, but if you don’t have access to that, let me cover GSC first.

    You first have to link your Google Analytics and GSC together. After that, go to Analytics and navigate to Acquisition>Search Console>Queries.

    SEO data analytics and identifying missed keyword targeting opportunities

    You’ll see the search terms people have used to get to you, as well as those queries’ clicks, impressions, and click-through rates (CTRs).

    Export that data into an Excel or Google Sheets spreadsheet, and then compare the number of actual site visits that those keywords got you to the number of impressions you got for those keywords. The percentage of difference between them will give you a measurable idea of where you need to improve.

    However, I prefer Semrush’s Keyword Gap tool for this. You simply input your URL and those of a few competitors, and it compares your keyword numbers against your competitors. The tool shows you a keyword overlap diagram as well as your top opportunities for getting new rankings.

    Find your content gaps

    You likely know that no serious SEO today writes content for keywords alone. Keywords have their place as subject identifiers for Google, but we need to focus content around actual topics. We need our content to address questions people are asking.

    And maybe your top competitors are doing that much better than you are.

    As a result, they rank well for this or that query, and you don’t. So, how do we use SEO data to find content gaps?

    Well, we are going to build on the previous point and use our competitors’ keywords to find this out. I mentioned earlier that we write content for topics over keywords, but keywords are still how the public finds your content.

    In Semrush or your spreadsheet from before, you can filter your keyword gap analysis to show the keywords you’re ranking for in positions 11 through 100 or any number you like. If your competitors are doing well for this or that term, while you are languishing in position 18 or 22, then it’s time to take a look at the content you’ve built around those terms.

    What’s wrong with it from user experience and SEO perspectives? Is the information outdated? Is the content thin? Does it not address a certain issue within the buyer’s journey?

    For instance, are you writing blog posts about making an appointment with a doctor when you haven’t even covered why you might need to see a doctor? Not everyone who’s browsing a medical center’s website is ready to take action.

    Analyzing your content this way (as well as the content of your competitors, by mining the SERPs, for instance) tends to be more of a manual approach, but the keyword gap analysis you did should really come in handy.

    You can also use what you’ve learned from that data to generate new ideas for content marketing if you need to. Tools such as BuzzSumo, Answer the Public, and Semrush’s Topic Research tool aggregate user analytics to show you the currently trending topics around certain keywords.

    Find your backlink gaps

    When we’re discussing using SEO data to identify your business gaps, then the icing on the cake is a good, thorough backlink gap.

    Where keywords get you found and content earns customer trust, backlinks flex your site’s authority for Google. A backlink is a vote of confidence. It’s the equivalent of someone standing up in a crowd and saying, “Yes, I believe in what you’re doing.”

    The way to a strong backlink profile is through your content marketing, reaching out to influencers to see if they would like to link to your useful and authoritative content.

    But then, your competitors are doing the same thing, and possibly to much greater effect.

    Here again, we can use SEO analytics to find where you’re falling behind.

    You can certainly use everything already mentioned here to analyze your competitors’ content, but in the end, you’ll likely need a paid tool to perform a full-fledged backlink gap analysis.

    You can use Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz’s Link Explorer, or something else. You can check out how each works with a free trial, but to stay on top of your backlink gaps, you would need a paid subscription.

    From your research, input your site and a few of your competitors’ sites. Whichever tool you use, you will need to view the total number of backlinks and referring domains.

    Now, note that it is quite common to have more backlinks than domains. That just means that some domains are linking to you more than once. That doesn’t sound so bad, but if you want a large and varied backlink profile, you will want to ramp up the number of domains that link to you.

    SEO data analytics and identifying backlinking opportunities

    At this point, though, it’s all about sifting through the data to see where you’re missing the mark. Check out your top competitors’ backlinks. What kind of content gets the most links? Is it long-form blog posts? White papers? Or is it some other content format that’s winning those links?

    Find out what your competitors are doing well, and then create better content! If these domains linked to that type of content for someone else, they can certainly do it for you.

    Similarly, if you’ve filtered to see your top pages for backlinks and notice you’ve gotten a ton to a certain type of post, then make more of those in the future!

    In conclusion

    In the end, whether it’s keywords, content, or backlinks, the best overall presentation wins in SEO. You have to be useful and authoritative to human users and Google.

    As SEOs, we’re used to sorting through data. The everyday business owner might not be, though. In that case, I hope readers have learned a lot from this about how analytics data is your friend when you’re looking to identify gaps in your business’s SEO strategies.

    When you start to get this right, you’re going to share in those wins, too.

    Kris Jones is the founder and former CEO of digital marketing and affiliate network Pepperjam, which he sold to eBay Enterprises in 2009. Most recently Kris founded SEO services and software company LSEO.com and has previously invested in numerous successful technology companies. Kris is an experienced public speaker and is the author of one of the best-selling SEO books of all time called, ‘Search-Engine Optimization – Your Visual Blueprint to Effective Internet Marketing’, which has sold nearly 100,000 copies.

  • Is it time to switch to a new SEO tool?

    Is it time to switch to a new SEO tool?

    30-second summary:

    • The needs of an SEO agency are dynamic and change as the business grows
    • From data accuracy to seamless functionality, the spectrum of SEO tools and their features is wide, but how do you decide?
    • Five telltale signs that it might be time to start prospecting for new SEO software to complete your technology stack

    The SEO industry is constantly changing and evolving. Your SEO agency’s needs also change as your business grows. The tools you use will shape how you direct your growth. So it’s important to stay up-to-date on what’s new in the space to decide whether adopting a new SEO tool would benefit your business.

    Yet, it’s always a question of prioritizing what’s critical for your business requirements.

    There are many factors at play here:

    • Some SEO platforms solve problems that you maybe didn’t even know existed – to identify these, you need to stay abreast of new advancements in the industry
    • Some solve a particular problem, which you’re already aware of – in these cases, it’s just about identifying which tool is the best fit for your agency’s needs
    • Some offer a seamless experience that helps you optimize your SEO workflows
    • Some offer competitive advantages in terms of features or pricing

    In our interviews with top SEO agencies from around the globe, we’ve gathered various insights into the factors that most influence the decision to test, and even switch, to a new core SEO tool.

    Here are some of the telltale signs that it might be time to start prospecting for new SEO software in your tool stack.

    Content created in partnership with SEOmonitor.

    1. Your current tool isn’t giving you the right data or functionalities

    Accuracy and functionality are the biggest pain points SEO professionals have with their tools.

    Does your current solution give you enough data? Does it provide the right data? If not, you may not be able to deliver on your SEO goals.

    Have you ever come across either of these problems?

    Unreliable or incomplete data

    Some SEO platforms simply provide more data features than others, while others charge extra to view specific metrics, like:

    • Google’s “(not provided)” data
    • Brand/non-brand organic traffic segmentation
    • Mobile vs. desktop traffic

    Having this data is invaluable for SEO professionals. But having to pay for it granularly can be a hugely limiting factor, particularly for smaller agencies.

    For example, mapping the traffic data from Google Analytics and matching it with the keyword data from Google Search Console to get what’s “(not provided)” means you can show clients the direct impact which SEO has on other business goals – like how increasing ranking for a keyword affects conversions.

    SEO tools and keyword rankings

    SEO platforms that provide this type of data as standard can give you an advantage when it comes to acquiring and retaining clients by highlighting the connection between SEO and business results.

    Or it can be an issue of unreliable metrics – misleading or opaque calculations, issues that pertain to technical changes and not your SEO performance, and so on.

    Think about the visibility metric. If it’s calculated as an average of positions for a set of keywords, then changes based on adding or deleting keywords on that list will be misleading, leaving you to figure out why the score fluctuates.

    Paul Wood, Director of Indulge Media, points out that innovation in how an SEO tool calculates a key metric is a deciding factor. Even more so if it’s something the agency used to do with spreadsheets and many hours spent before finding out about such an efficient metric.

    “The more interesting scenario is when you suddenly become aware of a tool that’s out there that does something your team didn’t even consider,” Wood said. “When you see it in a tool, that’s a moment when you change the way you’re thinking about things, about how you structure your work. And then you start to work differently.”

    SEOmonitor

    This is how the right SEO tools should work – solving agency pain points, even the ones you might not have thought were possible to resolve.

    Functionality issues

    Speed is a huge factor in the SEO industry.

    Search professionals need access to accurate, up-to-date data in the moment to implement campaigns and track performance.

    Because when your software malfunctions, you need to get the problem solved fast.

    This is why it’s essential to consider the quality of support provided when selecting an SEO tool.

    Ideally, you should get access to a dedicated account manager who you can approach for quick resolution of issues on an as-needed basis, as well as regular support calls to review your agency’s needs.

    When Paul Friend, Head of SEO, and Ben Foster, Managing Director, from SEO Works decided it’s time to choose a different core SEO tool, they scored ongoing and ad-hoc support as one of the “hundreds of different relevant aspects when selecting the right tool.”

    As part of their decisional matrix, this was one point that needed to match key functionalities like keyword features including universal rankings, overall market visibility scores, content insights, forecasting and reporting capabilities, link building capabilities, competition insights, and many more.

    After all, when you’re evaluating or considering upgrading your existing tech stack, you need to see how well a solution performs based on your agency’s specific needs.

    2. You want to be seen as a leader in innovation

    Digital is always moving, and SEO professionals have to be up-to-date with new developments to remain competitive. Agencies need to be at the forefront of innovation, so they constantly lookout for new technologies that will set them apart.

    Paul Wood says that they “make an effort at least a few times a year to have a proper review of what’s out there in terms of tools.” They focus primarily on accessibility and UX when assessing new tools on the market, like:

    • How easily they allow you to export data
    • How they facilitate collaboration between internal teams and clients
    • How many functionalities can be integrated into a single platform

    The team at SEO Works also highlights the importance of always being on the lookout, with members keeping each other informed. They have an extensive training program in place, too – so everyone is onboarded not only with the tools but the specific methodologies the agency uses for top-notch SEO strategies.

    Going even further, agencies like SEO Works develop proprietary tools, showing how their innovative approach can be a competitive advantage for clients in their portfolio.

    3. You’re growing or scaling your SEO agency

    Digital adoption has accelerated globally by at least three to four years in just a few months, according to a recent McKinsey Global Survey of C-level business leaders.

    This drive toward a digital-first approach is only expected to continue, which means that scaling needs for SEO agencies are likely to be high right now, as well as for the foreseeable future.

    Meeting this growing demand for SEO services requires agencies to scale operations efficiently while also staying competitive themselves. If you’re growing your agency, it’s a good time to test your tools and see if they have the right set of functionalities to promote and support this growth.

    Fast-growing agencies need more capabilities, like:

    • Access to more users: As you add new clients and employees, you want tools that allow you to have unlimited users (ideally, at no extra cost) and facilitate collaboration across teams
    • Unlimited API access: Your SEO tools need to work seamlessly with your other business tools as you grow your overall technology toolkit. For example, we’ve made it as simple as possible to export large quantities of data through the SEOmonitor API, letting you pull the campaign and keyword-level data into your preferred internal systems (like Klipfolio) and customize client reports
    • More efficient workflows: Operational dashboards, integrated systems, and organizing capabilities for your client portfolio, all make a difference in helping you get the status quo at a glance

    Fast growing agencies and their need for more capabilities in an SEO tool

    In the words of many SEO professionals we’ve talked with, the highest value an SEO platform can bring is to help you not waste time.

    The right tools will help you do this, but ineffective ones can leave your team spending too much time on technical processes, which will seriously impede your ability to scale.

    4. Your tool isn’t collaborative enough or customizable

    SEO professionals need to have stable processes and methodologies across all teams. The best software is built with this in mind.

    Collaboration and customization are the most important things that agencies prioritize when choosing SEO tools. And lots of features facilitate this, like:

    • Multiple user access: Unlimited access for team members and clients, with customizable client view permissions.
    • Collaborative features: Real-time annotations, comments, and sharing capabilities for both teams and clients.
    • Tracking metrics: A centralized agency dashboard that lets teams monitor performance and tasks, as well as align on goals.
    • Personalization features: From filtering campaigns by account managers, to an editing mode that optimizes your time for keyword management, to saving customized reporting templates across the agency, there are many capabilities you should consider.

    A robust SEO solution, which combines multiple functionalities like these in a single platform, helps optimize internal workflows and gain a holistic view into agency operations.

    5. Your tool isn’t cost-effective

    Different sized agencies have different budgets.

    Optimizing costs is crucial, particularly for scaling agencies. You have to hire more people and use more resources in your tools to handle a larger volume of clients, and you don’t want to scale your costs at the same rate.

    Some questions to ask when evaluating the cost-efficiency of a particular tool are:

    Does it offer flexible pricing and use of resources?

    Most SEO software solutions have a fixed subscription cost, which includes a set number of domains and keywords. But if your use of the tool’s resources fluctuates from month to month, your pricing remains the same.

    Other platforms give agencies the ability to upgrade or downgrade each month, so you only pay for what you use. Having no predefined plan supports agencies better evaluate their expenses based on campaign volume on a specific timeframe.

    Are there any extra hidden costs?

    Some tools have an attractive base price but come with hidden costs and extras that can quickly add up, especially when you’re onboarding lots of new clients and handling larger campaigns. These include:

    • Per-user costs: Will you be able to add unlimited users (including clients) at no extra cost to allow for internal and external collaboration?
    • Migration fees: Is there an hourly or fixed rate for migrating from your existing system to a new tool?
    • Integration costs: Are there multiple integrations to important tools of the trade (Data Studio, Google Sheets, API access, and more) included in the price?

    So if your current software isn’t making the most financial sense for your business, it could be time to test a new one.

    When is the right time to start prospecting for a new SEO tool?

    The answer is, you should never stop your critical analysis.

    Innovation is an ongoing process, especially in this rapidly-changing industry. So your core SEO tool of choice needs to keep up the pace and constantly update its capabilities.

    When you encounter these signs with your existing solutions, they may not be serving you as well as they should be, like:

    • When you don’t get access to the right data or functionalities.
    • When you want to be a leader in innovation, which means you need innovative methodologies.
    • When you’re growing or scaling your agency, and you need more capabilities in place.
    • Or when you want to be more cost-effective.

    We understand that an SEO agency’s core tools are crucial in winning more clients and managing them more efficiently.

    That’s why our team at SEOmonitor is committed to designing specific solutions that help you acquire, manage, and retain relevant customers.

    Join us and our SEO agencies community in the journey to bring more transparency and measurability to the SEO industry.

    SEO tool designed for SEO agencies

  • The Panda anniversary and what we desperately must remember about search

    The Panda anniversary and what we desperately must remember about search

    30-second summary:

    • This week marks the 10 year anniversary of Google’s landmark web quality algorithm Panda
    • It was a seminal moment for the SEO industry with 12% of US sites being targeted for poor quality and manipulative optimization practices
    • Despite removing much of the worst black-hat tactics SEO is still hasn’t lived up to its experiential potential ten years on
    • Many clients and practitioners still use outdated language and practices to position the value of Search in this vastly more mature marketing landscape
    • To escape this pre-Panda legacy SEO needs to take the best of its constituent parts and shape a new customer-centric Search future once and for all

    I was recently notified of a significant work anniversary which transported me back in time to the turbulent start of my SEO career just over 10 years ago. I was prompted to reflect on the industry I love, where it continues to fall short, and ultimately where I see it going. This professional milestone closely corresponded with what was a seminal event for the immature SEO business. On February 24th, 2011 the ‘Death Star’ took aim, and with a typically understated Tweet from the Head of Google’s Web Spam team, Matt Cutts confirmed it. Google had launched its landmark web quality algorithm that would forever be known as Panda. 

    Source: Twitter

    The day of reckoning had arrived for an industry that tied their client’s lucrative search fortunes to a house of cards built on the spammy and manipulative best practices that had become SEO’s calling card. Thin, duplicate and often stolen content was accompanied by on-site keyword stuffing and obvious over-optimization. This might have gamed the rankings for a time but provided little value to the users who bounced en masse giving Google a solid signal that many sites deserved an algorithmic slapdown. 

    What exactly happened in 2011 with Panda?

    In what was a relatively short rollout, around 12% of US search queries were affected and the target of the rollout was poor quality sites relying way too heavily on content farms and directories to fabricate their popularity in search. 

    Shell-shocked webmasters stared at their Analytics dashboards like Wall Street traders on Black Monday, watching in disbelief as their search share plummeted and asked, “What do we do now?”

    At the time, I was simply a fledgling Search Executive with a mere nine months’ industry experience under my belt, with the only thing protecting me from this fallout being the founders of our agency. As a start-up, luckily we were free and clear of this mess as they had seen the writing on the wall long before. 

    SEO was dead, or so we thought, and a new age of experience was dawning. We looked on as Rome burned.

    But, despite its obituary being cynically written every year since SEO refused to die. At the time, practitioners paid lip service to profound change but were far too invested in their ways of operating, and clients, although badly burned, were addicted to the quick wins the hackers of the algorithm had peddled. And so, the dance went on.

    Was Panda a missed opportunity for the industry?

    Yes Panda, and its sister link-spam algorithm Penguin, had a profound effect and removed the absolute worst of the worst black-hat practices but a significant proportion of the industry simply did their best to clean up the mess they’d created – often charging clients to take out their own trash so to speak – and so the probing began for what was the new acceptable minimum you needed to meet in order to get your site ranking once again. 

    • “Is 300 words enough now?” 
    • “How many keywords can I get away with using without angering Google?”
    • “How much content do I need to change for it to be considered unique, will 60% do it?”

    This mentality of chasing the ever-evolving algorithmic goalposts is the continued failure of many in the industry who still largely prefer to please bots ahead of delivering real value for users. 

    I’m not meaning to preach, my hands aren’t squeaky clean and these tactics do have a use but it’s a belief gaining momentum that they should not be allowed to ride roughshod over both brand and UX. I was lucky enough to have been scared straight from the start, firmly putting my focus on how to drive real value to the consumer, building great experiences, authority, and trust.

    Panda’s pain is still real

    This is the Jackal and Hyde reputation the industry has suffered through ever since. The straightest of strait-laced operators – who see search as a powerful and useful customer touchpoint, are tarnished with the same brush as the sketchiest of spammers and scammers who are still alive and well within the industry.

    Their presence diminishes the overall value of search and can create a race to the bottom kind of mentality. Clients who are still sore with the industry ten years on sometimes expect “old-school” results without being willing to invest in long-term value – ironically because they’re terrified of being burned again by another update. 

    It’s crazy but it’s true, I’m still having these conversations on a basis that is more than is reasonable and it is because the discipline is haunted by the original sins of its birth.

    It goes without saying that I want to scream every time I hear the words:

    • “Can you do some quick SEO for me?”
    • “I’d love it if you could build us some cheap links?”
    • “Can you just get rid of this negative article from Google for me?”
    • “Just tell me what keywords I should use!”

    All with the retort of, 

    “… it will cost what?! I found a guy online who’ll do it for peanuts”.

    The damage has been done and this is the cross that SEO has to bear, but is there a way to move out of the long shadow cast by a decade-old catastrophe? 

    The answer is resounding, “yes!” but we need to meet the revolutionary promise we made in 2011 and we desperately need to stop talking just about SEO and reposition the value of search.

    What does our SEO past mean for our search future?

    First let’s start with the term itself, what it means to clients and how it needs to be repositioned. SEO is a collection of data-driven tactics which are often seen as a cure-all by clients, a channel unto itself, this it is not. 

    Despite sitting at the critical crossroads of web development, content, and PR, SEO is far too often a siloed activity that does not play nicely with other marketing disciplines, even separated in mind and budget from its closest counterpart SEM. 

    Instead, we need to be evaluating search, not SEO, as a valuable driver in a customer’s path to purchase and how it can facilitate discovery, consideration, and purchase, driving an overall brand experience.

    Looking at SEO and how it operates on the Panda update anniversary

    The reason SEO too often operates in a vacuum is that historically it’s far less complicated to manage and measure in isolation. But the impact and delivery of search should be more dynamic and incorporated across marketing departments as you can see above or agencies with the constituent tactics of SEO being greater as part of the search. 

    It’s fair to say that the Panda SEO ripples from 10 years ago have not yet matured nearly as quickly as the dynamic marketing ecosystem that’s grown up around it. 10 years ago, rich media, mobile and social media weren’t yet huge drivers or mediums, also with the arrival of personalized email and marketing automation being relatively new on the scene too.

    Google has evolved well beyond its blue link roots providing a valuable blended search experience featuring products, local results, answers, reviews, news, video and is powered by advanced AI which actually understands user intent and voice searches.

    Search is no longer the one-dimensional digital bottleneck it once was and consumers hold the power to choose how they interact with brands and follow the path that’s most convenient for them, not one that’s engineered by SEO alone. 

    Remember, people will always do what’s right for them.

    Three considerations for how search should learn from SEO’s past

    1. Put the customer first

    A customer-centric approach is a given in most marketing disciplines but a lot of people in the SEO community did not seem to get the memo. 

    Instead of talking about search share and obsessing about the ranking opportunities we need to focus on, try to refocus the lens on what the customer feels, wants, and needs as the foundation of an experiential strategy from which, not only search will be the tactic it delivers on. 

    Beyond the implied minimum of a technically sound site, we need to put a greater emphasis on analyzing search behavior, not just keywords, to provide the customer with the right information at the moments that matter in their journey. 

    Marketing teams need to be asking themselves, “why?” more often and for search the answer needs to be, “because it’s what’s best for the customer”. 

    2. Change the tone and vocabulary

    These points all have one thing in common in that we need to try and move away from the acronyms, verbiage, and lingo that was coined in a non-customer-centric world and based on optimization rather than value. 

    This will be one of the hardest things to move away from as so many veterans wear SEO as a badge of honor and clients will more than struggle to learn a new way of referring to a discipline they still don’t fully understand. 

    Obviously, I don’t have all the answers here, so from a quick poll I ran on LinkedIn, I wanted to gauge other industry opinions on this divisive topic.

    Poll on the state of SEO

    As you can see, even from this small pool of 39 people in my marketing network, there are almost half of them who also sense that there is a problem but either feel that the hill is too high to climb or that the problem is there but can continue to be ignored. The conversation continues.

    3. Create don’t build

    Just showing up in the right search simply isn’t good enough and we know that we need to move away from the mentality of building SEO-optimized content and links as simply a means to an end. 

    Search data should inform what kind of content people are looking for and also what they like to consume but owned branded content should not be the playground of optimization. There aren’t any shortcuts to creating great user experiences or content that is genuinely useful and deserving of press but you can use search data to make valuable decisions. 

    Search as a collaborative marketing discipline will win the day.

    The final conclusion to all of this is that search holds extreme value but the industry still is not living up to its full potential because of the ghosts of its pre-Panda past. 

    The long-term beneficiaries of SEO will be those who can effectively rip it apart and piece it back together in everything marketing teams do, which is no easy feat. 

    If we educate the experience makers, everyone from the copywriter to the PR director, the developer to UX designer on the beneficial insights that search teams can provide then a new paradigm can be born. 

    Then, and only then, can SEO finally be put out to stud and enjoy the retirement it so desperately deserves.

    Kevin Mullaney is MarTech Lead at Nordic Morning’s Malmö office. Kevin has over 12 years’ experience working with large global brands at established digital consultancies. A veteran of the SEO industry Kevin has been a speaker at BrightonSEO and other industry events and now leads the MarTech and Media team at Nordic Morning’s Malmö office in Sweden.

  • Cross-channel and cookieless: How measurement will evolve in 2021

    Cross-channel and cookieless: How measurement will evolve in 2021

    30-second summary:

    • The pandemic has caused major shifts in the way that advertisers operate, making it more critical than ever to be able to prove ROI and make every ad dollar count
    • The inability to track reach and frequency is one of the biggest problems with cross-platform ad measurement that marketers face
    • As marketers enter the new year, they will need to have measurement solutions in place that account for cross-channel, cookieless, privacy, and walled gardens
    • Early adopters of cross-channel measurement, truly cookieless solutions, privacy, and consumer-centric policies, and data collaboration will gain insights needed to ensure future success

    Marketers have faced an incredible number of challenges over the past year. The demise of third-party cookies, the loss of device identifiers, and evolving privacy regulations have forced the industry to come up with new solutions for identity. With consumer behavior shifting rapidly and market volatility expected to continue this year, proving ROI with accurate measurement will be more important than ever. Half of U.S. marketers say the inability to track reach and frequency is still one of the biggest problems with cross-channel ad measurement. Better measurement solutions are needed.

    Advertisers need to take the time now to evaluate their measurement solutions in order to ensure every dollar spent has a purpose. Marketers should look for solutions that overcome measurement challenges and form a single view of the customer journey. Only then can they truly improve the customer experience by delivering personalized messages and offerings based on insights gleaned. In 2021, measurement solutions will evolve and improve to account for cross-platform, cookieless, consumer transparency, and walled gardens.

    Cross-platform measurement will enable flexibility and control for TV and other mediums

    Recent trends indicate that consumers are purchasing multiple streaming services and cutting the cord at an alarming rate. As consumer behaviors and viewer fragmentation across a range of digital mediums and streaming platforms accelerate, it’s important for advertisers to measure cross-platform reach and frequency in real-time and adjust course quickly if needed. This is nearly impossible to do using traditional TV metrics.

    To determine where and how to best reach the consumer, measurement offerings must capture cross-channel metrics and normalize disparate data sets to better understand the actual viewer. For example, one spouse might be responsible for all the streaming subscriptions in a household while another manages cable and internet. To further confuse the issue, their online and offline purchases might be equally mixed.

    With more accurate cross-screen metrics and measurement tools, including impact and reach, advertisers can track spend against specific KPIs to determine true ROI within a set audience. As advertisers and distribution players adopt new measurement solutions in 2021 and report these metrics more accurately, the industry will be forced to embrace flexibility in areas that have traditionally lacked agility and required firm budget commitments.

    More accurate measurement gives advertisers key insights that require flexibility for optimizations and the need for more real-time control with TV and premium video. Measurement offerings that capture metrics across OTT and linear and link impact to actual outcomes will take center stage in the new year as advertisers are forced to prove ROI and can no longer rely on traditional TV metrics.

    The deprecation of third-party cookies acts as a catalyst to better measurement

    With less than a year before Google pulls the plug on third-party cookies and the simultaneous restrictions placed on certain mobile identifiers such as IDFAs, the advertising ecosystem is responding with a flurry of identifiers of their own. Despite this, the industry has yet to establish a standard for a universal way to measure reach without cookies, creating confusion in the marketplace and reinforcing the need for secure, privacy-conscious, and interoperable identity solutions that maintain neutrality.

    Campaigns using people-based identifiers rooted in authenticated user data perform better across key metrics such as return on ad spend, cost per view, and cost per mille. In fact, certain types of cookieless solutions make it easier to measure results and prove ROI. Campaigns will be people-based and nearly 100 percent addressable—allowing advertisers and publishers to uncover undervalued inventory and see an improvement in their overall performance.

    The industry is working diligently to build a better ecosystem – one with trust and transparency – that isn’t reliant on unstable identifiers like third-party cookies. A stronger, trusted ecosystem will ensure advertisers can measure across all consumer touchpoints long after the third-party cookie disappears. This helps to ensure the most relevant, tailored messages reach customers across channels – which ultimately leads to an increase in brand loyalty that will help strengthen businesses and improve outcomes for marketers and publishers alike in the post-cookie world.

    Measurement evolves with privacy at its core

    As privacy regulation continues to evolve, our industry faces a complex challenge — regaining consumer trust. There’s a conscious effort and trend towards consumer transparency, and that’s not going away. Thus, in addition to adhering to the law, advertisers are updating their policies to ensure transparency about how consumer data is being used. We need to do a better job of explaining that the data individuals share is part of a mutually beneficial value exchange that’s essential to developing products and services that serve consumers better.

    As consumers engage across media — they opt-in, log-in, subscribe — and identify themselves in different ways. This data can be used to build and scale the right audiences and enhance measurement to better under which tactics are moving the needle on business outcomes. Advertisers should only use measurement solutions with privacy at the core to ensure the delivery of a seamless customer experience on the individual’s terms.

    One example of where measurement is headed is LiveRamp’s integration with Google’s Ads Data Hub. This approach enables first-party data linkage to Google data within the ADH environment in a privacy-first way. An individual’s data cannot be directly viewed, edited, or manipulated in ADH, but actionable insights can be extracted.

    Amazon sets the bar when it comes to understanding and measuring the customer buying journey and then executing against that data. Marketers are looking to create that type of measurement engine, without moving data or comprising privacy, that will form data partnerships to fill in the gaps in their line of sight, leveraging data from outside their four walls to measure the customer journey along with all endpoints.

    The industry will embrace data collaboration to improve measurement

    Walled gardens offer a prime example of how access to data at every point along the customer journey unlocks measurement of the whole customer experience. Following this example, consumer brands will seek to build a strong data foundation to form a unified view of the customer, then to optimize marketing touchpoints as part of the larger improvement to the customer experience. We’re seeing CPG brands analyzing sales lift by comparing data from retail partners to understand the holistic shopping journey of each customer.

    As The Winterberry Group found in their January 2021 report ‘Collaborative Data Solutions’, one of the areas with the greatest adoption today is for insight and analysis. Data collaboration will only become more important as marketers strive to measure results and optimize budgets. With the right privacy-conscious structures in place, data science and analytics teams will be able to work across data sets, accelerate analysis, and forge a level of insight that is deeper than ever before.

    Conclusion

    After the year we had, evolution in measurement is imminent. In what will likely be another financially-difficult year, proving return on advertising investment will be the driving force behind this progression to more accountable metrics delivered with more speed.

    Early adopters of cross-platform measurement, truly cookieless solutions, privacy and consumer-centric policies, and data collaboration will provide customers with the best in class experience today and reveal insights needed to ensure future success.

    Matthew Emans is VP of Measurement Products for LiveRamp, and the co-founder/CTO of Data Plus Math, acquired by LiveRamp in 2019.

  • Four marketing strategies to increase app store downloads and engagement

    Four marketing strategies to increase app store downloads and engagement

    30-second summary:

    • App marketing is intensely competitive. There are limited channels to market your app but millions of apps to compete with. It’s important to maximize every opportunity.
    • Like SEO, App Store Optimization involves keyword research and optimization. App developers have limited space for their keywords and much competition to face. Hence, precision is highly necessary.
    • App ads on Facebook are unlike other types of ads. You need Facebook SDK, in addition to the ads manager, to properly track app downloads and engagement.
    • Rewards should turn your app users into customers. When done right, incentives can generate social proof and viral loops.
    • There is ASO but there’s also app SEO. Content formats such as blogs, podcasts, and newsletters can make your app website/landing page gain higher rankings on search engines.

    Your app is competing for visibility with 1.82 million other apps if it’s on Apple’s App Store, or 2.7 million apps if it’s on Google’s Play Store. That’s tremendous competition. 

    Marketing your app almost seems a lost cause. But while making your app stand out is indeed a daunting undertaking, it is possible, as long as you apply the right strategies. 

    Effective app marketing involves identifying key types of channels for discovery and engagement (app stores, social media, search engines, and in the app itself) and targeting your audience. 

    1. App store optimization/landing page optimization 

    Newcomers make up only 8% of apps listed on the App and Play store top charts, going by Adjust’s App Trends 2020 Report. Considering that the app store is your app’s main chance, by far, at organic discovery, it need not be said that your App Store Optimization (ASO) must be on point. 

    ASO is to apps what SEO is to websites. And both have their similarities, especially in the on-page/off-page strategy dichotomy. And like SEO, ASO begins with improving visibility. 

    The first tip to achieve this is to use an attractive name and logo. Those two are the first things users see when they find your app. But before then, you have to make sure people can find it, right? And not just anyone – the right people, your target audience. 

    When optimizing your app store listing, what factors must you consider, keeping in mind that app indexing differs between stores?

    • App Name/Title: feature relevant keywords to enable the app store algorithm to properly identify and categorize your app. You have 50 characters for this on Play Store while Apple’s App Store also includes a subtitle, for keywords that don’t fit the main title.

    App store optimization tips - Work on the title

    • Apple, unlike Google, allows developers to input specific keywords in a private field on its App Store. For Google, you have a short description field (80 characters) and a long description page (4000 characters) which are both public. 
    • Include keywords that are relevant to your app and which accurately describe its features, functionalities, and benefits.

    That is as much as you can influence your app’s rankings. Other factors, beyond your direct influence, include reviews and ratings, download and uninstall rates, app updates, etc. 

    2. Facebook ads strategy 

    ASO has its place and you can’t rely on app stores entirely for app discovery. Not if you’re not a big-name brand. Your marketing strategy should tilt more towards the paid, discussed below. As Christian Eckhardt of Customlytics says,

    “The likelihood of a user going to a store to browse or discover new apps has declined significantly, compared to the early days of the stores.”

    By creating a page on Facebook for your app, you can run ads with custom call-to-actions to gain publicity for your app and increase downloads. Facebook Ad Manager allows you to set an objective for your app: whether you are targeting app installs or app engagement (traffic). Facebook Ads offer a competitive ROI with an average cost-per-install rate of $1.8, compared to Twitter’s $2.53 and Instagram’s $2.23. 

    CPI using Facebook ads

    To run ads for your Facebook app,

    • First, set up Facebook SDK. This is necessary to optimize your app for mobile ads, though you can still run ads for unregistered apps using the app store URL. 
    • Continue setup in the Ads Manager, where you select your target audience, budget, bid, creative format, and other options. 

    • Finally, continually measure your ad performance, track engagement data, and gain analytics insights using Facebook SDK and within the Ad manager.

    Measuring ad performance that adds to your app store downloads

    3. Use a rewards system 

    This is a strategy that helps you to convert your app users into marketers. Of course, this assumes that you have an app that delivers value to its users. The next step would be to incentivize app engagement. 

    In-app rewards that can facilitate engagement include unlockable customization options, discounts, push notifications, in-app currency (points, coins, etc.), vouchers, and other freebies Many apps (especially games) already feature these. But here, motivation is important. What kind of behavior does/should the reward system encourage?

    1. Retention 
    2. Publicity
    3. Reviews

    Beyond app retention, your in-app incentives should encourage actions that publicize your app. For instance, you can offer a discount or some other benefit to people who share the app or refer users (using referral codes). We know this works since old research by Google showed that people find new apps through friends and family than by any other means. Likewise, incentivize app users to rate and write reviews of your app on the store. Apart from promoting the goodwill of an app, positive reviews drive up app store optimization rankings, increasing the visibility of your app.

    But app retention is important too. Only 32% of users would return to an app at least eleven times, a six-point reduction from last year’s rate. And app stores consider high uninstall rates as signs of a low-quality app. Such an app would get lower rankings and may even be removed from the store eventually. Incentives keep people using the app and create viral loops.

    4. Content marketing strategy 

    Search engines are a great place to gain publicity for your app. Think about it. Someone hears how great your app is and immediately searches the name, only to find scanty or no relevant results at all. You need a creative and consistent content marketing strategy to convert search engine users. 

    You can use a blog to highlight the benefits of your app, inform users of updates, and teach them how to maximize the features of the app. If businesses that blog gain 126% more leads than those that don’t, why not apps? The popular investing app Robinhood’s marketing strategy features a blog where they teach people the basics of investing and finance.

    Using content marketing to make your app more visible and valuable in the audience's eyes

    But there is more to blogging than just posting articles. You need to research keywords to find the ones that will help you convert the most. That’s what enables search engines to effectively rank your blog posts. 

    In addition, content marketing is not limited to blogging. You may also take advantage of newsletters, podcasts, and YouTube videos, as Robinhood does. Called ‘Robinhood Snacks’, it delivers a daily newsletter with financial news to subscribers (irrespective of whether they use the app or not) and breaks down business stories via podcasts as well. 

    Content marketing is broader though. You also need backlinks to rank. And that means getting your app featured on ‘top apps’ listings, external reviews, guest article mentions, all of which should contain backlinks to your landing page. Of course, it need not be mentioned anymore that you need a highly-engaging landing page with a clear call-to-action that takes visitors to the app’s store page.

    A simple content marketing checklist for app optimization will look like the following:

    • Research ideas that are related to your app and relevant to your audience. 
    • Craft topics from these ideas and develop engaging content around them. 
    • Use mediums that your audience uses the most. For instance, podcasts are a great idea if you are targeting millennials. 
    • Feel free to repurpose content. Your blog post can be repurposed into a YouTube video. You can transcribe a podcast interview and convert it into an article, etc. 
    • Always include a call-to-action 

    Conclusion

    If you implement the strategies discussed above, you can rest assured of steady app growth. However, the most important factor is that the app is indeed valuable. The best apps are those that advertise themselves. But virality does not happen overnight. Its the result of the consistent application of the right strategies.

    Guy Sheetrit is the CEO of Over The Top SEO, an award-winning marketing agency that provides customized SEO marketing solutions for ecommerce, local, and Fortune 500 companies. He can be found on Twitter @guysheetrit.

  • Artificial intelligence (AI) is key to reducing digital ad waste

    Artificial intelligence (AI) is key to reducing digital ad waste

    30-second summary:

    • As PPC costs continue to increase, it’s more important than ever for marketers and agencies to be able to access their data – all of their data.
    • What’s even more critical is to track true conversions, meaning the leads that actually convert into paying customers for a business.
    • The issue is that Google and other ad platforms treat all conversions as equal, a major flaw in the system.
    • Do you really want your advertising budget being wasted on ads that are producing solicitations instead of qualified leads?
    • More insights on how the world’s first AI Smart Core℠, SherloQ™ is revolutionizing how websites and digital ad campaigns operate altogether.

    As pay-per-click (PPC) costs continue to increase, it’s more important than ever for marketers and digital ad agencies to be able to access their data – all of their data.

    A recent article by Susan Wenogard talks about just how critical it is to track all conversions. I would argue what’s even more critical is to track true conversions, meaning the leads that actually convert into paying customers for a business.

    The issue is that Google and other ad platforms treat all conversions as equal, a major flaw in the system. Here’s an example. Let’s say an ad generates 10 clicks and out of those clicks, five of them convert into a lead on the site either through a phone call, email, or chat. Out of those five conversions, only one converts into a customer while the rest are solicitations. However, the automation systems of the advertising platform will equate all of these conversions as valuable to the business and optimize its campaigns accordingly.

    Do you really want your advertising budget being wasted on ads that are producing solicitations instead of qualified leads? I think not.

    Content created in partnership with SherloQ™, Inc.

    Here we go, again: Disappearing data

    Google Ads also recently started to limit the data shared in its Search Terms Report to only include terms that were searched for by a significant number of users. Google has stated that this change is in regard to privacy compliance.

    But, what does Google define as significant or insignificant data? This change reduces an advertiser’s ability to identify the search queries that triggered an ad, even for those that generated a click or conversion. This spells even more waste for advertisers and is equivalent to losing 28% of your budget’s visibility.

    Are you ready to throw away 28% of your advertising budget? Again, I think not.

    The real solution to reducing digital ad waste

    With the world’s first AI Smart Core℠, SherloQ™ is revolutionizing how websites and ad campaigns operate altogether.

    Powered by IBM Watson, SherloQ™ allows marketers to easily train their AI-models on the types of leads that are most valuable to their business. First-party customer data from call tracking, chat vendors and on-site form submissions are piped into the system, and then SherloQ™ rates and assigns each lead with an Ad Rank Score™, while also accounting for bio-patented feedback from the end-user.

    SherloQ™ continuously feeds this data back into individual advertising platforms, informing them to optimize for the ad campaigns that are driving real customers for the business – thus eliminating ad waste.

    In a recent case study of the McKnight’s Senior Living Directory, the number one publisher for senior living in the United States, the team shared some insights on how they are using SherloQ™ with IBM Watson:

    “Our directory has over 14,000 retirement and assisted living communities listed, including the multiple agencies we work with to manage assisted living websites and digital advertising for our listings. SherloQ’s™ AI automation and data mining capabilities allows us to expand our digital media offerings and effectively run PPC advertisements for all 14,000 facilities while having a global view that would otherwise be impossible.”

    Additionally, SherloQ™ is giving marketers control over their data, at a critical time, too. SherloQ™ provides marketers and agencies with user intent and intelligence that’s based on first-party data, identifying the specific landing pages and language/keywords consumers use to describe or find a business. This intelligence can be used to improve website SEO and content marketing strategies, ad copy and creative, and identifies potential new markets to enter.

    For marketers and agencies seriously looking to reduce or eliminate their digital ad waste, download our white paper to learn more and contact SherloQ™ to sign up for a demo or free 30-day trial.