Web Traffic and Analytics. Andrew Jensen

Transcription

1 Web Traffic and Analytics Andrew Jensen

2 2 Table of Contents Research Overall Competitor Keyword Research Key Competitor Keyword Research Traffic Plan Traffic Plan pg. 3-8 pg. 4-5 pg. 6-7 pg pg Keyword Ranking pg. 11 Free Direct Traffic Inbound Links On-Page Elements Other Business Card PPC Adwords Campaign pg. 12 pg. 13 pg. 14 pg pg. 16 pg. 17

3 Research 3

4 4 Overall Competitor Keyword Research BYU Related Keywords Competitor Search Word Keywords Keyword Rank Monthly Searches student housing byu byu housing renting furniture furniture renting furniture rentals byu off campus housing byu housing 2 byu family housing byu student housing family housing provo 6 90 byu edu housing student housing byu 3 10 U of U Related Keywords Competitor Search Word Keywords Keyword Rank Monthly Searches student housing u of u university apt 6 20 student apartments university of utah housing 8 50 medical plaza university of utah housing apartments for rent in utah university of utah apartment 8 20 furnished apartments salt lake city irving schoolhouse two bedroom apartments university of utah housing 9 one bedroom apt university of utah housing 9 two bedroom apartment The keywords to pay attention to from the top three at BYU are byu housing, byu family housing, and student housing byu. The keyword to pay attention to from the top three at U of U is university of utah housing. Because my target user is a student who is looking or is currently studying in Utah, I decided to narrow down my target audience to those who are looking to attend Brigham Young University, University of Utah, and Utah Valley University. As I searched for student housing in the appropriate cities that correlate with these schools, I discovered that the higher ranking sites regarding housing were those that the schools themselves hosted. To get a good idea of what keywords each of the top competitors for the geographical location were using, I pick the top three competitors per city (Provo, Orem and Salt Lake City respectively) and checked the top keywords for each site using Alexa.com and Spyfu.com The results of my search were very interesting. Most of the keywords that I had expected, like housing in city, etc., were present, but then there were other, stranger results, like furniture renting. This is a great advantage to me, as the top competitions best keywords aren t all necessarily focused on the opportunities of housing themselves, rather, on things associated with having already found housing options.

5 5 Overall Research Cont. UVU Related Keywords Competitor Search Word Keywords Keyword Rank Monthly Searches student housing uvu university of utah housing equal housing opportunities student housing in provo housing search ventanaapt.com apartments in orem student housing in provo orem housing orem apartments apartments orem apartments in orem 37 utah valley college orem apartment apartments orem 43 student housing in provo 35 Other Keywords Competitor Search Word Keywords Keyword Rank Monthly Searches campus domus No Keywords Listed No Keywords Listed The keywords to pay attention to from the top three at UVU are student housing in provo and orem apartment. The competition that shares the same name from foreign countries aren t ranked and have very few keywords, if any. While the search results for the three schools produced a lot of results, I also was concerned about competition that was sharing a similar name to my sites, which was almost entirely foreign. Results for this search, listed under the gray Other chart to the left, shows that the top three sites for the search term Campus Domus, are not ranked and Alexa.com and Spyfu.com couldn t find any keywords listed on their sites. Further investigation of the top competitor in this field, revealed that the site did include keywords, but is using an outdated method for site design,where they are still using tables for the layout of the site. This provides me with an opportunity to outclass the competition in this seciton by merely using current standards of design. To further understand the competition, I decided to narrow down who I would compete against even further by picking the number one website in each category, and further research what they were using in order to drive more traffic to their sites. This information is listed on the following two pages.

6 Key Competitor Research BYU On-campus Housing Global Rank: 4,285 Organic Keywords: 150 Paid Keywords: 0 Est Monthly SEO Clicks: 3.78k Est Monthly SEO Click Value: $9.8k Backlink Count: 11,824 Backlink Type: Has Affiliate Links, Blogs Page Load Speed: seconds Top Keywords and Rank: heritage hall (886 clicks) byu housing (718 clicks) on campus housing (78.7 clicks) byu housing (247 clicks) byu off campus housing (33.2 clicks) Keyword Density: oncampus (40%) On-page Elements: Page Title, Meta, H1 U of U On-campus Housing Global Rank: 3,633 Organic Keywords: 203 Paid Keywords: 0 Est Monthly SEO Clicks: 1.31k Est Monthly SEO Click Value: $1.52k Backlink Count: 16,446 Backlink Type: Other Page Load Speed:.848 seconds Top Keywords and Rank: university apt (126 clicks) student apartments (54.5 clicks) medical plaza (82.9 clicks) university of utah housing (13.9 clicks) university of utah housing (19 clicks) KW Density: university student apartments (6.91%) On-page Elements: Page Title, Meta, H1 6

7 Key Competitor Research UVU Housing Resource Page Global Rank: 18,993 Organic Keywords: 101 Paid Keywords: 0 Est Monthly SEO Clicks: 135 Est Monthly SEO Click Value: $59 Backlink Count: 1,191 Backlink Type:.gov/.edu Page Load Speed: seconds Top Keywords and Rank: university of utah housing (4.3 clicks) housing search (16.5 clicks) student housing in provo (1.9 clicks) student housing in provo (1.78 clicks) equal housing opportunities (40 clicks) Keyword Density: uvu housing (0.65%) On-page Elements: Page Title, Meta, Img Title Campus Domus, Austria Global Rank: Unranked Organic Keywords: Unknown Paid Keywords: Unknown Est Monthly SEO Clicks: Unknown Est Monthly SEO Click Value: Unknown Backlink Count: Unknown Backlink Type: Unknown Page Load Speed: 1.59 seconds Top Keywords and Rank: (found in header) Studentenheim Studentenwohnheim St. Pölten Fachhochschule wohnen, studieren Keyword Density: st plten (1.86%) On-page Elements: Meta 7

8 Traffic Plan 8

9 9 Traffic Plan Pipelines To make the most use of my pipelines, I decided that it would be prudent to create a Facebook page, a Twitter account, an Instagram account, a Pinterest account and a Google Plus page for the company. However, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Google Plus, and LinkedIn all wanted to verify that this was a legitimate business for the business accounts and wanted (in some cases) money, so I was unable to create a separate page for each of them. The reason for asking for money is that they had built-in ad campaigns and analytics for those accounts. For the intent of the assignment I linked to them in my profiles on those platforms, instead of shelling out money for the assignment. Another pipeline that I want to use is a Medium article that I wrote about the project. This can also be used as a feeder site. The last pipeline I decided to add was an Imgur image with a link back to my site. This image is permanent on the site and whenever someone searchs for housing, my meme will show up. Social media is an important method of reaching lots of different people and, when used correctly, can be used to really promote different aspects of the site, which will really give the site credibility and decrease bounce rate. Inbound Links 1. My first feeder site will be the Medium article that I wrote about this project semester. This This will be pointed to by posts on my profile from Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus. 2. My second feeder site will be another wordpress blog site that links to my tips and tricks page for an article from Ezine. This will be pointed to from Youtube, Pinterest, and a student housing podcast site. 3. The third feeder site will be a Wix site that also links to the tips and tricks page. This will be pointed to from Myspace, LinkedIn and Instagram. 4. The last feeder site would be a infographic video on Youtube that would link back to my site. Unfortunately, due to lack of skills to make something like that, I didn t make it and forgot until the last minute to think of another option. I would link to the video from dailymotion, vimeo, and metacafe.

10 10 Traffic Plan Cont. Keyword On-Site Other Traffic As a result of the competitior and keyword research that I did, I decided to really focus in on seven keywords that would be, for the most part, page-centric. The keywords I picked were based on the location of the housing and the mention of that location in the keyword. I based this on the school and the city that the school was located in. This resulted in me picking the following keywords: 1. student housing salt lake city 2. student housing orem 3. student housing provo 4. u of u student housing 5. uvu student housing 6. byu student housing 7. student housing The only keyword that isn t related to a located is the last one, student housing. I selected this keyword as a more generic keyword that I could use to drive traffic to my homepage, rather than the more content-based individual housing pages. Though I question the accuracy of the tool I used, the tool I used would rate how difficult it is to rank for a keyword. You can check that research here. The focus for the keywords on my site will be around the header tags and images. The images alt text keywords will focus primarily on their relationship to a location, eg. a picture of housing in orem will be associated with student housing orem. The home page s focused keyword will be student housing, with the only other keywords being located in the alt text for pictures. The keyword will be located in all the header tags on the site, in the pages title, and will in certain paragraphs, be bolded and italicized. I formatted all of the individual housing pages the same. The plan for on-page elements for these pages include alt text of the featured image and some the keyword either italicized, bolded or underlined. Possibilities also include placing the keyword in an h2 or h3 tag. However, for the purposes of this exercize, I only included on-page elements on the home page. Check them out here. I believe that one of the most powerful and convincing methods of getting someone to do something is word of mouth. In order to afford this to drive traffic to my site, I decided to create a business card that others and I could give with the recommendation to visit the site. This, paired with a flyer, could also be used at a housing fair booth as a way to get people to not only think about what has been said, but also to serve as a reminder that they should do visit the site later on. Check it out here. The second method I thought fits with the site was an ad campaign through Google s Adwords. As such, I set up a campaign with the keyword student housing in provo in mind. While not shown, the ad had appeared to over 24 people within a two hour period after creating the ad, with, unfortunately, no resulting traffic to the site, but it proved to me just how effective Adwords can be. Check it out here.

11 11 Keyword Ranking and Choice Using the tool listed down at the bottom, I went through the list of some of the top keywords that I thought would be a good start for my website. I was pretty shocked to see that the student housing orem and provo options were fairly easy to to rank with in comparison to the salt lake city option. Because my site covers all of these locations, I will still use all of them, regardless of how easy it is to rank for them. This will help me to at least have my presence in the market, even if I don t rank for those keywords. The keyword that I m going to focus on in particular, for this assignment, is student housing. Difficulty Hard Easy Keyword student housing salt lake city student housing orem student housing provo u of u student housing uvu student housing byu student housing student housing

12 12 Free Direct Traffic 1. Facebook Business Page 5. Medium Article 2. Twitter Business Account 6. Imgur Photo 3. Google Plus Business Account 7. Pinterest Profile 4. LinkedIn Business Account 8. Instagram Business Account For all business accounts, please read the Pipelines section for an explanation of current links.

13 13 Inbound Links wordpress.andrewsjensen.com Medium Wordpress Wix Youtube Facebook Twitter Google + Youtube Podcast Pinterest Myspace LinkedIn Instagram Dailymotion indicates potential link, but no feeder available. No underline indicates that the links weren t created. Vimeo Metacafe

14 14 On Page Elements Required: x x x x x x KW in page title (HTML head) KW in H1 tag KW in H2 tag KW in H3 tag KW in alt text for picture(s) KW density of 1-2 % KW in page title (HTML head) KW in H1 tag KW in H2 tag Optional: x x KW bolded KW italicized KW in H3 tag KW in alt text for picture(s) KW density of 1-2 % KW italicized KW bolded

15 Other 15

16 16 Other 1 Campus Domus Housing From start to finish, making finding student housing quick and easy 55 N. 555 E. Fake Address, UT (801) I decided that for one of the offline methods of driving traffic to the site would be to create a business card. This, combined with a flyer, could be used at a booth for housing fairs that are hosted by schools around the state. This also offers one of the more powerful forms of recommendation, which is word of mouth. Because they d have to interact with someone, using this could make the experience more memorable.

17 17 Other 2 The other method that I decided to use to drive more traffic was a PPC Google Adwords campaign. I set the ad up to target specifically students in the Provo area because both UVU and BYU studentslive in Provo, I would be able to reach a greater audience than with U of U alone.