Your BringShare SEO Dashboard is full of robust information that allows you to show the true value you are providing through SEO. This post is the 2nd post in a 5 part series highlighting BringShare SEO reporting insights.

The SEO Dashboard is composed of 5 components: a breakdown of information by Search Engines, a Traffic Breakdown analysis, an overview of Top Keywords driving traffic and conversions to your site, information on keyword Rankings and an analysis of links leading to your website brought via Moz . This post talks about the Traffic Breakdown Tab specifically, but click any of the links above to learn more about the other sections as well!

What are Branded and Non-branded keywords?

Branded keywords are any keywords that include your brand name, or a brand name product (specific to your company). In your BringShare SEO settings, branded keywords should be set up to be any variation of your brand name (singular/plural, misspellings, abbreviated versions, etc.).

For example, “Google ” would consider their branded keywords to be “Google”, “Gooogle”, “google tracking”, “Googgle”, “google .com”, “google ”, “goggle ” and any other common misspellings or branded terms.

Non-branded keywords are keywords that do not include your brand name, or any variant of your brand name. For example, if you are a dentist, “Columbus Dentist” or “teeth whitening” are non-branded keywords, while the name of your dental practice is not.

BringShare asks that you specify which keywords are branded in your settings. This is incredibly important to view insights from this tab.

Key Insights from your traffic breakdown tab to share with clients during SEO reporting

1) Show your clients the proportion of their SEO traffic that is coming from people looking specifically for them vs people who were looking for their solution

• On a very basic level, comparing branded to non-branded keywords can tell you a lot. One important, major perpsective to take away from your traffic breakdown tab is to understand the proportion of your traffic that was looking for your client (branded keyword traffic) and the proportion of your traffic that was looking for the solution your client provides (non-branded keywords).
• Use the Branded vs Non-branded pie charts to view the proportion of branded traffic vs nonbranded traffic driving visits -and perhaps more importantly the proportion of branded vs non-branded traffic driving conversions/sales.
• Use the Branded vs Non-branded trend graphs to view how the two types of traffic compare and trend over time.

2) Show your clients how your SEO efforts are helping people easily find their brand

• Can people find your client when they look? It’s a simple question, but in a lot of cases, it may not be a simple answer.
• A solid portion of SEO is ensuring that when a potential customer is looking for your client, they are able to find them. Branded traffic -aka traffic from someone who is looking for your specific brand or company, can be one of the most valuable types of website visitors. If they’re already looking for your client’s brand, they are currently engaged and closer to taking whatever action (be that a conversion or purchase) your website was built for. Ensuring these people who are right on the cusp of “buying” can reach your site is crucial.
• Show your client the total number of visitors and conversions brought by branded keyword traffic to prove your SEO efforts have helped them rank well for their brand.

3) Show your clients if the customers looking for their brand find what they need + how their website is performing

• Take a look at your branded keywords and the results they’re driving. In most cases, Branded keywords visits result from the most engaged type of visitor you can have on your site. The visitor is already looking for the brand, so now the website needs to do it’s job to push them to conversion.
• Look at the conversion rate. Is it better than your non-branded conversion rate? If not, maybe your website isn’t doing it’s job. Perhaps people can’t find what they’re looking for. If that’s the case, should you look towards your internal link structure? Should you look at how you’re communicating your different calls to action?
• Now look at your engagement metrics in the branded keyword section (Bounces, PPV and Time on Site). Remember that branded traffic is typically the most engaged. Is that what the data shows? If not, what could the issue be? People searching branded traffic are looking specifically for your company. Are you providing everything they’re looking for?
• Key take-aways: A weak conversion rate from branded keywords, or weak engagement metrics from branded keywords can point to issues with your website.

4) Show your client if the non-branded SEO traffic you’re capturing is actually paying off

• Now that you have captured these new people, the real question is: are they worthwhile?
• Take the analysis you just did on your branded keywords and apply it to your non-branded results. As we mentioned earlier, branded keyword visitors are the “best case scenario” customer. Your branded keyword performance is now your new non-branded keyword performance benchmark. Take a look at how your metrics for non-branded keywords compare to your key metrics from branded keywords as a measure of how effective your website can be in it’s current state.
• Your branded keywords will likely have higher conversion rates and higher engagement metrics, but how much of a gap is there between the two types of traffic?
  • If the gap is large, are you targeting the right non-branded keywords for your site? The next step is looking at the traffic you’re driving and identifying why your client isn’t providing their solution.
  • If the gap is narrow, you’re obviously doing a great job of pairing up what people are searching for with what your client provides. The next step is identifying how you create more of this traffic.
• Once these questions are answered, you have a much better perspective of not only where you’re at, but how you’re improving and where you need to go in the future.
• Take the example screenshot above. For this client, the majority of their traffic is Non-Branded (53%!). When we look at Conversions and Bounces however, we find that a whopping majority (75%) bounces and we only have 3 conversions! There is obviously a lot of time spent on getting non-branded traffic to this client’s site, but that traffic is not paying off in conversions and the majority of visitors leave right away. This has two major implications:
  1. The non-branded traffic that is reaching your site is not interested in your content (shown by the lack of conversions + high bounce rate).
  2. The non-branded traffic that is reaching your site may be hurting your chances in Google (and other search engines) in the future.
     • With constant updates to their search algorithms, Google is always tweaking to find the best results for people using their search services. A high bounce rate means people visit one page on your site, probably didn’t find what they’re looking for, and since they bounced once before, it’s less likely they will be served up your site in a search in the future.
     • Beyond that, Google’s main objective is serving the best results possible. A high bounce rate doesn’t help prove the case that your site is ranking for what people are looking for -or worse, could even indicate to Google that your website is of poor quality.

5) Show your client how your SEO efforts are capturing visitors you would have missed (and could have ended up at a competitor)

• Non-branded keywords are a huge opportunity. They represent people who were looking for a solution you could provide, but were not necessarily looking for (or aware of you).
• Pointing your agency clients towards viewing the branded vs. non-branded visits and conversions/sales pie charts that exhibit the expanded market share you’re bringing to their company via your SEO efforts is the surefire way to keep your client in love with your services for the long haul.
• From there, showing your clients the SEO branded/non-branded visits and conversions/sales trend data is a great way to show your client not only the additional traffic, but how that traffic increases or decreases over time.
  • Make sure to point out how conversions/sales compare to visits.
    • If non-branded traffic provides a good number of visits, but not as many conversions/sales, point out that you’re getting the non-branded traffic there through your SEO efforts, but now the next step may be to optimize the site to cater to the new audience you’re bringing to the table.
    • If non-branded traffic provides a good number of visits and conversions/sales, point this out to prove your SEO efforts are targeting the right keyword groups and providing sizable impact for your clients.

6) Quickly understand what proportion of your “(not provided)” traffic comes from branded vs non-branded efforts -without a ton of research and analysis

• Now that we have done an analysis on the traffic we know to be branded or non-branded, let’s jump into the pesky “(not provided)” that has been the bane of every marketers existence since it starting popping up back in 2011.
  
• Take a look at the screenshot below. The “Not-Provided” section is a quick and easy way to estimate whether your “(not-provided)” traffic is from branded or non-branded keywords.
  1. Analysis of conversion rate: First look at the conversions section (highlighted below). Is your conversion rate (located under the # of conversions) closer to our branded, or closer to your non-branded keywords?
  2. Analysis of engagement metrics: Do the same for the important engagement metrics pulled from not-provided traffic on your website. Is the bounce rate, PPV (pages per visit) and Time on Site closer to branded or non-branded?
  3. Answers for your client:
     • If your metrics consistently point in one direction, it’s pretty safe to say the majority of (not-provided) traffic is brought to you by that keyword’s type (branded or non-branded).
     • If some metrics are closer to your non-branded results and some metrics are closer to your branded results, it’s safer to say the distribution is closer to equal. Check out the example below to learn more!

 

The Traffic Breakdown Tab - What’s included?

The Branded vs. Non-Branded Traffic Breakdown Analysis Chart

The Branded vs. Non-Branded Visits Pie Chart + Trends

The Branded vs. Non-Branded Conversions Pie Chart + Trends

 

A tip when using the BringShare Traffic Breakdown dashboard:

This portion of the SEO dashboard depends on you entering the different keyword variants surrounding your brand name. You will need to enter these keywords in your BringShare settings for your clients. Luckily, we have found an incredibly easy way for you to automatically find and generate a list of all of your different branded keyword variants. Check it out to bring some more BringShare simplicity into your life!

 

Now that you have learned more about the Search Engines tab of your SEO Dashboard, read up on the other 4 sections!

• An breakdown by Search Engine
• Top Keywords driving traffic and conversions to your site (coming soon)
• Keyword Rankings (coming soon)
• Moz data (coming soon)

 

BringShare for Agencies provides SEO Dashboards that automatically generate reports that have the most comprehensive overview for proving your SEO value. The BringShare system helps you view the true impact of your search engine optimization efforts and allows you to easily convey that information to your agency’s clients. Learn more about how the BringShare SEO Dashboard can automate your reporting today!