Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website

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If you’re going full bore on the technology side of SEO, make sure it’s balanced

out with a fully developed organic approach too. We’ve said it before: A holistic

approach is best.

And, one more thing: Keep your perspective. There is a difference between extra

credit and wasting your time. Checking ranks every day, logging daily unique visits

(unless you have a short-lived or time-sensitive campaign), and spending all your time

trying to decipher Google’s algorithm are not worth the effort. Turn your attention

instead to more reasonable tasks like researching new keywords and gleaning new

ideas from competitors or legitimate never-ending tasks like link building.

Day-by-Day Extra Credit Tasks

As you went through your Prep Month and Your SEO Plan, we listed several options for

extra credit for you to pursue if you’ve got the time and inclination. Remember, each of

these tasks is a spin-off of a specific task in Your SEO Plan. So be sure to read the origi-

nal task that matches the month, week, and day listed here before you get started.

Prep Month, Week 1, Tuesday: Internal Search Function

In Chapter 6, “Your One-Month Prep: Baseline and Keywords,” we mentioned that the

internal search on your website can teach you about your site visitors, giving insights

into who they are and what they need. If you already have an internal search engine on

your website, don’t let its data go to waste! Data from your internal search engine can

help you determine the following:

What are your site visitors searching for?

If you sell shrimp deveiners and your inter-

nal search function is logging a lot of searches for “shrimp deveiners,” that might be a

good thing…or it may not. It’s certainly nice that your visitors seem to want your

product. But why do they need to search for it in the first place? Why can’t they find it

by navigating your site? Finding a large number of searches for your top-priority key-

words in your internal search means that you need to make this content easier to find.

What’s the (key)word on the street?

When you were choosing keywords in the Prep

Month, we advised you to try to get into the minds of your potential customers. The

in-site search engine is a great tool for doing just that. Are they searching for “shrimp

de-veiners,” “shrimp deveiners,” or something unexpected, like “shrimp cleaners”?

Keep in mind, though, that this audience, having already decided to visit your site, may

not behave the same as your general search engine audience.

Who’s coming to your site?

If most of your site’s internal searches are related to finding

a job in your organization or some other activity that doesn’t relate to your intended

conversion, it may be an indication that a substantial portion of your site visitors are

not your target audience.

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