posted by Search
You need the right tools to build a strong, reliable house. This principle also applies to building a well-optimized website.
In search engine optimization (SEO), we use a multitude of tools to provide us with an array of information about any site. This information is crucial to all SEO activity because you will know what the competition is doing, understand what should be done based on best practices and have a clear guide of the next steps.
The tools SEO professionals use can be costly to use effectively. However, unless you’re starting an SEO practice or getting serious about your company’s SEO efforts, you can use these free tools to get started.
Google Analytics
You can’t make sound decisions without valuable information, especially in SEO. In order to improve your site, you need to understand how your site is being used.
Google Analytics allows you to see how visitors find and use your site. Being able to easily set and monitor site goals is a tremendous benefit of this tool with its easy-to-use interface.
Features:
• Mobile and social network tracking
• Benchmarking against competitors
• The ability to integrate with AdWords
Google Webmaster Tools
Google continues to help you do more with your website with Google Webmaster. With everything Google Webmaster Tools offer, it should be the immediate go-to for every SEO professional or enthusiast. (Microsoft and Yahoo! have similar offerings, but we recommend Google.)
Features:
• Helps you notify Google of any site changes
• Keeps you informed of incoming links and most active search traffic
• Alerts you of problems or errors with your site
XML Sitemap Generator
Provided your site is less than 500 pages, XML Sitemap Generator is an easy and useful tool. In order to get your site indexed, Google, Bing and Yahoo! all have to know your pages exist. The easiest and most effective way to do this is through an XML sitemap, and this site takes care of all of the grunt work.
Steps:
1. Enter your website URL and the generator will determine the sitemap’s parameters
2. Upload the sitemap to your server
3. Let the search engines know it’s available
Shareaholic
Social media sites are important to SEO because interacting with your users is a crucial factor to the success of your site. Shareaholic is a toolbar that puts a customizable set of social bookmarks at your fingertips for easy promotion.
Features:
• Streamlines your bookmarking and sharing capabilities
• Enables you to share videos, links, articles and more on any service
Being able to quickly post, tag and promote something can not only be a time saver, but a site saver as well. Read about the other benefits of social bookmarking to your site.
Google AdWords Keyword Tool
This tool is geared for pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, but provides value to SEO. PPC campaigns require us to find high traffic, low advertising keywords and create ads around them. In SEO, we want to isolate the keywords that don’t have stiff competition but have a high-traffic volume and optimize for them.
Features:
• Provides new or different keywords
• Gives monthly trends for the past year
• Offers a count of global average search volumes
• Gives a monthly average for local search volumes
SEO Browser
Remember that a search engine will see your site differently than a user. Ensure that your site is well optimized and easily navigable by visiting SEO Browser to stroll through your website as a search engine would.
SEO Browser strips your site of images, flash and any shiny objects a search engine won’t take into account. If you can’t navigate deep into your site, then a search engine won’t be able to. If you don’t see a section of text, then a search engine won’t see it either.
SEOpen
SEOpen is a handy plugin for Firefox. After installing, you are given an enormous amount of resources including:
• Yahoo Backlinks
• Yahoo Domain-wide Backlinks
• Pages in Yahoo Index
• And more
These are just some of the many tools at the disposal of an SEO professional. With them you should be able to get a firm grasp on where you stand and begin to understand the necessary steps to truly optimize your site for better search engine results.
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