Auditing your keyphrase performance for search engine marketing: the best tools and process

This post is a summary of my presentation to the Advanced Search Term Research & Targeting session at Search Engine Strategies London, 2009. I hope to share and learn on tools and tips for keyword analysis - so please add your ideas to comments.

The reality for most SEOs today who are working for agencies or clients is that they are trying to get better rankings in the natural listings for a site that has already been SEO ed, so a basic keyphrase audit and analysis will already have been completed.

Which tools and process should you follow  to audit the current effectiveness of your keywords and get better results?

I'd like to thank Vince Coyle, Head of Search at  Universal McCann for reviewing the types of tools and providing the summary of the UM keyword research process at the end of this post.

Let's start with the main types of keyword research tools you can use. As well as the tools listed here, I have a more comprehensive list of free Google search engine marketing tools.

Types of keyword research tools

Keyphrase analysis tools

1 Customer demand analysis

This is classic keyword research using the Google Keyword tool (see tutorial) or paid tools to determine number of searches using keywords categorised in different groups.

2 Competitive keyword performance

Manual checks or rank checkers like www.advancedwebranking.com can be used to determine performance but take care that your IP address is not blocked through overusing them from one domain (strictly they are against Google's  terms of service).

Unsurprisingly many SEOs frown on automated rank checkers, arguing that it's the results that count. I agree, so use your web analytics tool to report the number of visits, leads and sales for keywords each month.

I particularly like this Greasemonkey script for Firefox which shows you the movement (plus or minus 20% higher) in keywords each 7 days - awesome! You can also setup custom filters to report SERPS positions.

There are also custom filters for Google analytics you can configure to show the position of SERPs of different phrases:

3 Keyword efficiency

Keyword efficiency requires comparison of the number of natural and paid searches against the number of impressions or searches, this will show you where your SEO or PPC is underperforming and can help for setting goals on which to focus. Two of the columns I have in my spreadsheet are:

4 Sales contribution

What really counts. Using analytics to show the number and conversion rates of goals delivered by keywords, leads, sales, signups. In Google Analytics advanced segmentation can easily be used to produce this report.

5 Competitor comparison

There are lots of competitor tools available - if you have the funds Hitwise is the best. Otherwise you can try SpyFu.

6 Semantic analysis

Finally, you can use tools to understand the patterns of search phrases which is useful for targeting long-term keyphrases - see my article on this tool to help you do this.

Integrating your analysis

Once you have exported data from Google Analytics and all the other tools, you will want to integrate it through a script or easier Excel. If you don't know it, the Excel VLOOKUP() function will be your friend. You can create different worksheets with different data and a master sheet which uses VLOOKUP to integrate the performance of different keyphrases.

Typical worksheets to use are:

1. Master worksheet integrating all data with derived metrics showing keyphrase performance, e.g. gap % between paid, natural and Google Keyword Tool
2. Google Keyword Tool worksheet (Exact and/or Phrase match volumes and Avg CPC to show cost/value)
3. Google Analytics Non-paid keyword report showing number of visits and bounce rate
4. Google Analytics (or similar) paid search report
5. Analytics reports on goals achieved, e.g. conversion goals, leads or sales - again by keyword
6. Optional Google ranking in country using rank checkers if you believe in them.
7. Can also compare landing page URLs to see whether phrase is directing visitors to the best page for conversion

A keyword research process

I don't have space here to go through the whole process, so I asked Vince Coyle, Head of Search at Universal McCann if I could share his summary of the UM keyword research process. Well here's their process - it certainly shows that keyword research today is much more complex than using the now defunct Overture tool.

Presentation - auditing keyword research

You can view the presentation on Slideshare.