Overall traffic increasing but specific short tailed keywords decreasing any ideas?

[WhitbyHolidayCottages]

Something very strange has happened regarding my website traffic when making a comparison to the first six months of 2012 and then 2014. Anybody got any ideas?

From my Google analytics from 1 January 2014 to 1 July in other words six months my total traffic on my website was 30,209. Not provided source ( what does this mean ? ) was very high at 23,141 but two of the my main short tail keywords I've targeted in the past "Whitby holiday cottages “only equal 254 and "Whitby cottages" was only 176. When I made a comparison with the same time period below in 2012 the website traffic this year as gone up greatly by almost 20000, but the two of my money short tail keywords as gone down greatly!

If I compare the same time frame for 2012 the overall traffic was only 13,380. Not provided source was nowhere near as high at only 1836 which is also much less than above in 2014 but the short tail keywords I targeted "Whitby holiday cottages was almost 10 times higher at 2005 and "Whitby cottages “much higher at 613.

I ran the questionnaire on http://www.mytrafficdropped.com/quiz/  regarding Panda and particularly Penguin and its association with back links. The article says that Penguin didn't hit the overall keywords, but only specific ones if they been targeted on the following dates the time points of April 24, 2012 and May 25, 2012 which are known Penguin rollout dates. So when I checked the two short tail keywords above for those two dates the figures did seem to drop from 10 hits a day to 5 but then went back up immediately to approximately 10 hits a day during the two-month period which suggested to me that I'd not been hit by Penguin on those dates.

So when you look at the comparison the first six months of 2012 and then 2014 there is no doubt that money  short tail keywords of dropped off dramatically for me but the overall website traffic has gone up dramatically. Some of the increase in traffic will be  down to time and more articles/pages etc.
The two short tail keywords I mention above I know I've dropped in Google rankings I used to be position three page one and the site is now position 10 so I would assume that's why I've dropped in traffic for those phrases.
Has anybody got any idea what's happened? I can honestly say that I've not noticed it in bookings on the website business seems about the same overall.

[ColeLusby]

Good news for you - this can all be cleared up simply.

Not Provided is Google saying we are not showing you the keyword data (from organic). There is a filter for a workaround. You'll never know the "exact keywords from organic" that are Not Provided. However, you can filter that data to tell you what pages they're going to. And if you know the page they're going to, it's highly likely that you know the target keyword for that page. So your Not Provided data could actually be those targeted keywords you mentioned.

The filter:

Filter type: custom - Advanced

Field A -> Extract A: Set to Campaign Term: (.not provided.)

Field B -> Extract B: Set to Request URL: (.*)

Output to -> Constructor: Set to Campagin Term: np - $B1

Check field A, field B, and override output field. (leave case sensitive unchecked).

Basically, this filter says "for not provided" - tell me the URL that users are going to. And from there, you can do some digging and determine what keywords are working. Also, this will affect future data, not past data.

I hope this helps.

Cole

[David-Kley]

Another way you can see how users are getting to your site is by using your Adwords campaign. If you are running a paid campaign, look at any ad group. Then, go to Dimensions>View: Search terms

This isn't the most 100% accurate way, as you are just viewing what terms people used to trigger your ads, but once you see the terms, that can give you a much closer look at how people MAY be getting to your site. Try it out, you might be surprised at how many ways people search for things. If your site is showing up well organically, the search terms should be pretty close to where you are getting impressions and clicks, particularly if your ad and site come up on the same results page.

[ColeLusby]

Yeah this is a good scenario for those with larger budgets using "broad phrase" match keywords. By larger budgets, I mean those that can afford to spend for clicks that may not be "relevant" traffic. This can be a good metric for generating content ideas that people search for.

Cole

[WhitbyHolidayCottages]

Very interesting David thank you very much for the info

I only use Google ad words occasionally because of the cost, but I checked out one of my all the campaigns and it was ery interesting, is quite amazing what terms people use an end up on your website I tried copying pasting some the term straight into the search engine and sure enough my website did appear to terms and never thought of but within the webpages descriptions. Like Cola says low it gives you ideas for producing content in the future.

[WhitbyHolidayCottages]

I ran the Google ad words campaign for a few days recently when I looked at the search terms it was very revealing and I agree with you it gives you a good idea and end up on your website. Could be useful for future content.

[WhitbyHolidayCottages]

Hi Cola

I appreciate what you are trying to do for me above but I didn't fully understand what the filter or how to use it and not technical enough

The only thing I am slightly puzzled by is when Igo down into my Google analytics and filter down into keywords and then organic, beneath the Not Provided Category which is the vast majority,  are not all the other ones in descending popularity the actually the keywords people used? That is where I saw my particular favourite short tail keywords "whitby Holiday Cottages" seem to be declining from the past.

I've posted a image of my analytics below for organic keywords

2014.JPG

[ColeLusby]

Hi,

We seem to be running into each other on the Moz Community forum quite often. According to the attached image, 76% of your organic traffic is Not Provided.

What is Not Provided? Google has chosen not to reveal those keywords (which come from people logged into their Google account). This happened a couple years ago or so.

What can we do about all of that lost data?

Apply a workaround filter (as mentioned above) for everything that is "Not Provided" to now be "np - /page-a", so that we can see what PAGES users are going to via organic search. If we know the PAGES, then we can determine the keywords.

As far as applying the filter, don't even worry about the technical know-how. It's just a copy and paste into filters under admin navigation.

I hope this is clear

Cole

[David-Kley]

No problem! Glad I could help. Once you get an idea of how your campaigns work and how people search for your business, this can in turn help you figure out how (and what to focus on) organically.

Think of it like this: Google says "We could show them the search terms for free in analytics"

Intern says "But, we could make them pay for the data, possibly through adwords"

Google says "Brilliant! Promote this man."

[WhitbyHolidayCottages]

It's probably worth while running a Google ad words campaign just of the keyword Result research