Where? Settings/ Projects/ Overview
- Button on the top right corner.
Set up a project
First the project domain has to be entered. Beside the domain you can also choose a color, which will be used in graphs for visualization of the performance.
Caution: We recommend to enter the domain always without the addition "www" in order to track everything, that is happening on the SERP for your domain (e.g. searchmetrics.com, not www.searchmetrics.com). Why?
After that the project can be named. If no name is entered, the name of the domain will be used. You can also add a description. Click on "Complete Project" to continue.
Following steps
- 1. Search engine selection
- 2. Adding keywords
- 3. Adding tags
- 4. URL Tags
- 5. Events
- 6. Benchmarks
- 7. Analytics
- 8. Visibility Guard
1. Search engine selection
Now you have to select for which Search Enginge the performance should be evaluated. Therefore you have to chose a country first, then the searchengine and then the device. The Searchmetrics Suite differantiates between Desktop and Desktop local, where the performance within a selected city is evaluated. Smartphone and tablet (Android or Apple) can also be evaluated. Here you can also choose between national and local analyses.
- National: When you plan to optimize and analyse your content to be visible countrywide.
- Local: When you plan to optimize and analyse your visibility in a specific region.
Afterwards a tracking update frequency must be determined. This is the frequency with which the ranking data of your keywords are updated per week. A higher tracking frequency provides more up-to-date ranking data.
Up to 100 Search Engines can be added and the ranking data can be updatet up to 5 times a week.
Caution: Keyword Queries are charged for this. The amount of available keyword queries can be viewed in Settings/ Licenses/ Overview.
The amount of required Keyword Queries is calculated by multiplying the number of your keywords, the number of the selected search engines and their tracking frequency.
Example: 10 Keywors, 2 Search Enginges and a tracking frequency of 5 times a week would need 100 Keywords Queries (10x2x5= 100)
2. Adding keywords
This step is probably the most time intensive and important in the creation of a project. The added Keywords should be based on an extensive keyword research so that the subsequent analyses are as informative as possible and optimization potential can be uncovered. The Searchmetrics Suite will support you with this.
2.1 How to create a Keyword-Set
First: There is no guarantee for the perfect keyword set. Even we don't have the recipe for you to rank with your keywords. But there are many useful tips and approaches, that increase the chances enormously.
„Two Ideas, One Match“ – When choosing the keyword set, make sure that you don’t only have your goals in mind, but also the goals and search intentions of your targets. In the best case, what you offer covers exactly what the customer is looking for.
Possible approach: Retail Example
- Step: Ask yourself, which goals you want to achieve
>Example: Create awareness of your brand / product
- Step: Create an online strategy
>Example: Make your consumers know about your benefits
- Step: Choose online topics, you want to talk about
>Example: weatherproof clothes for hiking (of a sports retailer)
- Step: Choose keywords, that reflect the topic, the goals and your strategy
> Example: „waterproof jacket“, „hiking boots waterproof“
Of course, the parts in the suite supports you during the keyword research.
Research Cloud. How do I perform in the national market?
The Research Cloud provides you with a holistic overview of the keywords in the entire market and is therefore well suited for the initial analysis of your keyword set. Additionally you can have a look at the keywords of your competitors.
How? The Organic-Rankings show you important keywords, based on several KPIs for the entered domain.
The Keyword Research is also very helpful. There you have the possibility to analyze a certain keyword and keyword suggestions in detail according to keyword clusters and different KPIs.
Often it does make sense to analyze the competitor keywords. The Suite offers you the possibility to compare different URLs. Therefore, click on the Content Performance and under URL Details on compare URL. Here you'll get information about the Shared and Unique Keywords. So, these that you share with your competitor and these only you rank for (or your competitor). According to the same system, domains can also be compared in the other areas of content performance.
Tip: Keywords in the Research Cloud are not specific. You must choose the most relevant and add them to your project. (How do I add Keywords to my project?)
Search Experience. How do I perform within my target market?
The Search Experience provides a more detailed insight into your own performance within specific market segments in order to discover potentials. This allows you to check whether what you offer is what the user is looking for.
Example: Of my 250 project keywords, a few are specifically assigned to the "Jackets" segment, some to the "Winter Clothing" segment (read more in Keyword-Tags)
Additional Tips:
- Identify low hanging fruits (keywords on position 11-20) to optimize them.
- Include/exclude long tail keywords (look for keyword clusters)
Have also a look at the Keyword Research Article to get to know a few workflows!
Based on the entered domain there will be keyword suggests, which can be added directly to the project.
In Addition to that there are two more ways to add Keywords to your project.
You already have a keyword set that needs to be migrated into the Searchmetrics Suite? Then there is the possibility of uploading an excel table (Instructions: click here.)
Should keywords be added manually to the project?
After clicking on "Add new keyword" the keywords must be entered one below the other in the appropriate field. Once the input is complete, the keywords can be loaded into the project (and the desired tags) using the arrow. To do this, check the box next to the "Project" and the tags to which you want to add keywords.
Important: Never forget to click "save changes" after any changes you have made, to save the keywords in the project and to enable analyses to be performed correctly.
3. Adding tags
In addition to keywords, you can also add tags to your project. In order to do this, click the "+" sign next to tags in the "Manage keywords" tab.
In the window that opens, the tags must be entered one below the other. Then click "Submit" to add tags.
Additional subtags can be added to each day. Additional subtags can be added to these subtags (and so on). This creates a hierarchical tag structure that can be extended down to the product level. For more information, see the PDF file on hierarchical tagging in the appendix.
To create a subtag, simply click on the three small dots next to the tag you want to add the subtag to and select "Add Subag". Write the subtags one by one in the field that opens.
Important: after every change, you must click on “Apply changes” so that the keywords are saved in the project and the analysis can be carried out correctly.
4. URL Tags
This is where URLs can be grouped by tags (see also: Tag or How do I use Tags?). After you create URL tags, you can filter them in the Search Experience.
The corresponding URLs and tags need to be exported using a table. To set up this table correctly, please download the sample CSV and add your URLs and tags before uploading them again.
5. Events
|
At this step, important events can be added to the project, which can then be displayed as data points in charts. For example, you can analyze whether restarting a website has resulted in significant performance changes. First of all, the event needs to be given a name. You can then customize event categories to summarize future events in the same category. You can then set the status and date of the corresponding event so that it appears as a data point in the tables. Once an event is set to inactive, it is no longer displayed.
|
6. Benchmarks
You can add up to 10 Benchmarks to a project so that you can then conduct a search engine comparison between your own domain and the benchmarks. Depending on the subject area of the project, there suggested several benchmarks that can be added directly to the project. You can also enter benchmarks manually in this area.
7. Analytics
The Searchmetrics Suite also offers the option to connect an analytical program (Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics). The analytics area is currently still in the evaluation stage in order to be able to offer it in an improved form.
8. Visibility Guard
The last step is to set up the Visibility Guard. This can be seen as a kind of "protective shield", as it permanently monitors the URLs of the domain for the most important problems and changes. The difference to a Site Experience crawl is that the Visibility Guard crawls the URLs every day and only checks the pages for changes. The Site Experience Crawl scans the entire domain for all technical components.
The setup is done in three different steps. In the general settings, the first step is to set the check mark for automatic URLs. This means that the most important URLs are automatically crawled based on the project. If URLs are to be included manually in the crawl, the desired URLs can be uploaded via manual URLs.
Then the maximum number of pages to be monitored is specified. If this number exceeds the number of URLs in the project, the most important domain URLs from the Research Cloud (which are not included in the project) are also included in the monitoring. If the number of maximum pages is below the URLs in the project, only the most important URLs are included in the monitoring.
Similar to a Site Experience Crawl, you can then select whether Javascript pages should also be included or whether static IPs should also be used.
In addition, one of the search engines defined in the project must be specified and the user agent and region must be selected.
In the Monitoring section, you can select the problems to be monitored. Next to the listed problems there are two fields each. The Notify fields indicate the changes and problems for which a notification by mail should be sent out immediately. The Report fields are used to specify which issues should be checked and included in the report. The report then receives information about all changes that were found.
The frequency of mail reports can be changed in " Reports and Notifications" (daily or weekly). There all recipient mails can be entered as well.
|
Page credits are calculated for the Visibility Guard monitoring. Once all settings have been made, the estimated number of page credits required for the execution is displayed on the right side. Because Visibility Guard crawls all selected URLs every day, the monthly costs are also displayed directly. In the example on the right, 1,000 URLs are to be monitored. This would cost 1,000 page credits. The monthly cost would be 30,000 (1,000 page credits x 30 days). Note: A Javascript Crawl costs more Page Credits! |