It was a short week with Thanksgiving, but there were lots of SEO blog posts out there. I continue to find the most useful information on the Sphinn site, but I like to follow specific bloggers instead of reading what goes ‘HOT’.

After ‘browsing’ (hard to get motivated on Black Friday) through over 200 blog posts, here are a few I would like to share through our SEO White Hats blog.

http://www.juiceanalytics.com/writing/keyword-trends-google-analytics-greasemonkey/
Firefox add-on that shows referring and keywords trends in Google ANalytics

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/footer-link-optimization-for-search-engines-user-experience
Randfish SEO for footer links. There are some good SEO tips here including the use of nofollow and the fact that footers are de-valued by search engines, particularly Yahoo!

http://searchengineland.com/sempo-to-ring-nasdaqs-bell-15612.php
SEMPO will ring the NASDAQ bell on December 1st. Congrats SEMPO!

http://www.saadkamal.com/google/bloggers-best-practices-guide-by-google/
Google releases Best Practices for Blogs

http://searchenginewatch.com/3631829
I usually don’t read lists or follow web design threads, but here is 25 Design Best Practices for Your Small Business Web Site

http://seo2.0.onreact.com/searchwiki-power-to-the-people-great-news-for-seo-20
How GoogleSearchWiki and SEO2.0 might change the algorithm from links to people.

http://www.1stsearchenginerankings.com/2007/06/08/google-bounce-factor-research-data-is-in/
Does Bounce Rate affect SEO? Google Bounce Factor Research Data.

http://www.newedgemedia.com/blog/index.php/2008/11/seomoz-toolbar-a-review/
Review of seoMoz Toolbar. I did install it, but I am not currently running it. Randfish quickly responded to the review reminding everyone that LinkScape is in beta.

http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/2008-social-network-analysis-report/
A stats heavy review of leading social networks showing users and traffic of sites like Facebook, Digg, Flickr, Plaxo, and more. Good post if you are asked about current user and traffic levels of a particular social network platform.

We receive a lot of questions about reporting differences between Google Analytics and Google Paid Search, here are some of our thoughts regarding this:

1. Browser limitations: There are limitatiation in older browsers where the referring information isn’t passed correctly, this can lead to differences in the statistics.
1. Click Fraud – Yahoo & Google don’t count every click or visitor that comes through the system.  This leads to GA visitors and no reported clicks.
2. Counting Methods – Google Analytics sets a different cookie than counting a click-through.  If 5% of internet isn’t using cookies (or robots are following content ads) then GA will count the visitors higher than the clicks.  This could lead to multiple GA visitors and only one reported click.
4. Page Loads – If your page runs slow, a click is counted…but the JS script isn’t ran properly.  This will lead to one click and no visitor.
5. Shared IP address: Some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) assign the same IP address to multiple computers. Your AdWords account statistics will reflect multiple clicks that occur from the same IP address, while your third-party tracking software may not.

With all of these potential reporting differences, all your tracking mechanisms will tell you a different story.  Our advice is to use a 3rd party tool to act in combination with Google Adwords data….you can’t assume that Google Analytics and Google Adwords (even with Auto-Tagging turned on) will work with each other and report similar data.

Tracking changes in the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) progress of your website can help identify effective techniques and reveal areas where improvement remains necessary. Here are some tips on more easily tracking SEO progress changes.

1.) Record the Google PageRank for your site’s home page every few weeks; consider tracking the PageRank changes of other important pages as well. Using a spreadsheet (with individual pages in the rows and different dates at the top of each column) may make this easier. PageRanks can be checked using the Google Toolbar or websites like prcheckingtool.com. Here is an example of how the fields of a two site, three-month PageRank spreadsheet might be formatted:

Row 1: Web Site, Aug., Sep., Oct.
Row 2: Example.net, PR 6, 8, 7
Row 3: Example.org, PR 6, 5, 5

2.) Monitoring the site’s position in search results for various relevant keywords is also helpful for tracking SEO changes. For example, you might record that your site ranked 6th on Yahoo! and 8th on Google for the search phrase “antique radios” on September 1st. If its ranking changes the next month, you could assess whether or not your SEO techniques have been effective. A spreadsheet can be useful for this type of tracking as well, although it will be somewhat more complicated than the PageRank tracking spreadsheet. Reviewing your site’s usage statistics can reveal additional SEO keywords it receives traffic from that you might not be aware of.

3.) Usage statistics (accessed either through the site’s control panel or a third-party tracking service) can also be used to monitor how much search traffic each of the major pages receive. This may help you recognize which pages need more SEO work before they will receive sufficient traffic. Website statistics systems (like AWStats) often keep data from previous months and store it for future reference, so it may not be necessary for you to store this information manually. Other SEO information these systems provide includes data on how much traffic came from each search engine and the number of hits from various engine-specific “spiders”.

Applying these tips will make tracking SEO changes easier and more effective. When deficiencies are found, the best solution may include obtaining more links, META tag changes, or different keyword usage. Each technique should be used once every month or two, more often as a site becomes popular and search ranking changes appear with greater frequency.

There are two dominant ways to track a web site’s statistics these days. The first is analytics, also called page tagging. Analytics basically means putting a piece of code, usually in JavaScript, on each page of a web site. Then, every time one of these tagged pages is opened that piece of code is executed and the visitor’s public information such as IP address, browser, operating system, referrer, etc. is collected and stored for you to analyze later. The second method is a log file analysis. This simply refers to the data that your web server collects.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each type of tracking. One of the main advantages of using an analytics program is that they are better at tracking actual people because they track browsers instead of server requests which gives you a more realistic view of the visitors to your site. Using an analytics program also allows you to collect more information on your visitors’ web design parameters such as browser versions, platform version, connection speed and screen resolution which will help you in the design and layout of your pages. Finally analytics collects data on the client side so you can avoid any proxy or caching problems. Some disadvantages include not being able to track non-html pages, possible errors on pages due to the insertion of the code and the inability to track search engine spiders.

The advantages of having a log file analysis include the ability to easily track both page errors and search engine spider activity. You can also track non-html pages, such as PDF downloads using this method. Additionally you can see all of your historical data and there aren’t any firewall issues when using a log file analysis. However, if a page has already been cached then no new record is logged onto your web site. Besides that you can’t see as many of the web design parameters of your visitors.

Basically, both of these methods focus on different things. If you are a marketing/business person analytics is likely the most sensible choice. Google Analytics is a particularly good program that is free, but there are also others out there. If you are going to use log file analysis then Clicktracks is one of the best out there because they tend to be good at segmenting out and robot activity, thereby giving you more accurate information about your visitors.

There are a number of words and acronyms involved in search engine optimization (SEO) which are not considered self-explanatory. It is helpful to know what they mean before reading articles or forum messages about SEO. Read on to learn about some of their definitions…

Keyword Density: Webpages are more likely to receive a high ranking in search results for a particular keyword if they use that word frequently (but not excessively). The keyword density is the percentage of the total number of words in which one keyword is used.

META Tags: This refers to part of a website’s HTML code, near the beginning, and includes the Title, Description, and Keywords tags. The Title tag is visible to both users and search engines, while the Description and Keywords tags are only used by search engine spiders. Many SEO experts feel that the “Keywords” tag is of minimal importance.

PageRank: The PageRank, or “PR”, of a website is a numeric ranking applied to it by Google, and largely based upon how many other sites link to it. The higher the ranking, the closer to the top of relevant search results a website is likely to appear. If you own a website, it is helpful to know its PageRank and check it periodically to determine if progress is being made.

Link Bombing: This practice (sometimes called “Google Bombing”) remains effective to some extent, but generally doesn’t allow for the kind of manipulation it once did. The concept is that if enough websites link to a particular webpage and use a specific phrase in the link text, the targeted site will appear in the top search results for that phrase or keyword.

White/Black Hat: Different types of SEO practices are frequently referred to in this manner. “Black hat” techniques usually are efforts to manipulate search results which are opposed by search engines; on the other hand, “white hat” SEO methods can improve a site’s ranking but generally don’t have the potential to harm it.

CTR: This acronym, meaning Click Through Rate, refers to the percentage of website users who click on a link or advertisement. This term can be applied to search results,  e-mail advertisements, banners, and other forms of promotion.

Natural/Organic: When website traffic is called “organic” or “natural”, it means that it comes without the recipient providing payment or anything in exchange. Examples of this are unpaid search listing clicks and voluntary links from other websites or blogs. SEO is a major way to generate such traffic.

Reciprocal Linking: This is a method in which two website owners add links to each other’s sites. It can provide both SEO and direct traffic benefits, especially if the websites are about similar subjects. However, Google has imposed a policy aimed at limiting the SEO benefits of reciprocal linking.

Analytics: When it involves SEO, this is the practice of collecting and analyzing data on a website’s traffic, then using it to more effectively promote the site. It can also be useful when making decisions with regard to web design.

Directories: Online directories are often used as a part of SEO promotional efforts. This usually refers to either “web directories”, which are categorized lists of approved sites (like dmoz.org), or “article directories”, which contain articles on one or more subjects (such as searchwarp.com).

Google Analytics is one of the best tools that can be used to track and monitor the traffic performance of your site.  Owning a website on the internet is not the end of your marketing. It is necessary that you keep track of the performance of the site in search engines so that rankings can be increased.

Google Analytics is a powerful tool that gives you a better understanding on why web visitors visit your site. This is because Google Analytics provides information on which keywords are most effectively used in the website. On finding out which these keywords are, it is possible for the webmaster to enhance the number of visits to the site.

With the help of Google Analytics, it is possible to gain information on the way visitors visit the site and interact with it. This is because the webmaster will know which of the SEO campaigns help to deliver the best return on investment to the site, with the help of Google Analytics. And if you have installed software to find out internet marketing results of your website, Google Analytics helps in the tracking of results of internet marketing campaigns.

One of the tools used by Google Analytics is Google Adwords. With this service, it is possible to get high search engine rankings to your site. This is because google Adwords takes note of the major keywords in the website, and guarantees that your website appears in all search engine results.

There are other benefits that Google Analytics offers like:

1)Unlike other expensive visitor tracking services, it is free. This helps put Google Analytics at the top of the list.

2)Google Analytics helps find out where visitors tend to leave the check out and sign up process in the site. With this information, amendments can be made to modify the sign up process and make it more user friendly.

3)Google Analytics helps you find the pages and links in the website that visitors click on the most. With this information, you can improve the pages and position them and their links appropriately.

4)Google Analytics has a wonderful feature where you can also find out which site your website visitor had logged on before visiting your site.

5)You are offered visitor segmentation where you know how many new and returning website users there are to your website. You are also provided geographical information of the visitor and the referral source used by them.

6)Google Analytics offers not only search engine marketing media, but also helps in the tracking of other non-search engine marketing media.

7)On the overall, with the help of Google Analytics, it is possible to gain more customers if the results it provides are used wisely.

8)Google Analytics is a very easy and convenient service to use that is rather straightforward to use. There is no need in wasting time waiting for results.

9)If you own many websites, there is no need of logging in multiple times. With a single login, it is possible to keep a track on multiple websites.

So it can be seen that Google Analytics is a service that all webmasters should not forsake, but use to enhance the performance of the site on the internet.