Web analytics, Social, and SEO interdependence

Traditional marketing through demographic research and analysis attempts to reach a target market with a specific message in a campaign like fashion. Digital marketing on the other hand is more focused on one-to-one messaging in real time based on a consumer’s location, buying behavior, and social connections. Marketers can deliver even more personalized messages on social channels based on what consumers share. “Now more than ever, company marketers are charged with improving performance with fewer resources and shifting marketing budgets from traditional to digital tactics like SEO and social media. There are significant benefits from combining search engine optimization and social media marketing tactics ranging from increased social network discovery via search to the ability to attract links for improved SEO.” (Odden, 2009)  The following pages will seek to explain this digital world and how our digital social interactions impact web analytics and SEO.

Web Analytics

            Web analytics, which is the process of analyzing the behavior of visitors to a Web site, should really sit at the core of all web marketing. Without analytics, marketing decisions are made on gut instincts rather than data. Without analytics, you never really know exactly what works and what doesn’t, how visitors interact on your site, how well ads perform, and where website traffic is coming from. “You wouldn’t be able to test, tweak and improve things to deliver the biggest impact and highest Return on Investment. For this reason analytics is important in every strand of internet marketing from SEO to PPC, from brand monitoring to measuring social media engagement.” (Digital, 2012) Some would argue that digital marketing is more of a science and traditional marketing is more of an art.

            Web analytics provides data with regards to a website visitor and the effectiveness of the website. Foundational metrics include page visits and unique visitors, and visit characterization metrics include visit duration, landing page and exit page as well as information about the referring site, click-through rate, recency, and frequency. Additionally, metrics are available to describe the amount of engagement of a site visitor and if a conversion took place. All of this data results in a pretty clear picture of a visitors experience on a website.

            “The use of Web analytics is said to enable a business to attract more visitors, retain or attract new customers for goods or services, or to increase the dollar volume each customer spends. This analysis can also include determining the likelihood that a given customer will repurchase a product after having purchased it in the past, personalizing the site to customers who visit it repeatedly, monitoring the dollar volume of purchases made by individual customers or by specific groups of customers, observing the geographic regions from which the most and the least customers visit the site and purchase specific products, and predicting which products customers are most and least likely to buy in the future.” (Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism, 2013)          

            Google Analytic goals might be the most powerful and underutilized tool in the web analytics toolbox.  Many businesses track foundational metrics like site visits, page views, and bounce rates, but too few invest their time in trying to answer the bigger questions or in creating goals aligned with their website objectives. Goals will clarify how many visitors came to the site and performed the desired action. It’s important to also set a value to those goals to help with the data driven decision making. Without taking these steps up front, you won’t be able to see if web visitors do what you expect them to do on your website or what the value of their visit to your website is to your business.           

            Before being able to track conversions, one must first identify the objectives of the website to understand what and why you are measuring. Identifying Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) like page views, bounce rates, and site visits are helpful but the real power of Google Analytics Conversions is to identify and work with metrics that have a deeper impact on the performance of your business, and to translate your website KPI’s to Google Analytic goals. Understanding how to interpret the trends that appear, gives you the potential to achieve business results and gain a competitive advantage. Goals are especially beneficial for those brands that have longer conversion cycles. Goals in these scenarios can give you the extra insight needed to track how and where your users are “converting” on your website.           

            With the use of goals, filters, and funnels, Google analytics provides actionable information for EMBA marketers to improve their website to reach their objectives. Also when tying goals to website objectives, results are more manageable metrics and more clearly defined tasks for improvement. One doesn’t need to get overwhelmed with all that google has to offer.

            Particularly in an era when marketers are being pushed to show bottom line results, web analytics solves a number of concerns. Metrics are readily available to help marketers justify their digital marketing spend and provide invaluable insights as to consumer behavior on the website. Insights gained can guide marketing decisions which ultimately result in increased revenue.

Social

            Social is playing an increasingly important role in marketing efforts as its drives an increasing amount of traffic to the web. Engagement is instrumental in getting customers to perform in the way that you want and providing quality content will keep them engaged. Countless analytical tools are also available for social data.  According to Google, there are 4 key areas to review when assessing the impact and effectiveness of social initiatives.

·         “Network Referrals: As your content is shared and people come to your site, it's important to understand how visitors from different social sources engage with your site.

·         Conversions: Shared content URLs become the entry points into your site, driving traffic from social sources. Measuring the conversion and monetary value of this traffic will help you understand the impact of Social on your business.

·         Landing Pages: People increasingly engage with, share, and discuss content on social networks. It's important to know which pages and content are being shared, where they're being shared, and how.

·         Social Plugins: Adding Social Plugin buttons to your site (for example, Google "+1" buttons) allows your users share content to social networks directly from your site. Your social plugin data shows you which content is being shared, and on which networks.” (unknown, Social, 2013)

            “Social is infringing upon the traditional realm of SEO as a major factor in how people find information, convert, and interact with the Internet.’ (DeMers, 2013) There are several factors that impact SEO, or more specifically search engine visibility, rankings and traffic. “The number of people liking the page, the number of shares, the number of followers, the number or retweets, the quota of followers/following, can impact the organic SEO (particularly the referral traffic). Additionally all these social signals generated by the abundance of social media (like Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter etc.), can increase significantly brand awareness and online visibility.” (admin)

Let’s look more closely at a few social factors that impact SEO.

1. Personalized search results.

Search engines personalize the order of their results based on a number of factors including social connections and activity. Google, Yahoo, and Bing all use social content in aggregate as well to evaluate the popularity or relative importance of content and the authority of both sites and authors. As a result, SEO has clearly lost some of its influence.

2. Search engines now allow for highlighted authors with a thumbnail headshot, and a “More by” link that surfaces more of their work. Other social annotations are available as well that provide extra exposure and potentially increase click through rates. Being socially connected through Google+ also has its benefits as we are beginning to notice. Click through rates are substantially higher for authors with Google+ profiles.

                                                                                                          (DeMers, 2013)  

Search engines now factor in an individual’s social popularity and engagement into their ranking algorithms just as they have for websites and pages in the past. “Ultimately it is about establishing things like trust, credibility, popularity, influence and topical authority, all of which are good for both SEO and social media marketing. It is still early days in terms of the impact of AuthorRank but it is something that is worth experimenting with.” (Sherk, 2013)

3. Social has also transformed local searches as results are now based on interactions with social from Foursquare check-ins to Yelp ratings, and weighted social profiles. Rather than a Google search, consumers now often search a local business Facebook page for information about hours, directions, and sales. “Google+ is the single most powerful social force on the Internet today. Facebook may have a bigger market share, but Google+ has a bigger ownership of search power. Facebook doesn’t write the algorithms; Google does.” (DeMers, 2013)

4. Blogging is also powerful from an SEO standpoint. Strategic and active blogging can help:

Increase crawling by practicing good pagination

Add a list of related articles

Add ‘previous’ and ‘next’ post links

Use categories to organize like posts

Add sharing buttons

            In a recent study by search Metrics, URL’s at the top of the search results have corresponding high social activity including: likes, shares, tweets, and +ones which signifies that frequently shared content increasingly correlates with good rankings. (Metrics, 2013) “One of the most powerful effects of a social network is the way it transforms customer decision-making. Search Engine Land’s 2012 study stated, “72% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.” More than half of consumers agreed that positive online reviews increased their likelihood of using a local business. E-consultancy declares that 88% of customers will consult reviews before finalizing an online purchase. Even conversion rates are affected by social.” (DeMers, 2013) The impact of social on SEO is still evolving, but it is clearly changing the digital marketers’ landscape. Social plays a significant role in building effective links which result in higher SEO rankings, increased website referral traffic and ultimately higher revenue.

SEO

            “SEO stands for ‘search engine optimization.’ It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” listings on search engines. All major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing have such results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users.” (Media, 2013)  The science of SEO works to improve a websites ranking in the search engines so that the website will be listed ultimately at the top of the first page of results. The higher a website naturally ranks in organic results of a search, the greater the chance that that site will be visited by a user.

            Many tactics are recommended to improve SEO but no one really knows the true algorithm that Google and other search engines use. Just when you think you are getting close, the algorithms can change so some think it’s best to plan your strategy around what Google wants. Below are some common suggestions.

• Implement social media tactics
• Build mobile pages and/or mobile apps
• Build local pages
• Maintain proper site maps with local landing page URLs
• Publish across a variety of media
• Avoid link spam
• Create fresh and awesome content

Conclusion

            This is a truly exciting time to be in marketing as we have never had this much data about our customers at our fingertips. Not to mention the real-time data now available. Analytics, social, and SEO are not only interrelated but also interdependent in that social strategy directly impacts the results of search strategy and vice versa. Both can be optimized when working together as social media can increase SEO rankings and discovery while SEO can provide exposure to social opportunities.

            Awesome social content from blogs, videos, and images that aren’t discovered via search really aren’t so awesome if they never reach the intended audience. On the other hand, that same awesome social content can leverage keywords that improve search traffic to the site. The social interactions and sharing that result, can improve a brand’s visibility within the search results. In other words, if attempting the above listed SEO tactics without leveraging the content distribution and linking benefits of social web participation, progress becomes much more difficult. Social encourages participation, sharing, voting, commenting, and linking which all increases exposure to your site and SEO. An integrated approach will reap the most optimized results. (Odden, 2009)

References:

admin. (n.d.). Can social media affect SEO? Retrieved December 20, 2013, from Webseoanalytics: http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/can-social-media-affect-seo/

DeMers, J. (2013, April 13). How Social Media is Changing the SEO Industry. Retrieved December 21, 2013, from search Enginge Journal: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-social-media-is-changing-the-seo-industry/63060/

Digital, J. (2012, June 26). Web Analytics and SEO: ten questions and answers. Retrieved December 20, 2013, from Web Analytics World: http://www.webanalyticsworld.net/2012/06/web-analytics-and-seo-ten-questions-and-answers.html

Media, T. D. (2013). What Is SEO / Search Engine Optimization? Retrieved December 20, 2013, from Search Engine Land: http://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-seo

Metrics, S. (2013). SEO Ranking Factors – Rank Correlation 2013 for Google USA. Retrieved December 21, 2013, from Search Metrics: http://www.searchmetrics.com/en/services/ranking-factors-2013/

Odden, L. (2009, April 15). Social Media and SEO: 5 Essential Steps to Success. Retrieved December 20, 2013, from Mashable: http://mashable.com/2009/04/15/social-media-seo/

Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism. (2013). Lesson 1: Intro to Web Analytics. Retrieved December 20, 2013, from IMC 642 Web Metrics & SEO: https://learn.wvu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_group=courses&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2FdisplayLearningUnit%3Fcourse_id%3D_1678_1%26content_id%3D_102543_1%26framesetWrapped%3Dtrue

Sherk, A. (2013, Augsut 21). 5 Ways that Social Media Impacts SEO. Retrieved December 21, 2013, from Adam Sherk: http://www.adamsherk.com/seo/how-social-media-impacts-seo/

Thurow, S. (2007, February 12). Web Analytics, SEO, and Site Usability. Retrieved December 20, 2013, from Clickz: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/1710287/web-analytics-seo-site-usability

unknown. (2013). Social. Retrieved December 22, 2013, from Support Google.com: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1683971?hl=en

unknown. (n.d.). search engine optimization (optimizer) - SEO. Retrieved December 20, 2013, from Webopedia: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/SEO.html