Ray Catfish discusses about how Google’s recent changes make performance reporting less accurate. SEOs and Marketers no longer have the raw data that we once used to measure SEO results and we recognize that we will need to use different KPIs and trending metrics to approximate the data that is now lost. What does this mean for our industry? Read more here… Blog Post Here: http://bol.bolphp.com/blog_posts/google-keyword-not-provided/

1. Term (not provided)
Understanding Performance Changes
Ray “Catfish” Comstock
© 2013 by BusinessOnline. All Rights Reserved.

2. Agenda
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Address changes to Google Keyword Not Provided
What it happened?
What it means?
What can we do?
BusinessOnline Recommendations
Expand number of keywords for rank checking
New SEO performance metrics
Immediate education plan
@BOLoptimized

3. Changes to Keyword Not Provided
On Monday, September 23rd 2013 Google Announced
100% Keyword Unavailable Now Permanent
What Happened?
Google now redirects all users to a secure search page which will block all keyword referral data from any
analytics platform.
What this means:
-Changes only affect how we measure and report SEO performance
-Organic traffic from Google can no longer be tracked at a keyword level via analytics
-There will be a limited amount of keyword referral data available in Google Webmaster tools
-No longer have visibility into traffic numbers
• Brand / Non Brand
• Long Tail Performance
• By Keyword Group
-Decrease in visibility for new keyword opportunities
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4. What it Means to Marketers
On Monday, September 23rd 2013 Google Announced
100% Keyword Unavailable Now Permanent
Immediate Impact:
•Measuring and understanding SEO performance is now more difficult and not 100% accurate
•The cause of SEO traffic changes over a given time period can no longer be directly measured
•Marketers will have to rely on KPI trends to understand performance changes in lieu of the data
that is now gone
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5. Reaction to 100% Keyword Not Provided
On Monday, September 23rd 2013 Google Announced
100% Keyword Unavailable Now Permanent
How to Measure SEO Performance Going Forward:
1. Expand the number of client keywords that we track rankings for
2. Develop a new set of metrics for SEO performance reporting
3. Education program for new SEO landscape
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6. BusinessOnline Recommendations
How to Address the lack of Visibility in Keyword Search Activity
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7. Expand Number of Keywords for Rank Checking
Increase visibility to overall keyword portfolio
Keyword Rankings Gain in Prominence:
-Keyword rankings are now the only way to understand
keyword level performance (except Google Webmaster Tools data)
-Keyword rankings should be checked for any historical
keywords that have driven significant traffic
URL Level Keyword Rankings Very Important:
-Correlating URL level traffic changes to keyword ranking changes
is now critical to understand performance changes
-The more URL specific keyword rankings that are available for analysis,
the more insight that will be available into SEO performance changes
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8. New SEO Performance Metrics
Develop a New Set of Priority Metrics for SEO Performance
Adapt reporting to bring in new KPIs to replace Google keyword data
Ranking, traffic and conversions
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Total traffic
Page level traffic changes
Expanding keyword rankings
Leveraging historical data / PPC data
Google Webmaster Tools
Additional metrics
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•
•
•
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Ranking by geography
Link management
Internal link changes
Historical page changes
Competitive analysis
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9. New SEO Performance Metrics
A sample SEO URL performance reporting structure might look like:
URL: http://www.example.com
Total Traffic:
Last Period: xxxx
Current Period: xxxx
Change: +/- xxxx
Rankings
Last Period: #4
Current Period: #1
Change: +3
Traffic
Last Period: xxx
Current Period: xxx
Change: xxx
Keyword 1:
(***traffic numbers only if they exist in GWT)
Keyword 2:
Rankings
Last Period: #10
Current Period: #6
Change: +4
Traffic
Last Period: xxx
Current Period: xxx
Change: xxx
(***traffic numbers only if they exist in GWT)
ETC
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10. SEO Education Program
Explaining the new changes to our clients
SEO Education for All Team Members
Update team members on new Google changes
• All searches secure
• Historical data affected by keyword unavailable
Update team members on implications of changes
• Keyword level reporting no longer possible
• Year over year keyword performance data no longer relevant
Explain how to measure SEO performance
• Roll out new report dashboards
• Implications of new KPI metrics
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11. Summary:
•Google Change to 100% Keyword Unavailable Affects:
How you measure SEO performance
How you react to performance changes
•New Metrics Prioritized:
Year over Year Traffic
URL Level Traffic
Google Webmaster Tools Keyword Data
Expanded Keyword Rankings
•Immediate Action Plan
Change KPIs / Develop New Dashboards
Educate Team Members
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