Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are financial and non-financial metrics used to help an organization define and measure progress toward organizational goals. The problem is that too many SEO clients and SEO consultants are focused on the wrong ones.

• Specific rankings and ranking reports like web position gold - a bad KPI

Ranking reports like the ones from WPG are not only against Google's terms and conditions but because of the introduction of Universal search (now experiencing its first birth day) they don't return the value they once did. Google is focused on personalization, and localization. This means what you see in SF isn't what I might see, and it certainly isn't what a searcher is seeing in Miami. IE that ranking your are so focused on, might only be there because you love your own site so much, or your query is deemed to be relevant to your location.

• Toolbar page rank - another bad KPI

This one drives a lot of clients crazy. Why did my PR drop, what have I done wrong. Or on the flip side, look how great I am, my site is a PR 7. Well here it is, toolbar page rank doesn't matter at all anymore. It's a gimmick and has very little value. You could argue that it is an indicator of quality but that's it.

What KPI's should you use?

For SEO light weights

• Total organic traffic - not the best KPI in the world because there are so many factors that can influence this, but if your just starting out in search it is an easy KPI to understand. If organic (non paid) traffic is going up and to the right - good work.
• Total number of pages indexed in Google. Google will report this in your Google webmaster tools or you can do a simple query at Google site:www.yourdomain.com. If Google keeps adding more of your pages to their index - good work. This is an even better KPI if you measure it as a percentage of your total pages. If the percentage keeps improving, your going in the right direction.

For SEO middle weights

• Number of visitors per keyword phrase - take your most valuable keywords or keyword phrases, if the the ratio of visitors to keyword phrases is improving, then so is your SEO.
• Brand search terms vs non branded search terms - break out your branded traffic from your non branded traffic. If the percentage of branded traffic to non branded traffic is high, then you have more work to do. You should expect to get a lot of traffic from your brand, but good SEO is about bringing in new traffic that may not have heard of you before. Caution, this indicator doesn't work for everybody and only has value if your site has an established presence.

For SEO heavy weights

• Yielding pages - percent of pages driving traffic vs total pages. As more of your pages get top rankings, then the percent of pages driving traffic vs total pages on your site will get bigger.
• SEO reach - look at the total number of possible queries for a search term. What percent are you getting, is that percent improving?

The focus of this post was to open your eyes to what matters and doesn't matter. My list will always be incomplete, but I encourage you to send me your SEO KPI so I can add it.

Let's say you've just finished conducting traditional (moderated, one-on-one) user tests on a website. Naturally, you have noted whether or not each of your subjects managed to complete each assigned task. Perhaps you've even timed how long it took each subject to complete each task. My question is this: in writing up the results of the tests, how should you describe the performance results?

I recently read a report that was loaded with references such as "67% of users" did such-and-so, and "83% of users" did this-or-that. Personally, I think it is a mistake to name precise numbers like this.

User tests as I've described above are not intended to be quantitative/inferential in nature. Rather, they are qualitative, employed to gain insight into how real users interact with a website. If you start naming precise numbers (particularly as percentage points) you're implying the numbers are statistically relevant. They aren't. Generally, user tests are conducted on between 5 and 10 users, not nearly enough to gain statistically significant results.

By implying significance where none exists, you risk destroying your credibility. If anyone reading your report has ever taken a course in statistics, such numbers will jump out at them. They'll know right away that, given the small sample size, the numbers you've quoted can't possibly be statistically significant. And even though your report may be full of valuable insights, everything you have written will be tarnished because - in the reader's view - your findings are suspect.

Naturally, in presenting your results, you need to make reference to user test performance. But I think it's much wiser (and safer) to keep such references broad and conversational. For example:

• "In our tests, only our least web-savvy test subject failed to complete this task in a reasonable time. All others breezed through it."
• "Half of our subjects failed this task."
• "Four of our test subjects didn't mind the multimedia presentation on the Home page. But two subjects found it very annoying and indicated that in a real scenario, they'd have left the site immediately."

Note that in some of the examples above, I have in fact named numbers. But by keeping it conversational and not naming percentages, I'm not implying statistical significance. Not only is this more honest, it's also more credible: nobody can dispute my claims of significance, because I haven't made any.

The bottom line is this: in writing up user test reports, focus on the insights gained. Explain where users stumbled, and why they stumbled. Don't risk putting your recommendations into question by implying statistical significance.

So much is happening on the Internet these days that it's just hard for an old soul like me to keep up.  Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo,  just as billionaire Bill seemed set for the pearly gates.  The price of Google's shares have plummeted and it seems no great surprise because why would anyone invest in a company with a name like "Google," "Froogle" or Boogle Boogle. It seems like the inaudible utterances of a Kalahari bushman in an old cartoon. I'm just saying!  So, what do music, American pop-culture and the Internet have in common?  

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"With broad match, the Google AdWords system automatically runs your ads on relevant variations of your keywords, even if these terms aren't in your keyword lists. Keyword variations can include synonyms, singular/plural forms, relevant variants of your keywords, and phrases containing your keywords."

Just about everyone running a google adwords account has broad keywords inside their adgroups. This is mostly because this is the default match type. What most people don't realize is that bidding broad is like giving Google permission to waste your money on any terms its "expanded keyword matching technology" decides are "relevant". In many cases the terms can be far from relevant.

So how do we find out what we are actually bidding on?

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If you haven't already turned on Google Analytics Benchmarking (Beta) inside your account you may want to. At the very minimum it is interesting to see how your site stacks up against sites similar in size or across similar/different categories. The comparisons are limited but it is a good first step. As I played around with it this morning I was reminded of why Google is doing so well in the analytics space. They really understand that most people don't know how to use these tools yet and they are trying to help you understand what will make a difference to your site's performance.

Google is teaching through comparison, showing you how you are doing against a category and then prompting you with a "Also see the All Traffic Sources report for additional analysis of this metric."

So let's have a quick look at the All Traffic Sources report to see what we can learn. Unfortunately there is no valuable Benchmarking data in there. The All Traffic Sources report shows you how your traffic breaks down by volume and by other metrics. Try comparing how each segment of your traffic interacts with your site but comparing conversion rates (click the ecommerce or goal tabs). Is your Yahoo PPC traffic converting at a much higher rate than your Google PPC traffic? Maybe but the secret to optimizing your site's revenue stream is asking these types of questions and then trying to figure out why?

Here's a free tip: find out what segment of your traffic makes you the most money. Then map the path on a piece of paper that each visitor normally takes from that source (landing page, product page, checkout etc). Now compare that segment of your traffic to another big traffic source. Are there differences? I bet there are, and if you can figure out why one source converts higher than another, your becoming an analyst and you're about to impress somebody (probably your boss).

SEO can be a tedious and time intensive process, so anything that will make that job a bit easier is a true godsend. Luckily Firefox has a plethora of tools to do just that.

Not acquainted with Firefox yet? It's time to head over to Mozilla and download what may very well become you best online friend. It's secure, it's customizable, it's free and it will run on Windows, Linux or Mac. So you really can't go wrong.

Ok, without further ado, here is the list.

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If I had a dollar for every great quote that came from a Kevin Costner movie I would have....a dollar. When I talk about this quote for SEO purposes, I'm talking about building out the content on your website. Many site owners make the mistake of letting their website sit unchanged and collect dust while they wait for their link campaign to start driving traffic. Don't let this happen to you and start writing pages that your visitors will find useful.

By regularly adding content, you are giving your visitors a wider range of information to choose from. This can help you retain the people that do come to the site and make it less likely they will leave to find another resource on the subject. Show people that you're an authority in the area. Provide quality content to your consumers and you should see them returning more often.

Is what's good for the visitor also good for the search engines? In this case the answer is definitely yes. Google and Yahoo will eat up this new content and spit you out some long tailed results while they're at it. One of the best reasons for building out content is that you can start ranking for plenty of small keyword phrases. Use article writing as an opportunity to target smaller terms and expand the reach of your site. It is important to remember that long tail terms can represent a large portion of your traffic.

Building out articles on a monthly basis may take time but the end result will be well worth it. Great quality content will allow you to generate more traffic and keep visitors coming back for more.

I attended Omniture's annual summit last week in Salt Lake City, and I have to say that it was an amazing event. Not only did they pull off a top-notch conference for 2000 people, but they also topped it off with some great new product announcements.

SiteCatalyst Version 14 was announced as well as Search Center version 3 and they both received a great reception from the crowd. There were new tools added to both products, as well as some tremendous (and overdue) usability upgrades made to the interface.

The High lights: SiteCatalyst Version 14 New improved user interface with greatly improved usability (in my opinion this was long overdue) making it easier to find and create the reports that you need Integration of their recent acquisition of Offermatica and touch clarity into the Test and Target area Improved video/rich media tracking that allows for very detailed metrics to be created regarding video consumption A brilliant quick search feature to help find report, tools and help information More options chart types to choose from for improved information communication Share and distribute reports more easily and quickly new API upgraded and improved ExcelClient ...plus more

Search Center Version 3 Portfolio optimization and campaign modeling. The new Search Center will allow you to model how your performance would change should you increase of decrease your daily budget. It will now optimize your bids base on your 'portfolio' of keywords based on your budget and your business rules, and not just individual keywords based on business rules such as Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

Last week's Omniture announcements along with this week's Google Analytics announcements are great news for the web analytics community. The new features will allow companies to get more insight into how their businesses are performing with less effort. As far as Omniture needing to worry that the Google Analytics product is developing at light speed, I don't think that is really the case. Google Analytics has been making major improvements to their tool very rapidly at light speed perhaps, but Omniture has continued to update and improve their 'optimization platform' at warp speed (I'm assuming that warp speed is faster than light speed)

At the Omniture Summit in Salt Lake City last week, Zaaz was one of the Gold Level sponsors and the sponsor of the networking lunch.

They are really thinking ahead (and having fun) with their website. At a time when the employment market place has more demand than supply for talented internet marketing people, they have gotten very creative with their recruiting.

Zaaz figures that if someone from a competing firm is visiting their site that they must be looking for a job, so they redirect the visit from their home page to their careers section.

They do this by identifying the IP addresses of the offices of their top 50 competitors and then redirect the visit if it comes from one of those addresses.

So, if you are wondering if Zaaz considers you to be one of their top 50 competitors, try visiting their site from your office to see if you go to their home page or their careers page.

I think this is an incredibly clever way to recruit top talent for your firm and take it away from your competitors.

It's important for businesses to start taking advantage of internet marketing and Yahoo! did a great job of stressing this at Yahoo's Search Day in Vancouver.

It was interesting to see some of the statistics at Yahoo's Search Day. Three out of four Canadians are now connected to the internet with 85 million searches happening on a daily basis. Many Canadian businesses are not tapping into this market and are missing out on producing extra revenue. Even more interesting was the statistic from Yahoo's presentation (based on research - I think they used JC Penny as one of their examples) that claimed for every $1 spent online the mortar and brick businesses saw additional $6 revenue in store, I thought this 1 to 6 ratio was very impressive and should have been an eye opener to those at the conference not yet fully implementing internet marketing into their business structure.

Bill Barnes Enquiro Search Solutions Co Founder and Executive Vice President went over some interesting material on how people click in the search results and your website. Though most of it was fairly what I expected with the top 3 results getting the most followed up by the top right result. Interestingly enough the pattern was broken (From highest to lowest) when the next most clicked spot was at the fold (The part of the search results where you need to scroll to see more). TIP -- Those using positioning preference in google adwords may want to try ranking for the spot on the fold for cheaper clicks with high CTR's.

Overall the day was a success and I got to meet and speak to some great people. All the speakers did an amazing job and kept the whole conference entertaining and engaging. During lunch I got to briefly speak to Martin Byrne Yahoo's Search Marketing Director. I asked him if Yahoo was planning to release a google adwords editor equivalent tool for Yahoo Panama (MSN just launched theirs - Alpha Stage) and though he didn't say if they were or weren't he did let me know that Yahoo Panama is going to get a brand new UI and update in about Q3 of this year.