After looking round for a web based search rank checker solution that will keep an archive of rankings. I decided it’ll probably be easier to develop rank checking software to reside on my server.
I’m after your input, what sort of features would you like to see in a web based search rank checking solution?
Proposed Features:
Account > Client > Keyword structure
Cron setup to run rank checking at selected intervals
Graph rankings over time
Download CSV export
Once sorted will look to open it up to the public, but in this blog post i’m hoping to get a few ideas around what if any additional functionality I should look to build in. Things like:
Search engine selection. Google, Yahoo, live, local variants (Google.co.nz), local variants restricted (Google.co.nz New Zealand only)
Competitors rankings along side the selected keywords
Number of search results returned
Rank checking frequency. Monthly, Fortnightly, Weekly or Daily
Your input is valuable for this project. So please let me know what you’d like to see and try and work it in.
Also if you’re interested in taking it out for a trial run. Drop a comment and I will update you on when it’s stable enough for a trial.
Add a filter to identify if the referal contains page number information Setup details
Filter Type: Custom Filter >Advanced Field A –> Extract A: Referral > (?|&)(start)=([^&]*) Output To-> Constructor: User Defined > $A3 Field A Required: Yes Field B Required: No
Override Output Field: Yes Case Sensitive: No
Create an advanced segment that selects the user defined information set by the filter above Dimension > Visitor > User Defined > Starts with > 10
From an SEO point of view, this information can be used to identify potential keywords that need a little boost to get to the first page of results and if acted on correctly could result in significant increases in traffic.
Image via WikipediaA lot has happened with a number of Google services over last few weeks, i’ve summarised them below:
Google SearchWiki
To my frustration, Google launched SearchWiki. Allowing Google users to re-rank and comment on search results. The frustration comes with automatically opting in everyone that is logged in when searching, with no ability to turn off the extra visual aspects now cluttering up the search results.
Google Analytics Update
Some great new Analytics features rolled out in this update. Personally I particularily like the advanced segmentation, allowing more detailed reports on specific areas of the site, specific referers and more. Love that! One thing that seems a bit buggy is the account screen when you just log in. I’ve got access to multiple accounts, navigating to additional account pages doesn’t seem work.
Google AdWords Update
A couple of interesting updates for AdWords.
Quality score improvements, where the quality score is calculated at time of the search. This for me have helped the accounts managed to get higher placement, higher click through rates and higher number of clicks. All this without increasing cost per clicks.
A new search based keyword tool was launched. This tool seems pretty sweet! and can help to identify additional keywords that is relevant to your sites content also allows running some competitor analysis.
Display ad builder allows you to create image ads online and run on the content network.
Ok, the floors all yours, go on… leave a comment or two on your experience on these new changes.
This post has been the most difficult for me. Having to start over and over again, which is one of the reasons why this has taken so long to do.
“Good SEO” is up for interpretation. Over the last few years content management systems have become more search engine friendly and means it’s possible to have a well “on page” optimised site quickly and easily. What we usually see is a select handful of sites in their own niche dominate groups of searches for their niche.
On top of all that I consider results/performance as being a major factor in determining the success of a sites SEO. From a percentage of sales referred from organic search engine traffic, or the number of visitors received from organic search results.
Anyway as Google places more emphasis on local websites when searching in NZ, here’s something that’s of interest:
As NZ’s most popular site it was hard to overlook Trademe. Now I am not using trademe as the perfect example, because to be honest like most sites theres room for improvement. But one thing you come to notice about trademe is the reach that it has in search engines. Performing many searches in Google can bring trademe up in the serps. From a user point of view, trademe is used to buy new and used goods easily via an auction process. Many of the serp listings are for products that have been put up for auction, a big problem as most of these product results are expired/dated listings.
In the upcoming bad and ugly posts, it’s hopefully going to be a bit easier to nail out.
Feel free to spin your view on any Good examples of SEO in New Zealand.
Following the comments from my post yesterday. I have been thinking about how to structure my shakeup of SEO in New Zealand. I want to be sure I don’t step on anyones toes, nor do I want to post some basic boring post that I wouldn’t want to read myself.
Here’s the plan.
Over the next few days i’m going to do an individual post for Good SEO, Bad SEO and Ugly SEO in NZ.
Good SEO
Examples of plain run of the mill whitehat SEO that gets good results and respect from search engines.
Bad SEO Examples of sites with no thought about SEO whatsoever.
Ugly SEO
Examples of implementation of spammy blackhat optimisation.
The purpose of these posts will be to enlighten readers of the state of SEO in New Zealand. I hope that no one takes offense.
With it being the start of another month, I took some time this morning to review the daily adwords budgets for my client accounts.
In the past I have disregarded the suggested daily budgets as they are usually off the mark when it comes to client budgets and expectations. Anyway this morning I clicked the view recommended budget for one of my client adwords accounts and I was pleasantly surprised with the page being displayed. It is quite a bit different from the expected text “increasing your daily budget to $xxx.xx will result in xx% more impressions.
Now you’re prompted with a cool graphical representation of how your daily budget would have effected the performance over the last 15 days.
Yahoo has teamed up with McAfee setup searchscan and displays information within the search results.
Now from a user point of view this is a good thing, it adds an extra safety net to their everyday internet usage. Making the end user aware of any issues regarding a particular search result.
When it comes business, its another precaution step that you take for your everyday workings. You need to make sure that you don’t get flagged within these results, especially when the reason is to do with your business and the services offered. (see image below)
Logging into Google AdWords this morning i was prompted with this message:
Whats the improvements?
Basically the dashboard now gives you an overview of clicks, impressions, search click through rate, content click through rate, conversions, conversion rate and amount spent.
Don’t worry the interface is now tabbed allowing you to view budgets and if possible modify budgets.
Just launched in beta is week and month views on the data. So glad for this as it was something I had asked some of the Analytics team that I met with last year.
![seo blog](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3081/2711939938_23085731e5_o.png")
