With the information provided in the server log at hand, an SEO can focus optimization efforts. An optimizer can devote time to the pages that receive the most traffic, to the sites referring the most visitors and to the common conversion paths on the site.

Identify traffic patterns: From a server log, an SEO can discover the pages that get the most and the least traffic, the sites that are referring visitors, the pages that visitors are viewing most often, the most popular browsers and operating systems among visitors, and when search engine spiders visit the site. Along with human visitors, spider visits can be identified through the IP address field of the log recording. Take advantage of this information by focusing efforts and capitalizing upon opportunities.

Analyze each piece of data reported in a server log, paying special attention to the potential for optimization. For instance, identify what time of day the majority of visitors are coming to your site. If you find that the bulk of visits occur at one point in the day, keep on eye on that time of day to make sure that all requests to the server are being satisfied. Analysis of the time data may lead to the discovery that the server is being overloaded with requests at some point in the day. With this knowledge, an SEO or webmaster can optimize server capacity by balancing the load.

Establish connections: Another opportunity presented by the data provided in server logs is the potential to build relationships on the Web. If a webmaster recognizes that a single site continually appears in the referring sites portion of server log data, he or she may want to contact that site and begin building a relationship. The data seems to point to the fact that the referring site’s visitors are finding value in the content available on your site.

One possible way to grow this relationship is to volunteer to write articles for that site, including a link back to your site. A relationship of mutual respect between the sites can join the two communities, driving additional traffic to your site and providing your site visitors with a worthwhile resource.

Control robot behavior: Along with optimizing the human visitor experience of your site, you’ll also want to optimize non-human interactions with your site. By tracking the spiders visiting your site you’ll be able to block spiders you don’t like and clear the way for spiders you like. Some bots, like those from the search engines, are welcomed guests to the site; however, some bots do more harm on your site than good, such as email harvesters and other content scrapers. Blocking bad bots via the .htaccess file will reserve your site’s bandwidth and resources for more desirable traffic.

Additionally, it may be beneficial to pay attention the browsers accessing your site. Log file analysis will indicate the popular browsers, as well as the upcoming popularity of new browsers as they are launched and adopted by user. When new, popular browsers are discovered, an SEO can devote time to making sure the site displays as desired within that browser.

Develop site content: Along with optimizing visitor experience, bot herding and relationship building, the site content itself can be optimized thanks to the data provided in server log files. The log file indicates what content from the site is being requested. Once the most popular content is identified, contextual text can be optimized and the popular content can be featured in prominent locations on the site and outside the site.

For example, an image may be a big draw on the site. Knowing this, an SEO can optimize the Meta data for that image, can create additional opportunities on the site to showcase that image, and can submit links to that image within online social communities that are interested in that image. Additional content along the same theme can be created to build upon the topic as well.

All the above actions may never be taken if the webmaster does not monitor server logs for potential issues and areas of improvement. Server logs are a reliable record of the actions taken on the site and the content viewed by visitors. The data held within server logs points to areas that need optimization as well as sections of the site that are performing well. And with this information an SEO can focus time and energy to making beneficial improvements to the site.

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