RaraAvis - 8:41 am on Jul 12, 2002 (gmt 0)

Howdy Frost,

We do exactly what was mentioned and it's really quite simple. Not only do I provide my client a monthly report showing his 'ranking' in major search enignes (Web Position Ranking or Top Dog), but we review Top 20 Search Keywords by Server and THEN...we track the referer in all email correspondence from the site.

There's not one single email address on the site(s). Instead we point everything to contact forms w/ basic information (name, city/state, email, comments, etc.). When the email is submitted, we have it send 2 emails: one to the client w/ all the info and another to me w/ basic info (city/state, comments, and REFERRER (with keywords).

Here's how it's important. A client does home remodeling in Atlanta, Ga. We kick butt (let's say) for "basement remodeling" in SE's. But we find out through tracking the referrer that actually 70% of his contacts searched for "atlanta remodeling" which doesn't come up our Top 10 keywords because the "broader" or "national" keywords get more "traffic" but less qualified leads.

This helps tremendously when it comes to paid sponserships, for example, in Yahoo!. Now I'm not paying for "home remodeling" (which would drive traffic) but "atlanta home remodeling" that generates real contacts.

Also, many of our clients have dedicated 800 or local numbers so we can track phone leads from the site. It's sooo cheap to get a dedicated toll free number that we encourage most of commercial clients to do so.

Hope this helps!