Google's recent announcement that it will be obfuscating all keyword referral data going forward has created yet another occasion for (and perhaps the first occasion that really deserves) that age-old cry, "is SEO dead?"
My response to the "is SEO dead" question is always the same: The Internet isn't going away, and neither is selling stuff. It's a pretty safe bet that online marketing is here to stay, and as long as search engines drive traffic to websites, marketers should be thinking about how to get the best audience and the most sales from that traffic. The optimal traffic from search engines, if you will.
Here at Moz, our organic traffic has already been at over 50% (not provided) for over a year, and our (not provided) numbers have been hovering around 80% for a while now, so I've had some time to mull this over: in a post-keyword world, what is SEO?
Moving away from keywords
One reason Google's move toward (not provided) feels like such a blow is that for a long time, SEO was all about keywords. You'd start by brainstorming and researching keywords, and once you had your list you'd assign those keywords to pages and content pieces. Then, once you had each page nice and targeted around a keyword, you'd build some links, track traffic from those keywords to those pages, and adjust as needed. Done and done.
The thing is, even without the loss of Google's referring keyword data, search engine traffic isn't just about the keyword anymore. Thanks to the new search carousel, it's possible for users to perform several searches and get to several different SERPs from just one query. Thanks to Google's autocomplete feature, users are often using a suggested query rather than whatever their original keyword might be.
The real killer of the keyword-driven approach isn't (not provided), though. It's Google's increasing devotion to semantic relationships between topics and entities on the web. Author Rank, personalization, and the Knowledge Graph have added new elements to consider: Now, in addition to what your content says and who links to it, Google also cares about who created it, what else they've done, and who's shared it. Content from a trusted source can rank in personalized results for related keywords without specifically targeting them; Google's gotten that good at figuring out topical relationships.
Pages and authority
What this means for SEO is that we need to shift our focus from getting traffic from keywords to getting traffic to pages. The recent hot trend in SEO around quality content is one aspect of that transition—it's much easier to drive traffic to a great piece of content, regardless of how keyword-targeted it is. A more content-oriented mindset will also help us build topical authority, which is clearly something Google is interested in; they've spent a lot of time and a lot of money trying to figure out who knows the most about what, and authorship is just the latest development in that ongoing quest.
Smarty Pants. by ~Shari, on Flickr
Building authority around a topic involves new, #RCS-oriented twists on classic SEO techniques:
- Brainstorm specific content pieces within your target topic, research to gauge potential audience interest, plan it out and create it (keyword research, anyone?).
- Promote your content to audiences you know have an interest in it (some people might call this social media).
- Build relationships with entities who already have established authority in your topic, especially those who are in your geographical area, and start brainstorming new content and sharing each other's content (that's link building but without all the horrible, tedious or shady stuff).
The great thing about focusing on building topical authority is that all of these tactics also drive traffic to pages. If your goal becomes "get a lot of awesome traffic to this awesome page" rather than "rank for this one keyword by any means possible" or "build x number of links per month" you can continue proving excellence in everything you do while doing better marketing.
In fact, shifting the focus from keywords to pages means that you can show the traffic that came from links you built—there's no faster way to wean an exec off of the "x number of links per month" mentality than to show what a huge difference there is in different links' potential to drive traffic.
This trend should also (hopefully) eventually kill the idea that we will come in to an existing content site and "do SEO" to it (can I get an amen?)—instead, it's more important than ever that SEO be considered throughout the process of building a site.
Brand power
One potential pitfall of targeting increased traffic, especially in the absence of specific keyword targeting, is that clients may claim that increased traffic comes from brand recognition, not from your SEO efforts. To which my rejoinder is: Who says brand building isn't part of SEO?
Part of building topical authority is setting up your brand as the place to go for the best information on that topic. Bust up the notion that branded keyword traffic never comes from SEO! Use your link-building efforts, whether that's PR, guest blogging or content sharing, to get your brand out there. You can track your progress in building your brand online by monitoring search volume for your branded terms in Google Trends. By increasing search volume for your branded terms, which you probably already rank for, you're also—you guessed it—building traffic to pages! #Winning!
Win at fundamentals
If you're really invested in showing Google that your site is an authority on a topic, you should also be showing Google that your site is a pleasant place to be—not a weird, difficult-to-parse heap of broken pages that takes forever to load. Do you see where I'm going with this?
FREE GARBAGE!!! by sylvar, on Flickr
If (like me) you work on a big site, or an old site, you know that when it comes to technical SEO there's always more to do. That's one part of SEO that hasn't changed at all: Solid technical SEO can still take you very far. Make it easy for Google (and Bing, and, you know, people) to load your site, to navigate your site and to figure out what each page is about, and you will be rewarded with return visits. Semantic markup is the new hotness in technical SEO for a reason: It helps search engines easily figure out what you're trying to do with your data.
The nice thing about technical SEO is that it doesn't require people outside of your company (or your client's company) to take action in order to succeed. You can have a running list of SEO improvements in your dev team's queue, launching while you're taking the time (and it does take time) to build relationships and create great content.
OK, but what about keywords?
Focusing on topical authority and building traffic to pages is great, but search engines are still search engines, and that means that queries—a.k.a. keywords—are still important. Rand had a great post recently about ways to back into keyword tracking—if you know you're ranking for a popular keyword, and you know you're getting search traffic to that page, it's a fair bet that at least some of that traffic is being driven by that keyword.
This is the time, however, to be training our clients away from keywords. Keywords feel nice, and it's great to Google yourself and have your site come up, but the more we can track our activities back to real traffic from real people (and real sales that result in real money!), the better and more interesting work we'll be able to do.
To that end, we all need to be thinking beyond Google when we think about traffic sources. We need to be thinking about other search engines. We need to be thinking about traffic from social media, link building, and third-party content-sharing sites like Pinterest and SlideShare. Reducing our dependence on Google is the best way to "algorithm-proof" our sites and make sure we're getting the best traffic and sales we can. So maybe next time there's a big change like this, it won't be quite so upsetting.
"Reducing our dependence on Google is the best way to "algorithm-proof" our sites and make sure we're getting the best traffic and sales we can."
Excellent point. When you rely too heavily on any one source of traffic you are taking a risk. Even small changes could spell disaster! Yes, organic traffic is going to be huge source of visitors for most sites, but you can make the pie a little more evenly distributed by focusing on building solid referral links, engaging your social community, and more.
Very true, I remember at a recent event some one asked the speaker: "what strategies do we use to get past not provided", some one screamed out "STOP using Google and start using BING!!!!" But yes if you rely too heavily on one source of traffic it is a risk for sure.
I totally agree!! We need to look at other resources
In a way, we've always been trying to get traffic to pages - we just used keywords to educate ourselves & measure success (i.e. conversions) in a granular manner - now we can't do that so well, so I'm less enthusiastic :)
Then again - if voice search is on the rise, perhaps the keyword is less important, and it's more about intent. We're not operating entirely in the dark - we just have to avoid the trap of continuing as normal, as you quite rightly point out.
Great point. We often worry about SEO and keywords, that we forget about the other things. Like creating great copy, creating an email list, or even being awesome at social.
It's such a shame that we forget about all of these things, but they are all important in today's world.
That's why I am far from worried about SEO practitioners. Sure, it's going to take some adaptation, but SEO pros are going to learn more about marketing and sales/marketing pros are going to learn more about coding and how everything works under the hood.
Great post Ruth.
And I sincerely think that you translated to SEOs the meaning of the definition of thought leadership:
A thought leader is an individual or firm that prospects, clients, referral sources, intermediaries and even competitors recognize as one of the foremost authorities in selected areas of specialization, resulting in its being the go-to individual or organization for said expertise.
A thought leader is an individual or firm that significantly profits from being recognized as such.
Hi Ruth
I liked 360 view to cater this problem "we need to shift our focus from getting traffic from keywords to getting traffic to page”. I think this is the only solution
Relationship marketing, integrated marketing, social marketing are some ways to bring traffic, but while bringing traffic to pages we need to make sure that we are fulfilling the traffic expectations, otherwise it will have reverse effect on search rankings as it will have high bounce rate.
We can see Google is doing everything to ensure a good experience for its users.
It will be very wise if most of traffic shifts to other search engine, but that is not possible when Google has decided to give good experiences to its visitors on search results.
I agree, Manish - it's not just about traffic, it's about good traffic!
Rock Star Stuff!!
The "new hotness" (and why is it new when we have been saying for years that content is king?) of well written engaging content is the 100% way to be algorithm proof and have your site do as well as it can in the SERPS.
Great post Ruth!
Nice post Ruth.
I agree on a few points here. I also think that Google will be placing more importance on Authorship Rank in future. Social media will also start playing a bigger role, Google+ is a clear indicator of just that. Unfortunately social media is still very easy to manipulate, so how much pull social has as a ranking factor will be small.
Even though I think the change to (not-provided) by Google is a move made to try and negate manipulating of rankings (which is sort of counter intuitive of them since they want you to optimize your site for for them), it will get some time to get used to. I makes our work as SEO's a bit more intricate. I'm always up for a challenge.
I also agree that you should find other channels for your traffic to come from, not just focus on Google. Having all your eggs in one basket can turn ugly real fast.
The most difficult part will be restructuring a large organization like the one I work in. There are already processes that dictate who reports on what and to whom.
For example, reporting is done is a specific department using a certain methodology. However, if SEO is changing away from "getting traffic from keywords to getting traffic to pages," then the whole process of reporting successes has to change.
This will also effect the copywriters, graphic artists, management focus, LPO->CRO, etc.
I am finding that my job title has gone from Research, Implement and Train to primarily Research and Train!
Training is definitely a huge part of all of our tasks for the next year - implementing a holistic inbound marketing strategy usually requires a team and that means a lot of training.
Hey Ruth,
As ever another very insightful article, one that can turn the SEO's frown upside down and make you realise losing keyword data is not the be all and end all as you might first think and instead can actually make us look at the end game and produce better content and be smarter with our SEO activities.
The only dilemma now is getting the clients on board and as you say tearing them away from this x number of links per month and what position are we in Google for a given keyword. That is the biggest challenge I foresee for SEO'ers the world over.
Thanks again for the great article.
Great Post Ruth.
Meanwhile we completely moved from keywords and starts brand building. We still need some keyword data to get insights and find plans to deal with this transaction. Here are some resources to get some not provided keyword data https://www.seoorb.com/list-of-11-actionable-posts-on-how-to-get-not-provided-keyword-data/ , https://searchenginewatch.com/article/2297674/Google-Not-Provided-Keywords-10-Ways-to-Get-Organic-Search-Data & https://blog.kissmetrics.com/crack-keyword-not-provided/
Hi Asif,
Thank you for providing resources. Personally I have tried many ways to solve issue of 'not provided', but none was workable. Is there any link which you had tried and actually solved the problem of ‘not provided'?
Use Google webamster search Queries to check keyword that are getting impression and clicks for the website..
I was shocked to hear about Google's new policy on keywords. The more I've mulled it over the more I realize anytime good old fashioned "quality content" is the focus then we all win. Like Ruth said, "The recent hot trend in SEO around quality content is one aspect of that transition". When I started my business just over two years ago I had no SEO experience. Despite my shortcomings we did quite well with organic traffic simply because I was producing a lot of well-written, informative content. We've since employed more sophisticated SEO strategy but time and time again it's just the good content that seems to make the difference.
Write for humans and the search engines will follow.
What Is SEO Now that Everything Is (Not Provided)?
For a newer niche website that gets less 100 hits a day, with 80% (Not Provided) it will be much harder to understand what visitors are looking for when they stumble into your site. If your niche is a viable one and you deliver content that is desirable, some population of followers will discover you organically.
It's going to be about sampling, populations, and sample size. Rather than following the crowd, you will have to find your own voice. The logged in https Google population will be obscured, and while that could be your mainstream target audience, there should still be a small sample (not google https) that does provide keywords.
Should give at least some sampling of the traffic, yes?
I would also be thinking in terms of competitor analysis and landing page data. Using tools like the Visitors Flow Report, CRO, and landing page should naturally surface what your visitors are looking for (and in turn whether or not they are finding it valuable).
"Now, in addition to what your content says and who links to it, Google also cares about who created it, what else they've done, and who's shared it. Content from a trusted source can rank in personalized results for related keywords without specifically targeting them; Google's gotten that good at figuring out topical relationships."
So true.
For a while now we've been ignoring keywords in Analytics and just concentrating on good quality content that people want to read, share and link to and it's working wonders.
Hi Ruth,
I love your article, especially when you said: “moving away from keywords”.
It reminds me the “link-building” strategies some pseudo-SEO´s focus on some years ago and now they should move on:)
I think the user experience is the reason why we should focus in content, landing-pages, and keywords but at the end. Google´s SERP´s and Authorship will have a great integration soon –that´s what I believe- which means we should be “someone” on the Internet field more than just an organic “position”.
“Off-line” marketing strategies -like “Branding” still really important if you can take it “On-line”… not an easy work, but something important to remember.
I see this as a good thing for the white-hat SEO world. If you are a legitamate, expiranced SEO you'll figure out a way to work with this update... I think the people who don't know what they are doing will just give up :) Which is probably good for our industry's reputation.
Hang in there.
Good article, SEO isn´t dead, have yet something to do in this camp, the pagerank is part of seo too and yet exist, we must forget the meta keywords space, but, writing valuable content is good for get high ranked, creating interesting content about your theme, and get linked in pages about your theme is good for get high ranked too, many things doesnt change in the way of making SEO, social media optimization is more important than before.
Thats true - not provided is one of the most keywords on many sites :)
On my private sites not provided is round about 25% and thats ok..
For my clients its sometimes 50%
save browsing isnt that much used hear. Mobile devices are the main problem here in germany i guess.
and @nikitazmbr
Do what u like to do - you wont get ill so it is save for you :)
My be not for the sites - but Matt Cutts isn't coming to your house, knocking on your door and slap you for that. Hmmm maybe he will - howmany is "multiple sites" ?
"If your goal becomes "get a lot of awesome traffic to this awesome page" rather than "rank for this one keyword by any means possible" or "build x number of links per month" you can continue proving excellence in everything you do while doing better marketing."
Great point. This highlights the big shift in strategy which us SEOers are currently being faced with.Great post!
Great post Ruth, thanks for sharing your insight and views. It reminds me of a quote from a friend of mine with an online business.... he tried competing with the online warehouses on price by lowering all his prices. His turnover nearly doubled... his profits went through the FLOOR... he later said to me.....
Turnover is VANITY. Profit Margin is SANITY :-)
Same goes for traffic... clicks don't mean a thing if they don't get to the GOAL
Great post Ruth - traffic means nothing unless it is converted. Focusing on keyword ranking takes the focus off the real goal and sometimes just generates junk traffic.
you're talking about Reducing our dependence on Google and then you're trusting and depending on Pinterst, slideshare or third party sharing website or you're depending on the Link Building ? which has almost changed into relationship building ? your last para I wont agree with that well the reason is you cant reduce the dependence on Google coz if you're neglecting Google you're probably missing your potential buyers and customers .. I couldn't understand how could you say that and also its the best way of algorithm-proof ? What I've learned is if you have to be algorithm proof or from any kinda update you have to give respect to Google we are bounded by trends and Google word itself has became a trend .. when people think about internet the first thing came to their mind is Google :o .. it has a market cap of more than $300 billion which is almost 3times more than the facebook ..... so if you are going to ignore the Google you are probably gonna ignore your core clients .. If you're still thinking and talking about Algo-proof it means you are still thinking and depending on Google ..
Optimization, to a certain degree, has always been about asking Peter Drucker's Second Question - Who is our customer? That degree is now more an exercise in marketing than predicting the outcome of the search engines. That's a major shift for the pros who have made their bread and butter on the latter - a shift of tasks, learning, responsibility, and application of knowledge. It's akin to playing a sport on a larger field of play or with a more difficult goal to achieve.
It really does come down to becoming an authority in the eyes of Google. Having quality content is what, our experience has told us at allthingshere.com is really all its about.
Getting away from the keyword end and having the Algorithm more Page based (content) is good for the Google user and the community at large that is in search of White Hat SEO companies. Anyone worth half their salt with SEO should have no problems implementing a plan of attack.
Much Success for All,
FatherD
[link removed by editor]
Totally agree! We need to move back to the key of SEO a.k.a great content. And forget about keyword analysis to focus on landing page analysis, among other methods (on this topic I would recommend this article).
https://blog.atinternet.com/en/index.php/2013/07/23/best-practices/how-to-improve-seo-despite-an-increase-in-the-number-of-not-provided-keywords-web-analytics-methods-and-useful-tips/1432
Go into all things marketing with the consumer first, and the rest will follow. Technical issues will cause problems, but if the content itself is good, then the right users will come and convert. As always, put your audience first and the rest will follow. It is better to be a big fish in a small pond, then the other way around.
Here you can grab some 'not provided' data back from Google: niswey.com/blog/how-to-capture-not-provided-data/
Thank You
Hello Ruth!
You share a very nice post with us this post are very helpful for us to know about the SEO and its importance in the marketing.I think Google is best in compare to other search engine and i think it moderate your algorithm time to time so we can't say that how they work on Sorting of Keywords for the analytics.It Provide the best match of the keyword from the other.But i am also agree with your point of view SEO is not only thing for promotion.
Thanks for this post, please keep continoue to share your nice thought with us like a blog.
Good wishes......
Looks like SEO - Marketing just got interesting again.
Hey Ruth, I couldn't agree with you more, SEO is constantly changing and a lot of SEO experts need to get themselves acquainted.
Great, great post! Love your comment about "The Internet isn't going away, and neither is selling stuff." Online marketing isn't going anywhere, no matter how the tides of SEO turn.
Thanks for posting!
well-written article, there's just one aspect you didn't mention: the relation of (not provided) and longhand SEO
since Google's trying to build some kind of semantic web, in time (in a blink of an eye) every SERP will be filled with Graph results, but until this, I guess, longhand SEO can be continued even without knowing the exact search phrases. Summed up everything here: https://www.e-a-r-n.net/2013/10/continue-longhand-seo-if-not-provided.html
I believe the fact on a few factors here. I also think that Search engines will be putting more significance on Authorship Position later on. Public networking will also begin enjoying a larger part, Google+ is a obvious signal of just that. Unfortunately social press is still very simple to control, so how much take social has as a position aspect will be little.
Favorite part of this post? "Who says brand building isn't part of SEO?" I've been saying that ever since I understood how the Google algorithm works (or at least how we think it does :D). Great point, Ruth! I'm glad somebody else is saying it too!
Hi Ruth! Yes indeed. A more content-oriented mindset will really help us build topical authority; and by building an authority around a certain topic, we need to know some SEO techniques. One of the best techniques for me is to promote our content to audiences we know have an interest in it through social media. THank you so much for sharing this very informative post.
Excellent information. it is a big fact that SEO helps in gathering the traffic of the audience which is very good for the page rank but simultaneously maintaining the relationships and also pay attention to the keywords which is very important keywords must be relate to the brand recognition, yes it is also the part of the SEO it helps in attracting the audience and maintaing the relationships. Our content should be relevant, understandable. hence content is king. Very well said Excillent post keep it up.
Thank you so much for this article - I should have been doing keyword research when I came across this article and am so glad I found, read, and read around. It's made me think more clearly about everything and has answered so many questions I had and have been thinking about for a few weeks now - much appreciated!
than you for sharing such an information its fabulous.I totally think that we should not run after search engines by providing good keywords for increasing the traffic to our site. We should rather have a good content for visitors so that they like our content and come back to our site again and again and also refers to others so that backlinks to our site increases automatically.
Using Webmasters sometimes feels more satisfyting than Analytics, that's the extent of Not-provided these days.
Yeap Ruth, we need to focus on other things rather than kw, and educate our clients on this. Anyway, "the challenge" wil be trying to show our clients that our work is well done before they become in sales... I mean, there is a nowhere land between startup SEO and real SEO organic search conversions / sales... no way to feel the gap unless you are sound enough to bring trust and confidence to your clients. Not an easy task for small companies. Stronger will prevail...
Nice article. For as long as people continue to use Google to navigate the web and find content SEO will still be very much alive. The way it's done will simply change over time. That's life & that's business. If you don't keep up with it, then your business will go down the drain.
Adapt or die...
Ruth,
I can't help wondering how this will affect small, local business owners with limited content budgets and resources. They can ill-afford to have a Wikipedia like web presence, nor can they commit to huge sites with a plethora of content pieces focusing on all aspects of their business, just so that Google may divine some inspired relationship between them and deliver a page one ranking.
For the auto care provider, pet store, or nail salon that's trying to rank highly for common search terms in their given geographical area, they'd better hope to shout that their local presence is well reviewed and they've done what's necessary to get top rankings on the map, because it seems their days of being ranked in traditional organic search results are coming to an end.
.......or am I all wet????
Fortunately, for a local business owner it's not necessary to have a Wikipedia-like web presence. If you can't provide manicures to the entire country there's no need to rank nationwide for "nail salon." Local search marketing is becoming much more its own thing. A great first step is using tools like Moz' GetListed service, which helps local business owners lock down their local listings and make sure they're correct and consistent. From there, having a well-built site as I discussed above can give local business owners a huge leg up since many small business websites are...not great.
As Google et al become more sophisticated at discovering relationships between entities, they're also becoming much more sophisticated at discovering which queries have strong local intent. Since many local searches come from mobile, a small local business would also do well to have a good mobile experience.
Excellent response.
Strong Google+ places listings will greatly increase local search. Just run a test and search for a plumber in your city. For me the first 8 results are all local listings, this is a great avenue for small businesses.
Great post Ruth... "Reducing our dependence on Google". If we rely on one source, there is a risk!!
Clichéd response, but easier said than done...especially on a small budget.
While budget is an issue, there are other tools to use. Google Webmaster Tools as well as Bing Toolbox will release keyword data. Other site tracker tools disclose valuable info.
Unfortunatly i don't have access to google analytics to show the keywords not provided
SEO Never can dead.. but yes its definition has really changed..
Yeah, It has changed a lot and it's even Good for us to keep changing things accordingly. By doing this thing we can remove damage from SEO industry.
I think it all comes down to making sure that SEO is just one part of an overall marketing strategy and, if you haven't already, you need an all encompassing digital marketing strategy that includes more than just building links to content. Everyone talks about social media and how important it is but there are many people not using it to its full potential and with the (not provided) problems now, integrating it all into 1 marketing strategy is going to be key.
I think that's going to be the real challenge for a lot of marketing teams in the next year or two. At Moz we're very lucky to have a full Content and Social team - for people doing SEO on their own it's going to mean a lot of reprioritizing and tough decisions.
Absolutely, we are a small agency with an in-house creative team so we manage to work quite well together. However, it is still the main focus of our business to incorporate all clients into one business model that includes digital and traditional marketing so we are not over-reliant on one area.
Keywords are such an end game metric. What can we learn about our customers from how many visits arrived for keyword x?
I'd much rather be a brand and also look at what we're missing out on. For example, in Webmaster Tools we can see impressions, CTRs & average positions and try to increase those numbers. Look at semantics, authorship, create killer content, A/B split tests & all that jazz!
Great post Ruth! :)
Great post!
The biggest challenge in the next few months/years will be to educate clients and partners to abandon the brand/no-brand keyword thinking.
At the moment my biggest problem is to find a new way to do reporting for my clients containing real information and data that can be understood by a non-online marketer.
An even more significant issue is that the actual numbers listed as organic traffic in Analytics can no longer be trusted or compared with those of the past years. A lot of organic traffic coming from mobile devices (especially IOS) and so called “save-browsers” gets listed as direct or referral.
With that in mind argumentation with clients gets even more difficult and it is based on calculations and projections and no longer on real numbers.
Hi zeppelin,
I completely agree with your point "educate clients" , biggest challenge to change clients traditional keywords approach, mainly those who are far from online marketing.
Dealing with same challenge :)
Client education is definitely a sticky situation right now - clients who know just enough to know that "keywords and links" are important, but not why. If a client has a bunch of garbage links, one thing I like to do is show them how little traffic came to their site from those links - you spent time and money on this and didn't get any sales in return? The problem of mobile traffic looking like direct traffic is a much thornier one - it's hard to sell clients on "some of this direct traffic to your site is actually due to my efforts." I think up-front education on how e.g. iOS traffic works, and continuing reminders about the additional invisible bump from mobile, can help.
Something that has helped me with this shift is to include clients in person if possible on brainstorming ideas for for content and how outcomes will be reported. This can lead to great ideas and it helps educate them away from the idea of keywords and links. Make it a fun professional experience and you will help them see how much you care about their brand.
If you have the budget film a few of these client meetings with permission of course and let clients who are not local see how the process works. This will help educate them as well.
At the moment my biggest problem is to find a new way to do reporting for my clients containing real information and data that can be understood by a non-online marketer.
I am working on this too. Message me (or the Moz community) when you come up with a digestible, scalable report SEOs can present to SMB owners. I will do the same.
We have stats (serps) day by day so we can (with gwt) calculate ctr. I'm going to check ctrs vs serps and I need websites to test (around 100). If You have and You'd like to help (dirty work is on my side) I'll be grateful:)
And I'll check correlations with new keyword planner.
We can say that the keywords are not dead,when ever the search engines die only at that time Keywords will go off,You are right Search queries will be there till the end of search engines.
Hello Ruth!
Nice post. Got me thinking. You bring-up driving traffic from slideshare. Have you, or has anyone reading this, had any success with developing slideshare as a traffic source? If so, would you mind sharing if you promoted the slideshare at all?
Hi Ruth, Your this post is a Good question on Analytics, Everyone giving their own suggestion here about (Not Provided) section in Analytic even its 100% organic... I'm suffering for the same.... :( But after checking all the content and off page promotion works, I'm getting the juice that is I'm right no any copied content or no any bad techniques used in my Website promotion... Can anyone suggest me how can I reduce it in a Proper way ????
Great article Ruth , it explains clearly on keyword targeting through content .
Hey Ruth,
You have mentioned very nice points regarding "Not Provided" keywords. If you have integrated analytic data with Google webmaster there we can see on which keywords we got clicks in "Search Engine Optimization/Queries" section.
Great post, Ruth. This intended focus on great, shareable content in stead of single keywords is exactly what Google wants. And I believe it makes our websites / brands a lot stronger. We might all win in the end by losing keywords today.
Awesome Post Ruth.
You have mentioned incredibly points regarding "Not Provided" keywords. I totally agree with your point " educate clients”, huge challenge to change clients traditional keywords approach, mostly those who are far from online marketing.
I agreed few point which you have mention in article that building authorship, unique content where people can engaged and if you really need to success in SEO then fresh content with unique value and promote them to social media such as Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, G+, SlideShare, YouTube, Vimeo, delicious etc where can improve your branding.
yeyety
This entire situation is total BS. Google could provide aggregated data that doesn't affect anyone's privacy. And Rand is right--there was an implied contract between site owners and search engines that the two would work together to improve the Internet. The only way this current situation comes to be is because Google can do it without fear of reprisal. I agree with the idea that we need to mix it up a little and find other sources of traffic. Otherwise, this will just get worse. What other analytics sources will be cut off?
Love this, Ruth: "Reducing our dependence on Google is the best way to 'algorithm-proof' our sites and make sure we're getting the best traffic and sales we can."
I could not agree more.
RS
Hello Ruth,
It's true and seems Google will not show any sort of keywords in Analytics to which someone can track the exact word's phrases and relevant updated market things.
Brilliant for as long as people keep use Google to be able to find the way the web and discover content SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION it's still a lot in existence. Just how it can be carried out will simply change with time. Which is lifetime & that is certainly company. Unless you match the item, of course your company goes decrease the actual strain.
Well, it all boils down to the concept of ensuring that readers and visitors to websites are empowered to interact or to engage. With or without keywords, value content marketing and brand building can make the difference for the Internet marketer or the SEO expert.
Really a great point there. Most of my clients are obsessed with keywords and small wins.
Most of them even thinks that SEO is a stand-alone tool and should not be a part of the marketing strategy.
When we start to focus on the end-user, the tool the achieve value is no longer important.
I agree that for many clients it will help wean them off of the keyword obsession.
Exactly. I often hear from clients that they are unsure of the value that they are getting through high ranking keywords.
Keyword positions should always be tied together with other valuable metrics, as the end goal is often conversions and not positions.
I can see the value behind the keyword shift but it seems more targeted towards news feeds. Ecommerce businesses that sell widgets will surely have difficulties writing articles about products that they sell. Only so much can be said about some products and after awhile nothing new can really be added. After a while content will start to repeat itself and fresh content will cease to be available without causing repetition.
In my opinion Google wants less spent on SEO and more spent on advertising. This change makes that happen. Evil has overtaken Google.
I think it's worse than what you say here because the algos are biased towards domains like Amazon, Staples, Walmart, etc.
So even if I sell the same product as they do, it's still a real challenge to rank irrespective of how fresh, interesting, or shared my novel product description is.
So traditional Google-centric eCommerce SEO is dead, IMO.
Success comes from taking that fresh content and distributing it across multiple channels, such as Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, G+, SlideShare, YouTube, Vimeo, etc., etc., etc.
This means taking that content and reformatting it for multiple channels, i.e., taking a slide presentation on SlideShare and recording a presentation for YouTube, then having it transcribed and turned into an eBook for email marketing purposes.
If you do this, who needs keyword-centric SEO? That time and money is better spent on creating and reformatting content for cross-channel syndication.
No. You are wrong, natesdesigns. Fresh, intersting and high-shareable content is always possible. You just need at least one creative blogger/writer and at least one very creative graphic designer on your team . It's funny how often people overlook the value of a great creative employee.
is it safe to submit the same article to multiple sites in new google update?
of course no you musn't
Hilarious trolling! Keep it up