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Historical Search Traffic - Are You Missing The Boat?
January 09, 2006
In my last post, I asked the question: "Is your Search Traffic growing Big Time?"
Notice I didn't ask, "Are your search engine placements growing Big Time?" Why? Because your search engine placements are just a means to an end for what you should really be seeking ... target audience visits clicking through to your site from your search engine placements.
If you're not analyzing your search engine traffic at least monthly, the boat has left the dock without you. Make sure you have a web analytics program that provides search engine referrer data. This way you will always know exactly how many visitors find your site through each search engine. Then meticulously track your Search Traffic at least monthly over the long haul.
Here's an example from a client who fits my "7 Characteristics Of Companies That Have Committed To Ongoing SEO". Let's take a look at their Search Traffic for Google, Yahoo, and MSN in 2005:
If you're analyzing your Search Traffic monthly, then you have the advantage of being able to compare it to prior years. Here's what this client's search traffic looked like the prior year (2004):
Now let's go back another year and look at 2003:
There are many observations that can be made from analyzing three years of historical search traffic. Here are just a few:
* Google brings significantly more visitors to this site than Yahoo and MSN. In fact, currently Google traffic is approximately the equivalent of Yahoo and MSN combined.
* Since January 2003, traffic from Google has grown from under 50,000 to nearly 800,000 monthly visitors.
* This client definitely has a seasonal trend to it's Search Traffic with small decreases in search traffic in January and February that recover in March and April, flatten our over the early part of the Summer, then take off in the Fall and reach their peak in December.
The analysis and observations can go on and on. My main point is that we can use this data to make significant strategic decisions about our SEO efforts. And our client can use it to make meaningful e-business decisions that affect their bottom line.
Every site owner should be analyzing their Search Traffic and using whatever intelligence this brings to the table. Be happy about good search engine placements, but be excited about Search Traffic that is growing big time!
All posts by Doug Ausbury
posted by Doug Ausbury at January 9, 2006 04:52 PM
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