Why is Knowing the Landing Page Important for Keyword Research?

Sometimes knowing the keyword phrase that has brought in traffic isn't enough - especially if you happen to have a lot of fairly diverse content on the same web property.


Sites that are essentially marketing funnels (see Leveraging the Marketing Funnel) will have the worst issue when looking at keyword phrases in isolation, since the net is cast especially wide at first in the hope of bringing in qualified leads among a wide range of visitors.


If you are already getting keyword traffic reports from Analytics - or an equivalent service - on a regular basis, pull one up and look for an entry with a high Bounce or Exit rate.


(If not, the article How to Use Google Analytics Daily Reports for Keyword Research may well be of interest!)


What Does a High Bounce Rate Tell Me?


On it's own, nothing, sadly. The trap that many new Analytics users fall into is assuming that a keyword phrase that has a high number of incoming visitors, but an equally high bounce rate denotes traffic that falls into one of two categories:

• Mis-targeted (i.e. content not related to keywords) or;
• Not interested by the content.

In fact, the visitor who has used the keyword phrase may well fall into a third camp - interested in the content that the site has to offer, but has fallen into the site on a page that doesn't happen to contain that content.


Asking Google Analytics to reveal the landing page as well as the keywords also adds a third metric - the Exit Rate.


Keyword Phrase, Exit Rate, Bounce Rate, Landing Page


The accuracy of keyword research often depends on knowing what the visitor is actually interested in, rather than just guessing from the keyword. 


This is very important when using Google Analytics, as the Bounce Rate on its own may well not be a reflection of the site as a whole, but the validity of a specific page. This page could fall into one of several categories, for example:

• poor content - needs rewriting;
• mis-matched content - needs rewriting;
• no clear call to action - needs rewriting;

Of course, the page could be slow to load, or not load at all - typically looking at the Average Time on Page (all zeros shows no engagement at all) alongside the Bounce Rate and Exit Rate will help to diagnose these pages.


Otherwise, it should be obvious from looking first at the page, then at the keywords that delivered traffic to the page, and then at the metrics, what the problem is.


Sometimes a page with a reasonably high PR (Page Rank) that appears in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) above other more relevant ones, does so because a keyword phrase is quite precise, and has been matched with a reference to the more-relevant content.


More often that not, however, it's a case that there's a high Bounce Rate and/or High Exit Rate coupled with a low Average Time on Page which indicates poor or mis-matched content that needs to be rewritten.


However, it's important not to do anything without confirming the trends by analysis, as the article Using Google Analytics to Improve Stickiness and Engagement explains.

Do Keywords Really Matter?

It seems a bit odd to sit down at the keyboard and write an article on the Keyword Cracker blog which questions whether keywords matter at all, but it's important to look at SEO techniques from every angle.


And that's what keyword research is - an SEO technique.


Generally, keyword research reveals:

• what people are looking for in conjunction with certain key words;
• what specific keywords have brought traffic to a site;
• trends within the browsing community.

Specifically, as a SEO technique, web masters use keyword research to try and find out how to drive traffic to a site that concentrates on a specific niche.


So, it's a traffic acquisition technique, and as such it's not the thing web masters can do to get visitors to their site.


Traffic Acquisition Techniques


Assuming we know that the site is of use, and interest, to the web browsing community as a whole, we don't need keyword research to tell us what to build.


Traffic can come from search engines, and I'd be foolish not to (a) acknowledge and (b) point out that in many cases, Google provides the lion's share of traffic to many web sites that I write for.


But it's neither the only source, nor necessarily the most profitable.


In fact, looking over my Google Analytics statistics, I note several things:

• search engine visitors tend to result in more bounced visits;
• search engine visitors tend to result in lower pages viewed, per visit;
• search engine visitors tend to spend less average time on the site.

So, it's not just about the traffic, but what the visitors that make up that flow of traffic do when they get there.


My most engaged visitors come from other traffic acquisition techniques, such as:

• Twitter, via SocialOomph;
• Twitter, via su.pr (a StumbleUpon service);
• Directly, via word of mouth;
• Directly, via Yahoo! Answers;
• Directly, via Forum posts.

I've yet to test which the most engaged are, but rest assured my findings will make their way onto the Traffic Acquisition blog, and the method on the Test, Track, Traffic blog.


Where does this leave keywords, and keyword research?


Use it to research trends. Use it to estimate interest in a topic, and use it to generate some traffic by way of a test.


Keep an eye on the statistics, see where visitors come from, and what they spend their time doing, and then work what continues to work.


But don't rely on search engines to deliver the lion's share of your customers, even if they do deliver the lion's share of your visitors!

Why the Geographic Source of Traffic Matters to Online Marketers

A lot of filtering options are available in Google Analytics, but one that is often overlooked is the ability to sort, filter, and order by geographic location.
This can be applied in a number of ways:

• Country
• City
• Continent
• Region

It's certainly interesting, but is it useful? In fact it's more than that. Knowing the geographic source for keyword (and content) traffic can be vital to making a sale.


For Whom is the Geographic Source Important?


While knowing where the traffic comes from can be important for any online marketer, it is of particular importance to affiliates. Let's use Amazon as an example.


The web sites Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk stock different products, with different prices, ship to different locations and have different affiliate schemes.


If visitors to a specific page come from one geographic reason, and are confronted by products, spellings, and terminology that they are not familiar with, then there is a risk that the sale will be lost.


More than that, they may not even be able to buy the product and have it shipped, or they may be directed to another web site. Either way, the sale is lost to the affiliate.


Targeting pages (content) to specific geographic markets based on specific keyword trends for that geographic location enables marketers to promote the right products, using the correct affiliate account, to the right visitors.


In addition, brands and brand names may also be different. This helps keyword targeting to specific brands; the more niche the better, as people often type specific brand and model names into search engines.


Finally, once the geographic segment is known, and content has been created to fit each demographic, the online marketing strategy can follow it. For example, Twitter can be used to schedule tweets designed to be released at times that are appropriate for the target market.


All of the above needs some research, which is where Google Analytics comes in.


Segmenting Search Traffic by Location


The best way to view this relationship is to select a relatively small time window (say one week to one month) and then access the Demographics filter from the left hand main menu in Google Analytics.


The Location filter can be found under the Audience tab on the main menu.


The Demographics option needs to be selected, and then Location clicked.

Selecting the Location Filter from the
 Left Hand Menu in Google Analytics

As can be seen in the screen shot, the map will then light up with different shades of green indicating the global results returned for each location.


The actual lcoations that return these visitors are then listed below the map, in the usual results pane in the Google Analytics system.


The usual column headings can be found here - page views, time spent, bounce rate and so on - but this is only half the story.


To get the keywords, it is also necessary to add them as a Secondary Dimension.


To do this, the 'Secondary dimension' button is clicked.


From the resulting menu, the Traffic Sources option needs to be selected.


Underneath that, are a number of options, but for keyword research, the Keyword option is the most useful.

Selecting the Keyword Secondary Filter
from the Results Toolbar in Analytics

Having selected the Primary and Secondary Dimensions, the user then needs to sort the keyword list  based on the metric that most interests them.


One interesting metric is likely to be the Bounce Rate, as a high Bounce Rate could indicate that the geographic targeting needs to be adjusted.


This can be spotted by the presence of two identical keyword phrases, each with different source locations. If one has a Bounce Rate that is significantly higher than the other, then that may indicate that different content should be created for that specific keyword.


This is just one of the ways in which geographic tools in Analytics can be used to hone the marketing message, and is a very interesting and valuable aspect of keyword research.

An Introduction to Traffic Research Using Google Tools

One of the questions that  comes up fairly often is 'How do I do traffic research using Google?' People tend to forget that Google isn't just about search, but also about advertising, publishing and revenue generation, too. 


The two main tools that Google provides that can help with traffic research are:

• Google AdWords Keyword Tool
• Google Analytics

 Both of these tools need to be used together; when people talk about traffic research, what they mean is:

• finding traffic
• getting traffic to visit
• holding on to that traffic to make a sale

The Google AdWords Keyword Tool can be used in traffic research to scope out new opportunities (keyword phrases) that will yield visitors. Luckily, it's not as hit and miss as it might sound, as the AdWords Keyword tool provides some excellent comparison and filtering modules.


Tip : When using the AdWords Keyword Tool, look for traffic of around 10k and Low competition, as this is usually the easiest to target.


The other side of the traffic research question is Google Analytics. This is a very sophisticated service that takes a lot of experimentation to master. Luckily, the Traffic Research with Google Analytics  article will give you a head start in unerstanding how to make the most of it.


Key to using these two resources together, however, is in feeding back some of the Analytics results to the AdWords Keyword Tool in order to find new traffic sources. The process for bloggers is described in the article Using Blog Posts for Keyword Research.


In essence, traffic research using Google tools is like having an insight into the mind of potential customers, and is part marketing and part traffic acquisition.