ZoomMetrix

Marketing analytics for your online business

SEO

How to use Tableau to analyze Google Search Console data

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In this video post, I have covered integrating how I have automatically pull Google Search Console data into Google Sheets, and then how I set up Tableau to analyze the Search console data.

I have been using Tableau for a long time now. One of the great features of the latest version allows you to connect Tableau Desktop to Google Sheets. But not only that, in the latest version you can create Data Source using Union while joining various sheets with wildcard rule.

This is a great way to analyze your website’s effectiveness for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Google Search Console covers many data points that would be very insightful for marketers. Those data are Geo data, device category (desktop, mobile, and tablet), search query terms, and the page URL that showed up in Google Search Results Page, Impressions, # of Clicks, and avg position by page URL/Search Terms.

This is a very powerful way to look at how your site and content are visible to the people who are searching on Google.

Check out the video and let me know your thoughts! Also if you want to download the steps and get the links to the things I covered in this video, please subscribe to receive that PDF.

Enjoy analyzing folks!!

Keyword for SEO – How to Come Up with the List

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For those who own a site promoting their products or simply writing blogs, I assume there are times you consider thinking and generating keywords for SEO.

First, I need to say that since Google has limited their visibility on keywords for Organic Search within Google Analytics, I’ve been using Google Search Console with Tableau to analyze my content’s performance and it’s associated keywords.  I definitely get ideas from this to optimize content.

Example image:

Google Search Console Example with Tableau

Also what to generate will be based on rather I have covered a particular topic already or not.

From SEO standpoint, you want to use keywords that are more relevant to what users are searching.

You also want to consider choosing the right combination of terms to match the keywords that are searched more than other relevant keywords.

So here is a basic process to use to kick off your list of keywords that are more user-centric.

For this specific example, I will use search terms relating to SEO to come up with possible content ideas and keywords relating to SEO that is relevant and effective.

1) Create a general list of keywords. Perhaps five of them. Let’s call this List-A.
It is advised to start by thinking what your readers or customers are thinking. Try not to come up with terms that are industry specific or too granular. Start off with general terms that associate well with your readers.
You can ask your friends, family, customers, and colleagues. Let’s start with these examples.
List-A
SEO
SEO Optimization
SEO Tools

2) Do some research!! Then come up with the second list of keywords. Let’s call this List-B.

  • Find out what your users are talking or searching about SEO.
  • Visit your competitor’s websites: Check their backlinks and keywords they are targeting
  • Visits blogs of your industry.
  • Check out reviews, comments, and testimonials.

List-B
Google SEO
SEO Services
SEO Keywords

3) Combine the two list Final List = List-A + List-B
Final List
SEO
SEO Optimization
SEO Tools
Google SEO
SEO Services
SEO Keywords

4) Analyze the list and come up with keyword matrix
I recommend using Google AdWord Keyword Tool to come up with potential keywords related terms for your SEO strategy.

Once you make the first column within the keyword matrix table, select relevant terms associating to your content. Create additional columns based on your keyword selections.

Now, you have a list of keywords that you could potentially use to better optimize your pages for search. Welcome to SEO!!

Some of the tools that allow you to do research are:

  • SEMRush
  • Moz
  • Google Search Console
  • Google AdWords Keywords tool
  • SpyFu
  • For enterprise folks, check out Conductor

Note: Don’t forget to leverage competition and CPC data given in the Google Keywords Tool

Why 301 Redirect is Important for SEO

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When moving or replacing a web page from one URL to another, setting up a 301 redirect is important for SEO practice.  Biggest reasons why it is important for SEO is because:

  1. It tells Google (or other search engines) that the URL indexed by search engine has moved to another permanent address.
  2. Anyone who has clicked on an old URL will get redirected to a new URL.

Overview of 301 redirect
The code “301” means “file moved permanently”.
A 301 redirect is implemented in your .htaccess file. In the .htaccess file, after the code, the URL of the missing or renamed page is noted, followed by a space, then followed by the new location or file name.

A 301 redirect is the most efficient and spider and visitor friendly strategy around for websites.

Why you should consider using 301 redirects when migrating URLs
It’s easy and simple to set up 301 redirects and it should preserve your search engine rankings for that particular page. If you HAVE to change file names or move pages around, it’s the safest option to redirect pages without impacting your page ranking.

A lot of sites lose out on valuable search engine traffic due to incorrectly configuring the redirects. It very important to know that when a search engine comes crawl your website, it is able to follow any redirects you have set up.

Suppose you have a website http://www.xyz.com and you create a redirect such that whenever any visitor types in the URL http://www.xyz.com he is automatically redirected to http://www.xyz.com/abc/, If the Search Engine is not able to follow the redirect it would think that http://www.xyz.com has no contents, http://www.xyz.com would end up ranking very badly in search engines.

Common way to track it through web analytics
I track my 404 error page by adding the google analytics tracking code in it.
I remember at one point, I updated all of my URLs to reflect best SEO practices by replacing URLs that contain “_” to “-“. However, I missed out several pages, so I carefully looked at what pages resulted in 404, and added the new page URL to the 301 redirect.

This is one way you can leverage your analytics and error pages to make sure all of the page requests are redirected to proper page URLs.

 

How to Double Check, Track, and Optimize 301 Redirects

One of the common things to check what’s working or not is the traffic driven from the 301 redirects. It is quite astonishing to know how many redirects could exist, but people forget to manage because it is so easy to create.

Typically these redirects (e.g. example.com/tv) would take users to a landing page without having to depend on the users to memorize the entire URL string.
You’ll typically find them redirects used on TV ads, prints, radio, etc.

The objective of this article to bring the awareness that redirects could cause various issues including hidden actionable data that you could be missing out. This is a common culprit for big companies where they’re opening redirects left and right, but never manage to close it or redirect it to a new page.

What are the common implications for not managing the redirects correctly?

  • If there is no campaign ID assigned to the redirect, you won’t be able to properly assess how much that redirect is driving traffic to your site. It could be tracked under “direct” traffic in the traffic source report.
  • It could be leading traffic to 404 error page because landing page has been killed, but redirect continues to drive traffic to a page that no longer exists.
  • Routing traffic to another page means you could be losing a lot of opportunities to convert the visitors because the landing page is not optimal.

To understand how much traffic is driven from a particular redirect, make sure have the campaign ID assigned to it.

So make sure in your 301 redirect file, or WP plugin like the Pretty Link, or bit.ly links have the destination page with proper campaign parameters assigned. For google analytics, it would be the utm_ tracking codes. Here is an URL builder page you can leverage: Tool: URL Builder for Google Analytics

Make sure you have your web developers could provide you with the full list, so you can understand what redirects are driving how much traffic and conversions.

Then check the bounce rates and see if the landing pages are still valid. Is it a redirect from old campaign to a landing page that no longer exists?  Take to somewhere relevant, and test it if you can if it is driving a significant amount of traffic.

In this redirect optimization plan, the landing page is the key. Since the redirects contributing traffic are driving traffic to your site for reasons.

For example, It could be placed on another sites or blogs, bookmarked, etc. Therefore, directing them to somewhere relevant would be important.

If it was directing traffic to a Product page A under Category page A, you could potentially redirect that traffic to Product B or landing page of Category A, only if that original landing page Product A does not exist anymore.

Another point is, make sure the landing page is specifying canonical link so that the page will not be indexed including the campaign ID. Here is a great article from Google’s blog that describes this; Specify your canonical – by Google Webmaster Central Blog

Optimization does not only happen on creative, landing page doing A/B or MVT tests, but it could be done with significant impact on your bottom-line; by reviewing and taking action on fixing your 301 redirect strategy.

Convert Non-Branded to Branded Keywords Search Referrers

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Keywords used on search engines that referred traffic to a site are usually listed in the traffic source section of the analytics tools. These keywords are very insightful because it allows you to know what users search online to arrive at your site.

Now that Google provides less visibility for Organic Search keywords within Google Analytics, I’ve been using Google Search Console and it has been super insightful.

Here is a randomm sample of my data using Google Search Console and Tableau to see what pages of my site gets good impressions under what page position.  This tells me how my pages are reaching with what keywords.

Google Search Console Example with Tableau

We need to remember that your site content that is available to internet users determines the keywords users will use to arrive at your site. That will we based on various factors from Page Rank, external links, content relevancy, etc. (SEOMoz has great content regarding SEO). Therefore, “what” is available on your site will contribute to “what” you’ll find in analytics tool under search engine keywords referrals.

One reason I am writing about this topic is because analyst could report top popular keywords from search, best-converting keywords, keywords with great ROI, etc., but that doesn’t address a common behavioral pattern internet users perform.

Reason I say that is because if you care of free traffic from SEO then you should care how and what gets your page up there in the ranking.

For major sites that promote their brand, branded terms from search engines are pretty important to know. Because if your site’s objective is to build brand awareness and exposures, it’ll be very important to reach the audience who are looking for your brand.

If you are trying to reach new consumers who don’t know about your brand, and want them to remember your brand through your site using SEM — it is critical to remember that you’ll need to reach them by promoting search terms that are associated with your brand.

For example, for an apparel company, it could be related to a type of clothes (t-shirt, jeans, sweater, etc.).

Once you reached your users, assuming your site did a great job in brainwashing them with your brand and products/services, they will likely and possibly return back to your site (may even buy or convert, too!!) through search terms related to your brand or company’s name.

Here are some steps I would use in approaching to gauge your initiatives in transforming non-branded referrers to your brand referrers.

1) Assess and acquire knowledge on the current distribution of users coming from branded keywords vs. non-branded keywords. Let’s say 80% branded vs. 20% non-branded to demonstrate this example.

2) Invest in acquiring traffic from non-branded terms utilizing your data acquired through analytics — perhaps increasing traffic from the long-tail of non-branded keywords segment, participate in PPC campaign, increase content to acquire organic search traffic, etc.

3) Create two segmentations (or simply track) traffic from organic search traffic via non-branded terms, and returning traffic from branded terms.
Note: you can also generally look at overall traffic from search vs. returning traffic via search as well. However, it is advised to look at it more granular.

4) Measure the performance and results against different time. Before vs. After, Month to Month, Week vs. Week, etc.

Hopefully, this gives you a different perspective on how you look at branded terms to non-branded terms, and understand how to assess traffic impacted from users converting from non-branded referrer segment to your loyal branded referrer segment.

How to Assess Searched Keywords from Organic Search

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Assessing your site traffic from search engines by the keywords your visitors used, is a pretty important practice when determining your site’s visibility against these terms. There are many articles out there addressing “Long Tail” of keywords, and to assess all of the keywords that are under your Long Tail strategy requires a huge amount of efforts. One way to help you start initiating such research is by categorizing the key terms and graphing it out.

Here is an example of from a fictional blog site that writes about California in general.
The keywords listed in this chart would be hand picked by your analyst, based on key keywords that would be important to your site.

This chart tells me 50% of all searched terms from search engines contained a word “Event”. Obviously, this will tell you that a lot of the search traffic are coming from event-related terms. More than “Museum” or “Food” related terms.

This is nice to know because it also tells you how you are positioning the site’s content. The opportunity for this site would be to write more relevant content pertaining to food and museums. Perhaps in San Francisco or Sacramento.

That new goal you set, will allow you to plan what content to write and re-position your site.

% of Keyword Containing Within Searched Terms