Maximum Analytics

Maximum Analytics

Create a Baseline

Many web hosts maintain free server logs which show you what pages were most frequently requested and what keywords people searched for to find them or what pages site visitors came from. In addition to web hosts, many analytics products like Google Analytics, Clicktracks, and HaveAMint.com are available for reasonable prices.

If you run a commercial site you can also use Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and Microsoft AdCenter to buy traffic for your site. If you track what keywords convert that will help you know what types of keywords you should be focusing on with your organic SEO campaign.

Rank Checkers

There are a number of free rank checkers and commercial rank checkers applicatations available (like Agent Web Ranking and Advanced Web Ranking) that check your rankings for keywords in major search engines.

It is easy to get lost worrying about shifts in rankings, but what matters more is if your traffic streams are growing as your site matures and you market it.

Some of the major search engines like Google and Microsoft are sharing data with webmasters about what keywords their sites rank for and what keywords send traffic to their sites. You can sign up for Google Webmaster Central for a look at this type of data.

Building From Your Strengths

Seeing what you already rank for is useful because it helps you understand the mindset of consumers finding your site. It is easier to rank for keywords related to the words you are already ranking for than it is to rank for entirely different phrases.

Learning what types of sites reference you and why they chose to reference you helps you learn how to create marketing ideas that are more likely to spread.

If you track your growth and what has been working well for you then it makes it easy to keep pushing things that have worked well for you in the past and focus less on things that provide little to no return.