Google Analytics has long been a great free tool that has helped B2B marketers review, analyze, interpret and make website improvements. It is a fantastic resource for keyword research and optimization based on that keyword data. Being able to see the top keyword terms and phrases that are driving traffic to your website is powerful. If your site has not been optimized properly, you will quickly find out, and if the vast majority of your traffic are coming in via branded search terms (company and product names), you are missing out at reaching prospects in the early buying stages.

We utilize analytics keyword data to optimize our clients’ search programs and guide content decisions, but some B2B companies have taken it further and used it to help make more business decisions, such as what products or services to expand or re-tool.

Unfortunately, some of that great information on keywords has changed dramatically. In late October, Google made a policy change and stopped reporting on keyword data from users who are logged into a Google account. So this means for users logged into a Gmail, Google+ or other Google account that searched via Google and landed on your website, you will no longer be able to see what keyword term they searched on. If you missed the announcement last week about Google’s Search+ Your World, Google’s reasoning behind their decision now becomes apparent – the privacy issue. As a searcher and user of Google+, I am all for privacy, but it does start to make keyword research a bit more difficult.

 The percentage of traffic that comes in as “not provided” for B2B websites will vary, we have seen anywhere from 3-12% since this was launched in late October. It can be especially higher for B2B industries that target a higher tech audience, those more apt to use Google accounts, or B2B companies that don’t have the luxury of a large number of visitors to begin with, those that target longer tail terms.

So what should B2B marketers do now? Well the SEO community is all over this, and analysis options have been suggested from Analytics guru Avinash Kaushik, but for now keep doing good basic SEO. Google has not changed its mission of helping people find relevant information, so the on-page basics still apply. Proper site structure, tagging, and quality content that is kept "fresh” are still the keys to SEO success. But it is clear that the B2B community will have to begin placing more emphasis on some of the off-page factors such as links, authority and social in order to be prepared for the future of search. If you haven’t given any thought to your Google+ brand page, now is the time to start.