By now you should have your search engine optimization well under way. It’s time to take a moment to pat yourself on the back and review what you have done.

Start by defining how your site is performing this month and begin to plan for the next month. The following worksheet will help you to do this.

Site Performance Work Sheet

Success Percentage of Opt-in Offers

Number of opt-in offers: _________

Number of captured email addresses: __________

Divide # of offers _____ by # of addresses = _______________
Success % of opt

Percentage of Site’s Phone In Leads

Number of Hits to Your Website: __________

Number of Phone Calls to Site’s Dedicated Line: _____________

Divide # of calls _____ by # of hits _____= ________________
% of Site’s Phone Leads

Site’s Total Lead Percentages

Total number of hits: ____________

Combined number of phone and opt-in leads: ____________

# of leads ________divided by # of hits ________ = ___________
Site’s Lead %
Site’s Conversion Percentage

Total number of all leads: __________

Total number of sales attributed to site: __________

# of leads _______ divided by # of sales _______ = _____________
Site’s Conversion %

Last month’s page ranking: _________

This month’s page ranking: __________

Has ranking improved? Yes_____ No____

If no, note potential
reasons:______________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
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Number of visitors: This Month _______ Last Month_______

Have numbers increased? Yes _____ No_____

Keywords used this
month: ______________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
______________

Keywords used last
month: ______________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
_______________

If number of visitors have not increased or declined, remove this month’s keywords from list.

Most accessed page: __________________________________

Keywords and phrases contained on that page:
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
_________

Using the keyword selector tool, what were last month’s most popular keywords:
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
_________

List potential article and blog topics for this month using last month’s most popular keywords:
____________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________
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How many of my web pages are search engine indexed?:_________

How many inbound links does my site have: ___________________

Visit each site that has a link to yours to ensure that the links are operable. Record sites with inoperable links that need to be fixed:
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
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How many navigational links does my site have: ____________

Check to make sure all links are operable. Record broken links:
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
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List this next months goals:
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
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List methods to be used to achieve goals:
____________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________

This worksheet is a basic guide to keep track of your site’s progress for this month and to help you plan for the next month. Add any additional information that you feel will be helpful in achieving your SEO goals.

In this chapter you learned the following:

• What your site’s first screen actually consists of.
• The Importance of header pages.
• Page title importance in relationship to search engines.
• How to make sure your landing pages are indexed.
• Reasons why your landing pages may not be indexed.
• How to use meta description tags.
• How to enhance your main page text.

In this chapter you learned the following:

• The importance of links.
• Why the relevance of links matter.
• Why you should consider reciprocal links.
• Different types of paid links and why you should consider them.
• The importance of offpage optimization
• How to study your competitor’s site.
• How to use their SEO technique to your advantage.

Here’s where I give you friendly words of caution. Whenever a good thing comes along, there’s always going to be someone who tries to take advantage of it and spoils is for the people who prefer to do the right thing.

As I mentioned earlier, meta tags are not recognized by as many search engines as they used to be. The reason for this is because of those nefarious site owners who realized that they could stuff keywords in the invisible text.

Meta tags used to be one of the prime sources of information that search engines used to determine a page’s relevance and to rank it. Because of that, there were site owners who would try to buck the system by repetitiously adding keywords to the meta data.

The search engine spiders, being mere robots, would see all the keywords and rank the page higher than it should have been. Spiders may not be that smart but their human programmers are and they realized what was going on.

To combat it, they programmed the spiders to look for excessive amounts of keywords and instructed them to devalue the page. Some search engines have stopped using meta tags to determine a site’s relevance entirely.

Despite that, it still doesn’t hurt to include them in your site for the few search engines that do still recognize them. Just don’t make the mistake of repeating them over and over again in the invisible text.

The search engine spiders will have no problem with relegating your page to the abyss of non recognized sites.

In this chapter you learned the following:

• The importance of keyword selection.
• Choose user focused keywords.
• How to use keyword selector tools.
• Why ten keywords are enough.
• The 7% rule of keyword frequency.
• The popularity, relevance and competition factors of keyword selection.