Tools To Measure Search Engine Marketing Success

Question: How do you measure the success of your strategies for drawing potential customers to clients’ web sites?

There are a number of ways to measure success. The primary ways to measure success of search engine marketing is by analyzing website log files, search engine positions reporting and conversion tracking.

Log File Analysis: We use a tool called WebTrends Reporting Center. This a pretty robust server version of WebTrends that lets us analyze and report on the clients full spectrum of a website activity. Most valuable to an SEO Firm like ours is the detailed data about the volume of traffic coming from the search engines, the phrases that were used and the top referring websites. Clients can log into these reports and generate custom reports for a specific day, month or entire year.

Search Engine Position Reporting: The name of the game in search engine optimization is achieving a top 10 position on a target keyword or phrase. We use a product called WebPosition Gold that can report the current and last position on any number of keywords. We export this data into customized programs enabling us to track the improvements over long periods of time.

Tracking Cookies. We use specialized tracking cookies that track the terms and phrases that visitors use (in either an organic or paid search listing). Tracking data shows where people came from, the search term used, where they landed, and when and where the visit resulted in some type of conversion.

Custom Reporting: Using custom reporting systems we are able to combine all of this information into a report that let us and our clients understand (ROI) what they are getting from their search engine marketing.

The preceding blog is an answer to a series of interview questions about search engine marketing practices. Click here to start at the main table of contents page for this interview.