Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website

188

your e-mails and your Link Tracking Worksheet and briefly summarize these activities.

Here are some examples of this kind of commentary:

• I contacted 14 website owners seeking new inbound links, and requested

updated URLs from four others. Of these, our site received two link updates and

one new link.

• On (date), I submitted our website to the Yahoo! Directory in the category:…

• Surfing the Web, I found a long list of sites that may wish to link to our website.

Links will be requested after our new landing pages are complete.

• Three site owners stated that they would not link to us because…

If you received useful feedback from any site owners, such as a rejection letter

that stated specifically why you were turned down, consider quoting it in your report

so that the idea doesn’t get lost in your e-mail inbox forever.

Google PageRank

Despite our misgivings about the usefulness of the Google PageRank value, we recom-

mend that you track it for your landing pages on a monthly basis. Why? It’s an easy

way to gather “at-a-glance” numbers that can help you see changes in your status

over time.

You can see Google PageRank just by browsing to your landing pages and

reviewing the Google Toolbar that you downloaded in Chapter 6.

Google PageRank is good to know, but it’s not essential. If you’re short on time,

you can skip this step.

Wednesday: Check Conversions

Conversions, especially if you’ve defined them properly so that they match the overall

goals of your organization, are truly the bottom line of Your SEO Plan.

Last month, you established a baseline on conversions to the best of your ability.

Maybe you’ve got plenty of cold, hard facts and were able to document “One percent of

site visitors, and 7 percent of search engine-based visitors, completed an online purchase

transaction.” Or, perhaps you had to improvise a little: “According to the development

department, very few of our donors have any awareness of the website’s existence, and

there is no evidence that any donations this month resulted from Web visits.” If you

Now:

Browse to each of your landing pages and record the Google PageRank on your Rank Tracking

Worksheet.

slacker

c07. 8:08 188