Since the launch we’ve been signing up accounts left and right.  A lot of people have been asking … “Ok, so now I have this ranking info, now what?”

I’ve explained the way AuthorityLabs can provide serious value when used in combination with a good analytics system and keyword research tool a few times, so I thought it would make a good blog post.

First, if you have a website already and you don’t have analytics installed DO IT, right now! Google Analytics is easy to install, easy to use and best of all it’s free. Analytics information is invaluable these days. If you have a contact info form, or you’re actually selling something set up goals so you know what your conversion rate is. Use the Google Analytics Help Center to learn how to set up goals. Once you do this, wait a month so you have some decent data and then find out how much traffic you’re getting from search and which keywords people are using to get there.

Search referrals are telling you how people are finding your site through search. This is basically telling you what Google thinks your site is about. You’ll have some shorter phrases that are probably sending you some traffic, some branded keywords (keywords surrounding your brand name), and a lot of long-tail keywords as well.  Your long-tail keywords are probably making up a good deal of traffic. Go through these keywords and find the ones that are generating the most traffic for you, then export these in a .csv file.

Once you know which keywords are sending you traffic, add those to your AuthorityLabs account. In a day you’ll know where you rank for all those. Here’s where you can find some serious opportunity. For a lot of your keywords you might be near the first spot on Google. For most though, you’re probably not. You’re probably ranking on the 3rd or 4th page for a lot of your keywords. If you’re getting 50 visits a month (for example) and you’re on the 4th page, imagine how much traffic you can get if you’re on the 1st? Finding the keywords that are generating traffic, but where you’re not ranking that well is the first step of the optimization process.

You don’t want to optimize for terms that you don’t have a chance of ranking for, and you don’t want to waste your time on keywords that won’t drive any traffic.

Now that you know what’s going to be worth your time to target get into your favorite keyword research tool. I like Keyword Discovery, but WordTracker is a great one as well. You want to find keywords that support your targeted keyterms.  Keyword research tools will try and give you an idea of search volume. They’ll also give you an indication of how difficult those keywords will be to rank for. Don’t be concerned with this as much. These are meant to be keywords which support your content and linking strategy going forward.

Now it’s time to get cranking. Content is perhaps the single most important element to your search strategy. The more content on your site, the more search engines have in their index, and the greater your chance of ranking for something. If this content is themed correctly, linking correctly and targeting keywords correctly you’ll do even better.

What do you think? What tools are you using? Have you found another way to leverage ranking or traffic information? Let me know.