SEO, Analytics and Dennis Mortensen

Hey SMG audience, this is Alex.  I'm back for another installment of analytics for the search marketing audience. 

Anyone who knows Li knows she makes the rounds at the search conferences.  They also know that she a consummate connector, especially when it comes to blog content. 

She managed to snag Dennis Mortensen, COO of IndexTools for a quick Q&A.   

Alex: You recently blogged about the challenge of measuring disaggregated content (Your most popular page is probably not your most popular page).  How does IndexTools plan to address the problem?

Dennis:  In my blog post: Your most popular page is likely NOT to be your most popular page, I elaborated on the fact that if one look at only The Online Business Measurement Quadrant - we are only measuring  part of the story.

.. and I am sorry to say that none of the known Enterprise Web Analytics companies have features ready to collect Uncontrolled Off site Content today, IndexTools included. I am however sure that we will see a connection between traditional analytics and what is known as buzz-measurement in the foreseeable future.

Alex: Do you still believe SERPs have value in measuring SEO?  Why?

Dennis:  As a KPI for success, absolutely NO. As a Metric representing the SEO value, rarely. As valuable input in ones daily and highly operational optimization tasks, yes, sure, it holds value here, but only as an operational metric together with a pool of other measurements. Using SERP views or clicks is about as naive as using Impressions and Click-through-rate in a SEM campaign – luckily most serious SEO companies understand that it is about other KPIs than #visits.

This is indeed a very interesting question, but also one where SEO specialist are doomed to become much more analytical and/or become part of bigger teams, who provide backend analytical input.  How many SEO specialist optimize towards e.g. “Customer Lifetime Value” today?

Alex: IndexTools has a bid management component.  Where do you see paid search automation going in the next year?

Without getting anal about semantics, I actually see a directional split where we end up with:
- Search Automation. Provided by the Search Engines

- Automated Search Strategies. Provided by Search Intelligence companies (a.k.a. Web Analytics companies today)

Concluding that we will see an increase in usability and automation inside the engines (AdWords, YSM and AdCenter), but that due to the simple fact they only hold “half the data”, we will see Search Intelligence companies provide more holistic strategies that works towards executing towards ones marketing objective.

This could be something as simple as a CPA strategy applied across engines. E.g. a marketing goal of signing up as many new newsletter subscribers as you can below $3 cost per new subscriber. We (IndexTools) can then apply an automated algorithmic strategy that work your campaigns with this goal in mind.

Alex: What are your top 3 favorite SEO measurement tips?

Dennis:

1. Optimize towards true company objectives, whether that be Revenue, Profit, Customer Lifetime Value etc. Don’t do the #visit optimization, as that will very likely do more harm than good.

2.  Coordinate your SEO and SEM efforts and look at a combined ROI – a they are highly intertwined.

3. Optimize beyond your own control site content, but optimize on uncontrolled off site content as well. Essentially help good customer advocates rank better. This is a dangerous activity, but for those brand and service confident enough, it is a powerful activity.

For Search Marketing Gurus, Alex Cohen of Digital Alex.

DENNIS' BIO

Dennis R. Mortensen is a pioneer and expert in the Web Analytics industry, having working in the field of internet analysis and statistics since 1996. He is an accredited Associate Web Analytics Instructor - University of British Columbia and a frequent speaker on the subject of analytics and online marketing. Today he is the COO of IndexTools, Inc., a top tier enterprise analytics vendor. You can follow his insights on web analytics and online marketing on his blog: VisualRevenue.com/blog