Posted on: 13 January, 2005
Author: Robin Nobles
Do you know that ... to ... an ... firm, in2003 medium to large Web sites got an average of 13.6% of ... search engines? Do you realize the power in that one ... Do you know that according to WebSideStory, an analytics firm, in2003 medium to large Web sites got an average of 13.6% of trafficfrom search engines? Do you realize the power in that one simplestatement? Search engine marketers trying to get new business from medium tolarge Web sites can ask for log files from potential clients.They can then determine the percentage of traffic from searchengines for those potential clients. They can compare it to theaverage, and use that number to prove the need for their servicesas well as the importance of search engine marketing. The same principle applies to SEOs trying to prove to themarketing or management departments that search engine marketingneeds to be taken seriously. Measuring the percentage of traffic from search engines over timeis one way to measure the effectiveness of an online marketingcampaign. But hang on, because we're going to explain a few otherdefinable elements that you may have previously thought of as un-measurable. What other elements can be truly and effectively measured? What about measuring things you probably haven't consideredbefore, such as site stickiness and brand blurriness? Site stickiness measurements are normally taken from the firstpage of a Web site as it's usually the most trafficked page andthe entry point for the majority of online visits. The stickinessmetric measures if people are finding what they expect to find assoon as they arrive on the site. Brand blurriness refers to visitors who have searched for asimilar product but landed on your page. In that case, yourproduct or company names are similar, and it appears you may havea branding problem. But how can you measure site stickiness and brand blurriness? Have you heard of "scorecarding"? Every client needs a scorecard and needs to know how they'redoing from month to month or week to week. Any client, with theproper analytics, can have a set of scorecards. What is scorecarding? A scorecard is a way of charting all of themetrics you've gathered, to where it's easy to present theinformation to your client, your marketing department,management, or simply as a more efficient way of keeping track ofyour data. How do you begin with scorecarding? Would you like to see samplesof scorecards? Introducing . . . Search Engine Effectiveness Metrics and Scorecarding . . . ByMarshall Sponder I recently read one of the most in-depth and revealing articlesI've ever seen on how to measure the effectiveness of a searchengine marketing campaign. Written by Marshall Sponder(http://www.now-seo.com), a professional search engine marketerwho's well-known for his unique and effective ways for measuringtraffic and for developing scorecarding in the SEO industry, thiseasy-to-understand article breaks an often complicated topic intostraight forward terms. The article is almost 6,000 words long and is full of graphicsand charts, so we've put it into PDF format to make it easy foryou to download. Visit this page to download the free PDF article: http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/e-metrics.html This article covers all of the topics I've mentioned above, andit answers all of the questions. In Conclusion . . . Before your search engine marketing campaign even begins, youneed to start analyzing your log files and measuring your searchengine traffic. Traffic analysis is every bit as important as themarketing campaign itself. Download Marshall's PDF article and look at the various metricshe's suggested for measuring the effectiveness of a search enginemarketing campaign. Try his method of scorecarding and see how itworks for you. Become as serious about traffic analysis as you are about searchengine optimization, and you'll soon be wallpapering your housewith your search engine success stories! Good luck! Article Tags: Search Engine, Site Stickiness, Brand Blurriness Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com