Let No Good Phrase Go Un-clicked

If you have read much on SEO, you know that page name, title, and content play a big roll in the optimizing you pages. However, there is a second phase of optimization that shouldn’t be neglected.

When you develop your content, you optimize you page for certain keywords or phrases. However, after launch it is important to follow up to see what phrases are driving people to your site. It’s important to verify that your key phases are working and certain your pages aren’t being recognized for the wrong phrases.

You can monitor and identify phrases that convert in your analytics package or by working your SEM campaigns. But how do you identify phrases that are showing in search results, but that are not getting click-throughs? Google’s Webmaster tool is a good resource, specifically have a look at >Statistics > Top search queries. What you get is a month by month report of words that being displayed in Google’s search results. The list on the left is all results, and the list on the right are the phrases that were clicked on.

You can follow this month-by-month to see what is moving up or down in Google’s Search Results page. Any of target phrases that only show up in the list on the left side should be tested and associated page descriptions evaluated to understand why these good phrases are going un-clicked.

Ever wonder what Google is ‘thinking?’

It is important to know how Google views your site, because if Google has the wrong impression, you will get traffic with high bounce rates. High bounce rates equate to low search engine relevance. You need to know that relevant terms are being found so you can locate any ‘offending phrases’ and eliminate them from your pages.

You can start with Google’s Webmaster tools. If you haven’t signed up for this, you should. It’s free and can be very helpful. Go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ to sign up. The tool requires that you verify ownership either by placing a meta tag (that they provide) in your home page or creating a blank web page with a specific page name. Once you are verified, look at >Statistics >Top search queries to confirm what search phrases your site is being displayed for and which of those phrases are generating clicks. Also check >Statistics >What Googlebot Sees. What you should see is a list of “linked text” found in external links to your site. Google weighs linked text and surrounding phrases heavily when evaluating relevant phrases for your site. (Note that you may get the error “Data is not available at this time,” in which case you will see two lists: one titled “In your site’s content” the other “in external links to your site.” I believe this occurs when you don’t have enough incoming links to generate a report, but the information is still instructive.)

I believe you can also get some good ideas by using its keyword tool for website content. Just for grins, go to Google’s keyword tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal, select >Website Content and type in your URL. Then, based on what Google finds when it hits your pages is a list of “keyword groups.” If your site is optimized well, these phrases should all be relevant terms. If any of the “keyword groups” are not relevant, you have some work to do. Navigation, page names, and site structure all play a part.

– It’s also a good idea to try the keyword tool on a competitor’s website.