Mastering Search Analytics

Chapter 3. Tracking and Optimizing SEO and Paid Search Traffic

The goal of SEO and paid search campaigns is to generate relevant traffic to your site.

As a search strategist, one of the challenges you will run into is when someone tells you to figure out how to get more traffic to your website. At the highest level, your SEO and paid search strategies should be about acquiring customers and being found by people who are in need of what your website provides (be it products, services, connections with others, etc.). Key to this is understanding your traffic: who is coming to your site, how they found you, what they are doing on your site, what the value of that traffic is, and how to improve the user experience.

Tools you will need in this chapter:

• Clickstream tracking package (Google Analytics, Adobe SiteCatalyst, etc.)

• Google Keyword Tool or some other keyword research tool

• A/B or multivariate testing tool (Google Website Optimizer, Adobe Test & Target, etc.)

• Spreadsheet program (Excel or something similar)

• Google and Bing Webmaster Tools

• Google Global Market Finder

Tracking Visitors and Segmenting Traffic from Search

Separating people coming to your site from search versus other avenues is the first key to understanding how searchers may differ from users who may already be aware of your brand. Searchers are different in that they may not know anything about your brand, what you do, and what other services you may offer or have any sort of loyalty to you. Fortunately, most clickstream packages ...