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Meaningful SEO Metrics: Going Beyond the Numbers from SES Chicago '09

Dec 7, 2009 - 2:30 pm 0 — by Barry Schwartz

Filed Under SES Chicago 2009

Below is live coverage of the Meaningful SEO Metrics: Going Beyond the Numbers from the SES Chicago 2009 (official SES Chicago Site) conference.

This coverage is provided by Barry Schwartz of RustyBrick.

We are using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage, please excuse any typos. You can also interact with us and while we are live blogging, so feel free to ask us questions as we blog. We will publish the archive below after the session is completed.

Meaningful SEO Metrics: Going Beyond the Numbers

(12/07/2009)

1:40

Barry Schwartz:

Starting in about 5 minutes...

Monday December 7, 2009 1:40 Barry Schwartz

1:44

Barry Schwartz:

Meaningful SEO Metrics: Going Beyond the Numbers
As knowledge of SEO practices moves from the offices of the optimizers to the board room, the standard metrics used by the practitioners of this former dark art are straining under the weight of the all powerful bottom line. The days when upper management was impressed by subtle changes in Page Rank have been replaced by questions of LTV and ROI. As more resources are being dedicated to creating the perfectly optimized and keyword rich landing page, C-level executives are demanding proof of the return they are receiving from these resources.

This panel will discuss a myriad of ways to move beyond Page Rank, indexed pages or linked sites and into metrics that can make you a hero and, better still, get your budget increased to a respectable level.

Moderator:
Chris Boggs, Director, SEO, Rosetta
Speakers:
Richard Zwicky, Founder & CEO, Enquisite
Jeff Ferguson, SES Advisory Board & Senior Director, Online Marketing, Local.com
Linda Ramsey, Vice President, Consumer Marketing, Restaurant.com
Dave Tan, VP, Content Solutions, Resolution Media

Monday December 7, 2009 1:44 Barry Schwartz

1:48

[Comment From Keri MorgretKeri Morgret: ]

Hi Barry! No need to publish this comment, just saying hi and thanking you for coverage for those of us who are not here.

Monday December 7, 2009 1:48 Keri Morgret

1:49

Barry Schwartz:

@keri, sorry ;-)

Monday December 7, 2009 1:49 Barry Schwartz

1:49

Barry Schwartz:

Starting now.

Monday December 7, 2009 1:49 Barry Schwartz

1:50

Barry Schwartz:

He said, no formal presentations, which is not a good thing for live blogging...

Monday December 7, 2009 1:50 Barry Schwartz

1:50

Barry Schwartz:

Linda Ramsey starts off from her seat. She explains that they have over 13,000 restaurants.

Monday December 7, 2009 1:50 Barry Schwartz

1:51

[Comment From Keri MorgretKeri Morgret: ]

Good for the audience, often fresher and more interesting -- but it is certainly harder to liveblog!

Monday December 7, 2009 1:51 Keri Morgret

1:51

Barry Schwartz:

They get a lot of natural traffic to Restaurant.com

Monday December 7, 2009 1:51 Barry Schwartz

1:51

Barry Schwartz:

They dig into the metrics, the conversions, and so on.

Monday December 7, 2009 1:51 Barry Schwartz

1:52

Barry Schwartz:

Dave Tan, VP, Content Solutions, Resolution Media introduces himself now...

Monday December 7, 2009 1:52 Barry Schwartz

1:53

Barry Schwartz:

When it comes to SEO Metrics, it depends on their goals and what the product or service they have.

Monday December 7, 2009 1:53 Barry Schwartz

1:54

Barry Schwartz:

Not just about rankings...

Monday December 7, 2009 1:54 Barry Schwartz

1:54

Barry Schwartz:

Jeff Ferguson, SES Advisory Board & Senior Director, Online Marketing, Local.com introduces himself.

Monday December 7, 2009 1:54 Barry Schwartz

1:55

Barry Schwartz:

He pitched this panel last year, when he was at Napster

Monday December 7, 2009 1:55 Barry Schwartz

1:56

Barry Schwartz:

It is about a "lesson on how to talk to your boss" that is what this industry needs, he said.

Monday December 7, 2009 1:56 Barry Schwartz

1:57

Barry Schwartz:

Richard Zwicky, Founder & CEO, Enquisite, a search analytics softare firm.

Monday December 7, 2009 1:57 Barry Schwartz

1:57

[Comment From LaurentBLaurentB: ]

"how to talk to you boss" ?!?! What does this have to do with anything ?

Monday December 7, 2009 1:57 LaurentB

1:58

Barry Schwartz:

Enquisite is about pulling out useful metrics that help SEOs

Monday December 7, 2009 1:58 Barry Schwartz

1:59

[Comment From Keri MorgretKeri Morgret: ]

I imagine it's how to talk to your boss and convince them that rankings aren't everything, and how to see if visitors to the website are doing what you want and making you money/conversions.

Monday December 7, 2009 1:59 Keri Morgret

1:59

Barry Schwartz:

You can't measure what you can't deliver - and that is what drives Richard.

Monday December 7, 2009 1:59 Barry Schwartz

2:00

Barry Schwartz:

Send your Questions to @boggles

Monday December 7, 2009 2:00 Barry Schwartz

2:01

Barry Schwartz:

Non Ranking Factors in SEO Analytics

Monday December 7, 2009 2:01 Barry Schwartz

2:01

Barry Schwartz:

Richard said, he likes to look at the non-branded traffic from search. Ranking well for your name, is great but what about the generic terms that describe your business.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:01 Barry Schwartz

2:03

Barry Schwartz:

Jeff Ferguson said he looked at the similar reports....

Monday December 7, 2009 2:03 Barry Schwartz

2:03

Barry Schwartz:

His goal was to get subscriptions numbers up and the SEO campaign was based around getting subscription numbers up.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:03 Barry Schwartz

2:04

Barry Schwartz:

He then gets into explaining why subscription model is better for napster then per download.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:04 Barry Schwartz

2:05

Barry Schwartz:

He adapted many of their landing pages based on those metrics to increase conversions and dollars.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:05 Barry Schwartz

2:06

Barry Schwartz:

Dave Tan said integrating figures such as facebook fans, twitter followers, etc into those metrics is nice to do also.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:06 Barry Schwartz

2:07

Barry Schwartz:

Linda Ramsey said for them it is more like direct marketing metrics. She said, they see a lot of traffic on the brand terms, so they have a lot of work to do to get to the nonbranded terms.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:07 Barry Schwartz

2:09

Barry Schwartz:

Chris Boggs asks about data issues with analytics and metrics. What if the metrics are wrong...

Monday December 7, 2009 2:09 Barry Schwartz

2:10

Barry Schwartz:

Richard said set up of these packages is always a challenge. Getting the data right is critical, cause it is about the insights you get from the data. If that is wrong, well...

Monday December 7, 2009 2:10 Barry Schwartz

2:11

Barry Schwartz:

Tan said, get in there, triple check the metrics. He sees clients do mix this data up and you often have to start from scratch.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:11 Barry Schwartz

2:14

Barry Schwartz:

Jeff Ferguson said often you do not need to shut everything down to get things right, sometimes you do - but you don't always have stop everything right now to get it working.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:14 Barry Schwartz

2:14

Barry Schwartz:

Richard said, he disagrees cause there is opportunity cost.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:14 Barry Schwartz

2:16

Barry Schwartz:

They then talk about breaking down these metrics by region

Monday December 7, 2009 2:16 Barry Schwartz

2:17

Barry Schwartz:

Linda said, it is not just marketing that is involved, but their back log is the technology side of this.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:17 Barry Schwartz

2:18

Barry Schwartz:

The decisions happen throughout her organization, she is responsbile for 'selling it up' but she gets ideas from all over.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:18 Barry Schwartz

2:19

Barry Schwartz:

At United it was about making sure to show positive results on the first page, but at Restaurant it is not about that.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:19 Barry Schwartz

2:19

Barry Schwartz:

Tan said it is about truely about understanding what the business does and is

Monday December 7, 2009 2:19 Barry Schwartz

2:21

Barry Schwartz:

Jeff agrees, it is the responsibility of the agency to ask the questions up front. On the agency side, you have clients who are not wiling to answer these types of questions.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:21 Barry Schwartz

2:21

Barry Schwartz:

err, I hate open panels - seems like it is all over the place

Monday December 7, 2009 2:21 Barry Schwartz

2:23

Barry Schwartz:

Being able to monitor changes and show impact on the $ level will give you the ability to go back to get more $ to make more changes.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:23 Barry Schwartz

2:25

Barry Schwartz:

Q: How do you get people to invest in SEO when often it takes month to see results?
A: Richard said, there are ways to predict impact in the future. But often, sites that are not new, you can see immediate results.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:25 Barry Schwartz

2:26

Barry Schwartz:

Using predictive modeling, you can estimate impact before you actually implement.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:26 Barry Schwartz

2:29

Barry Schwartz:

They then talk about how to talk to clients, be upfront, don't promise too much, etc.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:29 Barry Schwartz

2:30

Barry Schwartz:

Also, be conservative with your forecasting...

Monday December 7, 2009 2:30 Barry Schwartz

2:35

Barry Schwartz:

Lot of very specific questions, which are somewhat hard to answer without specific detailed analytics on that site, imo.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:35 Barry Schwartz

2:35

Barry Schwartz:

Again, apologize for this session coverage - open sessions like this really hard to cover.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:35 Barry Schwartz

2:36

Barry Schwartz:

Next live sessions being covered here at 3:15pm (CST) include:

SEO Through Blogs & Feeds covered by Barry Schwartz
Search and the Integrated Marketing Mix covered by Chris Boggs

Monday December 7, 2009 2:36 Barry Schwartz

2:38

Barry Schwartz:

You can track specific people as they go through the site, even through offline purchases.

Monday December 7, 2009 2:38 Barry Schwartz

2:40

Barry Schwartz:

Okay, that is all for this session, reminder...

Monday December 7, 2009 2:40 Barry Schwartz

2:40

Barry Schwartz:

Next live sessions being covered here at 3:15pm (CST) include:

SEO Through Blogs & Feeds covered by Barry Schwartz
Search and the Integrated Marketing Mix covered by Chris Boggs

Monday December 7, 2009 2:40 Barry Schwartz

2:40

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