![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cloudamp.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/notprovidedcount.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThis blog post isn\u2019t about Google\u2019s motivation for making this change, or about how to try to recover some of this lost data through other means. You can get some data from Google Webmaster Tools, or hope that a portion of your organic traffic comes from Yahoo and Bing, etc. There are plenty of good articles that cover tips for \u00a0that in detail, such as the following:<\/p>\n
- \n
- \n
Not Provided Kit<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
Not Provided Count<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
Google Keyword \u2018(Not Provided)\u2019: How to Move Forward<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
Google \u2018(Not Provided)\u2019 Keywords: 10 Ways to Get Organic Search Data<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Instead, I\u2019d like to focus on the opportunites this change provides for website owners and online marketers to go back to the basics and do a better job with some of the fundamentals of tracking. Search engine optimization (SEO) may be forever changed by this major change on Google\u2019s part, but there are many best practices that haven\u2019t changed \u2014 and in fact, this (Not Provided) trend makes them more important than ever before.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cloudamp.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/notprovided.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nOpportunity 1: Google Adwords<\/h3>\n
This may seem to be playing into Google\u2019s hands, since their stated motivation for encrypting the search results was to protect user privacy, but few have believed that.. Since paid advertising on Google still gives you the keyword data, most pundits have assumed the move to \u201c(Not Provided)\u201d for organic search was intended to keep the valuable search data for Google\u2019s own use, and drive people toward paid advertising on Google Adwords and Google +.<\/p>\n
However, I have long believed that every business should be doing some amount of Google Adwords experimentation. Even if you don\u2019t have an advertising budget, spending $100+ a month on Google Adwords can provide some of the most cost effective research into your target market available anywhere. Get search volume and keyword data, see what types of ad text and headlines draws the most clicks, and more. Build out your keyword lists for your content marketing, see the keyword data you are no longer going to get from organic search, and hopefully get some conversions as a bonus.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cloudamp.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/utmcodes.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nOpportunity 2: Step up your Tracking<\/h3>\n
Since tracking of organic keywords is mostly if not completely going away in the age of \u2018(Not Provided)\u201d, time to step up your game in other areas. Be sure you are tracking everything else you can track, and plug up those gaps that have been on your marketing to-do list for months. Add tracking to your ecommerce, signup and contact us forms to get data on as many of your conversions as possible. (I am not objective in recommending my\u00a0Campaign Tracker<\/a>\u00a0app for this, but please check it out \u00a0if you are using Salesforce CRM). \u00a0In the end, maximizing conversion tracking is more important than focusing on keywords that brought you clicks and traffic.<\/p>\n
In addition, use Google Analytics campaign tags (utm_campaign, utm_source, etc.) \u00a0on any links to your site that you give out. Not just in your advertising URLs, but in your social media posts, links you give to your partners to publish on their sties, blog posts, directory listings and profiles, etc. Tagging your URLs will eliminate some of the untracked traffic from other sources (social media sharing or referral sites) and give you more consistent, better data for the incoming link data that you can control.<\/p>\n
- \n