Using Your Visitor Logs - Visitor Logs are Keyword Mines
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When a Internet search engine user enters keyword phrases into the search box, you want them to find your website high on the search results. It logically follows that the more keyword rich content is found on your site, the more searchers will find you. Occasionally, they find your site through very unusual searches.
Your visitor traffic logs will normally contain a list of the keywords and keyword phrases that led an Internet searcher to your website. Some of those phrases ranked highly enough on a search engine result to cause the user to click on the link to your site. As you check through your visitor logs, you will see several patterns in them.
Regular Keyword Searches
First of all, you will see the regular keyword searches that you expect to find. They will be your main important keyword phrases. As expected, your visitors found you through them. If a phrase is heavily targeted, and many users discover your site by searching that phrase, you will know that to be an important keyword phrase for Internet searchers. Be certain to use those key phrases early and often as you build new content pages, or freshen up the content on existing ones.
Secondly, there are your secondary keyword phrases and combinations. Not being your main focus, these keyword phrases are often overlooked in favor of the more heavily targeted search terms. As secondary terms, they may even be sources of better quality Internet traffic, as they are the result of more specialized and deeper searches. As you analyze these terms, be sure to include them prominently in newly added content pages. The pages where they brought traffic to your site can be revamped as well, giving the keywords more strategic placement and usage.
The third set of keywords, found in your visitor logs, are the very unusual and occasionally downright hilarious ones. Before you spend your entire day laughing at them, study them carefully. Look for recurring words and phrases within the unorthodox searches, keeping in mind that the search engines equate those terms with your site.
Should any of the search terms prove useful, and on topic in any way for your website, their inclusion in added content pages might bring some unexpected bonus visitor traffic. Keep in mind that many of these unique discoveries may be exactly that. They may be one time events, and never repeated. They may have little long term value for your site. Before dismissing them all, however, make certain that you are not tossing away some real Internet gold.