Step Wise SEO

Control parameters
The most important variable here is to determine what the success metrics are and how they are to be measured. In many instances the most rudimentary metrics are used and are as follows.

• Traffic - many companies still, in this day and age of tracking, ROI measurement and click accountability, determine the success of a search campaign by the amount of traffic that is driven to a site.

 With a branding and awareness strategy, often traffic is a good measurement of a successful campaign.

 The rationale is that the greater the number of traffic and clicks, the greater the number of searchers that have seen the search listings of the company.

• Share Of Voice (SOV) - search engine marketing is becoming a strong branding vehicle and one of the strongest ways to measure this is to determine how many times a search listing appears in respect of the number of possible searches on a particular key word or selection of keywords.

The rationale here is that, if searches are defined as voice, if 100 per cent of the terms show up 100 per cent of the time then this is considered a strong SOV.

To use this metric it is essential to make sure the selection of keywords is accurate or appropriate within the particular space or industry.

• Impressions - each of the major PFP search engines yields ‘impressions’ or ‘searches’ back for each of the keywords in a particular portfolio.

 This information gives an indication of the number of times a listing was shown during a given time period of searches.

 If careful assessment is prepared before a campaign is set, along with a target number of searches within a given time period, impressions can be used as a measurement.

• Rankings - defined as the average position a keyword receives within a search engine listing.

This measurement is strong for any type of submission and is probably the easiest of the four types of control parameter.

The rationale is to ensure that a top placement, i.e. position 1 to 5, or at least the top 10, is achieved for a company’s most important keywords phrases.

Measurement
With the identification of the control parameters the focus must now be looking at how to measure each of these parameters to gauge success or failure.

Using measurements provided back from the search engines themselves, such as impressions, and statistics provided by the tools and technologies, this can be done.

The following give suggestions on how to track and analyze each of these separate control parameters in detail.

• Traffic - traffic is easily measured using a range of devices and sources. Each of the paid search providers (such as PFP and PFI engines) provides listings but the organic providers (such as Google) do not.

For this reason many companies use a range of solutions, and if traffic alone is being assessed many turn to the simpler log file analysis systems.

Expansion of the traffic measurement could be done in two ways for more accuracy or financial accountability.

If site activity such as page navigation or entry and exit pages is assessed, a further understanding of what the branding or awareness exercise is driving people to may be arrived at.

After all, if a branding campaign led the largest part of the audience to a particular product or service, this information could be used for other marketing activities such as market research.

It is, however, in the current search climate, easy to drive traffic to a website in abundance; the challenge is doing it with both relevance and cost effectiveness.

For this reason it is recommended that the research methods are utilized to get an understanding of what costs are likely to be incurred for top spots on a wide range of keywords.

This data will allow for:
(a) Budget setting purposes and
(b) Expected deliverables

• Share Of Voice (SOV) - SOV is a difficult measurement and is only possible on a number of the paid for placement search engines.

A simpler measurement that gets close is that of rankings; however, in the paid for placement search engines, such as Overture, a top placement gets indication across the major networks.

The process of determining SOV is to use Overture’s Bid Tool, and record the CPC prices, traffic volume and companies bidding.

This must be done on the chosen keywords to be used within the search strategy. The rationale here is to create staged benchmarking processes of the company’s listings in the top spots throughout a given time period to determine how many keywords are in prominent positions.

• Impressions - Impressions should be measured against the total number estimated for the particular keyword or portfolio of keywords.

 The rationale behind this measurement is to get as many impressions on a term as possible.

 If combined with a rankings report and the SOV calculations it is possible to learn additional variables to utilize in other marketing efforts and search strategies. An example might be as follows.

High Impressions, Top Placements (high SOV, top 5 rankings) yet Low Traffic would indicate that the listings creative is not prompting the searcher to click despite having been in their eye line in an ‘above the fold’ position.

In a branding and awareness strategy this isn’t necessarily a bad result; however, if the same rationale is applied to ROI, the result isn’t as intended as the market might not be responding to the call to action within the title and description.

Low Impressions, Moderate Placements (medium SOV, top 10 rankings) and High Traffic would indicate that the creative is almost too refined and attractive for a click.

If this variable is associated with a conversion rate and the return is positive, it indicates a strong situation for an ROI strategy.

For an awareness strategy this isn’t a strong result as the low impressions and poor rankings suggest the objective isn’t being achieved and few people are seeing the listing.

Other criteria could be that the keywords are incorrectly researched, i.e. specific rather than generic keywords have been used, or the title and description is very attractive to all searchers.

High Impressions, High Placements and High Traffic is not a perfect combination for an awareness or branding strategy unless:

(a) Traffic is the sole desire or
(b) An unlimited budget exists

In most instances with a strategy it is user defined; however, if cost is a conscious variable then selecting terms with high velocity and getting a good CTR will increase the costs as every searcher is clicking on the term.

In this scenario the suggested correction may be in the keywords selected or in making the creative less attractive for a CTR and making it more specific.

It is important to recognize that many of these characteristics transfer across many strategies.

• Rankings calculating success based upon the keyword’s position within a search engine is the simplest calculation of all.

To gather a stronger SOV analysis, tools such as Lycos’ Competitive Analysis Report allow for a selection of keywords plus hundreds of thousands more to be measured against up to five websites giving a market space assessment of a company’s standing, overall rankings and SOV.

Keywords: Traffic, Share Of Voice, search engine marketing, branding, branding campaign, awareness, searches, Impressions, Rankings, CPC prices, Placements, CTR, Click through rate,