What is the aim of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
“Why SEO” – this is a very basic question that gets asked very often.
The answer is simple: We do search engine optimization to get more unpaid search traffic from various search engines like Google (also known as organic traffic).
In short, better SEO = More traffic from search engines.
Measuring what we want to improve
Since we set out to improve visitor traffic by doing SEO, the first thing that we need to do is to measure the traffic to your blog.
Unless you can measure the traffic, how can you know how effective is your SEO effort?
So, the very first step for you is to find a good traffic analysis tool if you don’t already have one. That way, you would know any change in traffic that happens due to your SEO.
You would also be able to analyze the changes in traffic patterns, and would be able to pinpoint what SEO steps are more effective for your blog or website.
(Wondering what you should look at in Google Analytics to measure the effectiveness of your SEO? Please read “What factors to check in your site’s traffic analysis package for better SEO”)
Google Analytics – The best
If you haven’t chosen a traffic analysis / visitor statistic analysis tool, here is what I always recommend: Google Analytics. In fact, you can opt for it even if you are already using some other website traffic analysis tool.
It is a great, absolutely free tool from the Google stable. Anyone, from any country, can register for Google Analytics.
If you have an existing Google account, you can easily register using that as well.
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a JavaScript based traffic analysis tool.
When you register your blog or website for Google Analytics, you are given a small JavaScript code snippet that you need to put on all the web pages of your blog or website.
The ideal way to do this is to include the code in the template of the website, so that it automatically gets inserted into all the web pages!
What can be measured?
Google Analytics is a tool that would never stop to amaze you – it is capable of measuring LOTS of things about site traffic.
Here are just a few important matrices that Google Analytics would provide:
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Number of page views
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Number of visits
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Number of unique visitors
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Number of pages per visit
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Average time on site
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Percentage of new visits
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Referring sites
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Analysis of sources of traffic to your site
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Top landing pages
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Top content of your blog or website
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Keywords used by people to find your site on search engines
(Don’t worry if you don’t understand some of the terms – we would be discussing them here in the coming weeks)
You can view most of this data for any period you choose – from just one day to a few years! And you can specify exact date ranges for which you want to check the data.
Remember – this is just a fraction of the features available from Google Analytics. You have to try it to get the feel of the power of this tool!
How does Google Analytics look?
Here’s a screenshot of Google Analytics:
Sign up for Google Analytics now!
Signing up for Google Analytics is easy (and free) – don’t delay it!
Here’s the link: http://www.google.com/analytics/
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