October 2011
The rules of search engine optimization have changed. Keyword visibility, or pinpointing what organic positions terms have achieved within the engines, has been a critical point of measurement within marketers' SEO reports for years. But now, with the rollout of personalized search by industry leaders like Google and Bing, results vary by user. This has created a need for search marketers to focus in on deeper SEO metrics, and to look more closely at individual factors that impact organic search engine visibility both positively and negatively.
Here are metrics to consider adding to your SEO reporting toolbox for a meaningful assessment of website performance:
Traffic: Traffic is the most important metric, but it must be evaluated carefully. Just because traffic increased month-over-month does not necessarily mean your natural listings are doing their job. It is important to look at traffic year-over-year as seasonality often plays a role in fluctuations. Use features such as Google Analytics notations to make note of online and offline efforts that might impact traffic numbers.
Organic Bounce Rate & Time-on-Site: As you're evaluating organic traffic, it is important to determine if the traffic you are sending to your website is qualified. By evaluating organic bounce rate and time-on-site, you can track user engagement. The more pages users visit on your website and the longer they spend on the site typically correlate to how well your site is meeting their needs.
Action on Site: Based on the keyword the user searched on, strive to determine what their intent was and decide if the website allowed them to take the desired action. If the keyword is research-focused, time-on-site, bounce rate and other user engagement statistics will be important. If the keyword is conversion-focused, look at the conversion rate for that keyword as an indicator of success.
Indexed Pages: Compare the number of pages you have submitted to the search engines through your XML sitemap with the number indexed. Identify why some pages may not be getting indexed, and take action to correct any issues.
Google Crawl Errors: Make it a regular practice to check Google Webmaster Tools for any crawl errors the search engines are encountering, and fix problems to prevent them from impacting your visibility.
Google +1s: If you have the Google +1 button implemented on your website, track the total number of +1s and number of new +1s over time. Google +1 metrics are likely to impact organic search results as Google is looking to these metrics to prove website relevance and popularity.
Checking search rankings still provides an important baseline for directional purposes, but now marketers must take a more analytical approach to assessing organic success. The most important thing to keep in mind when measuring and reporting on organic website performance is to take action. Search engines are constantly updating their algorithms, their bases for determining website rankings and their personalized search features, so your organic search strategies must be adaptable and evolve.
Congratulations to 90octane partner Avalon Waterways, part of Globus family of brands, for its 2011 Silver Magellan Awards from Travel Weekly! 90octane was pleased to contribute to the Avalon Panorama campaign selected as a winner in the Cruise Ship | Advertising/Marketing Campaign category. The Avalon Panorama is a Suite Ship, the first of its kind in the industry, featuring two full decks of suites with wall-to-wall panoramic windows that transform living spaces into unique open-air balconies.
90octane | 518 17th St., Suite 1400 | Denver, CO 80202 | p: 720.904.8169 | email: info@90octane.com |
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RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites, news-oriented community sites, and personal weblogs. But it's not just for news. Pretty much anything that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS. Once information about each item is in RSS format, an RSS-aware program can check the feed for changes and react to the changes in an appropriate way.
Once you have a reader (see below), receive updates from 90octane each time we publish a new press release, case study, article or 90blog post.
90octane, L.L.C. ("we," "us" or "our") builds and maintains custom interactive marketing programs,including online marketing. Because our ability to serve you successfully depends on building and maintaining communication with you, we have implemented measures designed to protect the privacy of your personal information, as described in our Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy governs your interaction with our website and your use of our online services. Except as set forth within this Privacy Policy, our Terms of Use or other published guidelines, we do not release personally identifiable information gathered through our website about you without your permission.
Please note that we review and may change our privacy practices from time to time. We ask that you bookmark and periodically review this page to ensure continuing familiarity with the most current version of our Privacy Policy. You may determine whether we have changed our Privacy Policy since you last reviewed it by checking the date of adoption set forth below. To contact us about privacy issues, to report a violation of our Privacy Policy or to raise any other issue, please contact us via the contact information provided on our "contact us" page.
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We will not provide personally identifiable information we collect from you to third parties, except to those who may assist us in processing your requests and sending information to you and as required by law or to enforce our rights. In addition, if we sell or transfer some or all of our assets or our company, we may sell or transfer personally identifiable information as part of such transaction.
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Adopted February 1, 2004
© 2011 90octane, L.L.C. All Rights Reserved
Your access to the website of 90octane, L.L.C. ("we," "us" or "our") is subject to the following Terms of Use (including our Privacy Policy), which we may update from time to time without notice to you. By accessing and using our website, you agree that you have read, understand and agree to our Terms of Use then in effect. You can determine when our Terms of Use was last revised by checking the date at the bottom of these Terms of Use. If you do not agree with our Terms of Use, your sole remedy is to discontinue use of our website.
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Adopted February 1, 2004
© 2011 90octane, L.L.C. All Rights Reserved