When performing a seo campaign it's extremely important to get into the habit of regularly viewing the traffic statistics for your website. At a minimum you should check them weekly as they are a veritable goldmine of information. Of particular importance is tracking the following parameters for your web site:



Keywords: This lists the actual keywords people typed into search engines to find your site. This list will probably look similar to results you obtain using WordTracker. Also listed is the percentage of the total traffic each keyword brought in. There will probably be an entry called ?other?, ?no keyword? or something similar. This represents people that either directly typed your site into their browser or that have bookmarked your site in their browser Favorites list.

Spend time determining which search terms visitors used to find your site. You may uncover some new keyword combinations that you didn't think of using on your pages. If this is the case, tweak your site or create a new page around this phrase accordingly.

Search Engines: This lists the search engines that visitors used to find your site. Also listed is the percentage of the total traffic each search engine brought to your site. Usually Google is at the top of the list - both the US version as well as the Canadian version.

Referrals: This lists the actual websites that brought traffic to your site and what percentage of the total traffic each ?referral? site brought in. Over time, you should start seeing referral traffic from websites you've exchanged links with. There will probably be an entry called ?direct?, ?no referral? or something similar. This represents people that either directly typed your site into their browser or that have bookmarked your site in their browser Favorites list.

Tip: Consider creating a favicon.ico file. A favicon is a small 16 x 16 pixel icon that is displayed when you bookmark a page and add it your Favorites using Internet Explorer. If you create a favicon and place it in the root directory of your server, you can monitor how many referrals are coming from people that have bookmarked your site. Favicons are created with special software that creates the correct file format. They are also great for branding purposes.

Page Views: This represents the most viewed (or popular) pages on your site. This is useful for determining where your visitors are spending their time on your site.

Click Path or Visitor Path: This shows the actual path that a visitor took while browsing through your site. This is great for determining what visitors are looking for on your site.

Exit Pages: These represent the last pages that a visitor views before leaving your site. Hopefully it is your sales page and not your home page! Length of Session or Page View: This shows how long visitors spend on each page and on your site in general. Are people leaving your site too fast? Try to find out why.

Google is one way (albeit an important way) of getting traffic. Don't get too hung up on your rankings - if you are in the top 10, you will do fine. Some people obsess over getting a #1 ranking to the exclusion of all else, when what is really important in the end are sales. Keep this in mind.