search and the new economy session 3 search engine analytics

Prof. Panos Ipeirotis

Search and the New Economy

Session 3Search Engine Analytics

Today’s Objectives• Understand current audience

– Get intelligence from referring URL’s– Get intelligence from search keywords

• Plan and optimize site for target audience– Optimize internal search– Optimize external search

• Keyword-based Advertising (Pay per Click, PPC)– Understand pricing model– Understand keyword selection principles– User generated content and ads

• Advertising Networks– Guest speaker: Heath Row, Research Manager at Doubleclick

Understanding Own Website Audience

Who are these people?

1. Analyze URLs2. Analyze Keywords

Analyzing Referral URLs: Demographics

QuantCast for CNBC

Analyzing Referral URLs: Affinities

QuantCast for CNBC

Analyzing Referral URLs: Upstream and Downstream

• Where referral site gets traffic from• Where referral site sends traffic to

Live Demos on QuantCast and Compete

• Sites that you would like to analyze?

Keywords: Embracing the Long Tail

Head

Tail

• How thick is your “head”? (Explains potential risk.)• What is the distribution of Branded & Non-Branded keywords?

Keyword Composition

• Classification of queries in search engines– Navigational– Transactional– Informational

• Keywords with your brand are navigational– In principle, there should be no competition– Site should rank high– Typically in the head of the distribution

• Non-branded keywords are the real target

Aware/Loyal Customers

Competitive/Searchers Customers

Analyzing Keyword Queries: Funneling

• What is the intent of customers that type such queries?

• Hint: What they searched before/after?– Search Funnels: http://adlab.msn.com/searchfunnel/

– How can you catch customers earlier?

– What customers do when they leave?

Get Keyword Demographics• Keywords have demographic signatures

– Microsoft adCenter Demographics Prediction: http://adlab.msn.com/DPUI/DPUI.aspx

– Quantcast http://www.quantcast.com/keyword:keyword

• Example: [posters]

Get Keyword Demographics• Example: [Jessica Alba]

Today’s Objectives• Understand current audience

– Get intelligence from referring URL’s– Get intelligence from search keywords

• Plan and optimize site for target audience– Optimize internal search– Optimize external search

• Keyword-based Advertising (Pay per Click, PPC)– Understand pricing model– Understand keyword selection principles– User generated content and ads

• Advertising Networks– Guest speaker: Heath Row, Research Manager at Doubleclick

Going Beyond Existing Traffic

• So, we know what people come to the website

• How can we get customer for other keywords?

– Search Engine Optimization (SEO)– Pay-per-Click Advertising– Advertising Networks

What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)– Improve “organic” result rankings on search engines – Adjust elements important to search engine algorithms

• Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)– Also known as “sponsored results”, advertising that

appears to the top, bottom, or side of search engine natural results

– Typically cost is generated on a “pay-per-click” model, where advertiser pays for each click a searcher makes on an ad, vs. the traditional online marketing method of “cost per impression”.

Search Marketing Facts• 80.6% of searches use 2 or more words (current trend is 2-3

word searches)

• 87% of searchers do not search past the first page of results

• 33% of searchers believe that the top ranking is also the top brand of the industry.

• 56% of retailers say that 10-40% of their total orders come from PPC advertising

• 62% of users do not know the difference between paid vs. natural listings

(source: Pew Search Engine Users Study)

Why Search Engine Marketing?.

• Highly effective and targeted form of advertising• High effectiveness given the cost

Search Engine Optimization

• Commonly forgotten step: Internal Optimization

– People increasingly search internally (>10% and increasing)– Obvious influence of Google

• Internal searches have nothing to do with external

• Nicely optimized sites: Amazon, CNN

• Many badly optimized: (See example of H&R)

H&R desktop software• Many online solutions, but customers also want software

…simply losing 10% of customers (at $20 to $90 a pop) can be costly

Content Edits (see also Session 1)

• Keyword should appear in:– Domain (if possible)– Filename / URL– Title tag– Meta keyword, Meta description– Bold text– Link text– Overall content of the page– Put ALT tags in images (accessibility as well)

How Important Are Links? (see also Session 1)

• Important ranking factor (see Session 1)

• Put links back to the website in press releases

• Put links in profiles from social networking sites

Get Indexed

• Many sites only partially indexed, or not at all– Deep link structure– Only search-based access

• Simple solution: Using Sitemap Protocol– http://www.sitemaps.org– Sends lists of URLs to crawl to search engine– Typically improves indexing speed and coverage