
(Updated 8/3/2011)
You’ve performed keyword research. You optimized your website for the search engines. You have even started a link building campaign to gain untold numbers of relevant, inbound links. So, you’re done right? Wrong. It’s time to see the effects of all this work, re-evaluate the optimization, and plan your next move.
Take a look
Tracking and reporting are as natural to search engine optimization as weighing yourself when you’re on a diet. Yet, many people don’t track the results of their SEO work. Some people track the results of the optimization and link building simply by noticing whether their site seems to be busier. Others go as far as running a search ranking report a few weeks after the initial SEO is completed, but don’t continue running reports assuming their rankings will not change. Meanwhile, they may be targeting the wrong keywords, their rankings may be dropping, and they may be missing great opportunities.
By tracking the various metrics of SEO…
- You can see if the SEO is working or if the optimization for some keywords needs to be re-evaluated do to poor performance.
- You can determine what keywords need more than just on-page optimization and thus need to be targeted when link building.
- You can determine what link building strategies are working best.
- You can learn what keywords have the best conversion rates so you can focus on those keywords.
Finally, there is the emotional and psychological effect. As you see your rankings improving and your website traffic increasing, it can encourage you and motivate you. This makes you more likely to continue to maintain the optimization of your website and continue your link building campaigns.
What Do We Track?
There are essentially four things we track in SEO.
- Search Rankings
- Links
- Traffic
- Conversions
In the next few articles, we’ll take a look at each of these tracking and reporting metrics, see how to track them, and discuss how to use the information we gather. We’ll start by exploring the benefits of monitoring and tracking with an analogy, the SEO Diet.
Picture by gerlos
Thanks a lot for sharing this