A bit of summer fun with SEO and Analytics

Google Analytics can be a good place to find the small improvements that make a difference to your business. I’ve spent some summer days looking at the keywords already bringing people to Amino and getting more out of them. This isn’t a whole course in search engine optimisation. It’s a little tip I’ve found useful myself.

If you’re already an SEO champion, I might be wasting your time. But if you haven’t yet systematically examined which keywords bring you the right visitors, there’s some low-hanging fruit to go after. This is my work with Amino and Analytics in the summer of 2010.

What actually counts as success for you?

At Amino, I’m working on two things right now. I want to bring in new, unique users who haven’t used Amino before. And I want people to read as many pages as possible.

From the users’ perspective, the first means more entrepreneurs are introduced to Amino and can get help. The second hopefully means the information they find is good and useful. Of course, we’d also like more Amino Plus members, but that can come along the way. Right now, I’m focusing on the other two things.

Your measure of success might be entirely different. If you have an online shop, perhaps it’s about selling products. Then you shouldn’t just look at how many people a keyword brings in. You need to see whether they buy anything and how much they spend.

That’s why it’s important to have tracking in place. If you can’t see sales through your Analytics setup, you already have a task to tackle. Otherwise, it’s hard to know which keywords actually help your business.

Sort keywords in Google Analytics by what matters

I’ve gone into the keywords section of the version of Google Analytics available then, where I can see what people searched for in search engines, normally Google, to find Amino. Then I sorted by my measure of success, initially page views.

Do the same with your own goal. If it’s products sold, sort by that. Perhaps the keywords you thought mattered most aren’t the ones converting best at all. You only discover that once you’ve done the work properly.

Then take the words one at a time and search Google yourself. Find your result and see how it looks. Is it right? Does it look good? Your search result is also an advert for you.

If the text starts with a date, your company name or some other waffle, you might be wasting the most important space. I’d prefer the relevant keyword early on, where it makes sense, followed by text that makes people want to click. The online shop’s name can come afterwards.

You can debate the precise order, but the subject needs to be clear from the heading and text. Look at titles, meta tags and wording on the page. Those are some of the things I’ve been adjusting myself.

Work on the words that already convert

Next is the ranking. There’s a world of difference between being on page two and near the top of page one. If a keyword already brings conversions from a poor position, it’s an obvious one to work on.

In the video, I talk enthusiastically about perhaps increasing the return tenfold or twentyfold by moving from page two to first place. That’s my expectation of the potential, not a result I’ve measured for every keyword. The point is to prioritise words where you can already see the visitors are valuable. Also read E-pusher about my experiences with online sales and marketing.

Then make a plan for the improvements. Can you improve the text? Build some extra relevant content around the subject? Get links from other resources you have access to? I also mention friends, acquaintances and customers who can link to a relevant page from their website, using the subject as anchor text. Anchor text means the words you click to follow the link.

If you need to learn more about SEO, I mention books by Thomas Rosenstand and Mikkel deMib. They cost money, but my view is that good knowledge can quickly pay for itself if you use it properly.

My affiliate marketing example

Among other things, I’ve worked on affiliate and affiliate marketing. An article was initially at the top of page two. After the work, it moved onto page one, and the last time I checked, it was around fourth place.

I have an encyclopaedia, Amino Iværksætter Wiki. I wrote a little about affiliate marketing there and linked to the best article on the subject I could find on Amino. It wasn’t anything huge. That, together with a few other small things, helped lift the article.

I’m seeing around four or five extra unique visitors a day from that improvement. If I calculate around 1,500 extra over a year and put a visitor’s value at 50 kroner over the first two years, that’s 75,000 kroner. It’s a crude calculation using a value I’ve thrown out myself, not documented earnings. But it shows why I think ten minutes’ work can be interesting.

A summer day with 60 to 70 keywords

I spent the whole of yesterday on around 60 to 70 of the best-converting and most profitable keywords. I changed text, built more content around the subjects and worked on links from relevant resources.

My cautious guess is one extra unique visitor a day for each word I’ve worked on. With 60 words, that’s 60 a day, around 1,800 a month and about 22,000 a year. If you then multiply that by an estimated value of 50 kroner, the calculation starts looking interesting. Again, that’s my estimate of the potential.

So have a bit of fun with Analytics over the summer holidays. Look at the visitors already coming and the words already working. Improve the search results and pages, and work on the rankings. It could be a goldmine.

If you have simple ideas for improvements like these yourself, please share them. Enjoy the rest of the summer.

I’m playing around with Analytics, and it’s paying off pretty well… Best wishes, Martin