May 13th, 2010 by Susie

It is pointless implementing what may be the world’s best SEO link building strategy without any way of measuring whether it is working. A search engine optimisation company will use what is known as web analytics software in order to monitor a website’s progress and, such is the sophistication of these programs, a huge range of factors can be monitored. It is important, though, not to become hopelessly lost in the complexity of the results, and focusing on the aims for a particular site should prevent what is commonly referred to as ‘report surfing’.

Many types of web analytics software are available, some of them free. Those which are provided by hosting companies are usually quite basic, and it can be worth trying something like Google Analytics, which has more features, instead. The most popular software currently tends to work using JavaScript and such programs are extremely customisable. One drawback is that, as search crawlers do not read JavaScript, their activity on one’s website cannot be monitored. However, this is outweighed by the benefits of being able to tweak the analytics programs to suit one’s aims.

One extremely handy aspect of web analytics software is that one can usually create a number of dashboards displaying relevant results, and these can be customised so that any member of a company wishing to keep an eye on progress can have her own personalised set of information.

It is essential to establish a baseline for analytics before search engine optimization efforts begin. Otherwise, there is no way of knowing whether any subsequent changes are actually improvements. Once the baseline has been set for each factor being worked upon, monitoring can begin and strategies be altered accordingly.

Analytics results commonly include visitor numbers, the search phrases which brought them to the site, and the number of ‘conversions’. A conversion refers to a desired action being completed, such as buying a product or subscribing to a newsletter. Conversions can be linked to the search terms used by customers when they first arrived at the site, in order to find out what phrases were used by those visitors who actually bought products.

An analytics program can be set up to carry out what is known as ‘action tracking’, where events such as placing an item in a shopping cart will be recorded. As well as giving information about conversion rates, this can also be helpful in deciphering why visitors might not follow through with certain actions. Perhaps shopping carts are being abandoned at a specific point and something needs to be improved.

Combining web analytics and SEO involves a constant process of setting goals, analysing results and going back to make alterations to the initial strategy. However, it is vital that results are interpreted with care. Placing too much emphasis on figures obtained from a small sample size is usually unwise, and there is also the problem of bias if results are taken out of context.

At SearchEngineOptimization.co.uk we are experienced in the use of web analytics and can monitor the progress of your website.

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