There was a time, years ago, when you could discover how people found out about your website directly from Google. The search engine would offer website operators the ability to see what keywords were used to access their sites, giving you immediate, real-time access to your search data. As of 2011, however, Google made a move toward greater privacy for its users, pushing web marketers to using Google AdWords, a paid service, to get the same information by testing keywords, clickthroughs and conversions.
All is not lost, however, as you have other means of obtaining the data that Google wants to hide from you. Namely, one company offers these services: SEO Monitor. You can also use PHP to reclaim that data for yourself, as described in this presentation by Rob Kerry. Assuming you want the fastest and most accessible solution available, SEO Monitor is a clear first choice when it comes to reclaiming organic search keyword data for your website.
What Does SEO Monitor Do?
SEO Monitor solves the problem of Google keyword data coming up as (not-provided). The software accurately breaks down keyword data, providing you with important information about how your users are finding your site. With this application, you can see how much of your organic traffic is SEO traffic brought in by non-branded keywords. You can see the number of visits and conversions for each relevant keyword and determine how much revenue they have provided you with.
The real beauty of the software is that it works at the landing page level, giving you comprehensive information about long tail keywords that influence SEO results. Additionally, the application offers historical data that is key in developing a long-term strategy for growing and maintaining your digital market presence on a major search engine like Google.
How SEO Monitor Works
The application pulls up to 160,000 separate keywords from the Google Search Console and displays their organic traffic data using a proprietary algorithm. It is important to know that these results are not estimates — they are the real data concerning your targeted keywords, including visits, transactions and revenue for each.
Is the Service Valuable for Your Site?
The startup package offered by SEO Monitor lets you track data for a maximum of 100 keywords for one website, with daily rank tracking. It costs $24 per month, making it an easy way to test the waters and discover the value it represents for your site. Business and dedicated eCommerce packages cost between $79 and $199 a month, tracking up to 2,000 keywords for a maximum of three websites at a time, so there is room to scale for growth if you decide you cannot live without this data.
If you’re not willing to part with that kind of cash for this service, you can always implement on on-site search function or provide your users with sign-up forms that ask, “What did you search to find this page?” but the results you get may not be as complete as one that uses Google’s own repository of keyword data.
