Goal Attribution to Organic Keywords - Google Analytics Tips and Tricks

In April I wrote a blog post to show you why some of your keywords show 0 Visits and 0 page views in your Google Analytics Report. In this post I am going to show the attribution of goal to the search engine keywords, when a user searches multiple keywords on the search engines to visit your site (all within the same session) and converts from one of the keywords.

Note: The past post and this one are both based on the Organics keywords searches and clicks.

I conducted two following two experiments

1. Converted on the Last Keyword
   
   
   1. Searched “1 page no register seattleindian” on Google, arrived on http://www.seattleindian.com/ , viewed one page and existed the site by typing Google.com in the browser address bar
   
   
   2. Searched “2 pages no register seattleindian” on Google, arrived on http://www.seattleindian.com, viewed 2 pages and then exited the site by typing Google.com in the browser address bar
   
   
   3. Searched “4 pages register seattleindian” on Google, arrived on http://www.seattleindian.com , registered on the site (converted, Goal 1), viewed total of 4 pages and then exited the site by closing the browser
   
   
   4. All of the above was done within 30 minutes and using the same browser session
   
   
   
   Visit and Page View Attribution
   
   As you can see my visit resulted in 3 keywords, total of 7 page views and 1 visit (visit time out is 30 mins and all of it was done in 30 minutes). As I showed you in the last post, 1 page view is shown and attributed to 1st keyword. The other keywords do not get visits or page views attribution (Figure 1). The total pages are accounted and counted in the keyword report even though 6 pages were not attributed to any particular keyword (Figure 2)
   
   
   Figure 1 (click on the image to enlarge it)
   
   
   Figure 2 (click on the image to enlarge it)
   
   Goal Attribution
   
   In this scenario, the Goal is attributed to overall search engine keywords but not to any particular keyword.
   
   
   Figure 3 (click on the image to enlarge it)
   


2. Converted on the First Keyword
   
   
   1. Searched “SeattleIndian 4 pages register test 3” on Google, arrived on http://www.seattleindian.com , viewed 4 pages, registered on the site (converted, Goal 1) and then exited the site by typing in Google.com in the browser address bar
   
   
   2. Searched “SeattleIndian 3 pages no register test 3” on Google, arrived on http://www.seattleindian.com, viewed 3 pages and then exited the site by typing Google.com in the browser address bar
   
   
   3. Searched “SeattleIndian 1 pages no register test 3” on Google, arrived on http://www.seattleindian.com , viewed 1 page and then existed the site by closing the browser
   
   
   4. All of the above was done within 30 minutes and using the same browser session
   
   
   
   Visit and Page View Attribution
   
   In this case I converted (Goal 1) when I arrived via the first keyword. When I look at the Site Usage of keywords, the first keywords is credited with 1 visit and 4 pages, the other two keywords did not get any credit of the visit or the pages that were viewed as a result of click on those keywords. So the 3 pages are not attributed to any keyword. This is what I showed in my last post.
   
   
   Figure 4 (click on the image to enlarge it)
   
   
   Figure 5 (click on the image to enlarge it)
   
   Goal Attribution
   
   In this scenario when the conversion happens from the first keyword, the goal is properly attributed to that keyword.
   

Conclusion

When a user searches multiple keywords to arrive to the site,

1. The visit is attributed to the first keyword only


2. The page views directly related to the first keyword are attributed to that keyword and other keywords show 0 visit and 0 page views


3. Total page views from all the keywords are counted in the overall keyword report


4. If the conversion happens as a result of the first keyword then it is attributed to that keyword


5. If the conversion happens as a result of any of the keyword other than the first one, then the conversion is not attributed to any of the keywords


6. The conversion from any keyword is counted in the overall keyword report

What’s next? I will be testing how attribution works when a user clicks both Organic (SEO) and Paid PPC (search result) within the same visit.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking to fill your Web Analytics or Online Marketing position?
Try WebAnalytics360 Job Board
New Position Mktg Web Analytics Manager at NetApp (Sunnyvale, California)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------