Do you know that according to WebSideStory, an analytics firm, in 2003 medium to large Web sites got an average of 13.6% of traffic from search engines? Do you realize the power in that one simple statement?

Search engine marketers trying to get new business from medium to large Web sites can ask for log files from potential clients. They can then determine the percentage of traffic from search engines for those potential clients. They can compare it to the average, and use that number to prove the need for their services as well as the importance of search engine marketing.

The same principle applies to SEOs trying to prove to the marketing or management departments that search engine marketing needs to be taken seriously.

Measuring the percentage of traffic from search engines over time is one way to measure the effectiveness of an online marketing campaign. But hang on, because we're going to explain a few other definable elements that you may have previously thought of as un-measurable.

What other elements can be truly and effectively measured?

What about measuring things you probably haven't considered before, such as site stickiness and brand blurriness?

Site stickiness measurements are normally taken from the first page of a Web site as it's usually the most trafficked page and the entry point for the majority of online visits. The stickiness metric measures if people are finding what they expect to find as soon as they arrive on the site.

Brand blurriness refers to visitors who have searched for a similar product but landed on your page. In that case, your product or company names are similar, and it appears you may have a branding problem.

But how can you measure site stickiness and brand blurriness?

Have you heard of “scorecarding”?

Every client needs a scorecard and needs to know how they're doing from month to month or week to week. Any client, with the proper analytics, can have a set of scorecards.

What is scorecarding? A scorecard is a way of charting all of the metrics you've gathered, to where it's easy to present the information to your client, your marketing department, management, or simply as a more efficient way of keeping track of your data.

How do you begin with scorecarding? Would you like to see samples of scorecards?

Introducing . . .

Search Engine Effectiveness Metrics and Scorecarding . . .
By Marshall Sponder

I recently read one of the most in-depth and revealing articles I've ever seen on how to measure the effectiveness of a search engine marketing campaign. Written by Marshall Sponder, a professional search engine marketer who's well-known for his unique and effective ways for measuring traffic and for developing scorecarding in the SEO industry, this easy-to-understand article breaks an often complicated topic into straight forward terms.

The article is almost 6,000 words long and is full of graphics and charts, so we've put it into PDF format to make it easy for you to download.

Visit this page to download the free PDF article:

Search Engine Effectiveness Metrics and Scorecarding Article

This article covers all of the topics I've mentioned above, and it answers all of the questions.

In Conclusion . . .

Before your search engine marketing campaign even begins, you need to start analyzing your log files and measuring your search engine traffic. Traffic analysis is every bit as important as the marketing campaign itself.

Download Marshall's PDF article and look at the various metrics he's suggested for measuring the effectiveness of a search engine marketing campaign. Try his method of scorecarding and see how it works for you.

Become as serious about traffic analysis as you are about search engine optimization, and you'll soon be wallpapering your house with your search engine success stories!