BLOG | MARCH, 2010

Screencast: Using Keyword Data to Improve Your Site

March 23, 2010 at 11:50 am

This is the final installment of a three-part series about search keywords and how they relate to your website. Today we will discuss how to use keyword data to make decisions that will improve your site.

Brian Chiou and Jillian Kuhn will be hosting these collaborative screencasts regularly, focusing on topics that are important to you and your website.

Keywords: Understand, Analyze, and Make Decisions
Part III: Making Data-Driven Decisions

Making data-driven decisions is a three-step process: Focus > Imitate > Predict

Start with problematic keywords and their corresponding landing pages, and then focus on tweaking one page at a time.
Imitate users' experience when they use a specific keyword to reach a page. What did they search for, what did they find on your site, and what do they want next?
Predict the user's next step, and make it easy for them to reach relevant content elsewhere on your site. Make sure their intent, landing page purpose, and site purpose all match.

Make sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, and click our Related Content in the right sidebar for other Google Analytics resources. Please comment with any feedback or questions - and thanks again for watching!

Gideon van Oudtshoorn | March 26, 2010 6:45 AM

I would have thought that page url, title, meta keywords (now redundant according to Matt Cutts), heading and body copy should be enough to suffice a user's experience of landing on a page relevant to their search request.

What I don't quite understand is how to be "predictive" from there on...

Brian Chiou | March 26, 2010 10:32 AM

Hi Gideon,

Thanks for posting. You make a great point. In my mind, I think it's to always be cognizant of ways to increase the "basket sale". Think of each individual page on your website as a product you sell. Some "products" are worth more than others. i.e. a blog post page about our office is probably not as high value as the thank you page for a form submission to talk to Mark.

Let's use this page as a landing page / "product". We know that people who are watching this screencast as well as reading this page are seeking information regarding Google Analytics and making data driven decisions. That would be the main product we're attempting to sell to you, the end user. And, hopefully this product matches what you were searching to "purchase". The predict comes in when thinking of what other products we could potentially sell you on this page by looking at your initial purchase (this page) and your initial intent which is measured by the search keyword you used to enter this page on our site (if applicable).

In this case, we've sold you this page. It's our job to predict what other "accessories" should go along with it, so that you increase the amount of interaction with us and stay on our site longer.

Jillian Kuhn | March 26, 2010 10:49 AM

Hi Gideon-- thanks for watching!

I think Brian's shopping analogy makes a really good point. Let's say you go to an electronics store to buy a DVD player. There are certainly going to be other relevant items in the DVD aisle, like DVDs, remote controls, cleaning kits, etc. You didn't necessarily come to the store to buy these accessories, but they catch your attention because they relate to your main purpose (a DVD player).

Be careful, though, because there is a fine line between being a helpful "salesman" and a pushy one. If a user/customer comes to your site in need of SEO advice, don't overload them with links to your design services. Present your SEO-related offerings in a prominent, but not pushy, way. Give them more of what they're looking for.