Presentation around how to handle the change with keywords not provided and what it may mean for Google at SMX West 2012 by Micah Fisher-Kirshner.

1. Living in a Post-Keyword World
Micah Fisher-Kirshner | Senior SEO Manager
www.become.comMarch 1st
2012

2. Quick Stance – Ally Bank’s Ad

3. Quick Questions – Did You Know?
1. Who dislikes the change?
2. Of those, who uses Google Analytics?
3. Did you know last-click attribution differs for
direct traffic?*
*Exception for Multi-Channel Funnel report
No right to complain then

4. Google Revenue Inefficiencies
 Not everything is a conspiracy!
 Keyword learnings in SEO can no longer be used as often for
PPC
• Optimization around page relevancy
• Long-tail visits
• Seeing where SEO does better than PPC
 Certain industries utilize SEO to fund PPC
 Note how this will hurt their stock;
imagine trying to convince new
marketers that SEO and PPC
together create a shared lift

5. On The Plus Side…
What you gain for analysis:
• Logged-in users
• Google+ users
• Personalized results
Test how +1’s affect traffic by landing page

6. The Power Of Segmentation
Segmentation Importance Increases
• Before & After: Assuming no seasonality, what was
the data percentage lost across keywords?
• Keyword Categorizations: What keyword groups do
you generally do well with?
• Relevancy Matching: How well do the keywords
match your landing page?
Start of Not
Provided
Start of Not
Provided
Spike of Not
Provided
Spike of Not
Provided
Costumes

7. On The Plus One Side…
Future of Google+:
• A bullish view means all keyword solutions
presented today are short-term solutions
• As time passes, margin of error on keyword
accuracy increases
• Importance of search
volume and keyword
rankings increases

8. The Long-Term Solution
Treat SEO like you do PPC
Standard SEM Metrics
Search Volume
Impressions
CTR
Visits
Transactions/Conversions
CPC
CPA
Revenue
ROI
Additional SEM Metrics
“Quality Score”
“A/B Testing”

9. Testing, Testing, Testing
 Pre-Click:
• Just as in PPC and like Matt Cutts suggests, test your Titles and
Meta Descriptions to improve your CTR (and implicitly rankings)
• Google Webmaster Tools is too simplistic, use SERP Turkey or
others like it
 On-Click:
• Determine the value for every SEO implementation through the
basis of controls and tests
 Post-Click:
• What’s the value of putting content above the fold for better
rankings versus the loss in conversions you get for pushing down
imagery?

10. Takeaway: Test Like PPC
Conversion Rate
Winner
Runner-up

11. Thanks!
Want to up your SEO career? We’re hiring!
www.linkedin.com/in/micahf
k