The Top 5 Free Search Engine Optimization Tools
Read more about: Featured, Search Engine Marketing, Website Tools
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You can pay tens of thousands of dollars for great SEO help (and not-so-great SEO help!!). But if you’re willing to learn the ropes and do some research, you can get great search engine traffic on your own - for free or for very little $.
These are some of the SEO tools I use daily and some I dug up just for this post. Either way, your Google Juice drinks are on the house ’round here!
5 :: McDar’s Keyword Analysis Tool
This is a nifty little tool that let’s you know exactly where you rank for any term. It will also let you know the top ten results that your competitors might have. So for any search term, it will let you know if your site shows up at 10 or 1000 - and anywhere in between.
When I first started putting up web sites, I used to go through the thousands of results to see where I would find my site because I didn’t know these tools existed (embarrassing, I know!!) . By the way, you’ll have to click the Keyword AnalysisTool link in the sidebar because the site uses frames.
4 :: WebConfs’ Backlink Anchor Text Analysis
Most people know that the anchor text you use makes a big difference in how a page or site is ranked for certain terms. But until now, there was no single place to go to analyze the anchor text people have used to link to your site. This is a fascinating tool and I bet you get lost there for a long time… like I did!
3 :: SiteMap Generators for WordPress Blogs and Non-Blogs
Creating and submitting a sitemap to the search engines is one of the best ways to get your entire site indexed (the only way?). This is something I hadn’t done until recently because I 1 - didn’t understand how important it is and 2 - didn’t understand that it is the easiest thing on the planet to accomplish!
The WordPress plugin is a no-brainer - you turn it on, set it up in about 5 or less clicks, and you never have to think about it again. the non-blog version entails a few more steps, but is still easy. If you haven’t done this yet, take 20 minutes and just get it over with. The search engines will love you for it.
2 :: The SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool and Firefox Extension
If you want to know what keywords people use the most, then the Keyword Suggestion tool is for you. Before I start any new category on my site, pick a new domain name, or sometimes even write a headline, I will check this tool to find out what exact keyphrase or keywords will get the most search hits. This is because sometimes the words I use to describe something aren’t the same as the masses. There have been times when the difference between my original idea and the most popular phrase has been hundreds of thousands of searches - so it pays to know what people are searching on.
The SEO for Firefox Extension is a tool that pulls relevant marketing data for each search result right into your search window. It displays page rank, bookmarking links, .edu and .gov links, Alexa and Technorati rank, plus almost 20 more data points for each result - and it works in Google as well as Yahoo.
If you’re still on IE, it will probably make you switch to Firefox just to get the extension!
1 :: HitTail
I use HitTail all of the time to track both the terms people use to find my site and incoming referrals. Although you can do this in Google Analytics, I find their user interface to be a big pain in the behind to get to the info you want, plus there is a time delay.
With HitTail, the data is in real time. But even better, you can get an easy, clear view of your long-tail search hits on one screen. You can then flag phrases to follow up on, by including them into page titles, post content, and the like.
Although Shoestring Smarts is all about free, there are times when it is worth it to drop the few extra bucks to get the right tool or information for the job. These two recommendations really can’t be beat, and they really are affordable and will pay for themselves several times over:
Aaron Wall’s SEO Book has all of the information you need to put these tools into action - and then some. The SEO Book is both for entry level and experienced web masters, and it is the top selling SEO resource on the internet. It’s also endorsed by Seth Godin, The Wharton School of Business, and Darren Rowse himself (and eMom!!).
KeyCompete.com is a PPC user’s dream tool - and for those of you selling products or services, it is essential. For as little as $19 dollars, you can find out exactly what search terms your competitors are bidding on. You can then take this knowledge to launch your own PPC campaigns, or optimize for natural results so that you can get free traffic that your competition pays for. It’s a beautiful thing.
This is a very helpful free tools list. I wish I have tried some of them when I joined an SEO competition in the past. Thanks so much.
Great tools! I also adore the free keyword suggestion tool from Wordtracker.
Thanks for the link for that sitemap generator, never knew something like that existed. This will help me for my website.
Check out my blog post for the group blogger project on my blog, Good luck!
Nice list of tools to get people going. Tools are key in this industry and the ones you listed wil help give people a head start.
Man I still need to figure out how this SEO is working. I’ve never quite found out how to use all these tools.
If you ever get the time I’d love to read a basic guide to to SEO. Perhaps using a blog as an example. Show a blog before and after SEO. What it will do with the traffic and so forth. (I’d love to offer my blog as a test)
But a great list it made me a little bit wiser.
Dennis, here are a couple of posts that will help you further!
http://inspired.entrepreneur.com/2007/05/08/search-engine-optimization-how-important-is-it/
http://www.emomsathome.com/blog/2007/05/03/interview-with-search-engine-guides-jennifer-laycock/
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/04/12/is-your-blog-template-holding-you-back/
You’ll be up to speed in no time!
Dugg, good luck with the new blog
Gave it a Digg.
I would also suggest the Adwords keyword suggestion tool as being one of the best ways to enrich the related keywords of any content. Using the words Google think are related to each other makes a significant difference.
@ Glen - THANKS!
@ Andy - I haven’t used their tool in a while because I didn’t like the way it worked a long time ago - I believe they have made some improvements over the last few months, correct?
Great list Wendy! I was surprised when a saw a ‘top 5′ post (clearly written for problogger’s group writing project) making his way up to the digg frontpage, and when I saw it was yours I was sure it was a great article so I dugg it
Yeah, I figured I would leverage the traffic of Darren’s Group Writing Project as I launched this blog - in fact, he helped me out tremendously with the development of it. But now the post is (THANKFULLY) taking off on some other sites, so I’m praying it means this new blog gets a great first day in the public eye.
Thanks for the Digg and for dropping by! It’s always great to see you around!
Thank you very much for the links about SEO Wendy. It was actually after reading the interview with Jennifer Laycrock I realised how important SEO is.
I’m starting to get hooked on this. I’m considering buying the SEObook.
According to my stats I’m not generating any traffic from search engines.
Dennis - it’s an intimidating subject at first, but in practice, it isn’t nearly so difficult. And I’m glad you’ve found some value in the content here - building search engine traffic takes time, but in the end it’s very worth it, especially for bloggers. Without the search engines, the only people reading our stuff would be other bloggers!!
You might also like:
http://www.websitegrader.com
A tool to measure the marketing effectiveness of a website considering a bunch of different factors (SEO, traffic, site structure, etc.)
Free while it’s in beta.
Your last sentence reminds me of this:
http://www.emomsathome.com/blog/2007/03/07/are-you-a-member-of-the-blogging-in-crowd/
Better get that SEO done
Awesome. The first SEO site mentioned in the post uses… frames. Wow, is that 1990’s SEO ?
I know - isn’t that hysterical?! I thought about mentioning it in the post, but I didn’t want to discourage people from using the tool, which is indeed a good tool. But I was almost embarrassed - who uses frames anymore?
great resource. bookmarked and subscribed.
Just a brief update. I got my first search engine traffic today. According to my Wordpress stats someone googled “Dennis Petersen joost”, “joost invitations” and “fidg’t”.
I’m sending out invitations to Joost on my blog and it looks like that is generating some traffic.
That should come from SEO if I’m not mistaken.
These are great, helpful SEO tools I could use..very simplified and easy to understand. Thanks for a great post again, Wendy!
Fantastic compiled list! I just created a sitemap for my blog. Thanks so much for your tips!
Best regards,
Bionic Beauty
Great tools Wendy! Thanks for sharing them!
First of all, I love how I didn’t even know you had this site. Second of all, I just installed HitTail on Velveteen Mind and am about to explore the others. I have Google Analytics but have checked those stats maybe twice.
Just had to say thanks, Wendy.
Loved all the great information. Thank you so much for sharing!!!