The Best Way to Measure Online Success Post-Hummingbird

Hummingbird happened. It’s done. Google users now search using the fastest, most precise algorithm ever.

It was designed to focus less on keywords and more on users’ prior search queries, browsing history and social activity. The idea being that the more Google knows about your past interests, the better it can decide what’s important, helpful and attractive to you (i.e., the intent of your searches).

Hummingbird will support intuitive, convenient technologies like Voice Search, which will ultimately fuel the majority of Google searches. It will see your search queries as conversations. In time, it’ll be a lot like talking to your neighbor -- your out-of-this-world intelligent, perceptive, insightful neighbor.

Pretty cool stuff. Gimme.

So, what’s the problem?

Keywords aren't what they used to be. Think Bo Jackson after the hip thing. Things just weren't the same.

I’m not saying they’re not important. They are. Thanks to Google’s “(not provided)” initiative, however, it’s become much more difficult to identify the keywords and phrases that searchers were using to find your website.

Once upon a time, not too long ago, you could see all of your keyword data by simply logging into Google Analytics. Today, the majority of your keywords would be “not provided”, as you can see below:

“(Not provided)” paired with the fact that Google is no longer dependent on keyword-heavy searches, makes it super difficult to create accurate and reliable ranking reports. These reports, of course, are what many business owners use to determine the effectiveness of their Internet marketing efforts.

At least they used to be.

What now?

Get back to basics: start recording and analyzing your company’s sales and conversions.

Since it’s impossible to accurately analyze your keyword data via Google Analytics, your best bet is to get fundamental. Evaluating the hard numbers your sales and conversion data yields is far more reliable than guessing keywords.

Don’t forget, even if Google did still display its data, it would be skewed by Hummingbird, which adjusts its search results based on users’ search history, location, and even time of day.

At Spectrum, we provide our clients with the lead management software they need to easily track and evaluate their sales and conversions. For example, one of our moving clients sees something like this every time they need to crunch the numbers: