Tracking Search Engine Optimization

Let me start by saying that I don’t sell any kind of search engine marketing service, I receive them. However, I am accountable for the success of programs I hire vendors to put in place. If the programs I put in place do not work and I can not show that they were successful, it is me who will take the fall. OK, there is more to it than that. I don’t live my life in fear that if every online program I put in place does not return a high ROI that I will loose my job, but who does not want to do a good job and ultimately succeed? I also have a genuine interest in online marketing and want to work in this field for the rest of my professional life.

As a result of all of this, like a lot of other people, I spend a fair amount of my free time learning about new online marketing ideas and how to perfect the existing ones. I attend seminars, scour the internet, sign up to receive emails, read articles, etc. There is so much junk out there it is hard to sort through it all. I often share my experience with others and get their feedback. I have found that some of my most beneficial learning has come from talking to other about their approach and experience.

Tracking Search Engine Optimization
My most interesting conversations and learnings have been related to search engine optimization. I have done SEO inhouse and hired vendors. I have used all types of vendors. I have used expensive vendors who have large teams and wowed me with great reports and more data than I knew what to do with. I have also used mid sized to smaller vendors. One company I worked with was a two man shop. I had challenges with all of them. Some challenges the same, others different.

Reporting ROI for SEO Efforts
One of the biggest challenges I have experienced with all vendors is how to report ROI. I would get these great looking reports that show all kinds of information. Everything from visibility (higher placement) to higher traffic to estimated revenue. At the end of the day I would often find myself looking at all the information and left asking, “Are these results good?”

Visibility
I am not a fan of reporting on visibility. I have used products like WebPosition and received reports that showed how our visibility has increase X%. So what? I work for a hotel company and I had a vendor brag to me that we had first page placement on Google when you did a search for “Accommodations in North Dallas”. My issue with these kinds of reports is, how many people search for “Accommodations in North Dallas” when looking for a hotel? Instead of “Accommodations” wouldn’t a person just use “Hotels”? Instead of “North Dallas” wouldn’t a person use the name of the suburb that are looking to stay in? So, I want to know how we do when someone searches for “Hotels in Plano”.

I know you want to optimize for multiple words and phrases, but you want to optimize for words and phrases that drive traffic. Visibility reports can be misleading. They can be helpful, but you need to take them for what they are worth. It does not show if you are getting more customers or business, just that you are showing up. Ask questions. Are people visiting your site from search engines? Has our traffic increased?

Traffic
Reporting on traffic growth is much better than reporting on visibility. If you can see more traffic coming to your site through the major search engines you know you are getting benefits from your optimization effort. I have been fortunate enough to work for companies that were able to afford reporting software products that have enabled me to see traffic generated from search engines. Vendors may be able to provide you with reports, but I always feel better if the data comes from my company as opposed to a vendor.

There are issues with reporting on traffic as well. Is the traffic coming to your site qualified customers? Here is a funny story. Years ago, I actually had one guy suggest adding porn related key words to a web site’s content and Meta data. That is an extreme example, but I think you get my point. It is more than just traffic you want, it is qualified traffic that is likely to purchase what you are selling.

Sales & Revenue
Common sense tells me that the best way to track success of an effort is to determine how much money it makes for you. This gets complicated as well. Do you look at growth over last year? Part of what makes this complicated is that internet traffic and the use of search engines are growing. How do you account for this growth? For example, you may see a 25% growth in traffic and revenue by doing nothing because more customers are using the internet and/or search engines. There are other types of growth that you want to consider as well. Growth of the brand that you are supporting for example. Is the brand you are supporting becoming more recognizable? Offline marketing efforts almost always have a positive effect on online traffic.

So, what’s the answer?
There is not a simple answer for all web sites in all industries. However, there are a lot of things that can be done to track the performance of a SEO effort. Here are a few recommendations I can make based on my experience.

First and most importantly, establish a benchmark before the effort begins. Look at the current traffic. Look at how much is coming from the major search engines. If possible, separate paid from natural results. I recommend that you look at year-over-year information. It is great if you can look at last year over the current year and keep tracking moving forward. I understand that not all systems can hold two years worth of data. Keep exports of the data whenever possible. I keep monthly, quarterly and annual Excel reports dating back several years. Believe it or not, I use them very regularly. Even the reports that are several years old.

So, what should you report on? I have made some huge mistakes in this area in the past. It is very easy to caught up in the data and want to report on every little thing. My advice is to keep it simple. This will really help when you are comparing current data to data that was produced previously that may have come from a different system. Report on people and money. In other words, visitors and revenue. Know how many people are coming from the major search engines and how much money they are spending. Keep it that simple.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of other data that is very useful. Conversion rate, average sale, unique vs repeat visitors, what search phrase people are using to find your site, etc. are all great and useful information. However, I always find myself coming back to how many people came to the site and how much money did they spend. The biggest benefit you will get is that it is easy to report on growth. How many people came to the site this month vs last month, etc.

I love data! I can get caught up in looking at numbers all day long and coming up with interesting information that it tells me. Here is the thing, I have always been a part of or run very “lean” organizations. Small teams that are expected to do a lot. I have found that it is more effective for me and my team to spend less time looking over the data and more time on other marketing efforts.

I hope this helps!
OK, I am done for now and I hope my perspective helps. Online marketing is more than my job to me. It is also a huge interest area for me. I am not saying I am some kind of sicko and let it run my life, but I do truly enjoy learning from others and sharing my experiences. There is so much information out there about different online marketing efforts I thought I would add my two cents.

Consumer Generated Media – Another Tech Bubble

Someone recently asked me if I thought we were heading for another internet crash. At the time I said, “No.” Since then I have changes my mind. If you have not seen the Tech Bubble Video on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr3qPRAAnOg) you are missing a funny one. It was not the video that changes my mind, but it is entertaining none the less. What has changed my mind in part are the number of customer review focused travel sites that have popped up in the past year and a half or so.

Everyone is familiar with TripAdvisor. It has become one of my favorites. It is funny how a site like this can move from being a new blip on the radar to a mainstream site so quickly. But look for a second at how many others are out there. Similarly, CGM has moved from being a buzz word to a tool in a very short time. Amazon has done a great job with their product reviews for years. The reviews were the primary tools my wife and I used when purchasing baby products when we were expecting years back. However, for this conversation I want to keep the focus on the travel industry.

There is no doubt that travelers use these tools. I attended a session where someone from JupiterResearch spoke about the popularity of these online tools. The asked a panel, “How did you use content created by other travels while researching your most recent trip (e.g., reviews, ratings, photographs, etc. from other travelers)? 60% answered, “Verify my hotel choice pre-booking”. They also stated that 58% There are lots of numbers that I could share about how people use these site, how many people use these sites, how they are going in popularity, etc. What is astonishing to me is how many of these sites there are. I mentioned TripAdvisor earlier. There are also sites like VibeAgent, WAYN, Vertual Tourist, TravBuddy, SmallWorldReconnect, RealTravel, TravelPost, IgoUgo, Wikitravel, Kango, FlyerTalk, etc. I am sure there are more, but these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

If the majority of these sites ultimately fail, consolidate or are gulped up by larger companies it will obviously not be enough to create another tech bubble like we saw in the early part of the decade. But, let me remind you of some of the dramatic stories we were hearing about back then. Some companies you will recognize, others you will not. Interesting just the same.

• Boo.com – Spent $188 million in six month. Went bankrupt in May of 2000
  
• eToys.com - $80 per share in May 1999. Less than $1 in February of 2001


• Inktomi – Stock peaked at $241 in March 2000. Sold to Yahoo! for $1.63 per share in 2002


• TheLearningCompany.com – Purchased by Mattel in 1999 for $3.5 billion. Sold for nothing in 2000

The online travel market is currently oversaturated with these types of companies that offer similar features and functionality. Only time will tell if we hear similar stories about this wave of internet based companies in the travel industry. Regardless, something has got to give.

No Guarantee?

I don’t get it. I have spoken with several service providers about their search engine optimization offering and none of them will give any kind of guarantee. The latest I heard was, “Nothing about SEO is guaranteed.” This came from the same company that really pushes the importance of visibility and the quality of their reporting. My question to companies like this is, “If you are offering a great service and feel visibility is that important, then why can’t you guarantee an increase in visibility?”

Here is the perception I am left with. If you can not make any kind of guarantee then I feel as if your biggest marketing effort has been on yourself and not your customers. You are selling your services, selling your reports, selling yourselves, etc. However, you are not working hard enough to do the job your customer hired you to do.

If you can not guarantee an increase in search engine visibility, how about guaranteeing an increase in search engine traffic? How about an increase in online sales? How about something as bold as a 10:1 return on your customer’s investment? My point is that there are several metrics that can be reported on and that could be used to back a guarantee. If you are unwilling to offer some kind of guarantee, I question your ability to perform.

So what do the service providers say?
“It is simply impossible to guarantee what an unrelated third party, like Google, is going to do. Therefore companies that guarantee search engine ranking are either intending to use unethical techniques to produce rankings or are misrepresenting their abilities.”

The above statement came directly from Google. It was sent to me by a service provider I spoke with and challenged them when they said they would not provide any kind of guarantee. They copied my boss on the email as well as everyone they knew at the company I work for. They really hung on the “unethical” word. My response is, “So?” Let me be clear, I am not saying use “unethical” practices. I am saying if Google says the company is using unethical techniques and/or misrepresenting their abilities if they are guaranteeing search engine ranking, then find another metric to guarantee that is not considered unethical. Search engine traffic, sales, something.

Search engines & techniques change, so should you.
Let me touch on another part of the statement from Google. They say, “It is simply impossible to guarantee what an unrelated third party, like Google, is going to do.” I understand that, but isn’t it also the responsibility of a company that is paid to provide a service like search engine optimization to be on top of what a third party like Google is doing? If Google is changing their algorithms, shouldn’t a company that says they specialize in search engine optimization know about it and have a strategy to address it?

The internet is always changing. The search engines are always changing. I would expect a company that provides services that are so closely tied to these companies, their practices and their technologies to know as much as possible about what changes are being made as well as what changes are being considered in the future.
The idea that Google, Yahoo, MSN and all the rest of the search engines are always changing what they are doing and the techniques/logic they use to produce results is not an acceptable excuse for not giving some sort of guarantee.

Still, no guarantee.
You have the right to not offer a guarantee. I have the right to choose another company as my service provider.