So, what strategies can we use now?
Just because you don’t necessarily know what they searched for doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care about content performance. And it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be trying to infer intent.
Let’s assume that we lose sight of search terms entirely. This puts it in the realm of most other traffic sources, except for paid search. With Paid, you still have access to keywords etc. but you won’t get the actual term they’ve searched for. And of course, you can still use the Google Webmaster Tool to approximate traffic based on term. Granted, a few of the other traffic sources can infer intent – if they come through from a banner, there’s the message; if they come through from an EDM, there’s also the message.
Entry page performance
We have a lot of data still being measured, and we can focus our efforts on using it in ways that we might have forgotten. One of those is perhaps entry pages; entry pages help to infer intent. But not just standard entry page metrics, I’m talking about entry page performance. By performance I mean ‘how well does the entry page perform in terms of captivating the user and driving the user behaviour that you’re looking for, whether that be purchase or engagement?’ And, ‘how many people coming through it as an entry page, go on to purchase or sign up, or read more content?’
Looking at performance:
Use participation metrics in SiteCatalyst to understand performance.
Use a combination of bounce, visit depth, time on site, new/repeat usa email list 30 million contact leads metrics to help determine whether the page is any good at converting.
Entry page pathing – where does the visitor go once they’ve become enamoured with your content?
You can use a modified engagement index to help determine performance – focus the index on landing page or entry page performance.
Of course, you’re using segmentation by default now, so you’ll be comparing customers with prospects, to see if there are differences there. You’ll be looking at different entry pages, visit depths and so forth to ensure you’re still getting value.
You should also be using your internal search terms – for a number of reasons. Firstly, they tell you what people are looking for if they can’t find it on your site quickly (search terms used, number of searches). Secondly, they’ll tell you what results you’re lacking (searches with zero results).
Your bow is not broken.
So, just because Google sneaked in and whipped the string off your bow, doesn’t mean that you’re unarmed. There are other ways to string your bow.