EngNet Newsletter 2 of 6 : Statistics - Improve Search Engine Positions
Seeing good results from your effort is one of the most satisfying things in
life. When do you know if your efforts have been successful?
I remember the days when I started EngNet and there weren't
that many visitors. I'll be honest with you, for the first
18 months it was the longest, most pain staking process I
have ever experienced. I found I was putting in effort and
more effort with very little return. Then one day we started
receiving some referrals from search engines and the number of visitors
to our website began to increase, slowly at first, but it was a start.
For 2 years we had been advertising in paper-based trade publications that
target engineering users and we were getting some result, but we needed a
whole lot more for our engineering directory to give companies the results
they needed.
We knew from our statistics that we were not getting enough search engine
referrals so we began targeting that area of our marketing
strategy. After a few weeks I was ecstatic to see that we
were starting to receive 20 referrals a day consistently
from search engines. First thing every morning I would
receive the latest stats report for our website and I was ecstatic when
we began receiving 50 referrals a day. From the report we could see which
search engines were directing the traffic, and from our internal EngNet
stats we could see what pages the search engines were referring the users
to. So we began tweaking and studying the pages to enhance our search engine
positioning. Nowadays when I receive my statistics in the morning I'm less
than satisfied if we have received just 800 referrals for that day.
EngNet has an advanced statistics system installed which enables us to
analyze just about every aspect within EngNet. We know what will
get a website traffic and what doesn't (and it doesn't
always follow common sense). What I'm trying to say is
that "If you can't measure it, you can't control
it!". With a good stats system, you can assess what is working and what
is not as well as what areas need adjustment. You will
need to have a little patience as an allowance of 3 months is needed
in order for you to see the benefits of your changes. After one month
of receiving statistics on your website you will be able to establish what
is working for your website and what is not.
Secondly, use the following statistics report to determine search engine
activity:
a) Keywords by Search Engine.
From this one report you can see which search engines your referrals are
coming from and what keywords were used. [Go to http://www.engnetglobal.com/tips/keywordstats.aspx
for a sample report]. The main search engines that provide
traffic are Google, Yahoo, MSN, Looksmart, Alta Vista,
Overture, Excite & Lycos.
b) Get more referrals : From here you can see which search engines are
providing referrals, target the search engines that don't appear
on the report and improve on those where figures are low.
c) Study keywords used : The report will define which keywords
are used to find your site, make sure they are relevant
and try to enhance your website to include the keywords
that are missing.
If you are receiving no referrals or little to your website
from search engines there are three main reasons.
1) Incorrect Keywords:
Using the correct keywords is important because that is what visitors will
use to find your products on the search engines. I have found
keyword research interesting as to what people use to
search for products. For example, on the Overture search
engine (formerly GoTo) the keywords "Structural Steel Fabricators"
receive no searches each month, but "Structural Steel
Fabrication" receives 160 searches a month. There are a number
of methods to find out what keywords are used, the Overture search engine
provides a useful facility.
2) Poor website structure and page format.
The aim of every search engine is to provide users with accurate search
results. In addition, search engines work to ensure that they are
directing users to good website content. Their algorithms
are programmed to find websites with good website and page
structures. This means a page with a relevant title,
heading, text and links in a well structured format is rated highly.
Links to a page should also preferably include the same keywords of the
title it is pointing to.
3) Search Engines don't know about you.
Firstly, it is important to submit your website to search engines. Secondly,
gain as many additional links as you can to your website.
External links to your site enables the search engine
spiders to locate your website more effectively thereby
increasing your rating within the search results.
Next week we will discuss in further detail how to use your statistics to
improve your websites design.
If you don't have a statistics system go to www.engnetglobal.com/tips/stats.aspx.
Kind Regards
Michael Cooney
Email - mcooney@engnetglobal.com
EngNet - www.engnetglobal.com | www.engnet.co.uk | www.engnet.co.za
