Do It Yourself SEO: My Essay for Sundayed.com

By Francine • Aug 23rd, 2010 • Category: Food for Thought

I’m writing about once a month for a journal of friends called Sundayed. It gives me a chance to stretch my wings and write about topics other than the accounting industry.

I hope you’ll take a look.

“…I attribute much of what I’ve accomplished to measurement, first and foremost.  I’ve used Statcounter.com as a primary metrics tool since the beginning. I look at the data in detail every day.

Try something new. See what happens. Rinse. Repeat.

One of my favorite techniques has been reviewing the “recent came from” links via Statcounter that show the Google searches that referred my site. I punch those up, see what else comes up and reach out to those who write about the same things I do.  By doing that during the first year, I met Dennis Howlett and many others who are now fellow travelers and strong supporters…”

Go here for more.



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4 Responses »

  1. Joe on August 24th, 2010 at 12:00 pm:

    Francine that’s a great tip!

    Another metric to look at is Google Analytics or some other software that measures the stats on your website. This too can tell where people that landed on your site came from and what keywords they used to get there. Using stuff like this will give you a great birds eye view on what’s going on with your site.

    Thanks!
    Joe
    –
    University of San Francisco SEO Training

  2. Francine on August 24th, 2010 at 1:45 pm:

    @Joe

    Thanks!

    I have Google Analytics available, but have just not found it to be as timely or thorough as Statcounter. Maybe I’ve just gotten used to Statcounter. The key for me is to do it every day. You never know when someone new has found you. They don’t often give you warning.

    fm

  3. Sean McVey on August 25th, 2010 at 8:28 am:

    That’s interesting you prefer Statcounter. I’ll have to check it out. I have been learning a lot about analytics from this blog by Avinah Kaushik: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash

    He talks a lot about not only looking at the “what” in analytics (# of visits, time on page, etc.) but also the “why.” Sometimes you have to look beyond Statcounter and GA to understand how people are interacting with your site. This may mean giving surveys to users, or doing usability testing. I’m not expert, but I just think all of this is very interesting.

  4. Francine on August 25th, 2010 at 9:22 am:

    @ Sean McVey

    Thanks for your comment. I find the Google Search analysis, along with keywords, to be the most informative. Certainly I am also surprised at how many interact with the site from their company computer, including visits from government agencies and regulators in US and abroad. It’s pretty amazing that they either don’t know or don’t care (the law firms too) that I can see what they’re looking at and how they are finding me.

    I have tried surveys but I get such a small response rate… I have tons of folks who send me emails directly and comment. Commenters can mask their email address but they often put it in for my benefit. So even though most interact with my site in a publicly anonymous way, I often know who they are and who they work for. I also moderate all comments. Sometimes folks message me though the comments knowing that I will read them but not publish them. Whatever works for you…

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