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Measuring Success Beyond the Search Engines
- By Jill Whalen
- Published 09/10/2008
- Search Engine Marketing
Measuring Success Beyond the Search Engines
I admit it. I'm a Google Analytics
junkie. I try to stay away, but every now and then I hear it calling my
name and I break down and log in. I feel the familiar rush of
excitement running through my veins almost instantly. And I know
anything else I may have planned to do that day won't get done because
I'll be in my own world for hours. My analytics world. Just me and my
stats. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh…
Sad, huh? Well, not really. I get a ton of great information out of Google Analytics that can later be put to good use in many ways for my business. For instance, I've been writing monthly columns for Search Engine Land and TalentZoo for quite some time now, and it gets tedious. It's not easy thinking of topics to write about that not only fit the target audience of each publication but that haven't already been written to death. Being the lazy toad that I am, I sometimes just don't want to do them. When that happens, I wonder if it's really worth it and ask myself what exactly I get out of writing these columns? And being the good sport that "myself" is, it answers me back with "I don't know, why don't you consult your precious Google Analytics?"
So that's what I do.
I use Google Analytics all the time to see what keywords people are finding our clients' websites with, and I do the same for our own website. But I don't always think to use it for other information, like looking at where else (besides the search engines) traffic is coming from. After all, online marketing isn't just about search engine traffic. (Heresy, I know!)
It's a bit tricky to get information regarding articles that are not on our own High Rankings website. Ideally, it would be great if we had access to the other sites' analytics to know how many reads the articles are actually getting, but alas, we don't. Thankfully, the columns I write do have bio links back to our website, and many of them have links to other articles that are published on our site. So what I need to look at in Google Analytics is the traffic that comes from the sites where my columns are posted.
Digging In
To do this in Google Analytics, I simply click "Traffic Sources," then "Referring Sites," and then either browse through the listings until I see the domain I'm looking for or scroll to the bottom of the page until I see a search box. It says "Find Source" and has a drop-down menu with "containing" or "excluding." In the search box, I type "talentzoo" and click "Go." This takes me straight to the page with information about referrals to our website from my TalentZoo articles. I can see how many people visited from TZ, how many average pages they looked at per visit, the average time they spent on our website, what percentage of them were new visitors as opposed to returning visitors, and I can see the bounce rate – i.e., what percentage came to only one page and then left.
It's pretty cool info.
And sure enough, there were a number of visitors from both TalentZoo and Search Engine Land! Not millions, by any means, but hundreds. Certainly enough to at least keep me writing each month. One of our marketing goals at High Rankings is to continuously try to get the word out about our free SEO information and resources, as well as our SEO services, products and SEO classes to people who have never heard of us. Along those li
nes, Google Analytics showed me that approximately 75% of the people
who click through to our site from my columns are new visitors.
Not only that, but some of them convert into newsletter subscribers. We had a 5% conversion rate from SEL and a 1.5% conversion rate from TZ. Again, it's not huge, but we've already figured out that newsletter subscribers are our most valuable asset in terms of long-term conversions – that is, they eventually sign up for a class or some SEO consulting.
While I was reviewing this info, I had a look at some of our other referrers. I had a number of them from Sphinn, where I've had newsletter articles posted, as well as a bunch from SEOmoz, Search Engine Guide and Search Engine Roundtable. One of the largest groups of visitors came from StumbleUpon. While I don't "stumble" very often, now and then a newsletter reader will submit an Advisor article to them. Very often, these stumbles take off and we can end up with 1,000 visitors over the course of a couple of days. Unfortunately, while they are generally new visitors (more than 97%), stumblers are the worst converting visitors out there. They provide exactly ZERO conversions! Not a newsletter sign-up, not a forum registration, nothing.
But What About Links?
Interestingly enough, soon after I had gathered all this cool info from Google Analytics, I had just happened to come across an interview with social media exert Brent Csutoras that was talking about social media sites such as StumbleUpon, which said that it's not the conversions that are important, but the resulting links you get. So I fired up my Google Webmaster Tools and checked out the links received from one of my articles that had a lot of StumbleUpon traffic. It was the Linkbait-gate one.
At first glance, it looked good. Webmaster Tools said I had 154 links – nice! But on further investigation I found that most of those were just spam links from just a couple of sites. There were a few from some from Sphinn user profile pages as well. In terms of real links, there was only a handful. (I don't go soliciting links, and perhaps I'd get more if I did, so keep that in mind.) But the moral to this part of the story is that I will continue to measure the success of my articles by conversions, not links – although I do see the value in looking at both.
Back to Search Engine Traffic
After reviewing our referral numbers, I was curious how they compared with our search engine traffic. About 60% of the traffic to High Rankings comes from search engines, with most of that (51%) coming from Google. Referring sites make up close to 17% and direct traffic is just over 24%. The greatest amount of search engine traffic goes to a few of my most popular articles on our site. And a large chunk of search engine traffic lands on various High Rankings forum threads. Overall, when taken as a whole, search engine traffic doesn't have a very high conversion rate. However, not all search engine traffic is created equal. While traffic leading to my articles may not convert very well, traffic coming from people at Google looking specifically for SEO services or SEO training does indeed convert. But this is an article for another time!
Sad, huh? Well, not really. I get a ton of great information out of Google Analytics that can later be put to good use in many ways for my business. For instance, I've been writing monthly columns for Search Engine Land and TalentZoo for quite some time now, and it gets tedious. It's not easy thinking of topics to write about that not only fit the target audience of each publication but that haven't already been written to death. Being the lazy toad that I am, I sometimes just don't want to do them. When that happens, I wonder if it's really worth it and ask myself what exactly I get out of writing these columns? And being the good sport that "myself" is, it answers me back with "I don't know, why don't you consult your precious Google Analytics?"
So that's what I do.
I use Google Analytics all the time to see what keywords people are finding our clients' websites with, and I do the same for our own website. But I don't always think to use it for other information, like looking at where else (besides the search engines) traffic is coming from. After all, online marketing isn't just about search engine traffic. (Heresy, I know!)
It's a bit tricky to get information regarding articles that are not on our own High Rankings website. Ideally, it would be great if we had access to the other sites' analytics to know how many reads the articles are actually getting, but alas, we don't. Thankfully, the columns I write do have bio links back to our website, and many of them have links to other articles that are published on our site. So what I need to look at in Google Analytics is the traffic that comes from the sites where my columns are posted.
Digging In
To do this in Google Analytics, I simply click "Traffic Sources," then "Referring Sites," and then either browse through the listings until I see the domain I'm looking for or scroll to the bottom of the page until I see a search box. It says "Find Source" and has a drop-down menu with "containing" or "excluding." In the search box, I type "talentzoo" and click "Go." This takes me straight to the page with information about referrals to our website from my TalentZoo articles. I can see how many people visited from TZ, how many average pages they looked at per visit, the average time they spent on our website, what percentage of them were new visitors as opposed to returning visitors, and I can see the bounce rate – i.e., what percentage came to only one page and then left.
It's pretty cool info.
And sure enough, there were a number of visitors from both TalentZoo and Search Engine Land! Not millions, by any means, but hundreds. Certainly enough to at least keep me writing each month. One of our marketing goals at High Rankings is to continuously try to get the word out about our free SEO information and resources, as well as our SEO services, products and SEO classes to people who have never heard of us. Along those li
Not only that, but some of them convert into newsletter subscribers. We had a 5% conversion rate from SEL and a 1.5% conversion rate from TZ. Again, it's not huge, but we've already figured out that newsletter subscribers are our most valuable asset in terms of long-term conversions – that is, they eventually sign up for a class or some SEO consulting.
While I was reviewing this info, I had a look at some of our other referrers. I had a number of them from Sphinn, where I've had newsletter articles posted, as well as a bunch from SEOmoz, Search Engine Guide and Search Engine Roundtable. One of the largest groups of visitors came from StumbleUpon. While I don't "stumble" very often, now and then a newsletter reader will submit an Advisor article to them. Very often, these stumbles take off and we can end up with 1,000 visitors over the course of a couple of days. Unfortunately, while they are generally new visitors (more than 97%), stumblers are the worst converting visitors out there. They provide exactly ZERO conversions! Not a newsletter sign-up, not a forum registration, nothing.
But What About Links?
Interestingly enough, soon after I had gathered all this cool info from Google Analytics, I had just happened to come across an interview with social media exert Brent Csutoras that was talking about social media sites such as StumbleUpon, which said that it's not the conversions that are important, but the resulting links you get. So I fired up my Google Webmaster Tools and checked out the links received from one of my articles that had a lot of StumbleUpon traffic. It was the Linkbait-gate one.
At first glance, it looked good. Webmaster Tools said I had 154 links – nice! But on further investigation I found that most of those were just spam links from just a couple of sites. There were a few from some from Sphinn user profile pages as well. In terms of real links, there was only a handful. (I don't go soliciting links, and perhaps I'd get more if I did, so keep that in mind.) But the moral to this part of the story is that I will continue to measure the success of my articles by conversions, not links – although I do see the value in looking at both.
Back to Search Engine Traffic
After reviewing our referral numbers, I was curious how they compared with our search engine traffic. About 60% of the traffic to High Rankings comes from search engines, with most of that (51%) coming from Google. Referring sites make up close to 17% and direct traffic is just over 24%. The greatest amount of search engine traffic goes to a few of my most popular articles on our site. And a large chunk of search engine traffic lands on various High Rankings forum threads. Overall, when taken as a whole, search engine traffic doesn't have a very high conversion rate. However, not all search engine traffic is created equal. While traffic leading to my articles may not convert very well, traffic coming from people at Google looking specifically for SEO services or SEO training does indeed convert. But this is an article for another time!
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Jill Whalen
Jill Whalen is the owner of High Rankings and moderator of the free weekly email newsletter, the High Rankings Advisor. Jill specializes in search engine optimization, directory submissions, SEO consultations and seminars. She has obtained hundreds of number 1 and 2 spots for her vast array of clients throughout the years. Clients include multi-million dollar companies, major universities, real estate agencies, attorneys, surgeons, dentists, and small-medium sized businesses.
Do you like Jill Whalen's article? Then take a look at "The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines" where she explains how to write for the search engines and your users.
View all articles by Jill Whalen