2019 Update on this blog post.from 2014
Google Webmaster tools will also provide information on Keywords been used to find your site. As part of our SEO services we will link Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools so you can see all of this info in the one place.
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If SEO is an important part of your on-line strategy then you need to be aware of some changes that Google has made recently.
One of the key inputs into any SEO strategy is to check Google Analytic reports to see what keywords used in organic searches produced sales or conversions for you.
For years Google provided this information for free. Once you spot a good converting keywords your SEO team would then do all they can to ensure you got found for it as much as possible.
Google will now not be providing that information, expect to see much more of the following lines in your Google Analytics reports
Where it says Not Provided for nearly 50% of the traffic used to be full of great info about the keywords that brought you that traffic. This is important , SEO is not cheap and you want to be sure you are chasing the right terms. It is now harder to work this out.
Why is Google doing this ?
I will not bore you with the reasons it gives, privacy protection is at the core of it….
Google makes no money from organic clicks on it’s search page but it does from paid search clicks. Guess what Google reports on all keyword activity here. This really makes it essential to run a paid campaign to get the information you need to put together a SEO plan.
While this works it is not perfect , it should be noted that paid search traffic and organic traffic can act differently.
Another reason why Google appears to be targeting SEO is the new extensions you see on the Top Paid Ads you see on the Google search page. Check out the following image
You can see the top ad has 4 new lines under the main ad , each are text links to help re-enforce what the ad is about. They are amazingly effective in increasing the clicks on the top ad.
Am I been paranoid in thinking they also achieve another goal for Google. By increasing the overall size of the ad they push the organic results down the page, possibly below the fold….