Search Analytics

David BoronatFounding Partner of Multiplica.

Search Analytics

Search analytics, the ugly duckling of webanalytics

Is my internal search engine effective?Which words that

generate traffic for me, are the best converters?

¿Which are the metrics I need to follow

periodically?

Which other words, with a lower conversion cost,

should I buy?

Inside [2]Online [1]

Online [1]

Inside [2]

Online [1]

1# Love Google above all else

1# Love Google above all else

1# Love Google above all else

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2# Is there room to grow?

• What percentage of our users find us through search engines?

• How important are search engines in our industry?

Source: Netsuus (Spain - 2007)

• What is our pagerank in comparison with our competitors?• What is the sector mix between organic and paying traffic?

Search engines38,669 (64.92%)

Direct traffic11,580 (19.44%)

Benchmark websites9,305 (15.62%)

Other8 (0.01%)

3# The bounce rate and the words worth buying

• You invite them to your party. You are paying for it.But don't you even ask them why they are leaving without saying goodbye?

• Vehicle for analysing click fraud. Other metrics worth considering: average number of clicks per day, average number of conversions per word, anomalies in evolution during the day or the week,…

4# Cannibalising with the purchase of words

• What is the use of buying words in which we naturally appear in the top positions if we direct our users to the same pages?

5# The importance of the long tail in the purchase of words

SEM

SEO

Visits

5# The importance of the long tail in the purchase of words

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6# The need to always test our landing pages.

6# The need to always test our landing pages.

Combination 57 is best

The original combination

Bars represent conversion rate variation

7# The convenience of studying our competitors

• The importance of Page Rank.

7# The convenience of studying our competitors

• We need to assess how we are progressing on a regular basis.

• Particularly against our competitors.

7# The convenience of studying our competitors

8# The importance of the cost of acquiring customers

• What do the cost per click or the CTR we get matter if the cost of acquiring customers is too high?

• The perfect balance between the number of customers you want to get and the average cost of acquisition that you are willing to pay.

• Absolute figures never tell us anything. Compare them and work to improve them.

9# Always think in terms of ROI

• Being at the top does not always generate the best results.

9# Always think in terms of ROI

• Being at the top does not always generate the best results.

9# Always think in terms of ROI

10# Behavioural targeting has arrived

• Here comes the intelligent Internet, with tools like...

• Which, among lots of other things, allow us…- If the user came from Google using keyword X, to then show Y- If the user searched for keyword Z on the internal search engine, to then show W

Inside [2]

Inside search analytics. Why?

Because searching on our site is becoming more and more relevant compared with browsing (in e-commerce, intranets, on content webpages…).

Last Christmas, half the users preferred to perform searches when they got to an online store.

Because users who search are up to 3 times more likely to become customers (WebsideStory).

Because users who can't find are up to 3 times more likely to abandon our website (Enlighten).

New function: Site Search Analysis

1# Levels of use of the internal search engine

• Percentage of visits who perform searches.• Number of searches per session

2# Most sought-for words

• Top 20? Top 50? Top 100?

• Careful with compound words

• The importance of the long tail (yet again).

3# Categorisation and seasonality

• Grouping of ‘keywords’

into categories.

• Analyse seasonality,

geographics, segmentation.

4# Places on our website where they perform most searches

5# Places they go to after performing a search!

6# Effectiveness of our internal search engine

• Leaving the site on the results page.

6# Effectiveness of our internal search engine

• Is the search engine fast, intuitive and relevant?

• Better still - see for yourself what our internal search engine does when faced with the most sought-after words.

• Searches with too many results?

• Searches with 0 results (22%)• Isn't the content on the webpage?• Is the content badly indexed?• Is it a typing error?• Do we get alerts from the webpage itself when this happens?

• Don't we know how to react when we don't have the answer?

7# Does our search engine learn over time?

• What criteria do we use for indexing? Can we give marks to words and results?

• Can we automate our internal search engine's learning process by compiling parameters like results with the greatest rate of click-through, the best-selling products or the ones which get the best ratings?

• SLI allows you to automate your SEO based on internal searches.

8# The experience our search engine offers

• What approach have we taken with the results page?• Advanced search options?

9# Segmentation, segmentation and more segmentation

10# Conversions and the results they generate

• Percentage of conversions with prior internal search.

• Average value of the orders from visits using the search engine compared to those who don't.

Inside [2]Online [1]

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Search analytics. What for?

Gaining a better understanding of our users and their needs

Orienting and prioritising our content based on the most sought-for words which generate the most traffic and interest.

Tagging our current content better (metadata) and indexing our internal search engine better.

Improving browsing and interface design.

Managing our SEO and SEM strategy better.

Search analytics: the swan of webanalytics?

Thank you

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More at david@multiplica.com