Working in SEO is a bit of a rollercoaster as you never know just when Google is going to change the goalposts, in particular if you are in US where changes are typically rolled out first. The rest of the world at least gets a little warning sometimes. There are many other variables that affect how many visits your site receives from day to day – changes to competitors’ sites, topics in the news – even the weather.
You can’t do much about any of these factors, apart from react to them and take action accordingly. However, to react to them you need to know first that they are there. There are a number of checks that are worth carrying out on a daily basis so that you are quick on the ball when it comes to identifying issues and responding to them.
These are 5 daily checks that can help to monitor your website. Whilst the list could obviously include Webmaster Tools and other data sources, these tend to be weekly checks for the author so have not been included.
Referring sites
One of my first checks in Analytics is yesterday’s referring sites. This is a handy indicator as to whether there has been any activity around the net that concerns your site. This could be in a good way – a favourable blog post, for example – or a bad way – such as someone scraping your site and republishing the content.
The referring sites are helpful from a wider internet marketing perspective as well as SEO. You can respond to criticism or order copycat sites to remove their content. It is really about being aware of what is going on online that touches your website.
Brand mentions
A very similar but slightly different check to carry out each day is brand mentions. Search for your brand in quotes on Google then filter to ‘past 24 hours’ only. Depending on the number of results you get, you may need to add further modifiers to your search term to get a clean list of pages that have recently mentioned the brand.
This is of most use when it comes to link building. It is quite common for bloggers to write a brilliant review about your product or service but fail to add any link to your site. Picking up on these missed opportunities and sending a polite email asking for a contextual link can often prove successful, and an easy way of getting links (as well as making contact with bloggers).
Rankings
This is the obvious one. Checking your rankings every day is a must. You can set an automatic rankings report to run but I always prefer to do this manually as you get to know your competitors and get a better feel for how Google treats these particular keyphrases. Remember to be logged out of your email account and add pws=0 to your search results so that they are non-personalised.
Watch out for newcomers to the first page of Google for your keyphrases and closely examine them to see what SEO has driven them there. You can then use this information to drive your own SEO campaign and hopefully maintain or increase your position in the search results.
Non paid search keywords
It is definitely worth checking your non-paid search keywords in Analytics on a daily basis. Watch out for any new entrants into the top 10 and compare your results with the same day the previous week to get a good idea as to any rankings changes going on that may have gone under the radar otherwise.
For example, you may have a keyword that remains constant in the search results but actual visits could dramatically increase or decrease. This might be because of competitor activity in paid or natural search or Google entering a series of ‘Places’ results that push your website’s link further down the page. The rankings check would not reveal this but it is quite clear in the non paid search keywords report.
As well as looking at the actual phrases referring content, you should also monitor the total number of referring keywords. You can then see how longtail keyphrases are doing.
Landing pages
The final check in this list is a look at landing pages in Analytics. Remember to segment by non-paid only so you do not get interference from any paid activity or direct / referral traffic. You can then monitor how well your deeper pages are being ranked and react to any drop-off in visits via these pages.
It is generally algorithm changes that are responsible for mass landing page exclusions, unless you have carried out any on-site activity that has crippled their power.
About Guest Author:
This guest post was written by Alex, who works in SEO and also writes about no win no fee claims and sports injury compensation.
Article by Guest
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for sharing this valuable tips.
Hi Alex,
Tips, you shared, are really useful and I also follow some of these but my interval is weekly basis instead of daily as I am a part time Blogger, so can’t spare enough time to do it daily.
Really insightful , especially the referral tracking part which most newbies ignore . Tracking what is working and what is not is a vital method to track and grow in SEO .
bloggers must concentrate on seo and keywords to drive traffic from google
Good tips bro. I try to remember and consistent do what your said.
Good tips. I almost follow all points but referral sites is new to me. Ido check but twice a week.
This is a good share. All vie for ranking in search engines but with the social media outbreak, I think dependence to search is now lessen. It’s time to be at best for both approaches.
Really a great post i should say. we explained man :) i almost do these 5 tips, but now got to know the professional names :P Thanks for sharing awesome tips :)
I think you can add checking Google and Bing webmaster account here. It will help you fix any errors that might creep up in your site.
Really Thanks for the useful tips. I want you to know that we are very pleased with the quality of content you provided. I sincerely appreciate your responsiveness and the way you perform the task. These great tips will help to improve ranking of my site.
Good tips. It’s extremely important to monitor your brand online not just for SEO purposes but also for reputation management purposes. It takes time, and some companies don’t put in the effort, but it really can make a difference.
True stuff man .. In order to enjoy this roller coaster ride it is must to ensure these things..!!!
Nice tips for beginners.. checking Referring sites is a must I say. Also checking the bounce rate and pages per visit from referring sites gives you a clue on what sites are beneficial to generate quality traffic to your site..
Brilliant tips. I have entered in the world of blogging recently.
Keep up the good work.
Google Penguin although not directly affecting me has seen many reputable sites be replaced by ones notorious for spamming. The new changes are not for the better, and bad SEO at the moment is working.