I don't like to consider myself a work-aholic, but I must admit that I do feel the need to check my Google Analytics quite frequently!  My better half and I have an unspoken rule that on weekends I shouldnt need to be on my laptop all day, and I do agree.  However, I can't seem to avoid quickly checking my emails or logging-on to Google Analytics to see how many visits I had the day before and where they came from...

I think it has started to become a bit of an obsession.  How sad does that sound?  But when you think about it, it is my livelyhood and I do spend a hell of a lot of time trying to better optimize my site and get more inbound links.

I am offen asked by my customers how much time you need to spend on SEO in order to achieve good rankings.  How long is a piece of string!  What you need to do really depends on your individual website.  The trouble I find with Search Engine Optimizing my website design site is that every bugger in the industry SHOULD be quite good at optimizing their site and links should be plentiful from client websites.  This means that trying to pull your way to top rankings on a keyword like 'website design' is near on impossible without large budgets and an extra 300 days in the year.

Some of my clients have been lucky enough to be targetting relatively untapped keywords (or at least keywords where the top listings are at the top more through luck than judgement!).  In fact, I recently managed to get my client straight to the top of the google listings just because their site was the best optimized.

So, I would definitely recommend looking for the less common relevant keywords when optimizing your website.  A very useful tool for this is www.goodkeywords.com.  This free software allows you to type in your most general keyword (e.g. website design') and it wil suggest other less common alternatives (e.g. shopping cart website design).  Now, you may get less people using this search term, but it does mean that when they do, they are more likely to find you that on page 245 of the ' website design ' keyword listings!

Right, must get on - have a great week. 

Anna