Presented on October 2, 2014 at SMX East 2014 in NYC, NY.

1. Actionable SEO Insights

2. A BRIEF INTRODUCTION
“The name… is Dalton.”

3. A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME
Actually, I’m not Dalton. I’m Kerry Dean, SEO. Nice to meet me.

4. THIS IS MY JAM!

5. NOT TO BRAG, BUT…

6. MY EXPERIENCE IS PRIMARILY RETAIL & TRAVEL

7. NOW LET’S TALK ACTIONABLE SEO INSIGHTS

8. WE USE INSIGHTS TO DIRECT OUR ACTIONS
TYPICAL SEO ACTION ITEMS
1. Optimize tagging (meta tags, H tags, Alt tags)
2. Create content (targeting keywords & topics)
3. Make your site faster (reduce pageload times)
4. Reduce points of friction during checkout
5. Optimize internal linking for crawling & ranking
6. Merchandising/Copywriting updates
7. Secure your site
8. Build links
9. Disavow links
10.Etc…

9. FIRST, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KPI’S.

10. IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND HOW WE GOT HERE…

11. WE HAVE TO GO BACK, KATE!

12. IN THE BEGINNING…

13. THERE WERE “HITS”

14. AND RANKINGS.

15. MODERN KPI’s

16. PRIMARY SEO KPI’s
1. Organic Visits (Sessions, New Visits, New Visitors)
2. Organic Revenue
3. Keyword Rankings

17. ECOMMERCE KPI’s
4. Transactions (Orders)
5. Quantity (Units)
6. Average Order Value
7. Conversion Rate
8. Revenue Per Visitor
9. Average Cart Size
10. Revenue per Unit Sold

18. ADDITIONAL ECOMMERCE SEO KPI’s
11. Total # of Keywords Driving Organic Traffic
12. Total # of Keywords Driving Organic Revenue
13. Total # of URLs Driving Organic Traffic
14. Total # of URLs Driving Organic Revenue
15. Total # of Search Engines Driving Organic Visits
16. Total # of Search Engines Driving Organic revenue

19. ADDITIONAL ECOMMERCE SEO KPI’s
11. Total # of Keywords Driving Organic Traffic
12. Total # of Keywords Driving Organic Revenue
13. Total # of URLs Driving Organic Traffic
14. Total # of URLs Driving Organic Revenue
15. Total # of Search Engines Driving Organic Visits
16. Total # of Search Engines Driving Organic revenue
NOT PROVIDED?! THANKS A LOT, BIN LADEN.

20. ENGAGEMENT KPI’s
17. Bounce Rate
18. Adjusted Bounce Rate
19. Time on Site
20. Dwell Time
21. Return Frequency
22. Scrolling
23. Pages per Session/Visit
24. Events: Form Submissions, Video Plays, etc…
25. Social: Likes/Shares/+’s/Tweets/etc…

21. WEBMASTER TOOLS KPI’S
26. #OF PAGES INDEXED (OVERALL)
27. SITEMAPS DATA
• # OF PAGES SUBMITTED
• # OF PAGES INDEXED
28. KEYWORD CTR DATA
29. KEYWORD IMPRESSION
30. KEYWORD CLICKS
31. AVERGAGE POSITION (KEYWORD RANKINGS)
32. CRAWL ERRORS
33. CRAWL STATS
34. STRUCTURED DATA (ITEMS & PAGES)

22. THE 4 GROUPS OF ORGANIC SEARCH KPI’s
PRIMARY ECOMMERCE
ENAGEMENT WMT

23. WE TYPICALLY FIND INSIGHTS IN THOSE 4 GROUPS.

24. WE DISECT SCENARIOS TO FIND INSIGHTS.

25. Scenario A (Ecommerce KPI’s)
On our weekly report, we noticed organic revenue is up week-over-week, but
organic orders are down week-over-week.
Question:
How can revenue increase when the number of orders decreased?
Answer:
This generally happens with an increase in AOV. Perhaps there was a sale on a
high-priced item. They didn’t sell many units, but the high cost of the item drove
a significant amount of revenue.

26. Scenario B (Engagement KPI’s)
Our organic search traffic has increased by 5% month-over-month, but our
bounce rate has increased 25% during the same time period.
Question:
Why did our bounce rate increase by a much higher % than our organic traffic?
Answer:
We launched a content campaign that attracted a ton of visits, shares, and links.
While some of those visitors went on to visit other pages on the site, the
majority of the visitors only looked at one page – the page they came specifically
to visit. This caused a major increase in bounce rate. [Side note: We set up
‘Adjusted Bounce Rate’ as a new KPI to measure success.]

27. Scenario C (Using Webmaster Tools KPI’s to Diagnose Issues)

28. Scenario C (Using Webmaster Tools KPI’s to Diagnose Issues)
Cross-reference
‘URL Errors’ with
‘Index Status’ data
in Google WMT.

29. PRIMARY ECOMMERCE ENAGEMENT WMT
THE ANSWERS & TRENDS CAN TYPICALLY
BE FOUND IN THESE 4 GROUPS.

30. HOWEVER, THAT IS A LIMITED VIEW.

31. THE SEO MULTIVERSE IS BIG – AND IT’S EXPANDING!

32. IN 2014, WE HAVE TO DRILL DEEPER.

33. “I'm only the best because I work with the best.”
LUCKILY, YOU WORK WITH A GREAT TEAM.

34. BUT SOMETIMES LOOKING FOR INSIGHTS CAN SEEM LIKE THIS.

35. WE HAVE TO PUT ON OUR THINKING CAPS.

36. “An alien intelligence has got be more advanced, and that means efficiency
functioning on multiple levels….and in multiple dimensions.”

37. LET’S TALK ABOUT DIMENSIONS.

38. DIMENSIONS

39. USING DIMENSIONS FOR MOBILE SEO INSIGHTS

40. “Mobile is coming
faster than anyone
expected.”

41. YOU ALREADY KNOW ABOUT PRIMARY DIMENSIONS.

42. YOU SHOULD BE MONITORING THE TRENDS OF ALL MAJOR SEARCH ENGINES.

43. USE SECONDARY DIMENSIONS TO DRILL DOWN FURTHER.

44. NOW WE CAN SEE ORGANIC SEARCH BY ENGINE & BY MOBILE DEVICE MODEL.

45. NOW, WE CAN LOOK AT GOOGLE SESSIONS BY MOBILE DEVICE MODEL.

46. PLOT IPHONE & IPAD SESSIONS TO SEE HOW THEY TREND OVER TIME.

47. PLOT THE CONVERSION RATES AND LOOK FOR INTERESTING TRENDS.

48. 3 DIMENSIONS THAT HELP WITH MOBILE INSIGHTS
1. Mobile Device Types
2. Browsers
3. Screen Resolutions

49. BROWSERS!

50. SCREEN RESOLUTIONS!

51. OTHER INSIGHTS WITH MOBILE SEO DATA

52. ADDITIONAL MOBILE INSIGHTS
Data Trending by:
o Desktop
o Mobile Phone
o Tablet
o “Phablet”
Blade… Laser…. and Blaser.

53. YoY Revenue Trends
TYPICAL REPORTING
YoY Visits Trends

54. CHANGE IT UP A LITTLE!
LOOK AT THE GROWTH TRENDS BETWEEN DESKTOP AND MOBILE.
SWITCH TO A % VIEW TO SEE JUST HOW IMPORTANT MOBILE HAS BECOME.

55. BUILD A VIEW FOR REVENUE TRENDS
COMPARE THE GROWTH IN MOBILE REVENUE OVERALL TO
THE RATIO OF MOBILE REVENUE TO DESKTOP REVENUE.

56. WHAT DOES THIS TELL US?
FOR THIS SITE, 41% OF ORGANIC TRAFFIC IS FROM MOBILE, BUT ONLY
17% OF ORGANIC REVENUE IS FROM MOBILE. THERE IS WORK TO BE DONE!

57. “Hey, client. Your mobile conversion rate sucks.”
BOOM. ROASTED.

58. A QUICK NOTE ABOUT REPORTING

59. SO MANY REPORTS, SO MUCH TIME…RIGHT?
30+ KPI’S
x 3 DEVICE TYPES
x 3 OPERATING SYSTEMS
x 3 BROWSERS
x SOME OTHER DIMENSIONS
= A LOT OF REPORTS!
“Napoleon, like anyone
can even know that.”

60. SEO REPORTS ARE LIKE CATS – YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY.

61. WELL…UNTIL YOU BECOME THE CRAZY CAT LADY OF SEO.

62. “Information is powerful.
But it is how we use it that
will define us.” - @Avinash

63. LET’S GET THIS TRENDING – AGAIN!
#SMALLDATA

64. THE GOALS OF REPORTING
1. DETERMINE WHICH KPI’s MATTER TO YOUR CLIENT.
2. DETERMINE WHICH KPI’s ACCURATELY MEASURE THE
SUCCESS/FAILURE OF YOUR SEO CAMPAIGN.
3. DETERMINE WHICH KPI’s ARE ACTIONABLE.

65. WHAT I HAVE LEARNED
WE NEED THE DATA IN ORDER TO TELL THE STORY.
HOWEVER…
“PEOPLE WANT THE STORY. NOT THE DATA.”
-@kerrydean

66. INSIGHTS FROM KEYWORD RANKINGS

67. +13 more: CH,DK,FI,HK,IE,IL,MX,NL,NO,PL,SE,SG,TR

68. SEMRush  Organic Research  Positions

70. You can download this data by month
going all the way back to Jan-2012.
DO IT!

71. Once you have the data, there is only
one thing left to do…
PIVOT
TABLES!

72. First, add a few new columns.

73. What can you do with this data?

74. 1. Ranking Trends for Keywords (Position Groups)

75. 2. # of Keywords Ranking for a Set of Keywords

76. 3. # of Keywords Ranking for All URLs

77. 3. (CONT…) # of Keywords Ranking for All URLs

78. 4. Keyword Tiers (Y/Y Comparisons)

79. 5. Trended Keyword Tiers

80. 6. Plot URL Ranking Data Over Actual Visits Data

81. The SEMRush Data Allows You To:
1. Segment groups of URLs by:
o Product
o Category
o Sub-Cats
o Sub-Domains
2. Filter each group by:
o Brand vs Non-Brand
o Search Volume Tiers

82. INSIGHTS FROM MULTI-CHANNEL ATTRIBUTION

83. ASSISTED CONVERSIONS

84. MIND = BLOWN
This is a data goldmine for marketers. More info here.

85. IN THE YEAR 2000…
Organic Search KPI’s will help tell the overall story.

86. APPTIONABLE INSIGHTS

87. LET’S TALK ABOUT APPS

88. GOOGLE SENDING SEARCHERS TO APPS
“Today, we’re expanding it to work for
English content worldwide. And we’re
including 24 more apps…
– Google Search Blog (Apr. 3, 2014)

89. BING IS DOING IT, TOO!

90. The Path for Organic Searchers is Changing
INITIAL SEARCH
OR
WEBSITE
VISIT
APP
VISIT

91. IF YOU HAVE AN APP…
You may notice a drop in organic traffic to your website as Google and Bing
begin to send more organic search to your app instead.
App
Launches

92. GET YOUR APP INDEXED!
More on APP indexing & structured data from @JustinRBriggs:
http://www.slideshare.net/justinrbriggs/increasing-mobile-visibility-with-structured-datao

93. GET READY FOR THIS
SEARCH ENGINE
#APPTIMIZATION

94. TYPICAL APP ENGAGEMENT METRICS
If organic search begins to drive searchers to your app, you will need to track
their behavior in the app.
1. Users
2. Session Length
3. Session Interval
4. Time in App
5. Acquisition
6. Screen Flow
7. Retention
8. Lifetime Value
9. …and more!
Get ready for App KPI’s. It’s going to get fun.

95. THE END