Web Marketing: How to Create Your SEO Worksheet
In web marketing, you can save long hours later down the line by creating an SEO Worksheet. SEO can take a long time. Plus, changes you make today might impact your rankings months from now, so it’s important that you keep a record of relevant data and changes you make over time. That way, you can refer to those changes and better understand what worked and what didn’t.
If you’re serious about SEO, you’re going to need to track a number of different statistics over time, including the following:
Traffic from organic search: Your web analytics package should show you clicks from unpaid search rankings.
Keyword diversity: The number of key phrases driving traffic to your website. Again, your web analytics package will give you this.
Incoming links, by search engine: The number of links reported by Bing and Google.
Indexed pages, by search engine.
Sales/leads/other results from organic search: If your site has a goal, and your analytics package allows it, record the results you get. Traffic is great. Sales are better.
Keyword rankings: Notice how this is last? That’s because keyword rankings don’t matter.
Keyword rankings don’t matter. Traffic and results do. Although ranking No. 1 for a phrase or two is one way to get those extra visitors, getting 500 top-10 listings for less prominent phrases may get you far more visitors and sales, leads, or whatever else you need. Don’t obsess about keyword rankings. Obsess about traffic, keyword diversity, and success.
Record these numbers by month. You can record them by week if you’re really obsessive. Whatever you do, don’t check them every day — you may lose your mind.

Web Design & Development Glossary
AJAX
asynchronous JavaScript and XML. A technique used in web page development.

Web Design & Development Glossary
API
application programming interface. A set of rules programs use to communicate with each other.

Web Design & Development Glossary
color stop
A special element that indicates a color to be added to a gradient.

Web Design & Development Glossary
FTP
File Transfer Protocol. A network protocol useful for transferring files in a client-server relationship.

Web Design & Development Glossary
HTML
HyperText Markup Language. The predominant language for building web pages.

Web Design & Development Glossary
HTTP
HyperText Transfer Protocol. The primary networking language for the Internet.

Web Design & Development Glossary
PHP
PHP Hypertext Processor. A scripting language that works well within HTML.

Web Design & Development Glossary
socket
A technology that allows remote computers to maintain a persistent connection in order to communicate with each other.

Web Design & Development Glossary
sprite
An graphic object on a web page that will be manipulated in real time.

Web Design & Development Glossary
SQL
Structured Query Language. A programming language useful in managing relational databases.

Web Design & Development Glossary
stateless protocol
An Internet procedure that completely breaks the connection between the client and the server after a transaction, meaning that the next transaction will require an entirely new connection.

Web Design & Development Glossary
Telnet
A network protocol useful in interactive, text-oriented communications.

Web Design & Development Glossary
W3C
World Wide Web Consortium. The organization that sets international standards for the World Wide Web.