The Who, What, Where, When, Why of SEO

When I went to 8^th grade English class during the last Millennium, we had an English teacher that stated “All stories require answers to five questions. Who? What? Where? When? Why”? As I have grown older, I've found that to be true. Nowhere truer than in my SEO analytics so that I can understand the story my web marketing reports tell each month. In the past, we have had SEO marketing firms send us documentation telling us how our web marketing has been working but they have not answered these basic questions. As business owners, we found the reports lacking. The following blog series outlines some of the ways we have discovered to help the small businessperson discover their own answers.

While we specifically look for answers relating to the Bed and Breakfast industry many of the same solutions should be able to be used for other types of small to mid-sized businesses. How would these questions relate to web analytics? How can we better use the available tools to better show the story that our analytics tell?

Definitions 

Who

1. Who are the viewers of our web pages
2. What are the demographics of those that are coming to visit our pages

What

1. Which pages are our inbound “guests” visiting?
2. What path are they following before buying/abandoning their search

Where

This is twofold for us

1. Where (geographically) are people coming from
2. What sources are they using to get to us (direct, referral sources, search sources) 

When

1. When do they visit (time of day, month, year)

Why

1. Why are they here (what are they looking for)?
2. What do the pages they view hint about their interests?