A number of years ago, it was possible to understand the exact words users searched to find your site, but in 2011, Google began witholding that information, and much of the data became ‘(not provided)’.By a happy coincidence for Google, this move encourages web marketers to move towards Google Adwords in order to test out different keywords for clickthroughs and conversions — but that is a paid service.

There are now a number of ways to unlock (not provided) data.They are all legal, and all give marketers essential insights into where to focus their efforts when optimizing their websites.

1.SEO monitor
SEO Monitor is a pretty awesome solution to the (not provided) issue.The platform works by aggregating datafrom Google Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) and Google Analytics.

2.Notprovided.org
This method utilizes already-available code from Google’s own API library (basically data that they’ve made available).Kerry plans to make the code open source some time next month.

3.Your personal on-site search function
One useful tool for unlocking (not provided) data can be found on Google Analytics itself.If your site has a search function, it’s likely that users will be searching on-site for things that they would search for in Google.This is obviously a limited method, since not all users will use the search function of the site, but it’s a good way to fill in some blanks for free.

4.Just ask people
No doubt you’re very familiar with marketing pop-ups, fly-ins and email sign-up forms — the kind that appear when you land on a new page, or are about to leave the site.These nearly always ask for your email address, which is obviously an important piece of marketing data.Perhaps equally important is how the user found your site in the first place. These four methods are all pretty valid ways of getting a good understanding for how people find your website.This understanding will allow you to further optimize the site, learn how people find pages and learn whether they proceed to make an inquiry or a purchase.

Source:Entrepreneur

Peter Zmijewski is the founder and CEO at KeywordSpy.His expert knowledge on Internet Marketing practices and techniques has earned him the title “Internet Marketing Guru“ He is also an innovator, investor and entrepreneur widely recognized by the top players in the industry.