Compelling reasons to keep a changelog
Efficient SEO is all about experimentation. Knowing that your campaign is working is great, but it’s a long way from the full picture.
A friendly, helpful log
No two websites are the same and operate in exactly the same enviroment, so it’s only natural that their rankings and traffic patterns will respond in different ways. The trick is to know what works for your site, and how to get the maximum SEO value out of the minimum amount of effort.
The first step towards finding out what works and what doesn’t is to keep a log of changes. Adding some new text content to a particular section? Note it down. Rearranging some categories? Note that too. Even if all you do is update some graphics or add a few new products, make sure the change log gets updated.
When experimenting, keep in mind that the full effect of your changes can take a while to filter through. The user experience might change immediately but unless Google and the other search engines scrape your site quite frequently, rankings probably won’t leap up or down overnight. As a rule of thumb, the less frequently you make changes, the longer it will be before Google notices new alterations.
Matching up a few months of changelog with a few months of monitoring or analytics data is often extremely informative. Of course there will be external influences affecting traffic levels and behaviour, but the timelines almost always have a few interesting tidbits to share.