As marketers, most of us are completely reliant on Google search traffic as the engine that drives our business. We have become dependent on their data to measure our campaigns and optimize for higher rankings. However, we are not in control of this data, as Google will giveth and Google will taketh away (See: Secure Search, Keyword Not Provided). The only way to truly control our search destiny is to supplement the data that Google provides us with our own. In this presentation, I will show you tactics on how to collect, own and analyze data that will help you measure and optimize your search campaigns.

1. MY CO-DEPENDENT
RELATIONSHIP WITH
GOOGLE
Tim Resnik  @tresnik  tim@moz.com

2. @tresnik
THE FIRST STEP TO RECOVERY
ADMIT THAT YOU
HAVE A PROBLEM

3. @tresnik
DEEP DEPENDENCY

4. @tresnik
AND IF…
Heart Stops!

5. @tresnik
BUT THEY NEED ME TOO, RIGHT

6. @tresnik
THEY USE OUR CONTENT

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I MAKE MY SITE CRAWLABLE

8. @tresnik

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I’M NOT SO STRONG

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RECOVERY
ACCEPT WHAT YOU
CAN’T CHANGE

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RECOVERY
CHANGE WHAT
YOU CAN

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RECOVERY
TAKE CONTROL OF
YOUR DATA

13. @tresnik
A DATA DUMP OF DATA TACTICS
1. OWN YOUR TOPIC DATA
1. OWN YOUR SEARCH DATA
1. OWN YOUR SITE DATA

14. OWN YOUR
TOPIC DATA

15. @tresnik
COMPLETE CONTENT
SATURATION

16. @tresnik
OVER 7M POSTS PER DAY
http://www.slideshare.net/crumplezone
Courtesy Dr. Pete Meyers

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AN UNGODLY AMOUNT OF VIDEO
100 HOURS UPLOADED
TO YOUTUBE PER MINUTE

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AN UNGODLY AMOUNT OF VIDEO
684,000 YEARS WATCHED
ON YOUTUBE PER MONTH

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AN ANNOYING # OF PRESS RELEASES
12,000 NEW PRESS
RELEASES PER MONTH

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WE BECAME CONTENT MARKETERS

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THE GOOD OL’ DAYS
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8a/JeffLisandro.jpg/1280px-JeffLisandro.jpg

22. @tresnik
THE GOOD OL’ DAYS
Search Keyphrases* (Top 8)
full list
12,230 different keyphrases Search Percent
1. Card Player 5,500 5.2%
2. Cardplayer 5,100 4.8%
3. Cardplayer Magazine 3,300 3.1%
4. Card Player Poker 3,000 2.9%
5. Poker tournaments 2,200 2.0%
6. World Series of poker 1,700 1.6%
7. Card Player Magazine 1,500 1.4%
Other phrases 82,000 78.6%
* For example only. Not the real numbers

23. @tresnik
THE GOOD OL’ DAYS
Search Keyphrases*
Search Percent
125. … 75 .0007%
125. … 75 .0007%
125. Jeff Lisandro 75 .0007%
125. … 75 .0007%
126. … 73 .0007%
126. … 73 .0007%
126. … 73 .0007%

24. @tresnik
THE GOOD OL’ DAYS

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THE GOOD OL’ DAYS

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THE GOOD OL’ DAYS
100,000,000,000
Google Searches / Month

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THE GOOD OL’ DAYS
Brand New Terms
The Rest
500,000,000 terms PER DAY are
brand new, never search before on
Google

28. @tresnik
THE GOOD OL’ DAYS
Measure Efforts Exploit Opportunities
FUTURE
PLACE
YOUR BETS
PAST

29. @tresnik
THAT WAS THEN...

30. @tresnik
(NOT PROVIDED)

31. @tresnik
NOPE

32. @tresnik
GWT CAN PROVIDE DATA, BUT…
GA doesn’t have
this

33. @tresnik
GWT CAN PROVIDE DATA, BUT…
# of KWs From GA
# of KWs From GWT

34. @tresnik
GWT CAN PROVIDE DATA, BUT…
Only 90 Days of Keyword Data

35. @tresnik
WHO NEEDS KEYWORD DATA?
Meta Data
Structured Data

36. @tresnik
PASS GA YOUR TOPIC DATA

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USE A CUSTOM DIMENSION
For example: ga('send', 'pageview', {'dimension16': '< ?=$director?>’});
Step 1: put the value “Jose Padilha” in a
variable, $director
Step 2: send it to Google analytics

38. @tresnik
ANALYZE BY “DIRECTOR”
Use your custom variable
as the secondary
dimension to landing page
for Google search referrals

39. @tresnik
WORDPRESS SHORTCUTS
Categories, tags, author

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CUSTOM VARIABLES W/ WORDPRESS
Video not available on SlideShare

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AUTOMATING THE PROCESS

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Create
Content
Extract
Keywords
and Entities
Store in a
Custom
Variable
Pass to GA
ENTITY EXTRACTION
Linked Data +
Natural Language
Tool Kits

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Video not available on SlideShare

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SOME TOOL SETS
• Stanford Natural Language Processing Group
• University of Illinois Cognitive Computation Group
• Stanbol
• Skyttle (and a bunch of others on Mashape)
• Dbpedia Spotlight
• Alchemy API

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STRUCTURED DATA EXPERT
mjb@moz.com
@matthewjbrown

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CONTENT GROUPING IN GA

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CONTENT GROUPING IN GA
MyBeerBlog.com
IPA
OR CO
PALE
OR CO
PORTER
OR CO

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CONTENT GROUPING IN GA
MyBeerBlog.com (1,000)
IPA
(500)
OR
(350)
CO
(150)
PALE
(300)
OR
(200)
CO
(100)
PORTER
(200)
OR
(150)
CO
(50)

49. @tresnik
CONTENT GROUPING IN GA
MyBeerBlog.com (1,000)
IPA
(500)
OR
(350)
CO
(150)
PALE
(300)
OR
(200)
CO
(100)
PORTER
(200)
OR
(150)
CO
(50)
More investigation needed, but looks promising

50. @tresnik
CONTENT GROUPING IN GA

51. @tresnik
METHOD #1: EXTRACTION
MyBeerBlog.com/reviews/ipa/or/double-mountain-review
A little RegEx: /reviews/(.*)/
ipa

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METHOD #2: RULES-BASED

53. @tresnik
METHODS 1 AND 2 DON’T WORK
HERE

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METHOD #3: TRACKING CODE

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METHOD #3: TRACKING CODE
ga('set', 1, ’Social Media');

56. OWN YOUR
SERP DATA

57. @tresnik
GONE ARE THE DAYS…

58. @tresnik

59. @tresnik
SEARCH REFERRALS IN GA

60. @tresnik
GOOGLE REFERRAL STRING
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&es
rc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDIQFj
AA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fradiohead.com
This string can help!
ved=0CDIQFjAA

61. @tresnik
EXAMPLE OF ‘VED’ CODES
Vertical (Universal Search) Code
Q F j Organic Search
Q q Q I w News OneBox (link)
Q p w I News OneBox (image)
Q 9 Q E w Image OneBox
Q t w l w Video OneBox (link)
Q u A I w Video OneBox (image)
Q j B Organic Search - Sitelink
Q o h 0 Local Carousel
B E P 4 d Knowledge Graph image (non-leading)

62. @tresnik
WITHOUT VED SEGMENTATION

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WITH VED SEGMENTATION

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SET UP A NEW PROFILE

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SETUP 2 FILTERS

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FILTER #1
Regex
to
capture
VED in
referral
string

67. @tresnik
FILTER #1
We’ll
use this
in the
next
filter:
“VED –
CD”

68. @tresnik
FILTER #2
Calls the
custom field
we just
created:
“VED – CD”
Extracts
the
referring
search
engine

69. @tresnik
THE RESULT

70. @tresnik
CREATE ADVANCED SEGMENTS

71. @tresnik
USE IT TO MAKE DECISIONS
Bubble up
areas to
optimize

72. @tresnik
USE IT TO MAKE DECISIONS
This referral
is from a
sitelink in
the 6th
position

73. @tresnik
USE IT TO MAKE DECISIONS

74. OWN YOUR
SITE DATA

75. @tresnik
WHAT GWT IS GOOD AT

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WHAT GWT IS NOT TOO GOOD
AT

77. @tresnik
SCREAMING FROG CAN TOO

78. @tresnik
BALL DON’T LIE

79. @tresnik
LOGS DON’T LIE

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LOGS DON’T LIE

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LOGS DON’T LIE

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0
1000000
2000000
3000000
4000000
5000000
6000000
June 6th June 27th August
6th
Septh 6th Oct 9th Nov 5th Dec 12 Jan 9th April 13th May 17th July 2nd Oct 7th Dec 10th
Requests
Requests from Spiders
GoogleBot
BingBot
Google Adsens
TREND THE CRAWL RATE

83. @tresnik0
50000
100000
150000
200000
250000
300000
350000
400000
Oct 9th Nov 5th Dec 12th Jan 9th Feb 2nd April 13th May 17th Jul 2nd Oct 7th Dec 10th May 27th
AxisTitle
404s vs. 301s
404 (axis-2
301
TREND THE RESPONSE CODES

84. @tresnik
TRACK ERRORS W/ MOZ

85. @tresnik
ASK THE GOOGLE INDEX
Probably
dupe content

86. @tresnik
HE’S JUST
NOT THAT
INTO YOU

87. @tresnik
OWN YOUR TOPIC DATA

88. @tresnik
OWN YOUR SERP DATA

89. @tresnik
OWN YOUR SITE DATA

90. THANK YOU!
TIM RESNIK  @TRESNIK 
TIM@MOZ.COM