Tracking Your Progress

We mentioned before that the best way to find out how each search engine works is to look at the results of searches conducted on each engine. Compare the results and apply your findings to your pages.

The problem here is that it can get quite difficult to manage what changes you've made and what effects the changes have had on each of your pages.

One way to track this is to set up a spread sheet with each of your pages and keep notes on what changes you've made, what engines you've submitted them to, and what effects you've noticed with each change.

Sound like a pain? Well, it is. First of all you'd have to go to each engine, conduct a search, and go through all of the results to find out where your page stands. Then you would have to make adjustments on your spread sheet and then change your game plan.

Imagine doing this for each of your pages and for all of the major search engines? You would spend all day trying to keep up.

Well, don't worry. There's a program called WebPosition that will do all of this work for you.

Not only will this program find the exact position of each of your pages in each of the major engines, but it will give you advice on how to improve your positioning as well. Then it will generate reports and let you compare your position with that of the last report. It even gives a warning if your position drops!

What really sets this program apart is the "Mission Creation" feature. It asks you to specify what your specific goals are and helps you achieve them.

For instance, let's say you want to rank in the top ten of Excite search results when someone searches for the phrase "mutual funds". This program will take you step by step through the process making this a reality.

This helps you get not only hits, but relevant hits.