Esther C Kane

A year or so ago, Google introduced their Personalization format.  Basically, this means that each person’s use of Google on their computer is different.

So,  let’s say Andrew who lives in Denver does a search for a “divorce attorney” and it’s a search he’s done before.  And let’s say that Sarah, who lives in Chicago, does a search for a “divorce attorney” and it’s a search that she’s done before.  Well, the results for Andrew are going to be very different than the results for Sarah.  Not only will Andrews results show Denver based divorce attorney (and Sarah’s will show Chicago based divorce attorneys) but Andrews search results will also show any divorce attorneys that he’s already clicked on before.  (The same for Sarah).

Even if Andrews next door neighbor did a search for “divorce attorney” – his results would be different from Andrews because of what he has searched for and clicked on in the past.  On the same computer, of course.

So, the old concept of tracking where the websites “rank” in the engines doesn’t work anymore.  It’s not a good and valid tracking system to identify if the website pages are succeeding or not on the Internet.

Instead, what every website owner and SEO webmaster should be tracking are Website stats and conversions.  Here are some thoughts on how you can implement this (if you haven’t already).

1) Create actions on your website.  In other words, provide forms for your visitors to fill out.   Forms for contact us, forms for specific quotes or surveys or questionnaires.  Create a specific “thank you” page for each form.

2) Using your stats program, track the number of thank you pages for each action.  You’ll be able to quickly identify what services or actions your website is converting and which ones are not.  In other words, you’ll know what’s working and what’s not.

3) If you use Google Analytics you’ll also be able to identify the exact keyword phrases that were used to convert those folks.  You’ll then know what keyword phrases to create more pages for.   If one page on your website converts 5 visitors all who used one specific keyword phrase, what would 3 or 5 more pages marketing the same phrase or semantic phrase do?

Conversions are the new tracking tool.   Use it!