I’m sharing this mainly to see if there are improvements that can be made so I would welcome your ideas, opinions and feedback.

Before we look at how the tool works let’s set it up.

The Spreadsheet

You can get the spreadsheet tool here. But you’ll need to create your own copy so you can change the settings and keep the data private.

http://bit.ly/rZzW2k

Within the document is a sheet named ‘Settings’ where we’ll need to input the login details of your Google Analytics account and the source and medium for the traffic data you’d like.

I’ve included a key to show examples of medium and source settings but by default it’s set to call organic visits from Google.

Add Profile ID Keywords

Firstly you’ll need to get the profile ID for the analytics profile you wish to get the data from. Once you’ve selected it from the profile view the ID number will appear in the address bar  you’ll want everything after the ‘p’.

Finally, replace Keyword 1, Keyword 2 etc. with your desired keywords.

The Formula

I’ve used the following formula to pull in the Google Analytics data from the account we’ve specified in the settings sheet. Hopefully by breaking it down you’ll be able to not only understand but improve it and get around some of problems the limitations I’ve found.

=getGaMetric($B$6,”visits”,B17,C17,CONCATENATE (“ga:medium==”,Settings!$B$5,”;ga:source==”,Settings!$B$6,”;ga:keyword==”,A10))

=getGaMetric()

Tells Google Docs what the formula is to do, in this case it will request metrics from a Google Analytics account.

$B$6

The cell that holds the analytics profile ID

“visits”

The metric we wish to fetch

B17,C17

The start and end date of the period we wish to call data for

CONCATENATE()

I was unable to write a formula that could pull in the keyword automatically and fetch the data without doing it in fragments. I would welcome your ideas on improving this.

“ga:medium==”,Settings!$B$5

Fetch visitor data where the medium by which they arrive exactly matches the value in cell B5 on the settings sheet.

“ga:source==”,Settings!B$6,”

Fetch visitor data where the medium set above is true and the source exactly matches the value in cell B6 on the settings sheet.

“ga:keyword==”,A10

Fetch all the data that matches the medium and source specified where the keyword matches exactly the value in cell A10.

Issues

Data Can Be Slightly Off

It’s logical to think that as the data is being pulled directly from Analytics the figure outputted should match exactly the figure given within the Analytics interface yet it seems to always be less, albeit by a small amount.

It’s possible that Google Docs works on a different time zone to that set within the analytics account but I’m unsure.

Too Many Requests

I’ve only included 4 keywords as 4×12 months = 50 requests for analytics data at any one time. This seems to be the limit as if you add anymore it returns an error.

Does anyone know if 50 is indeed the limit or if there’s a way to get around this?

Changing The Year

This method requires a start and end date be specified for the data you wish to collect, hence the table January to December. Is it possible to have the year held in a separate cell and pulled in to make the date valid?

I have tried this method and while it’s entirely possible to concatenate two cells to give a valid date format the getGaMetric function does not seem to like it.

Here’s the spreadsheet again – please get in touch if you find it useful or have any suggestions on improving the usability.

On Tuesday October 18th, Google announced on their official blog that over the next few weeks visitors to Google.com who are signed in to their Google account will be redirected to a secure version of the search engine (SSL Search) as found here:

https://www.google.com

Amy Chang from the Google Analytics blog said:

“As search becomes an increasingly customized experience, we recognize the growing importance of protecting the personalized search results we deliver. As a result, we’re enhancing our default search experience for signed-in users…”

“…This is especially important when you’re using an unsecured Internet connection, such as a WiFi hotspot in an Internet café.”

What Does This Mean For Website Owners?

Currently when a user visits your website through the organic search results the search query used to find your website is recorded in your analytics package. This data is often used to identify the phrases that contribute to sales or goal conversions on your website which can then be used in marketing activities to grow sales further – this is especially true in regards to SEO where the focus is improving rankings on these keywords. It’s also useful in identifying pages on your website that attract visitors with certain search queries but causes them to bounce.

For example a visitor may arrive using a query that is perfectly related to the content of the page but if the term or a variation of it is not immediately obvious on screen it may cause people to bounce, despite it being precisely hat they were looking for.

With the new changes starting to take affect this data will no longer be available where a visitor meets the criteria above. Instead this data will be grouped under “(not provided)” within Organic Search Traffic Keyword reporting.

Currently the changes only affect a small number of Google users that search through Google.com rather than regional versions such as Google.co.uk however it is likely to be rolled out to all signed in users in the coming weeks.

FAQ

How much of my analytics data will be affected by this?
The percentage of your visitors data that will be affected by this change in the short term will depend on the percentage of your visitors that arrive through Google.com, however even when completely rolled out Google estimate less than 10% of that traffic will be affected, even when .co.uk users are redirected to the secure search.

Will this change be rolled out to non-logged in users?
While Google has not said as much there is speculation that this will be the case as it was with personalised search results that moved from being exclusively for logged in users to all users in December 2009.

Should the changes be rolled out to all Google users it will result in the search query data currently available becoming completely unavailable for visitors arriving through organic search.

Will Bing, Yahoo! & Ask organic data still be available?
Yes, this change only affects traffic arriving from Google properties; however it’s important to keep in mind that Google’s UK share of the search market was 90.78% in October 2011 compared to 3.7% for Bing and 2.5% for Yahoo! so data is likely to be sparse and not necessarily reflective of the search queries that convert from Google.

Is there an alternative source for this data?
While there is not another source for the data in its current format you will be able to access the search query data that is supplied by Google Webmaster Tools through your Google Analytics account. At present this data is only held for 30 days and is not associated with ecommerce of goals data.

Will this affect data collected from AdWords?
No, only organic search data will be affected. All keyword data that is currently available for Adwords will remain available.

Which analytics packages will be affected by this?
All analytics packages will be affected by these changes, including but not limited to:

• Google Analytics
• Adobe Omniture
• WebTrends
• ClickTracks

Will this change the way SEO is carried out?

If secure search is rolled out to all Google users as discussed above, it would mean a change in the way SEO is carried out as the data available to help with developing effective strategies will become limited.

Data gleaned from Google AdWords will become increasingly important in this scenario and the quality of a website, both in terms of content & usability will become even more important than before. While such a scenario would pose problems for website owners looking to carry out SEO, it simply poses new problems to be solved and almost certainly they will be solved with the kind of well rounded, forward thinking and holistic strategies that that practicing SEOs who adapt will be able to provide.

However it’s important to note that this is speculative at the moment and while it’s important to think ahead, it is equally important not to get carried away worrying about what might be. For now you should keep practicing SEO as you always have but keep monitoring the announcements that Google makes and be prepared to change as required.

What Can I Do To Prepare?

Retroactively analyse your data
While it’s still available it’s important to go back and look at historic analytics data which will give you an idea of the keywords that drive sales and those which could with improvements in rankings, something many of you are no doubt doing anyway.

If you’re a retailer you should be especially interested in the seasonality of these keywords so you can co-ordinate your marketing with this.

Learn from AdWords
As previously discussed this data will still be available for AdWords traffic so make use of this data wherever possible to guide you on making marketing decisions. Keep in mind that the paid search keywords shown in Google Analytics are the keywords set in the campaign and not the actual search query used by the user. That data is available from within your AdWords account.

Integrate social sharing ability to your website
Google has made no secret about its desire to move away from the link trust model it currently uses to rank web pages for search terms as it is open to manipulation. Over the last year or so new ranking factors have been introduced that look at how popular a page is on Twitter, Facebook & Google+ and this is set to become an ever more influential in time. If the keyword data available is going to be reduced it makes sense to get any head start you can and having a strong social presence is important.

Make Google+, Facebook & Twitter most prominent, and if desired include social bookmarking sites but hide them to avoid clutter.

This video shows an update straight from the horse’s mouth about just some of the changes Google makes to its search results pages and algorithms over the course of a year to help drive more relevant search results for users.
Every year, Google implements over 500 improvements to its search algorithms. That is 500 changes to the ways in which Google will decide which websites rank, in which order and for which search queries. These changes are tested in a variety of ways before launching. They initially use ‘Raters’ who compare results pages to decipher manually which is more relevant. These changes are then tested and monitored in a live environment to learn if the feedback and findings from the ‘Raters’ translates to actual users. If this is the case, the changes are made live for all to use.

This is how Google continues to be a leading force within the search market and why users continuously return to search. However, it does mean that it can be extremely difficult for agencies to guarantee anything. Google could change their rules from one day to the next and this could have a huge impact on your websites positions as well as how and where they are displayed.

So what can agencies guarantee?
A good agency will work alongside the client to ensure that best practices are implemented both on and offsite. They should also be at the forefront of releases of new algorithms and changes to search results and keep you up to date on elements that may impact you and your business. Most importantly, they need to know their onions. This comes from experience and learning. By looking at the results that search engine marketing has generated and reporting on these in a clear, ’non techie’ way you should be able to see clear value from your agency and understand what can be done to further improve your online positioning as a successful business.

7.45am I arrived at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster, a new venue for the Search Engine Strategies Conference and Exhibition.
After a well deserved coffee and biscuit I headed to the 4th floor for the Search and Social Media breakfast workshop presented by Brad Kleinman – Director of Education at Online Marketing Connect.

He presented an overview of the Search and Social markets honing in on vital statistics that identified why ‘Social’ was becoming essential to most businesses and what market trends were being predicted. There were many sources used for the insights however the key resources which stood out were eMarketer and Global Web Index.

Some key points to take from the slide share is the shift in social media and how people are using different social platforms and comparing this to businesses opinions or approach to social media. Also the data showing that micro blogging has increased +35% based on research comparing wave3 to wave1, however writing blogs and visiting forums and chat rooms is down. A 35% increase in micro blogging raises the importance of the likes of Twitter as they are being recognised as platforms to share real-time and breaking information to a huge audience. It is now for the advertiser or social media strategist to plan how these social platforms can enhance business goals via these platforms by managing customer service, sales opportunities, product reviews or customer word of mouth selling to mention a few.

This was followed by the SES conference welcome and opening keynote presented by Jeffrey Hayzlette, Celebrity CMO, former Kodak CMO

A very entertaining and energetic presentation about story telling to engage with potential customers and focussing on what hayzlett calls the 118, others may know this as the elevator pitch. As well as this he talked about the 4 E’s – Engage, Educate, Excite and Evangelise and how these play a vital part in talking to your audience and building customer loyalty through your branding and positioning.

We were exposed to a few snippets of social media activity Kodak had run and one of the most facinating statistics came from a twitter campaign which they ran to come up with a name for their new waterproof video camera. They asked people via twitter what they should call the camera, the winners would have the product named after their idea and would be announced the mother/father of that product.
This campaign generated more followers and interest in a few days than they had had in the whole history of the account. This just goes to show how powerful the engagement with your audience can be. I would be interested to know how many of those followers then went on to purchase a Kodak product and within how long after the campaign.

The ExhibitionHall
The Exhibition hall was fairly ‘compact’ as we have seen year on year at London SES and it was interesting to see many SEO link building companies competing. Amongst the rest of the 19 booths was a majority of SEO services and a spread of social media tools and technologies as well as some search marketing software and analytics tools.

Although I did not attend the following days I heard the seminars on everyones radar (other than the cocktail reception and parties) were ‘PPC or SEO? The Ultimate Search Marketing Battle’, ‘Update on realtime search: I want it now!’ and ‘Killer Facebook Marketing Tactics’.

Did you attend? If so what seminars were of most interest to you? I would love to hear your feedback.

An article about the impact of Google Instant  and the need for marketers to address their search activity. Published in iMedia Connection  today.

Read it here: http://bit.ly/digitalc

1. Become accustom to using your analytics software to identify your websites strengths and weaknesses.The data provided by your analytics software will allow you to track how visitors arrived at your website, how they interacted with it and what you can do to convert those visitors into customers.  Aim to become a ‘power user’ – know the ins and outs of your analytics software. This is the most important data for your website and knowing how to access and interpret it will help you make intelligent business decisions.
2. Set-up E-commerce TrackingWhether you use the popular Google Analytics solution or an enterprise level solution such as Omniture , you’ll have the ability to track the details of each transaction that takes place through your website.

   E-commerce tracking is a must for online stores with multiple products, but if you provide any product or service that can be purchased online it’s highly recommended. Knowing exactly how much each keyword contributed to your monthly revenue is invaluable when it comes to making SEO decisions.

3. Chase the profitable keywords, not the popular onesIt’s so tempting to try and rank well for keywords that have high search volumes – it seems to makes sense that the more traffic you can drive to the site the more sales you’re able to make, but if that keyword (KW1) has multiple meanings, is too generic or just not a good description of your product/service then you may struggle to see the sales you expected.

   With a little more research and investigation you may find two keywords (KW2, KW3) that are far less competitive (usually therefore less search volume) individually than KW1 but convert twice as much.

4. Help the search engines help youAll of the 3 major players in the search engine market (Google, Yahoo, Bing) provide advice and guidance on helping them find, index and rank your website. By following this advice you can ensure your pages are found and indexed correctly for your target keywords. Sign up to services like Google Webmaster Tools and you’ll be provided with in-depth data on what the search engines see (or don’t see) when they crawl your website.
5. If in doubt ask an expertSearch engines are constantly changing the way they find and rank websites and as a result the tips and techniques that worked in 2009 can become outdated very quickly. For example it was (perhaps still is) widely believed that putting your keyword in a prominent H1 header tag went a long way to helping you rank for that keyword and companies would go to great lengths to implement this across their websites, however it’s become evident that this is no longer true and the time and expense put towards implementing it would now be a waste.

Do You need to hire an SEO Expert?

SEO is a complicated and extensive field and many businesses do not have the time or resources to plan and implement an effective strategy that results in the required uplift in sales.  This may not hold true if your business offers a niche or very localised service (for example within a 30 mile radius of their offices) but for a business that can cater for a national or international customer base the challenges can be numerous.

Assess your goals, budget and capabilities before making a decision – if SEO is something you can handle internally while achieving your goals then it’s a great route to go, but if not you’ll need to begin the search for an SEO Agency.

Finding a suitable SEO Agency

A reliable SEO agency should not only have a good reputation and industry presence but be able to demonstrate the results they’ve achieved with past and current clients.

It’s also important to feel comfortable with the way an agency works and have faith in the service they offer. While there are many legitimate and effective agencies, there are those who employ spamming techniques that will at best be ineffective and at worst get you blacklisted from the search engines entirely (a considerable problem if your website is a main revenue stream!).

When done correctly Search Engine Optimisation can be an extremely cost effective solution to growing your business online and by partnering with an agency that has the knowledge and experience to see your goals achieved is always recommended when your business goals exceed your internal capabilities.

This post will explain the basic methodology behind calculating your ROI based on your desired position in the search engines. Please keep in mind this is a simplified process and although it will give you some ball park figures should not be taken as a fool proof method. If you’re looking for a more accurate and in depth idea of what you can expect from successful SEO, get in touch and we’d be more than happy to help.

Consider this:

Your business is a bricks and mortar jewellery store that has always done reasonably well but you’ve decided to invest in setting up an ecommerce site to reach a wider audience. You know this of your ecommerce website:

• You rank #6 for the keyword Diamond Rings
• This keyword sends 7,000 unique visitors each month
• The average order value is £1,000
• This keyword has a conversion rate of 2%

The question is; what revenue could you expect for each ranking between 5 and 1 and is the investment in achieving these positions worth while?

Calculating Volumes

The first step to working this out is to know what percentage of clicks each position receives and thanks to the data leaked from AOL several years ago we have a rough idea of what to expect.
Knowing that a #6 rank for Diamond Rings provides 7,000 visitors on average we can calculate not only the total search volume, but how many visitors you would expect to see for each position.

7,000 / 4.1 * 100 = 170,731 – the total search volume for this term
From here we can calculate visitor numbers for each position. So position 1 for example:

Total volume / 100 * 42.1 = 71,878

Calculating Revenue

Remembering that our site converts at a rate of 2%, and the average order value for diamond rings is £1,000 we can put a figure against each position with this calculation:

(No. of visitors / 100 * conv. rate) * A.O.V = total revenue

So for position 1:

(71,878 / 100 * 2) * 1,000 = £1,437,560

Here are some calculations I did earlier… and the first thing our diamond ring selling friend will notice is that even an improvement from 6 to 4 would see an additional £68,280 in revenue a month, but a position 1 ranking would increase their revenue 10 fold.

Conclusion

This diamond ring retailer stands to make an additional £1,297,560 per month (£15.6 million a year) if a position 1 ranking can be achieved. The only question that remains is how much are they prepared to invest to obtain this? £10k? £100k? £1 million?

How much would you invest?

Our goals in this activity are as follows:

• Rank well for our keywords in the search engines
• Attract more visitors when searching on our keywords (Click-through rate)*

Your Meta Title and Description are your adverts to users searching on your keywords. The more appealing they are to an individual the better your CTR and if you’re receiving a higher CTR in position 3 than the website in position 2 is you know you’re doing a good job. So often I have seen websites forget this simple idea in favour of optimising Meta tags for SEO purposes alone when the evidence for the success of this idea surrounds them (or their listings in the SERPs at least).

Great Ad Copy?

I’m of course referring to PPC adverts, where companies have even less space to attract a user and spend thousands of pounds and hundreds of hours optimising their ad-copy for the best possible CTR.

It’s true that the results of PPC ad-copy can be seen in hours rather than weeks, or months – and getting displayed for your desired keywords is much easier, but by adopting a similar approach to your Meta tags, the extra effort can pay dividends.

1) Getting your Meta Title Right

The Meta Title is the first thing a user see’s when scanning the results pages – if you can grab them here you’ve won 80% of the battle. Obviously we want to be using our keywords as early in the sentence as possible, but not to the detriment of drawing in clicks. For example if you’re looking to buy some shoes, which of the following titles would draw your eye more?

Pictured: Shoes, apparently...

1. A common keyword loaded title:
   Shoes, Boots, Trainers, Pumps | The Shoe Factory
2. Something more advertising led…
   Amazing prices on Shoes, Boots, Trainers and Pumps | The Shoe Factory

In the second example we’ve used the same keywords as the first (shoes, boots, trainers, pumps) but with the addition of “Amazing prices on…”. At this point we’ve already got the users attention and the keywords, if relevant to the search, draw the user into a click. This is the first step of the AIDA model achieved, but more on that later.

2) People friendly Meta Descriptions

The exact length displayed in characters varies not only between the search engines but between results for the same query so for the sake of this post we’ll assume an average of 155 characters - that’s how many characters you have to convince users who aren’t drawn in by the title that you’re the right website for them.
Using the Shoe Factory analogy from above let’s look at two possible variations for the home page:

1. SEO driven description
   Get your new shoes, boots, trainers or pumps online from The Shoe Factory. Brands like DC, Adidas, Puma and Nike. Available in all shoe sizes.
2. Advertising Led
   Find the shoes & boots you’re looking for at The Shoe Factory, a trusted retailer in the latest styles of DC, Adidas, Puma and Nike shoes. Free shipping.

With the SEO driven description we’re again looking to use our targeted keywords, as well as some popular brands people might be searching for. Great, right? The search engines will pick these up, we’ve got our main keywords in at the start and we’ll pick up more clicks from the SERPs; an all round winner.
Well yes, no doubt getting your main keywords in near the beginning offers some benefit, but there’s nothing that appeals to me on an emotive level – something any advertiser will tell you is vital for success. What if the advertising led description was below yours?
Let’s look at it again:

Find the shoes you’re looking for at The Shoe Factory, a trusted retailer in the latest styles of DC, Adidas, Puma and Nike shoes. Free same day shipping.

I’ve highlighted the words that we know will evoke emotion (albeit subtle) with the user;

• Find – That’s what i’m trying to do as a user
• You’re – Or, me. The ad copy is addressing me directly
• Trusted – Suggests others have found the website trustworthy and reliable which reassures me and builds trust between myself and the website (hopefully I won’t regret it!)
• Latest Styles – Appeals to my desire to be fashionable and/or have the newest styles available
• Free – The most powerful word in marketing. If it’s free I want it!

So in 155 characters we’ve used most of our targeted keywords – both generic and brands, while at the same time connecting with the user and evoking an emotive response and all it took was a little more thought.

3) AIDA – An Easy Way to Remember

The AIDA model describes the process advertising is intended to initiate in the mind of the customer and our first chance to do that is with our Meta Title & Description in the SERPs. I find using the AIDA model is an extremely useful tool when optimising Meta Tags that appeal to both the search engines and perhaps most importantly, the users.

• Attention: Grab the users attention immediately (Title: Amazing prices on…)
• Interest: Show the keywords that relate to what they’re looking for. Appeals to both users and search engines  (Title & Description)
• Desire: The Meta description is our chance to make our sales pitch and make the user perform an…
• Action: In this case the action we want the user to perform is clicking through to our website.

The Action stage is what everything else is geared towards so ask yourself these two questions before finalising your Meta Tags; Do these tags make me want to click through to the website? could they be better?

So what are your thoughts? Have you had any experience with optimising Meta Tags for people, search engines or finding a balance between the two? Leave your comments below!

Note: *Google recently updated their Webmaster Tools service to show impressions and click through rates for your site in organic search, which is hugely exciting and gives you an opportunity to easily test for yourselves what is discussed in this post.

In an interview with WebProNews Bruce Clay suggested web wide personalised search could be with us in the first quarter of 2009, regardless of whether you’re logged in or not.

So what’s the big deal, it sounds useful for a user but how does it affect us as online marketers?

Well in short SEO is dead or at least close to it. If two users search using exactly the same query and get different results based on their behaviour in the past (which will happen) how can you check search term rankings and improve results ranking?

Those of us that deal in SEO are going to have to revaluate how we apply our trade. Ranking, the very thing we aim to improve will mean nothing; if a website that was below you in the past is more relevant to an individual, even if you have ten times more back links, it will appear higher. Instead success metrics will revolve around conversions and traffic levels.

It’s not all doom and gloom however, if results start becoming personalised and relevant to the user, the traffic we receive should be targeted and result in higher conversion levels (note the word should).

Behavioural based results is some thing all of us in Online Marketing need to keep an eye on, if it goes as we think, it’s going to be a tough transition, but ultimately we have no choice. Keep your head up; improved organic targeting would be a fair trade for the diminished importance of SEO and it’s a real possibility.

It’s quite understandable that a business that is not online orientated will lack the in-house know-how and skill sets required to work with these goals in mind, it is more often the employed web design company that are at fault. The fact is however that no company can afford to ignore SEO when developing their website.

The culprits (if I can call them that) are companies that have not updated their website in 5 or more years, back when META tags were enough to get you listed in search engines and online sales were a drop in the ocean. Projections vary but in the next five years online sales are expect to account for between 30 and 50 percent of all retails sales, such a large amount that those not online and not competing are going to suffer hugely.

Now for an analogy: Imagine a shop selling exclusive designer clothing that all the stars are wearing and millions of people want – they’re going to do great business! Now imagine the same shop is located down a back alley in a quiet part of town. Suddenly this great product that’s in huge demand isn’t being sold because no one can find where to buy it!
If you’re now a little worried there are a few basic checks you can make yourself:

• Are you using keywords you’ve specifically chosen to attract visitors and are they used in the right places?
• Are other sites linking to you? How many? Check in Google by typing “link:www.yourdomain.com”
• Have you included Meta Tags? (Specifically Keywords and Description)
• Is your content unique? Do you update regularly?
• Are you using an Analytics tool to monitor progress?

This is a very brief checklist – there are many other issues a serious SEO campaign would go into but it should be enough for you to decide if you need some help. Even if you pass all of the above points it may still be worth contacting a professional SEO company with good experience to guide you. The internet opens your business up to millions of customers but it puts you in competition with just as many businesses.