Why You Need To Measure
The old adage “for anything to be improved, it must first be measured…” applies to websites and blogs more so today than ever before. Even with meticulous planning, it would be unrealistic to expect to a website or blog to achieve high rankings and above average traffic straight out of the gate. However, with proper usage tracking, i.e. measurements and yardsticks in place, significant improvements can be made to reach the ultimate goals of most websites: high rankings and tons of traffic.
It is important to understand that usage tracking is not just about website ranking and traffic. Data gathered from usage tracking can also help you identify potential issues with web hosts and response time problems. Usage tracking, therefore, is a critical component of any successful website.
If it can be Measured, It can be Improved
In order to successfully reach the goals of your website or blog, you not only need to clearly define those goals, but also where your site is at any point in time. Once you know the current statistics on your website, such as number of visitors, bounce rate, average time on site, etc., you can come up with an overall strategy to reach your final goal(s). Once you have this strategy in place, you can focus on sub-goals and various tactics to move your website closer to its goal(s).
Professional SEOs (Search Engine Optimizers) tracks all kinds of usage metrics. Just starting off, you don’t really need to go very deep into the usage metrics except cover the very basics. It is important to note that there are no defined set of metrics to track because this will depend on the type of business and specific goals of the website or blog.
Every site, based on the type of business it represents, will be unique but there is some basic usage data or metrics that need to be, and should be, tracked. The usage data collected then needs some analysis upon which you can take some action.
Basic Usage Tracking Metrics
As noted above, each website will ultimately have its own usage tracking metrics, but there are basic metrics that can be tracked and observed using several tools such as Google Analytics and GetClicky.
Some fundamental metrics include: -
- Traffic Source. Where is the current traffic (visitors to your website) coming from? Watch for trends from the major search engines, visitors coming directly to your website, and traffic that comes from other websites that link to your site. Just knowing this information will aid in reducing your website’s weaknesses and exploiting its strengths. You can create your site’s marketing efforts accordingly.
- Search Terms. Analyzing the search terms will help prove that your website and blog pages are being found for the correct, intended keywords.This metric may also show that your website is being found for the wrong keywords. In this case you can adjust the pages in question so that it creates a better user experience for your visitors.From this metrics, you may also be able to glean new search terms for which to create content.
- How many pages are ranked in each of the search engines? A basic goal of any website should be to have every page of the website indexed so that it can appear in the search engine results pages (SERPs). After all, if a page does not appear in the SERPs, there is no way you can get visitors to that particular page.Over time, as you continually add fresh content, the total number of pages should be increasing in each of the major search engines.
Once you have basic usage tracking metrics in place, you can start to dig deeper to see how well your site is converting (depending on your goals), how your site is faring against your competitor sites, etc. Once again, there are many specialized usage tracking tools available to help you track and make sense of these metrics.
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