While social media is undoubtedly a driving force for online traffic and engagement, search offers new opportunities for analyzing and understanding traffic better.
Contently spoke with John Ward, COO of digital marketing agency iQuanti, in order to gain some insights about search and Google’s Search Analytics. There are various ways in which marketers can benefit and it comes down to these three important things:
1. The new Search Analytics lets marketers analyze page performance and search queries in the same place. Google’s Search Analytics allows users to get deeper insights into how people use search to arrive at a website.
“Search Analytics fixes a problem, which results from Google not offering ways for marketers to combine multiple forms of digital analysis. Ward says that a financial services brand could assess the benefit from terms such as “best credit card” or “credit card rate”. Marketers can now learn whether or not current content accomplishes SEO goals.”
2. Marketers can now get more detailed breakdowns of where their search clicks are coming from. Search Analytics allows marketers to filter results by device, country of origin and media format. According to Ward, providing more filters to content marketers and allow distilled searches, translates into more detailed insights and this is a big step forward for companies.
“Putting all of these things in one filter analysis is really a huge advancement. It’s not for huge novices—you do need to have a reasonably detailed understanding of SEO or a technical background to do this correctly—but it is a big improvement.”
3. Third-party search optimization programs are about to get a lot smarter. Google has released an API that allows third-party vendors, such as iQuanti to integrate Search Analytics data sets into their software programs. According to Ward, digital marketing agencies will be able to produce more accurate predictions to benefit clients.
“Knowing which of those things are going to have the biggest bang for your buck is hugely critical because you can waste a lot of time and money chasing things that aren’t going to matter. This helps us to be able to be more accurate at predicting which of those activities are really going to drive business results.”
