Keyword research is the fundamental foundation for any SEO campaign; knowing which keywords generate visits to your site, and more importantly, which keywords convert into customers should be a never-ending pursuit.
At RankPay, our primary keyword analysis tool is Google Analytics… it has an incredibly robust feature set, provides great insight into site visitors including what search term was used to find our site, and hundreds of other reporting outputs that allows us to effectively measure every variable tied to site conversion — traffic sources, volume, avg time spent, bounce rates, time of day effectiveness, landing page UI positives/negatives, and literally every other component that impacts conversion.
Last month, Google announced the introduction of “Secure Search” within Google Analytics. Essentially, this was a User Privacy initiative. Google has reset reporting so that any consumer that is performing a search while signed into their personal Google Account will now have the search terms they use hidden from the sites that they visit.
This means that Google Analytics will continue to report the usage from the searcher however they now report the data and display the source as “Not Provided”. Google estimates that this change only affects a minority of traffic, likely a single-digit percentage number of users. Analytics still provides complete insights on this Traffic such as: conversion rates, segmentations, bounce rates and so on.
We also continue to find value in utilizing Google’s Webmaster Tools offering for additional keyword search analysis. Just sign in to your Google account, and click on “Webmaster Tools”, and you will be taken to the Dashboard. Here you can add your site and will be taken through a verification process (which is simple, and as easy as adding Analytics). Their Search Query tool showcases data over the past (30) days, so it is helpful (and free), but limited compared to Google Analytics.
Also, checkout www.RankPay.net — we created this site to share a handful of Free SEO Tools that you will find helpful as you explore adding additional keywords to optimize through SEO, and measure effectiveness.
We’re continuing to watch the data from our “Not Provided” segment and compare it to our “Sourced Traffic” segment each month. We recommend that all small businesses and webmasters follow this same practice to further understand your sites’ Visitor Experience Trends to better select and optimize keywords that ultimately impact your business, and help drive the most qualified visitors to your product or service. If you’re not measuring effectiveness with Google Analytics, start today – http://www.google.com/analytics/
