Every marketer knows that he or she needs some sort of tool of measurement to determine whether or not they’re achieving the marketing results that they’re after, and SEO is no different. Without the capability to track and analyze your traffic, you will be unable to determine whether or not your efforts are in vain or if they’re paying off. There are a couple of really good tracking tools that can be implemented when tracking a site’s Website traffic. One of the most well known tools comes from Google itself, and is called Google Analytics. Utilizing Google Analytics does require you to setup and create an account with Google, so if you already have an account, just navigate your way to Google Analytics in order to access this system.
Getting setup with Google Analytics is relatively easy and straightforward and you can add any number of Websites & profiles into your Google Analytics account for tracking. A recent addition that Google has added has been the real-time tracking tool that now allows you to view the traffic to your Website in real-time as opposed to only static data that used to have a long delay.
To this day Google Analytics is still free, however, that may of course change in the future, but it’s doubtful considering that most people allow the sharing of their Website data with Google which only helps to improve their search engine algorithm’s knowledge that much more. With this knowledge Google can determine data sets that it couldn’t gather before such as how long a user stays on the site, what other pages are visited, and so on. This is all valuable knowledge that Google can then use to improve it’s own search results. For example, if a site has a page that captivates users’ attention spans for minutes on end say with a video, Google may just increase the SERP ranking of that page due to its “stickiness”.
Once you have Google Analytics setup, you can follow the instructions provided by the search engine giant to integrate the code into the header of your Website for tracking. If you’re using Wordpress, then installing the Google Analyticator Wordpress Plug-in is probably the easiest way to get up and live with your analytics right away. When linking the two it will prompt you for access then allow you to choose which analytics domain you would like to link to (if you have multiple domains that is) and the integration is fairly easy and straight forward.
Aside from Google Analytics there’s also other alternatives as well for Website analytics. One of the most popular alternatives is a PHP script called Piwik available as a free download. You’ll need to ensure that you’re on a Linux Server, or if you have a Windows Server, that you’ve installed PHP as a Fast CGI add on. This can get rather technical if you’re on a Windows server, and if you have a hosted solution it won’t work at all on Windows since you won’t be able to modify major components of the server such as making PHP available in IIS (the Windows Server Platform).
Whichever analytics platform you select, the importance of being able to determine your Website’s traffic is paramount to understanding how well your SEO efforts are paying off. Not only will you be able to determine the demographic location of your visitors, you’ll also be able to determine just how they found you (whether through keyword search, a referral link, or direct entry) and what pages they visited on your site and how long they stayed there for. Of course there’s a wealth of knowledge to be found from analyzing Website statistics but the basics are relatively simple and straightforward and will allow you to determine the success rates of your SEO campaigns.
The important information you’re looking for are number of visitors, how they got to your site (whether through referral link or organic search), and what keywords were used to reach your site. Obviously when you’re optimizing for specific keywords you want to ensure that people are finding your site through those keywords so this would be the type and style of information to look for in your Website’s analytics.
The important information you’re looking for are number of visitors, how they got to your site (whether through referral link or organic search), and what keywords were used to reach your site. Obviously when you’re optimizing for specific keywords you want to ensure that people are finding your site through those keywords so this would be the type and style of information to look for in your Website’s analytics.
One important detail to note about using Google Analytics is that due to privacy concerns, Google won’t give you full details about your Website’s visitors. For example, if you’re trying to determine how many people from New York City typed in a specific keyword to get to your site you won’t be able to do so since Google does not log the IP addresses for you to view. Furthermore, you may notice that on some Google Analytics results you receive a “not provided” in place of keywords used. The “not provided” is attributed to Google’s secure search results, extending even more privacy to its users and less information for you to analyze.
However, your ability to analyze content viewed on your site will always be available to you, but beyond that if you’re looking to be able to determine all the minute details of your Website’s visitors, you might want to opt to install Piwik instead of Google Analytics.
However, your ability to analyze content viewed on your site will always be available to you, but beyond that if you’re looking to be able to determine all the minute details of your Website’s visitors, you might want to opt to install Piwik instead of Google Analytics.
Tracking your Progress Once you’ve setup and installed your analytics program of choice, it’s important that you get very acclimated with the program and its various different reporting statistics. It goes without saying that tracking and analyzing your Website’s traffic once you’ve begun conducting SEO work is imperative.
Understanding what to track is of real importance in gauging the success of your promotional efforts. Unfortunately, SEO is a hurry-up-and-wait type of undertaking. The changes that you make now may not be reflected in search results for days or even weeks to come. For this reason, understanding what to do and how to do it right the first time is important if you’re going to be at all efficient with your time.
Clearly we’re trying to understand the effectiveness of specific keyword searches and our ranking position in each of those searches. One thing you need to understand first is that Google’s search results are localized so if you’re searching for some keyword from one location, you may receive different SERP results then if you search from another. This affects what you see, and what someone else sees in another, city, state, and country.
While it’s important to understand that SERP rankings are localized, there are various tools that you can use to track the average result of your organic search listings for your keywords. One such piece of software that’s amongst the most popular is called SEOMoz. By tracking your keyword placement over time, you’ll determine whether or not your SEO efforts are paying off and make adjustments when necessary.
Kamran Khursheed, Founder and Author of GoogleWebTech, He specializes in on-page, off-page SEO, inbound marketing and link-based content marketing with a five-year track record of driving qualified leads and traffic to websites. Now he is a full-time blogger who loves to explore blogging. He has a passion for helping newcomer bloggers make their blog noticeable and money making.
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