I’ve written before about the importance of selecting keywords for your niche.  It’s not enough to write about your paintings, but rather to target your content for the right audience.

So, let’s say you’ve done the leg work.  You have selected good keywords.  Let’s say your website/blog traffic has increased.  Now what?

While you’ve done the right thing, your work is fruitless unless you do the follow up.  There are several tools available to you to do this.  Let’s start with your own website.

Many hosting companies like HostGator use the cPanel management interface.  The panel includes different log interfaces like Webalizer and Awstats.  These logs provide you with valuable information regarding your traffic, how you’re being found, when you’re being found, and what keyphrases are being used.  This information is golden.  This is where you determine what is working.

Another site worth investigating is ExactFactor.  This site allows you to enter specific keywords and track your progress with selected search engines.  Emailed reports tell you how your position fares.  Best of all, it’s free.

Now if you really want to get your hands dirty, a program like WebCEO will allow you to identify your competition and see how they’re faring with the same keywords. 

You can also track how the pages are being indexed with the search engines of your choice.  It’s not enough to put out your website and leave it.  Content must be refreshed on a regular basis to avoid the infamous “sandbox” effect where you start to drop off the search engine radar screen and lose pages from the SE index.

Search engine optimization doesn’t end with your keywords.  To keep your presence alive, you must work out and follow through with your keywords.  Photo by Brooks Elliott

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