To see your most requested pages, look for graph or chart titled "Most Requested Pages" in your log files / site statistics. Also look for "Top Entry Pages".

5. Page refreshes

Why are visitors refreshing pages on your site? Are pages not loading properly? The "Page Refreshes" variable is another one to monitor on a monthly basis via your site stats to ensure that there are not site usability issues for visitors.

6. Referring Domains and Referring URLs

Where are your visitors coming from? Are they coming from sites that are linked to yours? Are blog authors or forum members talking about your site? Referring Domains will tell you what sites are linking to yours, while Referring URLs will list actual pages where links are located. These can be little gold mines because you can often find valuable sources of traffic via links to your site that you didn't even know existed.

In terms of an SEO campaign, these links can all add to your site's overall link popularity, an important factor in ranking algorithms of many search engines, particularly Google. Monitoring these metrics can tell you if your site requires a link-building campaign or help you measure effectiveness of various online and offline advertising campaigns.

In your log files / site statistics, Look for graph or chart titled "Referring Domains" and "Referring URLs".

7. Search Engine Referrals

How many of your visitors are coming directly from search engines? What percentage of overall traffic does this represent? This is a good variable to track to help you keep up with how many search engines are listing your site (both free submission and paid submissions), how much traffic they bring and whether to renew your paid submissions. It can also tell you whether you need to increase number of search engines your site is submitted to in order to build on your link popularity. As a a very rough guide, you should be receiving at least 30 percent of your site traffic via search engine referrals.

To see search engine referrals, look for a chart or graph called "Search Engines" within your site statistics.

8. Search Phrases

This topic is related to search engine referrals generally, but gives added insight into what terms you were actually found for in search engines. Do these terms match what your site was optimized for? Are there any surprising terms that you might want to develop site content for? Some log file analysis programs will even break down what specific phrases your site was found for in which particular search engines. The more detailed data you have, more closely you can tweak your optimization campaign to your precise market.

To see search phrases your site was found for, look for "Search Phrases" or "Search Phrases by "Search Engine".

9. Landing pages for PCC Campaigns, etc.

If you run a pay-per-click campaign or dedicate specific pages to advertising product specials, you may use special landing pages or tracking ids to monitor your traffic and conversions. Your site logs can help you track these by showing you how many visitors they each had and what they did after they visited those pages.

10. Metric values that show a radical change from developing trends

Any site metrics that show a dramatic change from one month to next could pin-point a problem with your site or with your optimization campaign. For example, if your search engine referrals have dropped dramatically, it could indicate that you have been penalized in a search engine (or more than one). Noticing changing trends early gives you chance to investigate problem areas and make adjustments if necessary.

Please note that all log file analysis and site statistics programs are different and use slightly different terms to describe metrics listed above. If you're confused, ask your site admin or hosting provider to highlight these for you.

Remember, your log files are gold mines filled with nuggets of information about your optimized web site. If you keep digging on a regular basis, you'll eventually strike it rich with success.

Copyright © 2005 by Kalena Jordan. All rights reserved under U.S. and international law.

Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running her own SEO business, Web Rank, Kalena manages Search Engine College, an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing subjects.

The secret to obtaining excellent results via your Yahoo! submission is to choose most appropriate category and include a carefully-crafted description that contains your main keyword phrase/s without being too verbose. For those of you offering a Yahoo! submission service to clients, be sure to charge a generous admin fee for your expertise in researching category and writing description for your client – a successful Yahoo submission can pay dividends for your client for years.

Example of a successful site description for Yahoo!:

ABC VIP Adventures - offers tailored adventure travel and vacation packages to New Zealand including day tours, exotic corporate trips, luxury travel packages, kite surfing, and extreme sports.

Example of an unsuccessful site description for Yahoo!:

ABC Travel – we are best! We are only company to contact for your vacation. Call now!

The latter does not use actual company name, plus it contains lots of hype but no keywords and few clues as to what site is about. In this case, Yahoo! editor would have to visit site submitted and come up with their own description and it’s doubtful edited description will be something submitter would be happy with.

Submitting to Open Directory

Another Directory where submission is critical is Open Directory. DMOZ is run entirely by volunteers and your site submission must be hand-reviewed by one of these volunteers before it can be considered for inclusion. DMOZ is extremely under-staffed (I know this because I’m a DMOZ editor!) and it can take 6 or more months before your submission is reviewed – you must be patient. When submitting to DMOZ, make sure you follow directory submission guidelines above and prepare to wait, wait and wait some more.

Procedure to follow for a successful DMOZ Submission:

1) Submit site

2) wait for 3 months

3) follow up email to category editor

4) wait for 3 months

5) escalation email to category editor above your category

6) wait for 3 months

7) ask for assistance in Open Directory Public Forum

8) wait for 1 month

9) escalation email to DMOZ senior staff & post to various forums seeking help

Rules of Submission

1) Do it once: Despite hype, there is NEVER a need to resubmit to a search engine or directory unless your site is dropped entirely (which is a very rare occurrence).

2) Do it properly: Be very thorough when submitting, especially to directories. Take time to research and locate most appropriate category for your site.

3) Be brief: Don’t waffle on about your site in description field. Get to point and describe your site in a short sentence or two.

4) Be accurate: Don’t try to trick potential visitors by using vague or misleading descriptions about your products or services.

5) Be relevant: There is a fine line to tread between relevance and keyword optimization when creating your site descriptions for submissions. Try not to cross it by using descriptions over-stuffed with keywords.

6) Be humble: “Best Web Site in World!!!!” is not going to convince anyone and may earn you wrath of search engine editors.

7) Be patient: Search engines and directories can take up to 6 months to index and list your site. Re-submitting won’t help things and could result in your site being shoved to bottom of review pile.

So that wraps up directory submission process. It can be time consuming, but taking a little bit of time and care with your submissions can pay dividends for your site for years to come.

Miss Part One? Find it here: How to Submit Your Site to Search Engines

Copyright © 2005 by Kalena Jordan. All rights reserved under U.S. and international law.

Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running her own SEO business, Web Rank, Kalena manages Search Engine College, an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing subjects.