Subscribe to our RSS feed RSS
June 1, 2009

Track SEO Success: Keep a Historical Log

The following tip was kindly provided by Matt Leonard, follow Matt on Twitter or watch his awesome contributions on SEJ!

As often as we discuss different search analytics and SEO tools to check rankings, it seems we overlook ways to keep track of exactly what individual components make up the ranking. I’m not referring to the ranking URL, but the actual elements of the page. Things like page titles, meta descriptions and more are associated with a page and its current ranking. Yet, they are often forgotten once changed.

To optimize a site effectively over time, begin the process by establishing a good, old-fashioned SEO log (I use Excel) to give you a historical view of exactly where the site is coming from. To establish the foundation for your log, begin by taking a ‘SEO snapshot’ of the site in its current state.

I suggest including the following:

  • Date
  • URL
  • Current Ranking
  • Page Title
  • Meta Description
  • External Links
  • Internal Links
  • Comments

Once these components are recorded, you can begin making SEO changes. Your historical data will be in place so you will be able to compare effectiveness. While one keyword referral may rise from your change, another may fall. Keeping a historical log will make finding the best combinations that much easier.

Do you have a method in place to track your changes? Do you have tips to keep a well organized SEO log? If so, please add them below. We’d love to put together a comprehensive list of ideas from ‘Daily SEO Tip’ readers in the future (we’ll credit you, of course).

Note: This particular log style is mainly for small to mid-size sites. Be on the lookout for future tips about handling logs for large sites (sectioning).

Feed for this Entry | Trackback Address
Daily SEO Tip on Facebook

25 comments already

  1. filiber (Fili Wiese) on 12.31.1969 at 11:59 pm | permalink
  2. Reading: Track SEO Success: Keep a Historical Log | Daily SEO Tip http://tinyurl.com/l9rjww

    [Reply]

  3. brunonassar (brunonassar) on 12.31.1969 at 11:59 pm | permalink
  4. Artigo muito interessante no Daily SEO Tip: Track SEO Success: Keep a Historical Log http://tinyurl.com/l9rjww #SEO

    [Reply]

  5. Sethuram on 06.01.2009 at 6:03 pm | permalink
  6. Thanks for the tip.Tracking seo success is really much needed.

    Sethuram’s last incredible blog post..Microsoft Bing is Live !!

    [Reply]

  7. Mih on 06.02.2009 at 11:08 am | permalink
  8. Short but great tip! SEO log is really good idea. Some simple old-fashioned solutions are the best.

    Mih’s last incredible blog post..Wywiad z Shari Thurow, Firefox Google Enhancer i…

    [Reply]

  9. Oliver on 06.02.2009 at 1:01 pm | permalink
  10. A really good tip and something I might have to try our or even suggest this to a colleague. It’s simple but would be a good thing to do to keep better track of how sites are performing.

    [Reply]

  11. ThePicky on 06.02.2009 at 2:51 pm | permalink
  12. With Google Analytics you can get better idea about the rank of specific keywords. Google Analytics allows you to create custom filters to track specific keywords. Give a Try if you are Analytics user.

    [Reply]

  13. Jesse DeRosa on 06.02.2009 at 3:02 pm | permalink
  14. So sad, but true, that Excel is such a big part of our jobs! Clients love this kind of data and this is the best way to deliver it. Damn you Microsoft!!!

    [Reply]

  15. Motorbike Insurance News on 06.05.2009 at 8:08 am | permalink
  16. Simple but effective tip! It’s always the basic stuff that will help you the most as an SEO.

    Motorbike Insurance News’s last incredible blog post..Motorbike Insurance Hard To Come By Without A Motorbike Licence

    [Reply]

  17. Zafar Majid on 06.06.2009 at 3:41 pm | permalink
  18. Sound advice… and it’s great when you are moving up in the rankings.

    But the other side of the coin, is that it lets you know when you are going down.

    Your tips will keep me going up… hopefully!

    [Reply]

  19. CAP Digisoft Solutions Inc. on 06.11.2009 at 1:23 pm | permalink
  20. I use the same fashion but, i will keep as a separate excel for every major update and make upload them to the local server for security reasons.

    [Reply]

  21. mirc indir on 06.16.2009 at 7:48 pm | permalink
  22. Hmm really good.

    [Reply]

  23. Dotnet development on 06.19.2009 at 8:13 am | permalink
  24. Great Tips! Thanks for giving such a useful tips. These tips will help me a lot.

    [Reply]

  25. wow gold on 07.11.2009 at 8:31 am | permalink
  26. Well, to soon to say if it’s good, but at least it’s well designed.
    I mean I thought I would be blocked after adding some interests, but the site helps you to add more.
    Cheers

    [Reply]

  27. breakdance on 07.13.2009 at 10:07 am | permalink
  28. Thanks to a good site that has great ideas

    [Reply]

  29. 2D 3D Animation on 07.15.2009 at 8:25 am | permalink
  30. i agree we must have a log for SEO history, i keep it but its very time consuming to track thousands of keywords (if you have many clients for whom u do SEO) so generally i prefer to keep the records for primary keywords only ,,

    [Reply]

  31. Website. designer in nagpur on 07.19.2009 at 12:42 pm | permalink
  32. SEO monitoring is really crucial …..

    [Reply]

  33. wow power leveling on 07.27.2009 at 6:35 am | permalink
  34. wow power leveling

    [Reply]

  35. wow gold on 07.27.2009 at 6:43 am | permalink
  36. Good tips on getting the most out of bookmarklets - equally important is installing one of the many social bookmarking plugins on a Wordpress blog. ‘Sociable’ from Yoast.com is great.

    [Reply]

  37. South Tampa Condos on 08.19.2009 at 9:46 am | permalink
  38. Good tips for keep historical log. Thanks for seo tools.

    [Reply]

  39. George Matthews on 09.19.2009 at 3:20 pm | permalink
  40. The new fake rolex est une marque renowned par monde dans le monde de montre et galement la plupart de marque replie.

    [Reply]

  41. Replica Rolex on 09.19.2009 at 3:24 pm | permalink
  42. Comprar o datejust de rolex replica da réplica se você quer o estilo e a unicidade.

    [Reply]

  43. replica Rolex datejust on 09.23.2009 at 11:18 pm | permalink
  44. The new replica Rolex replika sluzyc dla wiele rok poniewaz ono uzywac the ten sam ten sam drapac-odporny szafirowy krystaliczny szklo i the ten sam stal nierdzewna the oryginal.

    [Reply]

  45. Nicole Thompsen on 10.08.2009 at 5:56 am | permalink
  46. Het beste deel van naar huis gemaakte teeth whitening treatments bleekwaters is zij is zeer efficiënt en goedkoop.

    [Reply]

  47. Transfer Rio de Janeiro on 11.27.2009 at 2:32 pm | permalink
  48. Good content.
    Information, experiencie and tests results are one of the most importants activities at SEO.

    [Reply]

  49. Trading soft on 12.04.2009 at 3:31 pm | permalink
  50. I think that since many other factors can influence your keywords ranking, this could be misleading.

    [Reply]

Leave a Comment

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Bad Behavior has blocked 2438 access attempts in the last 7 days.