Tracking the Impact of SEO — Brian Piper // University of Rochester

Brian Piper, Director of Content Strategy and Assessment at the University of Rochester, talks about higher education’s take on SEO. Tracking the impact of SEO is crucial to evaluating the effectiveness of an initiative. For larger organizations, individual strategies must be tracked according to the different initiatives they’re meant to support. Today, Brian discusses tracking the impact of SEO.
About the speaker

Brian Piper

University of Rochester

- University of Rochester

Brian is Director of Content Strategy and Assessment at the University of Rochester.

Show Notes

  • 02:29
    Tracking the impact of SEO
    Use Google Analytics to determine what needs to be done to increase your organic traffic. Implement the changes and check Google Analytics for any measured increases.
  • 03:38
    Understanding whether implemented SEO strategies are effective
    Track individual strategies according to the initiatives they support. Additionally, look at your SERPs to see the new keywords you're ranking for.
  • 05:10
    Setting benchmarks for increasing organic traffic
    Currently, 75% of the University of Rochesters traffic comes from organic search. Their benchmark for increase ranges between 10% to 20% each year.
  • 06:00
    Tracking SEO impact across multiple silos in higher education institutions
    It comes down to measuring the KPIs specific to meeting each departments particular goals. Help them to use their analytics to set up dashboards and track their metrics.
  • 09:31
    Analytics and content creation
    AnswerThePublic and Google are great resources for the questions people are asking. Identify existing content pieces performing well, optimize them, and create supporting content.
  • 11:46
    How organizations with a broad focus can be effective at SEO
    Identify and focus on your most strategically important area. Then, figure out ways to apply this method across all content within the organization and your industrys landscape.

Quotes

  • "If youre looking to track your impact from SEO, you're going to look at Google Analytics. You're going to look at your organic traffic to see how much you've increased it." -Brian Piper, Director of Content Strategy, U of Rochester

  • "Were up 350% on organic traffic for our Newscenter. And, we're up 400% on the strategically focused keywords we're ranking for, that wed like to track the positions on." -Brian Piper, Director of Content Strategy, U of Rochester

  • "About 75% of our traffic is organic. Now, we're just looking to increase at least 10% to 20% every year. That's the benchmark we set." -Brian Piper, Director of Content Strategy, U of Rochester

  • "One of the best things to happen recently was Google announcing that they would no longer be pushing data into Google analytics three starting next July." -Brian Piper, Director of Content Strategy, U of Rochester

  • "If we see organic traffic being driven to content, we'll optimize for the keywords its ranking for. Then, look for opportunities to create supporting pieces of content." -Brian Piper, Director of Content Strategy, U of Rochester

About the speaker

Brian Piper

University of Rochester

- University of Rochester

Brian is Director of Content Strategy and Assessment at the University of Rochester.

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