Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website

these leads back to the SEO campaign by asking any vendors that contact us how they

heard about us.”

Elizabeth at ElderPets describes her tracking plans by saying,

“Our primary goal is

donations, so we’ll be watching for an increase in the number of individual donations

after we start our SEO campaign. As for volunteers, we’ll add a ‘How did you find us?’

question to our volunteer applications. As for just being found by people who need us:

Our website also has a visitors counter. I’ve never paid much attention to it, but as a

start I’ll see if I can figure out if we’re getting more traffic than we used to.”

Clearly Jason and Elizabeth are on the right path. They’ve examined their goals and

their websites. They’ve identified their targeted audiences and target pages, and they’re

even thinking ahead to tracking. If you’re really stuck on any of these answers for your

own company, take some time now to put your head together with others in your organi-

zation and hash it out. Understanding your own goals is a basic element of your upstart

SEO campaign, and you’ll do best if you have a firm grasp on them before you move on.

How Much Tracking Do I Need to Do?

Tracking can seem like a daunting task if you’ve never given any thought to it.Site owners like Jason

and Elizabeth are wondering:

Should

tracking be approached with “baby steps”like the rest of SEO?

The Left Brain says

Whoa there,Jason and Elizabeth:You’re going to be collecting flawed data!

Jason,how can you be sure that your increase in sales is just tied to your SEO efforts and not some-

thing else, like the start of the holiday season? And Elizabeth, that hit counter is not going to cut

it! You need to gather data about where these people are coming from and how many of them are

unique visitors. Don’t you know that your counter can increase every time someone’s cat steps on

the “refresh”button?

The Right Brain says

I admire your left-brained hunger for irrefutable facts. However, most

people are too busy to make numbers-watching on that level their highest priority.I say, we

encourage

any

effort at all to track conversions,as long as it’s based on some logic and is done

consistently. Even a little bit of tracking can bring up some interesting findings.And these findings

often get people interested in learning more, which may in turn motivate people to do more

detailed tracking. Believe it or not, tracking can be a creative process!

Wow! You’ve done a lot of thinking in this chapter. You now know that you

probably need SEO for your website. You have a great grasp on your overall business

goals. You know what your website is doing and whether these things are good or bad

for your company. You know your target audience and your desired conversions. And,

we trust, you are convinced that tracking is a necessity. Now, meet us in Chapter 2,

“Customize Your Approach,” for some light reading about your favorite subject:

You!

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