“I don’t have the time or interest to learn how that interface works.” is a very valid point if you’re the CMO of a big corporation. You probably scroll past this article on your way to another meeting.
Instead of waiting for someone in your marketing department to answer your questions about the corporate website’s performance, let’s explore how we can find the answers ourselves.
This article is written with the Chief Marketing Officer, Marketing Manager, and/or Head of E-commerce in mind. If something does not sound familiar, don’t hesitate to reach out.
https://search.google.com/search-console is your new bookmark, but before you can access any website data, you have to ask our marketing department or web agency to grant access. Send that email request now, and return to this article in a few hours.
Is the marketing department doing its job?
The Performance report on Search Results can quite quickly answer the burning question of “Is marketing doing its job.” If we disregard the fact that Google makes constant changes to its algorithm and how the search results look, this report shows if we’re getting more visitors (clicks) and more organic visibility (impressions).
A good CMO applies a Query Filter to include and exclude the brand. If the company is running ads on TV or blasting a new campaign in a few metro stations, expect your organic visibility (impression) and visitors (clicks) to increase around your brand and the campaign topic.
If you spot a negative trend, use the Query Filter to see if this is due to branded searches. If not, contact your marketing team and have them investigate the reason. But don’t forget that most industries today have some kind of seasonality. Don’t chase ghosts.
Use the same approach for positive trends to understand what is behind the increased clicks or impressions.
I sure hope IT knows how to maintain a website.
Boring parts, but vital ones, would be the Index Coverage Report (you’ll see it as soon as you open up Google Search Console, with the headline “Indexing”) that indicates if Google finds and saves more or less of the website’s pages.
If we have worked with 50 pages, we want these 50 pages indexed by Google. If not, there might be a technical issue behind it. And if you spot a growing number of pages that are not being indexed, there might be technical issues behind that, too.
A quick “so, we’re not on fire, right?” email to your favorite person IT will enable you to, maybe, not stay ahead of the curve but react when the curve appears.
That’s 5 minutes well spent.
You can now answer two questions regarding the corporate website and marketing efforts. But remember that SEO and content marketing are long-term strategies that require patience. It can take months before you see significant results and improvements.
As the CMO, you need to ensure constant focus and ongoing efforts to improve the website, content, and other online marketing activities. Search, just like any other social media platform, can change how things are ranked and displayed overnight – which demands that we are always up to date with the latest changes and rumors.
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