Another two weeks has passed in my case study of the All-In-One SEO WordPress plugin and I thought that I would provide you with an update. For more background information, you might want to reference the first two installments of this case study:
- Case Study: Impact of All-In-One SEO WordPress Plugin
- Case Study Update: Impact of All-In-One SEO WordPress Plugin
With this case study I wanted to monitor the volume of traffic that this site receives from the various search engines as well as how my pages are displayed in the search results, including the number of indexed pages.
I had hoped to go through all of my old posts and update the description and keywords fields before this latest update. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to do that yet but I have been updating these fields for all of my new posts and the signs are promising. For anyone using this plugin that needs to update old posts, be sure to utilize the recommendation that Dave Pitlyuk made about using phpMyAdmin to update these fields for each post as that will save quite a bit of time.
After: Unique Visitors
According to Google Analytics, there have been 180 unique visits in the last two weeks that originated from the various search engines. This represents a decline of roughly 11% in the number of visits from the last update but it appears that the traffic from search engines is of a higher quality.
In the latest two week period, I’ve seen an increase in pages per visit and average time on site while the bounce rate has declined.
After: Search Results
The site search at Google returned 275 results from the site:dereksemmler.com search query, compared with 241 results from the previous two-week period.
This is a promising development as the more pages that are indexed at Google the more likely it is that people will find one of my pages. With a continued effort to target and optimize my posts with descriptive meta tags, I think this will continue to increase.
Along with the increase in the number of indexed pages, the visual display of the search results appears with the more accurate description. By eliminating some of the generic information that had been included in each search result, I’ll increase the chance that someone will find the link appealing enough to visit my site.
Analysis and Next Steps
With another two weeks of using the All-In-One SEO plugin, I am encouraged by the results even though the number of visits from search engines has declined. The number of indexed pages and the visual display within the search results has continued to improve and I think that bodes well for the future.
Only six weeks have elapsed through all three phases of this case study so I think the next logical step will be to come back in a month and revisit the numbers again. The short duration of the first three phases makes it hard to make a concrete conclusion but I think the results are promising. The people that do arrive via the search engines are browsing more pages and spending more time on my site.
Are you using the All-In-One SEO plugin? How do your results compare to this case study?
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
I have it installed but don’t use it with every post, just the ones that I think might be relevant moreso than my short diary posts.
Your research makes me want to add titles and keywords more often! Great post.
I don’t have any frame of reference for comparison. I installed the plugin when I set up my blog. I fill in title, keywords, and description for every post but do not know how much impact this has been having.
I added the All in One SEO plugin and had to disable it. There was a conflict between this plugin and the Anarchy Media Player plugin. When I activated the All in One SEO Pack, the youtube videos I had it on my blog quit working. When I deactivated it the player started working again. It is also caused problems with Simpletags. The creator did fix the problem, but then my title tag were not changing. They were staying to default. It would pull the description and keywords, but not the title. The plugin certainly is not the best one I found.
My husband modified my blog theme instead and I learned that I really did NOT need this plugin.
That’s odd. I use the AIO plugin and post vids pretty often with no issue. I wonder if it’s unique to your theme?
@Damien :: Thanks. One reason that I think it is worth adding description/keywords for each post is that you never know how someone will find your site. It might be from one of those shorter diary posts.
@Nick :: You could do the reverse of my case study and disable the plugin to see if it impacts your results. Although you probably don’t want to mess with what is already working. 🙂
@Rose :: Thanks for your feedback on the plugin. So far I have not experienced any conflicts on the site but I also don’t have any videos. Glad to hear that you dug into the theme and realized you didn’t need the plugin.
Derrich when did you add the plugin as there was an issue that the creator fixed. I’m glad it works fine for everyone using it. You never know it might be an issue with the cutline theme.
I began using it in April. So far, so good. *knock on wood* 🙂
Well I’m glad it works for you. lol 😉
Will you start using excepts for the next case study?
What exactly do you mean? I’m currently using the description field to provide a more search friendly excerpt to be displayed in the search results.
I don’t know what I’m talking about – I think I was stuck in a conversation we had months ago. I have so much going on right now, my brain can’t handle all of this info!! 😥
No problem, I know the feeling all too well!
Hi
This sounds as if the extra work is really worth it.
You wrote “you never know how someone will find your site. It might be from one of those shorter diary posts.” Well if you use google analytics, then you know.
Another question: What do mean by better qulaity traffic?
I still don’t know how to use this plugins as it seem give any affect to my other site.
Halim – Belajar SEOs last blog post..Big Mistake on my Belajar SEO blog optimization!
My analytics have been fairly stable but I noticed a recent spike in traffic from the “direct” source. What does that mean? People just typing in the url?
That would surprise me to be honest.
Why would you be suprised? Some people out there actually prefer to type of the domain directly. Or maybe they heard about the domain from someone else since the name Derek Semmler is pretty easy to remember. As for me and my sites, i couldn’t care less how they made it to my sites, as long as they are human visitors from the U.S…lol.
I have it installed and use it in almost every post. IMO it is a great plugin and makes the SEO job much easier.
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