How often do you closely examine your referring keywords? Or do you ever? Most online marketers take the time to look at the far-down-the-list keyword referrals but newbies often don’t, and they don’t because they don’t understand how helpful it can be.
If you don’t have Google Analytics then you should get it now. It’s not the best analytics solution but it’s among the best free analytic solutions. Once you have it installed you can begin to examine the various keywords users are searching on to find your site; and once you do this for a while you’ll learn to apply what you are seeing and you’ll appreciate how useful it really can be to your search marketing strategy.
What can keyword referrals tell you, other than the keyword itself?
- It may be that a few of your web pages are ranking low for a great keyword or phrase and you don’t even realize it. So by delving into your keywords you might discover potentially great phrases you should focus your SEO on, and over a few months you could be acquiring visitors on new keywords that once only referred an occasional visit.
- If you notice visitors are landing at your site for a good longtail phrase try using the Google Keyword research tool to discover other “relevant” phrases based on that phrase. Then optimize pages for the new phrases. Expanding your SEO for these phrases can have dramatic results in the long term.
- Discovering the far-down-the-list keywords gives you a better starting point on your PPC campaign. If the keywords metrics look good, such as bounce rates, page views, time on site, and hopefully even a few conversions, then you have a more sensible entry to your paid search campaign.
- Examining keyword referrals can help us stay focused and set SEO goals. Often we tend to get sloppy when doing our own SEO. We might start off optimizing for one great keyword then get distracted and move to another keyword based on the potential traffic. But in SEO you can’t forget about the short term, and we need to keep an eye on the keywords that are the easiest to achieve or carries the more favorable visitor. The habit of looking at your referrals can help you change your SEO strategy in a sensible, not random, approach.
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