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Promotion Tip:
Know Your Baseline
by Larisa Thomason,
Senior Web Analyst,
NetMechanic, Inc.
Suppose you started your search engine optimization and promotion campaign a few months ago. Is it a success? Do you now have every page in your site indexed in the top search engines? Did the campaign improve your search engine rank? How do you know?
The only way to reliably gauge the success of your search engine optimization and marketing efforts is to know where you were when you started. Know your baseline before you begin your promotion campaign.
Lay The Groundwork
Before you declare victory, you should consider your starting point. It's no big deal to cross the finish line in the Boston Marathon if you jump into the race a few blocks before the end. But if you started in Hopkinton with the rest of the runners, you're entitled to brag.
It's the same situation with search engine promotion. Because promotion is a continuing process, you measure the success of one effort against the results of the previous one.
Begin by determining your baseline:
- Are you listed in the search engines at all?
- How do you rank on your targeted search terms?
- What is your link popularity score?
- What is your page rank in the Google toolbar?
- How many visitors do you currently have and where are they coming from?
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You should be able to answer these questions for each page you've targeted for optimization. A spreadsheet per page is an easy way to keep the information organized.
I did a quick analysis on some of the targeted keywords on the UNICEF home page (United Nations Children's Emergency Fund) using Search Engine Tracker. This is not a complete analysis; it's an example intended to give you ideas about starting your own site analysis:
Search engine analysis
| Keyword Phrase |
Yahoo |
Teoma |
Lycos |
AOL search |
Google |
| Child rights |
1 (secondary page) |
3 |
1 (secondary page) |
2 (secondary page) |
2 (secondary page) |
| Children's rights |
5 (secondary page) |
2 |
5 (secondary page) |
8 (secondary page) |
8 (secondary page) |
| UNICEF |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
| Emergency operations |
8 (secondary page) |
2 (Spanish language version) |
8 (secondary page) |
8 (secondary page) |
8 (secondary page) |
Note the similarities in some results. That's due to search firms partnering and sharing results. Also note that the only targeted keyword where the home page has a top placement is for the "UNICEF" keyword. The other keywords take visitors to internal pages on the site.
Link Popularity Score
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unicef.org/index.html |
| Google |
12,300 |
| Alta Vista |
176,000 |
| AOL Search |
821 |
| Lycos |
22,995 |
| Yahoo |
170,000 |
So we see that link popularity is not a big problem for this site!
Traffic Analysis (this comes from your own server logs, not Engine Tracker!)
| |
Avg. visitors per day |
Browser |
Search term |
| #1 source |
xxxx |
Xxxx |
|
| #2 source |
xxxx |
Xxxx |
|
| #3 source |
xxxx |
Xxxx |
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The whole process can take quite a bit of time if you're doing it by hand, but Search Engine Power Pack helps you streamline the process. It helps you select keywords, optimize pages, submit them, determine your link popularity score, and track your rank by search engine and search term.
Do Some Analysis
So now you have a pile of spreadsheets that contain a lot of information. You have more questions to ask - and answer - using your research.
- Are you receiving targeted traffic? People looking for information about potato chips or online groceries aren't likely to buy much from your organic seed Web site. Study your server logs to find the most popular search terms that bring people to your site.
Maybe you can optimize some pages on the site to emphasize those terms - but it's just as likely that you need to change the content to attract more interested visitors.
- Are your keywords actually popular? A number one rank on a search term nobody uses is pretty worthless. Use a keyword popularity tool like the one that comes with Power Pack to make sure that you're targeting the most effective keywords.
Careful keyword analysis will also show if you've selected keywords that are too broad to be effective. For instance, the UNICEF site lists "kids" as a targeted keyword. When you enter that single word as a search term on Google, you receive over 18 million page results. The keyword popularity score is over 381,000!
That's a lot of searchers, but there's no guarantee that they're looking for opportunities to provide emergency assistance to children. They could also be searching for children's books, toys, or kid-friendly cookie recipes.
- What are your problem pages? If you have several pages with a top 5 rank, leave them alone! Focus your time and energy on the problem pages that aren't listed in the top 30 results. Let Page Primer evaluate their page content and suggest solutions.
- Do your inbound links increase sales? If your most popular inbound links (also called backlinks) aren't resulting in sales, maybe visitors are confused about your site's content. For instance, if someone clicks on link text that says "Save money on groceries" and arrives at your home vegetable gardening site, they may just click away. It's likely they wanted a quick solution, not one that requires tilling, planting, and watering.
When you make linking easy, be sure to create link and ALT text that clearly describes your site content and encourages visitors to check out the site. A deceptive link may get someone to your site, but he won't stay long.
- What pages are the most popular? Study your server logs to determine the most frequently-visited pages and target them for optimization. You may need to add more content to increase visitor interest and satisfaction. Also consider increasing the number and enhancing the content of text links that lead deeper into your site. Valuable content pulls visitors deeper into the site and keeps them there longer.
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Finally, take all your research and analysis and use it to determine the best keyword phrases for each page in your site. In general, you should limit yourself to 2-3 keyword phrases per page. If you have the budget, consider testing them with AdWords or another pay-per-click option to see how much traffic they will generate.
Search engine promotion is never complete because search companies change their algorithms at will and form alliances with other search sites. All you can do is try to keep up. Once you have your baseline, you can gauge the effectiveness of your current effort. If you carefully track your rank and visitor totals for your upcoming campaign, most of the baseline work will already be in place when it's time to begin the next one.
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