Why Google, why? With the release of their Hummingbird SEO update, Google eliminated access to some of its media planning keyword data within its Google Analytics dashboard. It has instead replaced it with the not-so-helpful “not provided” designation. In case you are unfamiliar, in the past marketers and other SEO analysts could visit the Google Analytics dashboard and find which specific terms visitors searched on to reach the site. Additionally, marketers could find how many users came in on those terms, how long they stayed, and even track the terms to conversions. Naturally, this information was useful for effective digital media buying; especially for creating relevant user content for SEO, landing pages, and even for crafting campaigns or products around keywords, terms, and phrases that generated the most bang for your digital advertising buck. Perhaps, the best part of this service was that it was free.
We found a few nontraditional ways to extract this information without Google Analytics. Consider combining this data to finding those popular keywords you were once able to get on Google:
- Other Google Products: Google has taken this feature away from its free Analytics product, but this information is still available for AdWords, or paid search users. Another source for popular search keyword is via your Webmaster Tools feature. One caveat of Webmaster Tools, is that it will only show how keywords you selected for your site are doing and no other searched terms.
- Other Search Engines: Yahoo, Bing, and most other less popular search engines still provide this information to their users. Use the information you find on those sites for your keyword research. The sites typically get less traffic, but the data is still a great starting point for research.
- Company Blog Insights: WordPress and Blogger both provide keyword data in its blog site stats.
Until next week, no need to search for us, we are on Facebook, Twitter.