As an SEO consultant based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, my team at seo-jeddah.com regularly assists clients who are facing issues with their Google Analytics data. One common challenge faced by many website owners and marketers is that they may encounter a situation where the majority of keyword data shows up as ‘not provided’.

In this article, we will discuss what the ‘keyword not provided’ issue means, why it happens and what steps you can take to gain more insights from your website’s organic search traffic. To make our discussion more concrete, I will relate these explanations to real-world situations that businesses in Jeddah typically experience.

What Does ‘Keyword Not Provided’ Mean?

‘Keyword not provided’ refers to a situation in which organic search data, shown within Google Analytics, does not include specific keywords searched by users. Instead, these keywords are replaced by the phrase ‘not provided’, causing confusion and frustration for website owners who rely on this information for their SEO strategies and decision-making processes.

The absence of keyword data makes it difficult for marketers to understand which search phrases bring visitors to their site and prevents them from analyzing these trends in greater detail.

The Shift to Secure Search and Its Impact on Keyword Data

This lack of information can be traced back to 2011 when Google introduced secure (HTTPS) searches for logged-in users. Since then, major search engines have also made efforts to protect user privacy by default in their systems. As a result, search terms entered by users are encrypted, making them unavailable to third-party analytics platforms such as Google Analytics.

How has ‘Keyword Not Provided’ Impacted Businesses in Jeddah?

In Jeddah and the surrounding region, businesses rely heavily on Google Analytics for insights into their website traffic and user behavior. As mentioned earlier, without keyword data, it is harder for these organizations to understand which search terms are driving traffic to their site.

Challenges Faced by Jeddah-based Businesses

For example, a store selling traditional Arabic clothing in Jeddah may want to know what keywords or phrases people are using to find their products online. This information would help them tailor their SEO strategy to focus on those keywords, leading to increased visibility and higher ranking in search results.

However, when faced with the ‘keyword not provided’ issue, this store will struggle to determine exactly which phrases are drawing potential customers to their site. As such, they might end up targeting less relevant search terms, resulting in wasted marketing efforts and reduced revenue opportunities.

What Can You Do About the ‘Keyword Not Provided’ Issue?

While the loss of exact-match organic keyword data presents a significant obstacle to understanding your audience’s search intent, there are still several possible ways to gain valuable insights into your website traffic:

Use Top Landing Pages Data

By examining top landing pages data in Google Analytics, you can get an idea of which content on your site is receiving the most organic traffic and attracting visitors from search engines. Although this method does not provide specific keyword data, it can indicate which topics and themes users are searching for in order to find your site.

Analyzing Search Console Data

Google Search Console (formerly known as Webmaster Tools) is another valuable tool that provides extensive detail about your site’s performance in Google search results. Unlike Google Analytics, Search Console maintains a record of actual search queries that led users to your site, allowing you to analyze keyword data more closely.

While Search Console only shows a limited number of keywords compared to Google Analytics (less than a thousand), it can still provide valuable insights into your site’s organic traffic. Pairing this information with other tools and strategies can help you create an effective optimization plan for your website.

Utilize Third-party Tools

Besides Google’s own tools, there are numerous third-party platforms that can help fill the void left by ‘keyword not provided’. These tools gather data from various sources, such as keyword research databases and competitive analysis resources, to estimate which keywords might be driving traffic to specific domains.

Please note that these third-party estimates are not entirely accurate, but they can still offer useful information in the absence of exact keyword data. Some popular keyword research tools include Ahrefs, Semrush, MOZ, and Ubersuggest.

The Future of SEO: Adopting New Strategies

In light of the ‘keyword not provided’ issue, SEO professionals have had to adapt and evolve their strategies over time. Some steps businesses can take to optimize their websites without relying heavily on precise keyword data include:

1. Focusing on content relevance and quality: Using top landing pages data, site owners can identify popular pages and focus on creating high-quality, useful content that meets users’ needs.
2. Analyzing intent-based metrics: Look at user engagement metrics, like bounce rate, dwell time, and conversion rate, to better understand how visitors interact with your site and what type of content keeps them engaged.
3. Conducting regular competitor analysis: Assess the performance of your competitors to find out which keywords and phrases they are focusing on, and identifying potential gaps in your own strategy.
4. Expanding your keyword research: Utilize a mix of short-tail and long-tail keywords and take into consideration search intent when planning your SEO efforts. Look at synonyms, related terms, and semantically connected phrases to cover a wider range of potential search queries.

By embracing these methods and shifting focus away from individual keyword data, businesses can stay ahead of the curve and continue to improve their online presence, even in the face of obstacles like the ‘keyword not provided’ issue.