Identifying Current Server Statistics Software and Gaining Access

In Chapter 10, we will discuss in detail the methods for tracking results and measuring success, and we will also delve into how to set a baseline of measurements for your SEO projects. But before we do that, and before you can accomplish these tasks, you need to have the right measurement systems in place.

Web Analytics

Analytics software can provide you with a rich array of valuable data about what is taking place on your site. It can answer questions such as:

  • How many unique visitors did you receive yesterday?

  • Is traffic trending up or down?

  • What are the most popular search terms with which people find you?

  • What are the most popular pages on your site?

  • What are the best-converting pages on the site?

We strongly recommend that if your site does not currently have any measurement systems in place, you put something in place immediately. High-quality, free analytics tools are available, such as Yahoo! Web Analytics and Google Analytics. Of course, higher-end analytics solutions are also available, and we will discuss them in more detail in Chapter 10.

Logfile Tracking

Logfiles contain a detailed click-by-click history of all requests to your web server. Make sure you have access to the logfiles and some method for analyzing them. If you use a third-party hosting company for your site, chances are it provides some sort of free logfile analyzer, such as AWStats, Webalizer, or something similar. Obtain access to whatever tool is in use as soon as you can.

What these tools do that JavaScript-based web analytics software cannot is record search engine spider activity on your site. Although spidering will typically vary greatly from day to day, you can still see longer-term trends of search engine crawling patterns, and whether crawling activity is trending up (good) or down (bad). Although this web crawler data is very valuable, do not rely on these free solutions provided by hosting companies for all of your analytics data, as there is a lot of value in what traditional analytics tools can capture.

Note

Some web analytics software packages read logfiles as well, and therefore can report on crawling activity. We will discuss these in more detail in Chapter 10.

Google and Bing Webmaster Tools

As mentioned earlier, other valuable sources of data include Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools. We cover these extensively in Using Search Engine–Supplied SEO Tools.

From a planning perspective, you will want to get these tools in place as soon as possible. Both tools provide valuable insight into how the search engines see your site. This includes things such as external link data, internal link data, crawl errors, high-volume search terms, and much, much more.

Note

Some companies will not want to set up these tools because they do not want to share their data with the search engines, but this is a nonissue as the tools do not provide the search engines with any more data about your website; rather, they let you see some of the data the search engines already have.

Search Analytics

Search analytics is a new and emerging category of tools. Search analytics tools specifically monitor how your website interacts with the search engines. Compete (http://www.compete.com) offers search-specific analytic tools, as do many smaller vendors.

Although this category is in its infancy, it is worth monitoring closely to see what tools become available that can provide your organization with an advantage in competing for search traffic. These tools are discussed in detail in Chapter 10.

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