In the Guide, you’ve so far learned how to plan and execute a search engine optimization and promotion strategy. However, this is not a one-time process, but an ongoing and iterative process, 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) Tracking PageRank (PR)
As I have indicated earlier in the Guide, you can find out your Google PageRank at any time using the Google Toolbar.
Keep in mind 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 the PR of one site is effectively offset by a small decrease in the PR of all other sites (so that the average stays at 1).
As the internet is always growing and 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 be aware of it, but Google makes a key publicly available that gives you direct access to the index database compiled by its crawler. You can get your own free API key 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 the Google search rankings for that combination.
With its 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 for selected keywords. The second is the Google GoRank API Keyword Tracking Tool (also free) which 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 range of traffic
Get started by downloading and installing the Alexa Toolbar (and join over 10 million others who have done the same). Designed for website owners and SEO aficionados, 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 ranking. Entering the top 100,000 sites is the obsession of many. However, recognize that Alexa has its limitations. First, it has a much higher penetration in Korea than elsewhere (which is why Korean sites skew the results). Second, at the lower end of rankings, your own visits to your site can make a big difference to your rankings (since Alexa also polls your own activity).
For all its faults, Alexa is the only reliable way to get a sense of where your site stands 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. Hope 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 any internal links and similar links from these results. To trick Google (and force it to give them up) type your domain name into the Google search bar, with a plus sign between the dot and the domain tld file name. The two combinations for Doug are:
link: antique-door-knocker.com and:
old-door-knocker.+com (retrieves more results)
For rigorous and ongoing analysis, take your Google API Key to Tracker by Digitalpoint, 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 shouldn’t 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 very useful data for any kind of comparison.
Unique visitors are recorded through each new IP address that comes to your site. This understates 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 have successfully optimized for. He may find that he is receiving traffic on some unexpected terms and failing on some that he hoped would work well. However, this could mean that you have found some useful words that your competitors have been missing! Feed your findings back into future SEO activities.
The Browsers section will usually show you which search engines are visiting your site, how often, and with what result (ie, how many pages they are viewing). If you spot areas of poor performance, re-read the crawler guide on the robot’s home page (to make sure it’s not doing anything to prevent your site from being crawled).
Now, some final takeaways and advice on migrating the site (to your new optimized masterpiece)…
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