Ajax software     Free javascripts 
↑


Main Page

Resources and Tools

There are many tools, web sites, and practices that serious search engine marketers must be aware of.

As a web developer concerned with SEO, you should also be knowledgeable of at least the most impor-

tant of them. The rest of this chapter highlights a few such resources that can be helpful in your search

engine marketing quest.

Web Analytics

Web analytics measure traffic and track user behavior on a particular web site. Typically web analytics

are used for the purpose of optimizing business performance based on various metrics such as conver-

sion rate and return on investment. They are particularly relevant for tracking return on investment

for PPC advertising, where there is a particular cost for each click. However, they are also used to track

which keywords from organic traffic are leading to conversions. This informs the search engine mar-

keter which key phrases he or she should target when performing search engine optimization — both

to improve and to maintain current positioning.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free and robust web service that performs web analytics. It is located at

http://

www.google.com/analytics/

. The service is complex enough to merit its own book; feel free to check

out

Google Analytics

(Mary E. Tyler and Jerri L. Ledford, Wiley, 2006). Figure 2-2 shows one of the many

reports Google Analytics can deliver.

Figure 2-2

28

Chapter 2: A Primer in Basic SEO

c02.qxd:c02 10:39 28

Ajax software     Free javascripts 
→ R7