Accurate web analytics data is the cornerstone of any successful search engine optimisation (SEO) programme, it has been claimed.

Writing on Search Engine Land, president and founder of Smart Search Marketing Patricia Hursh said: "The information derived from your analytics tool is instrumental in determining the success of your optimisation programme - and this data can also reveal critical areas for future improvement."

She suggested that businesses use analytics tools to establish which sites or engines are referring users to their websites and which keywords work to achieve traffic from an organic search.

It is best for a business's web page optimisation, according to Ms Hursh, to include between one and five keywords which are sure to establish high SEO ranking and visibility.

She advised people hoping to achieve SEO success to integrate analytics data with keyword ranking in order to be able to track a site's improvements over time.

According to Microsoft, however, people controlling the marketing and customer service side of a business often do not have enough of an understanding of web strategy to prove the value of analytics.

Writing on the company's official adCenter blog, founding president and chairman of the Web Analytics Association Jim Sterne said some businesses complain that they have the data and reports but not an educated team. 

Living Streams Comment:  We believe that SEO/SMO, internet advertising, analytics and website split / multivariate testing are a quartet of techniques that deliver far more when used in combination than separately.  Apart from large corporations, it makes far more sense - and is more economic - for most companies to take advantage of this synergy in strategic partnership with an internet consultancy rather than try to do everything themselves.