Search engine optimization is a complex field of study that often takes years to master. In fact, most people never master it because it is a constantly evolving art form that changes every time the search engines adjust their algorithm. With so many changes taking place each year it can be very difficult to track the progress of your search engine optimization efforts, and to attribute any positive results to a particular action or strategy yo have been using. Thus, it is very important to actively track your progress using the following methods, in order to get the most out of your efforts and figure out what works and what doesn’t.
Analyzing Traffic
Every SEO expert is after one thing – search engine traffic. Unfortunately, search engine traffic can be inconsistent, and it is very difficult to accurately predict traffic levels that originate form search engines. Instead of predicting traffic levels, you need to be analyzing previous traffic levels and comparing your traffic results with the your actions during the previous weeks. The ultimate goal is to understand how your actions are affecting traffic levels, in order to harness the techniques that work and utilize them to their full potential. You should learn how to use a good web traffic analysis software to make reports of your daily, weekly and monthly traffic levels. As you study each report your job is to find a correlation between traffic levels and your actions.
Trying New Techniques
The main problem that most search engine optimization experts have is tracking the correlation between their actions and subsequent search engine results. In SEO there is always a time delay before results can be seen, which is why it can be difficult to figure out what is working and what could be causing you to lose Page Rank. The key to dining the right techniques is consistency and persistence. You have to maintain your plan of action for at least a month, and then study your traffic analysis for the following weeks to see what the effect was on your search engine rankings. If you change your strategy too much and you don’t let the changes take affect, then you won’t be able to figure out what you did right when traffic does begin to arrive.
Checking Search Engine Rankings
Checking your search engine rankings can take away from your productivity and give you false hope or false discouragement. Sometimes backlinks can take weeks to get indexed, during which time your site could move sporadically in the search engine results. When this happens it is often referred to as the “Google Dance.” Instead of focusing on search engine rankings you should continuously execute the techniques that have been proven to work, like building backlinks and filling the site with high quality content. By focusing on the actions more than the results you are guaranteed to see a better outcome and your hard work will almost always pay off.
