SEO Expert Guide: Continuous Results Tracking (Part 9/10)

In the Guide, so far you have learned how to plan and execute a search engine optimization and promotion strategy. However, this is not a one-time process, but rather an ongoing and iterative one, where you tweak and refine to get better and better rankings.

To inform this iteration, it is vital that you objectively monitor your performance, using measurable indicators and statistics.

(a) PageRank (PR) Tracking

As I have stated earlier in the Guide, you can find out your Google PageRank at any time using the Google Toolbar.

Note that the PageRank system is a logarithmic system, where the average page rank of all pages on the web is only 1.0 (so in PR10 there are only a handful of sites, while in PR0 there are tons). The system is also a zero-sum game, in which an increase in PR for one site is effectively offset by a small decrease in PR for all other sites (so the average stays at 1).

As the internet is always growing and the average PR stays the same, therefore you should expect your PR to slowly decline over time (all other things including SEO being equal). You can predict how your PageRank might change in the near future using Rustybrick’s PR Predictor.

You may not know this, but Google makes publicly available a key that gives you direct access to the index database compiled by your crawler. You can get your own API key free of charge at: http://www.google.com/apis/

Once you have your key, I suggest using Digitalpoint’s excellent Tracker, which allows you to track changes in your PageRank over time (for any number of different URLs).

(b) Keyword Performance Reports

A simple tool to help you is the GoogleRankings tool, which allows you to enter a string of keywords and see where your domain appears in Google search rankings for that combination.

With their API, you can subscribe to two other great services. The first of these, Google Alert, is a useful free subscription service that allows you to receive emails showing changes in the top rankings of selected keywords. The second is the Google GoRank API Keyword Tracking Tool (also free) that allows you to monitor multiple domains and keywords on a single page. The easiest way to learn is by doing, so get to work!

(c) Monitoring your traffic range

Get started by downloading and installing the Alexa Toolbar (and join over 10 million people who have done the same). Designed for website owners and SEO enthusiasts, it provides detailed statistics and information about the websites a user visits (by tracking the browsing habits of its millions of Google Toolbar users).

Alexa gives each site a traffic rating. Entering the top 100,000 sites is the obsession of many. However, recognize that Alexa has its limitations. First of all, it has a much higher penetration in Korea than elsewhere (which is why Korean sites skew the results). Second, on the lower end of rankings, your own visits to your site can make a big difference in your rankings (since Alexa also surveys your own activity).

For all its flaws, Alexa is the only reliable way to get an idea of ​​where your site is in terms of traffic, relative to your competitors. If you’re still way behind after a few months, try adjusting your keywords and content to more closely mimic (without copying) your successful opponent. May you reap the benefits!

(d) Checking your backlinks

The easiest way to check your Google backlinks is to type link: immediately followed by your domain name. However, Google filters out any internal links and similar links from these results. To trick Google (and force it to drop them) type your domain name into the Google search bar, with a plus sign between the period and the domain tld filename. The two combinations for Doug are:

link:antique-door-knocker.com and:
old-door-knocker.+com (retrieves more results)

For a rigorous and continuous analysis, take your Google API key to Digitalpoint’s Tracker, a wonderful two-in-one tool that allows you to track backlinks (filtered) and PageRank for many individual URLs on a single page.

(e) Interpretation of your own web statistics

You should not neglect your own log files or site statistics when trying to understand the success of your SEO strategy. If you don’t already have a statistics package installed, I recommend Webalizer or AWStats.

Ignore visits and files. A hit is anything called by your browser when you request a page. A file is a hit that actually returned data from the server. Since a single page can register a single hit or hundreds of hits (if it contains many images or external scripts and style sheets) it is not a very useful data for any type of comparison.

Unique visitors are logged through every new IP address that comes to your site. This undercounts the total, since people visiting your site from the same IP address (such as people on an office network) will be counted as one visitor. Repeat visitors are a subset, where the same IP address has visited more than once (and will be overestimated for the same reasons highlighted above). If the number of visitors is increasing, chances are your SEO strategy is paying off.

Page Views or Page Impressions (PI) measures the number of pages served. By dividing this by the total number of visitors, you can also get the number of pages the average visitor views. Page views can give you an idea of ​​whether or not visitors find what they need on your site and move through it, or view a single page and leave.

The key metric for you is referral data, where the link a visitor clicked to get to your site is counted as a referral or referring site. By tracking the number of referrals each month you get from each search engine (and comparing this to their respective market shares), you can get an idea of ​​how your performance improves over time.

Search terms and search strings appear in the referring URL and can tell you a lot about the keywords you’ve successfully optimized for. He may find that he is getting traffic on some unexpected terms and failing on some that he expected to work well. However, this could mean that you have found some useful words that your competitors have missed! Feed back your findings in future SEO activities.

The Browsers section will generally show you which search engines visit your site, how often, and with what result (ie how many pages they are viewing). If you notice any areas of poor performance, re-read the crawler guide on the bot’s home page (to make sure you’re not doing anything to prevent your site from being crawled).

Now for some final takeaways and tips on migrating your site (to your new optimized masterpiece)…

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SEO Experts Guide – Black Hat SEO – Activities to Avoid (part 8/10)

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SEO Expert Guide – Conclusions (part 10/10)