Apr 07 2008
Search Engine Analysis Report – what need to look into?
A search optimization firm has offered to run an analysis on your website’s performance on major search engines. These reports offer valuable information that can help guide your search marketing strategy, so it’s important to understand how to interpret the report.
Here’s a no-nonsense approach to how to interpret your report and determine what action your company should take based on that information.
Traditionally, a Search Engine Analysis (SEA) will contain 5 key types if information:
| · |
The search engines for which the report checked your site’s position; |
| · | The keywords on which you would expect your site to be found; |
| · | The position of your web site for each keyword on the selected search engines. Typically, an SEA will show whether your site is placed within the Top 30 positions; |
| · | The page on which your site appears for each keyword. Many search engines display 10 results per page, some 15 or 20; |
| The URL or address of the web page on your site that is appearing within the Top 30 positions or Top 3 pages of a search engine. | |
| · | If you’ve been working with an optimization firm for some time, your report may also include some historical analysis that shows where your site was ranked previously and how much change has occurred from your last report. |
As you review your report, here are the important things to look for:
| 1 |
You’ll want to see whether your site is placed within the Top 30 results and within the Top 3 pages for any of your keywords. If you are appearing within the Top 30 results for a number of keywords, you can consider your site is performing well. |
| 2 | Usually, your report will show how your web site performs when your company name is typed in as a keyword. This piece of information is good only to ensure that a search engine has indexed your site; as a rule, your potential prospects likely do not know your company name when they go to a search engine to look for your product or service, so performing well on your name likely won’t mean much traffic-wise. |
| 3 | Reviewing which keywords are listed on your report is useful as it will tell you the terms for which your site likely has been optimized. If there are aspects of your business that are missing from this list of keywords, you may need new additional content on your site. Similarly, if the keywords on which your site performs are extremely niche, you should ask your optimization firm for guidance on whether there are any more general terms that would serve you better in driving traffic. |
| 4 | Reviewing which pages (URLs) are showing up well on search engines will tell you which pages not to edit or change. You’ll want to focus your energies on keywords for which you don’t rank well and on pages that don’t perform well. |
| 5 | If you appear within the Top 10 positions for a keyword, it’s best to leave things alone. How a search engine ranks your site is determined by several factors, including what other sites aiming for that keyword are doing. It may not be worth the effort and cost to try to move up a few positions, since there’s no guarantee such an effort would work. |
| 6 | If your SEO firm provides information in the report on how many positions your site has gone up or down since the last report, it’s best to discuss any concerns before making wholesale changes. The search engines frequently tweak their indexes and it’s not unusual for results to be unstable for a period of time. Its best to determine that a search result has become relatively permanent before investing in a lot of effort to change it. |
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Not A Member? Register for Free!
