Blogussion » serps

Why SEO is Getting Fuzzy & What it Means for your Blog

ToMakeALiving — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 04:00:19 +0000

In the early days of the internet, SEO was a science. Put your keywords here, put some links in, submit your site to these directories. And hey presto, you were on the first page of the search engines results pages.

Those days are gone though. Search engine algorithms are getting very clever. No-one out side of Google HQ knows exactly how the rankings are decided and even if you did, a lot of the key criteria are no longer things that you can directly control anyway.

This means that SEO specialists have a much harder time setting out exactly what needs to be done to achieve the best rankings. The notion of a simple formula to achieve top rankings has gone out of the window.

As a result, SEO is becoming increasingly abstract, and the best results are being achieved by those who go about their SEO in a more holistic way. It is becoming less about what keywords you use and more about how your blog/site is received by its users.

How to get your blog to the top of Google

Here is what it comes down to: Google has become successful by offering its users the most helpful and relevant results, it’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good.

Now a days, the real ‘secret’ to SEO is focusing on your users. Build blogs that people will keep returning to, and will keep linking to. You will get far more effective, and higher quality links from people you don’t even know than you will from most of the traditional link building strategies you might learn from some “gurus”.

When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Google’s primary aim is to find the sites that are the most helpful for its users. You want your site to be in Google’s list of the most helpful sites, and the easiest way to do that is to make sure your site really is helpful. If your users enjoy your site, they will keep coming back again and again and your site will slowly but surely rise up the ranks.

So what’s the upshot?

All of this is really a good thing. There is an awful lot of competition out there, but the search engines are getting very good at finding the sites that offer real value to their visitors. Whatever blog or website you run, you need to be focusing on writing for your readers anyway, but now you get doubly rewarded for your efforts.

It is time to stop thinking about SEO as something separate from the rest of your blog marketing and start thinking about everything – link building, usability, content and reader satisfaction – as one synergistic group. If you make your site usable, helpful and valuable, you will get more sign ups, more links, more traffic and better search results.

Believe it or not, the internet has finally gotten to the point where you are rewarded for building a site for your users, rather than building it for the search engines. We are certainly still in the change over, and there will be a few “black hats” out there clinging on to the old ways, but in the long run it will be the true, user centric bloggers and web masters who win out.

Disclaimer
Just don’t get carried away and leave out the old-fashioned SEO methods all together. The key is to include all the critical factors. If you write great content but don’t get the ball rolling with a few links, no one will ever find you. If you generate hundreds of links but don’t write decent content then you will lose the traffic just as quickly as you get it.

What’s my point?

I guess basically what I’m getting at is this: In the coming months/years we will increasingly find that the things which have the greatest impact on our blogs search engine rankings will be those things that benefit our readers and improve the overall quality of said blogs.

So if you want to rank right at the top, ahead of all the competition, you still need to do those other things that you always have done. But never lose site of what matters the very most… Your users.

4 Top SEO-Blogs & Their Priceless Resources Pt. 3

Janith — Wed, 13 May 2009 19:50:41 +0000

In today’s post, we bring together the third installment in the “4 Top SEO Blogs & Their Priceless Resources” series. Just like in Pt.1 and Pt.II, in Part III – we explore yet another diverse and resourceful website, that’s just overflowing with information.

Most of their resources are for paid users – but every now and then; they dish out some very useful information for free on their blog. You might recognize them from the quite large, yet outstandingly iconic header…

SEOBook is in my opinion, is your one-stop SEO resource. Why? It has a constantly updated blog, a friendly community within its forums and even extra paid-content, for those that want to stretch the mile.

They explore everything from utilizing Twitter to Search Engine Marketing to even more philosophical debates; like do you master the obvious? It’s absolutely compulsory for any serious web-master to follow them as a resourceful blog and to be kept updated on the latest SEO stuff.

SEOBook

Which Form of Advertising is More Efficient & Effective?

If you’ve read Alex’s relatively recent post on How he Realized Banner Ads are Harmful to our Community you will know how important it is to pick the proper form of advertising. Different blogs respond differently, to different forms. Even though the most common type is the 125×125 Ad blocks, they were quite the disaster for us.

So, what’s the way around this? Well SEOBook has a couple of techniques but Customer Recommendations seems to be the most actively promoted. If you did not get what I just said – that’s okay; you have to read the post first

I Wish I Knew Then What I Know Now

How many times have you heard someone say this? Quite often, I would presume. We all have a starting point, a point where we know nothing about a specific point – and eventually with time; we learn about it. This is obviously a natural process, but more often than not – we try to do something we aren’t quite totally sure about yet.

In this case, it’s marketing and growing your business. Now it’s not possible to know everything but we should know a fair bit before even attempting to venture out on our own. When we don’t, we usually are confronted with problems that we can’t solve.

This is why I love such posts where webmasters, internet marketers or even everyday bloggers go over their mistakes and their solutions to them; because we can all learn from it.

Brand Considerations When Choosing Domain Name

When you choose a domain for new blog or site, it’s absolutely critical that you have a rough idea where you want to go with it. It’s no good registering “www.books.com” for $0.99 and then realizing you want to blog about your new PlayStation 3 games. So, in this post – about considering your brand name – they go over some of the basic things you will need to consider. Undoubtedly, it will help you picking a proper and useful domain name.

When Alex and I first started with this blog (Now titled Blogussion) we had couple of sessions where we discussed possible names for the blog. Something that was unique but more importantly; it was brand-able. It’s not the easiest thing in the world, because the possibilities are just limitless – but end of the day; you need to pick one.

KaBOOOOM!

Just like the previous posts in this series, I’m only able to go through just a couple of the posts/guides each respective blog provides. They have much, much more goodies and you can check them out over at SEOBook.

Stay tuned for Part 4 – where we explore the wonders of SEOChat!

4 Top SEO-Blogs & Their Priceless Resources Pt. 2

Janith — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:40:41 +0000

It has been a long time coming, in fact nearly 3 weeks – since I wrote the first installment of “4 Top SEO-Blogs and Their Priceless Resources.” If you missed it, in the first installment – I went over several key resources from SearchEngineWatch.

In Pt. 2, I’ll be taking a look over at SEOmoz. Quite frankly, I’m pretty excited about this one because it just has loads and loads of good solid information. Especially their extremely detailed guides on some aspects of Search Engine Optimization. Hopefully, they’ll help you and do some good for your blog – one way or another!

SEOmoz is managed by a team of 18-dedicated writers, that all have specific strengths in Search Engine Optimization. It’s definitely one of the most effect sources of information for any internet marketer out there.

It doesn’t matter if you are a seasoned professional or a complete new-comer; SEOmoz will always have something for everyone to learn from.

They have been online for as long as I can remember and since Day 1 (looking at their archives) they have produced some really good content. Almost every aspect of Search Engine Optimization has been explored, and all of it – in terms us non-experts can understand.

So, let’s take a look at some of their most critically acclaimed content – shall we?

SEOmoz

Beginner’s Checklist for SEO

In this article, Danny Dover puts together one of the most useful check-lists for any new web-masters. Starting from the very beginning of learning the basic WYSIWYG System to installing your Google Analytics’ codes to tracking your site’s performance. It’s a handy little check-list to keep by your side, when launching your first few blogs/websites.

By following Danny’s simple steps, you can assure yourself that you are in fact – covering all the basic requirements of launching a successful blog. Sometimes, in the rush of things or when we are clouded by the excitement of launching a new website – we tend to forget the basics or omit a step.

These can prove to be quite critical and you might find yourself in trouble later down the track. So, just to be sure – keep this check-list by your side when you launch your first few blogs.

Search Engine Rank Factors

Contributed to by over 40 SEO Experts, including the likes of Jeremy Schoemaker, Joost de Valk , Elisabeth Osmeloski and many more big-names – Search Engine Rank Factors V2 is the most comprehensive SEO Guide on the internet.

No questions ask, personally I think this guide has more information than 90% of the “SEO Blogs” out there on the internet. Everything you need to know about SEO – from the basic requirements to the advanced techniques to even the techniques you should be avoiding.

It’s a must read for every SEO activist or blogger that is interested in reaching the higher SERPs. It’s quite a lengthy read, and might take a few days even to take in all the information but it’s definitely worth it.

Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet

I found this resource from SEOmoz to be quite useful, because every now and then we all forget things – but this little cheat sheet can do you wonders. In brief, it quickly explains some of the most common terms that bubble up in Search Engine Optimization practices.

Everything from your header-tags to your .htaccess coding to even a quick note on URL Canonicalization. It’s one of those things that you should have bookmarked – because when the time comes you’ll just kick yourself in the bum because something so simple can easily make you waste hours researching for.

These are just three of the articles that SEOmoz offers and there’s too many good articles for me to omit. Therefore, I’ll let you browse their archives and search their content – hopefully you can gain from their mountain of knowledge.

Stay tuned for Part 3 – where we explore the wonders of SEOBook!

Blog Optimization Series: Search Engine Marketing (2/3)

Janith — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:53:57 +0000

In the first installation of our Blog Optimization Series, I went over the basic fundamentals of Search Engine Optimization. It has been some time coming but I’ve spent a good deal of time – researching on the latest on the next installment. The second addition to our series will be Search Engine Marketing.

The back-door into SERPs, maybe? If you have the $$, it’s the easy way to get traffic from Search Engines. If your one of the many, that can throw money for the better of your website – let’s take a look at some of your options and a few pointers on the sidelines too…

Search Engine Marketing

If you’ve been following this series, you might remember in the first post – I went over why people optimize their blogs for Search Engines. This is a long and strenuous process, that can never be completely done – because not matter how well you optimize your blog; there will always be something more you can do (even add another inbound link.)

So, is there any hope for those that are not consistent? Perhaps not so much of a solution but an alternative to gradual SEO would be to throw money at SEM. Search Engine Marketing is utilizing the services provided by big-named companies, to sell ad-space.

Google Adwords or Facebook Ads just might ring a bell in your mind, but what differentiates a SEM campaign from a good SEM campaign? It’s about planning, managing and knowing not one, not two but as many of your options as possible. Let’s break it down to a simpler format.

Designing the Campaign

Just like any other project – a design sketch of the campaign is required. Before you start spending money like there’s no tomorrow; it’s absolutely critical that you have a basic idea of the concept of SEM and also a definite plan.

Your plan should include aspects of your campaign such as budget, start dates, end dates, minimum expectations, PPC (price per click). A campaign without a design usually runs into trouble sooner or later because many people overlook the simple things.

Managing the Campaign

Once you have a design, traffic won’t start flowing in. You have to keep a constant eye on how the statistics are performing, and which areas needs your attention/supervision. Many people assume that SEM is a “do once and forget” technique to conquer the SERPs but they couldn’t be further from the truth.

Just like SEO is a constantly updated process – SEM requires an ever watchful eye; to pick up on trends and assign profitable PPC rates for specific keywords. The design + management of SEM campaigns can be out-sourced to the millions of SEO Companies out there – but there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t be able to do it yourself? Save money, and you know what exactly what is going on within the campaign itself.

Google Adwords

Google Adwords is the big-daddy of all PPC Advertising program. One of the most significant earners for the multi-billion dollar company and a program that offers a lot for the little guy. We haven’t been exploring the possibilities and features of Adwords here @Blogussion but there’s so much to it – that I won’t be able to cover it in one post.

So, going by a generalization that we all have heard about Google Adwords – I would encourage you to take it for a spin. Learn as much as you can about the program from as many useful sources of information as you can find, then play around with it a little while. For some people Google Adwords is their key to success, for other’s nothing more than a waste of time.

Yahoo Search Marketing / Microsoft adCenter

Almost the counter-parts of Google Adwords, these two programs are the closest competition to it. On a personal level, I haven’t explored their full functionality but on a search engine basis – they won’t be that dissimilar to Google Adwords. Depending on the Search Engine that best suits your interest, the three services will provide a range of options and features to help you rake in the targeted traffic from around the SERPs.

Social Media Ad Networks

If your site is so more socially-orientated - you might find advertising on social media networks; such as Facebook to be a gold mine. Obviously, you won’t appear on the front pages of these media networks, but you’ll reach a fairly high percentage of users with the correct research + PPC rates.

It’s important that you target your site to specific social media networks. For example, advertising your blog about penicillin on Myspace wouldn’t be your best bet. Search around niche-specific media networks that offer paid advertising and you’ll be raking in some very loyal readers.

Stay Tuned!

Search Engine Marketing is a very broad topic with many outward branches, but hopefully this can give you a little bit of intuition of what it is – and how people can manipulate it for their own benefit. Websites such as SearchEngineWatch, come up with some nice tips and tricks when it comes to SEW – something we can all learn from.

Stay tuned for the next and final installment in the Blog Promotion Series : Social Media Optimization!

Blog Optimization Series: Search Engine Optimzation (1/3)

Janith — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:36:40 +0000

As we all know Search Engine Optimization is a long term process, that needs to be attended intuitively. As webmasters – we all have different techniques and we all go to different depths of optimizing our blogs. However, it’s fair to say that we all have one common goal; which is rank high for our keywords and start getting organic traffic.

Still, most bloggers neglect the basics and don’t understand the fundamental power of SEO.

What’s worse than neglecting SEO? Completely ignoring our work in the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Social Media Optimization (SMO) aspects of blog-promotion. Join us in a series-post to help explain and reveal the secrets behind the trio!

Search Engine Optimization

First up in the three will be SEO.

Why? Well, I decided it’s better for us to start off on the right foot – and ease into the idea with something we already have a rough idea about.

Let’s face it – ranking high for our keywords is (if not should be) one of our focal points when it comes to maintaining our blog. Getting to the front page of SERPs and maintaining high positions is not an easy task, but I want to take the consistently regurgitated SEO advice and give it to you straight.

These techniques alone will cover most on-site optimization and you’ll be ranking for most of your keywords + a few more!

Research + Target Keywords

A website without targeted keywords is like a fishing line without any bait. Only difference being, your hunting for search engine spiders that eat words/phrases. Without having targeted keywords, you aren’t giving them anything to bite on. It’s absolutely critical you have researched a handful of well define search terms.

A few months ago, I wrote up an article titled: What’s the key to Keywords? It covers the basics of utilizing keywords and optimizing your blog to them. If you need some insight or perhaps just a recap of keywords – I would recommend reading that post once more.

XML Sitemaps

Sitemaps (XML ones to be exact, but non-XML ones are not a problem) are loved by crawlers. Why? Because they can crawl off to different pages from one single page. It’s just perfect and makes their job so much easier.

If a crawler can find all links within a site from just one page – its more likely to spend more time on that site. By having a constant flow of new content + pages to crawl or re-crawl older pages – it will inherently spend more time on your blog.

There are several plugins that can automatically create XML Sitemaps for you, such as Google XML Sitemap Generator (WordPress Users) or you can install your own coding/scripting.

ALT Attributes

Not so long ago, I wrote Debate: DoFollow V NoFollow Links. It sparked quite some discussion, and several arguments (least to say) on a couple of external forums. It’s interesting because everyone has their own thoughts about ALT Attributes such as “rel=nofollow” but end of the day – it really is up to you.

Internal Links

Internal links are important because it allows crawlers to navigate your website’s deeper pages more conveniently. So, link to old posts if it’s appropriate and whenever you can, mention other internal pages. Not only will this benefit from a SEO perspective – but it will also drive traffic to your older posts.

Link Building

One of the most popular posts here is 45 Link Building Tips To Help You Promote Your Blog. Why? Well, simply because of the SEO value it contains. There’s almost a million ways people build links on the internet, these were just 45 ways I personally use/plan to use.

Analysis + Reports

Search Engine Optimization doesn’t end when you’ve done all the practical techniques. Just like any on-going project; you need to keep a constant watch on how your optimization is performing. Identify both the positively performing aspects and also the aspects that are lacking attention.

Nicholas Pruhdon’s Tracking Your SEO Performance is an excellent read on this topic. Mr. Pruhdon carefully takes into consideration the different methods and the different information you can extract from from possible “SEO trackers.” Definitely a worthy read!

Quick mentions on Search Engine Optimization;

As a blogger, you should soak in information like a sponge – listen to everything you can – then decide for yourself the best technique/method. Don’t believe everything you hear but take educated guesses and some calculated risks when it comes to SEO.

What do you think is the most critical aspects of Search Engine Optimization? If you have any recommendations – drop by a comment below

4 Top SEO-Blogs & Their Priceless Resources Pt. 1

Janith — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:34:43 +0000

Search Engine Optimization is a pretty saturated niche, with new blogs being dedicated for it almost on a daily basis. As always, every saturated (and also non-saturated) niche tend to have “top-dogs” and it’s nothing different here.

No matter how ill-equipped you are – when it comes to SEO; there’s countless number of free resources available for anyone willing to learn. Yet there are so many webmasters out there, that haven’t even heard about some of these sites – let alone their priceless resources.

So, let’s shed some light – shall we?

SearchEngineWatch, SEOmoz, SEO Book and SEO Chat are amongst the best of the best “SEO-Blogs”. Most of them have a team dedicated of writers, whom wholeheartedly share their expertise with us. They want us to learn, so why not take in everything we can – and decide for ourselves which SEO techniques we should engage in?

The advice they come up with is so well researched and laid out, you can start from the very beginning and end up “quite advanced” in a matter of weeks! All you need on your part; is the driving force to keep swallowing the “latest information.” This motivation is solely on your part because quite simply; no-one can force you to learn all this.

Before we get into the midst of things; I want to point out that I’ll break this into 4 different parts. Each part dedicated to one of the four blogs + their resources. So, if you think you have the motivation to get-going – let’s start shall we!

SearchEngineWatch

3 Keys to a Successful Web Presence

Mark Jackson, President and CEO of Vizion Interactive (a SEO company) wrote an article on 3 simple ways to have a successful web presence. It’s three very simple “matters” that effect your online web presence. Just like in the offline world; where your presence has a significant influence on the environment – your web presence is equally important.

Mr. Jackson explores the three fundamental rules; “Brand matters. Usability matters. Search Engine Optimization matters.” for identifying and then improving your web presence. The idea itself is pretty ordinary, but it’s the way Mr. Jackson goes about proving his point of view. It’s a must read for any serious blogger, who wants to make an impact on the blogosphere.

SEO Link Building Fundamentals

Eric Enge takes the liberty to run us through the basic fundamentals behind Search Engine Optimization. The article is pretty old, but a very valuable read indeed. The article helped me to grasp the importance of link-building and hopefully you can get a better insight yourself.

I think, I remember this article so vividly because it gave me an ideal “definition” of the value of link building. I don’t personally use it, but it’s always on the back of my mind. The quote goes;

Link building is often a slow and arduous process that unfolds over a long period of time. But the rewards are large and it’s a fundamental requirement for marketing any Web site, regardless of how established it may be.

Common Problems with 404 Error Pages

As we all know, nothing ticks us off more than having to search a website valiantly for a specific piece of content – and then only run into a horrible 404 error-page. Chris Bogg from SEW explains some very common problems that are found in 404 pages, that can convince potential clients/subscribers/commentators to immediately leave your site.

Recently, Alex wrote up a really good article on a few ways to creating an informative 404 error page. Armed with Chris Boggs practices + Alex’s unprecedented help-guide; you can make your 404 error page – just as appealing as your homepage.

Rehabilitating SEO

If you spend some time in any webmasters’ forum (ie. DigitalPoint, SitePoint, Warrior etc.) you will see the countless number threads being created on a daily basis – that has no “community-value” what-so-ever. It’s always just garbage-questions of “When’s the next PageRank Update?“ or “Is it safe to buy links?” or “Does SEO still matter?” – it drives me nuts.

Luckily, I’m not the only one thats overly concerned about it. Kevin Ryan talked about the “SEO Rehab discussion” almost six months – but I still urge you to read it. It really does help you bring back the true meaning of SEO.

There are heaps more resources over @ SearchEngineWatch but these are some of the articles that grabbed my attention over the last few months. Check it out and run through some of the later posts and you’ll find plenty of good information.

Stay tuned for Part 2 – where we explore the wonders of SEOmoz!

3 Factors To Consider Before Submitting To A Directory

Janith — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:51:36 +0000

Many Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing professionals express their opinions and say that directories are dead. Just as strongly, we have others that oppose that. We can’t believe everything we see because quite frankly there are “experts” that say PageRank is dead, SEO is dead and some even say Social Media never was alive, let alone dead now.

Hmm, interesting. Can any of these experts, please tell me why then, after all this – DMOZ is still one of the most influential sites on the internet?

Ever since Google (Matt Cutts personally, I think it was) mentioned that adding your URL to directories, was no longer recommended – many people assumed it meant “If you add your site to a directory, we will penalize you“. That’s not true – they just don’t “take it as heavily” when it comes to SEO – but directories still play a major role in the infrastructure of the internet.

NOTE: “Paid Links” with the Do-Follow attribute will always get penalized as per usual. If you decide to pay for your directory links; make sure it as the NoFollow tag associated with it.

However, even though Google’s announcement was a crucial turning point for directory links, I think the real reason why people don’t do it as often is because – there are so many directories out there; some good, some bad, some you won’t even get accepted and then some are even paid.

With so many options, the choice can be quite daunting, and as we all know “time is of the essence”, so we can’t just sit there and add our URL to 1000′s of directories everyday (even though some really, really bored people do!)

Well, let’s make your choice of directories that bit easier. If you can take into account the following three simple factors – you will most likely eliminate most of those “crappy” directories.

1) Is the directory is indexed and regularly crawled?

Just do a quick background check of the directory. If it was opened last week, has about 200 links and has less than 100 pages indexed – then you shouldn’t even think about adding your site, let alone waste time adding it. Get as much information as you can without too much trouble. Tools such as Alexa,

2) The links are pure text, no redirects or Javascript.

Just expanding over what I said earlier; just run through the source code quickly – make sure the NoFollow tags are there and if any suspicious coding is found; don’t just overlook it. There are many directories out there that try to trick you into buying their links. Make sure there aren’t any fishy-JavaScript coding and simple redirects.

3) Do not link to bad neighborhoods.

Depending on the niche of your website, make sure the directory isn’t associated with any “questionable” sites such as gambling, adult, illegal etc. These types of sites usually get flagged by Social Networks + Anti-Phishing software (McAfee SiteAdvisor). Their bad reputation will eventually get filtered down to your site, so be careful.

These three factors can help you filter out a lot of the directories that seem valuable but isn’t worth your time from a SEO perspective. Just watch out, there’s a lot of hoax directories out there – waiting to snatch your dollar. Howeever, with these 3 factors in mind and a bit of common sense – you’ll be armed well

Tracking Your SEO Performance

Nicolas Prudhon — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 15:49:34 +0000

A major factor in achieving good SEO status is tracking your progression. In this post, our favorite SEO guy, Nicolas Prudhon (author of SEO for Web 2.0) goes over some great ways to track your SEO progress and use that information to help you for the best.

Is there something more than checking your search engine ranking position?

When we talk about Search Engine Optimization today, pretty much everybody has a gross idea of what it is all about. When you ask those people how do they evaluate and track the performance of their work, the logical answer is through looking at their Search Engine Ranking Position (SERP).

Actually, beyond looking at your SERP progress, there are 8 vital points for you to study in detail for the well being of your site and real objective optimization of your pages.

1. Traffic Statistics

It’s basic but necessary; it gives you a clear idea of the (supposing) increasing traffic volume of your site as well as some behavioral data about your visitors.

There are 3 elements you are particularly interested in:

The number of Page views.
The number of Visits.
The number of Originating IPs.

By cross-linking those data, you’ll be able to determine:

How many time an average person visits your site daily.
When visiting your site, how many pages are viewed on average.
If you have a peak (up or down) in traffic, is it related a tweak or change you made to your site?
Is the number of visitors you are getting consistent with the number of commentators and subscribers on your site? If not this means that some changes are required.

2. The Crawlers Activity

What makes sites with high PR or video marketing so powerful? It’s not the sites themselves, often you can produce of find better content elsewhere for the high PR sites, and it’s not about what’s in your video either that makes video marketing so attractive.

It’s the crawling frequency!

It’s so good to be on those sites because they are crawled so frequently! This is why by posting a video; you can get indexed within minutes sometimes!

The more the search engines love you, the more frequently they will crawl your site. You may want to check that this is really happening and how often the bots go to your site:

An increase of frequency is a good sign; search engines are taking notice that your site produces quality content and is more and keener to check often for what you publish.
A decrease of frequency is a bad sign; the search engines are losing interest in your site, try to publish fresh content more often and of better quality.

3. Your Top hits URLs

Do I really need to tell you why it is helpful to know which pages are the most popular on your site? Just in case, I’m going to elaborate a bit.

If those pages are really popular, there’s a reason for it, you must have done something right. Analyze those pages and try to find that extra thing that is one those pages that make them so popular.

In addition, if you have something to market that needs a lot of attention, you now know where to advertise it…

4. Your Top Entry Pages

Which are the top 10 entry pages of your site? Like for your top URLs, you must have done something right from a SEO point of view at least!

If you want to advertise a newsletter or ask your visitors to subscribe to your feed, those “welcome” pages are waiting for you.

5. Your Top Exit Pages

Okay, in this case “top” doesn’t sound as good as it should. Nonetheless, you should know which of your pages your readers are leaving your site the most often from!

This time, to tell if there is something wrong with those pages, cross check with your Top Entry Pages:

If your top exit page volume almost matches the entry volume, something is very wrong with this page from a marketing point of view. Your SEO got the people here, but your content chased them away as fast as they came.
If your top exit page volume is far lower than the entry volume, you are on the right tracks when it comes to your entry page quality for SEO and content since your readers mostly don’t want to leave but browse for more of what you have to offer!

6. Referrers

I don’t know about you, but I really like to know where my traffic is coming from. Let’s say for example that you do a guest post on somebody else website, this is where you can check how much traffic this brought you. You participate in a forum, or whatever thing you engaged yourself into, you can check whether or not it’s worth the time you spent doing it.

7. The Search Strings

Even more important than your SERP, for what search strings your site is actually found! Isn’t that really important and tells you a lot!

Discover new search strings you’d never thought of.
Check if the search strings you are found for match the ones you optimized your site for.
Adjust your optimization accordingly

8. Localization

Depending of your business, this may or may not be useful for you to know, but if you are in the trade business like e-commerce, you want to know where your visitors come from.

If you are a local business in Australia, and you realize that 95% of your traffic comes from South Africa, you are in trouble…

Alternately, if your business is international but you realize that 50% of your visitors speak English and 50% of your visitors speak French, you may want to consider having your site available in French too to better cater the needs of your visitors and increasing your potential conversion rate.

In Conclusion

As you can see, there’s a lot more you can do than just checking your SERP to see how well or not your Search Engine Optimization is doing.

Being able to analyze your own data properly and you’ll gain a huge advantage over the competition by better understanding your visitors’ behavior and expectation.

I hope this article will be useful to you, should you have any question, don’t hesitate to ask me, I’m here to help!