Ah, the thrilling world of SEO. You tinker, you optimize, you publish that epic blog post, and...crickets. But wait! Don't abandon ship just yet. The key to unlocking the secrets of your website's ranking lies in becoming an SEO detective, meticulously tracking the twists and turns of your optimization efforts.

Here's your magnifying glass and trench coat, because we're about to delve into the world of SEO change tracking on your WordPress site.

Plugin Power:

Forget chasing shadows. Tools like All in One SEO (AIOSEO) are your secret agents, whispering the history of every SEO tweak you've made. Their "SEO Revisions" feature is like a time machine, letting you compare changes and see how they impacted your SEO score and potential ranking. MonsterInsights is another hero in disguise, offering intel on keyword rankings, organic traffic, and backlinks – a treasure trove of insights right within your WordPress dashboard.

Keyword Kryptonite:

Ever wondered what keywords your site ranks for, and how those rankings fluctuate? Google Search Console and SEMrush are your truth serums. They reveal which keywords are your golden tickets to higher rankings, and which ones need a little SEO CPR. Use this intel to refine your content strategy and become the keyword king (or queen) of your niche.

Backlink Bonanza:

Backlinks are the golden threads that weave the web of authority. The more high-quality links you have, the more Google throws open the search result doors for you.

Organic Traffic Odyssey:

Organic traffic is the lifeblood of any website. **Google Analytics** shows you how your SEO efforts translate into actual visitors. It's like having a front-row seat to the SEO roller coaster!

You probably know that SEO (short from search engine optimization) is actually the process of improving the visibility of a web page. You can do that using White Hat SEO techniques but this will take you a lot of time and all these methods won’t be enough to improve the visibility of your web page. But here comes the term Black Hat or in short SEO methods that are used for manipulating the search engines’ index. These techniques are cheaper and work faster than the ones known as White Hat. As you may suppose  Black Hat tactics are forbidden and often penalized because they do not follow the rules of the search engines. Cookie stuffing, page hijacking, keyword stuffing, link farms are the names of only a few of many others Black Hat techniques that are used nowadays. Imagine that you can make ten different articles with unique content from a single one. It sounds like a miracle, but this term is actually known as article spinning and of course belongs to one of the Black Hat techniques. Even though all these methods are often penalized by the search engines who can blame you for using them when this kind of SEO practices will save you not only time but also money and efforts.

Image by FindYourSearch via Flickr

I was working hard to increase the position of my website in the search engines using all the best SEO techniques that I was aware of. Admittedly I knew very little about optimization and relied upon what I had researched on the Internet.  As a small business I thought that I could manage my online marketing well enough to get ahead of the local competition.

I tried various activities such as creating articles and submitting them to various article directories, writing guest blogs to be placed on various sites, adding links to my social media accounts and adding a blog to my site. As you can imagine this took a lot of time to manage and I was able to grow a little, but it was not delivering the high impact I was after; which is why more businesses like mine are turning to SEO providers.