Free Search Engine Optimization Tools
Use these free SEO tools and resources to jump-start your SEO campaign!
Search Engine Concepts
Search Engine Marketing includes efforts to promote your web site in search engines through paid and non-paid means. This can include search engine submission, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, paid search engine directory inclusion, managing shopping site listings, and more.
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Search Engine Relationships
Many of the major search engines provide both paid and organic listings to other sites. For example, AOL, Netscape and Lycos all currently display organic results based on Google’s ranking algorithm. Search engine relationships change periodically. There are several graphical representations of Search Engine Relationships on the web. Keep in mind that some of these sources may not have the most up-to-date information. Try Bruce Clay or Search-This -
Search Engine Submission
Google: http://www.google.com/addurl
Yahoo!: http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html
MSN: http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx
Creating Search-Friendly Design
Sometimes a seemingly well-optimized page simply doesn’t rank well despite your best efforts. Worse, the page may not appear in the search engines at all. In these cases it is important to examine factors that may be preventing your page from being indexed, or that may be causing your page to be penalized.
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Write Clean Code
As a general rule, your source code should be clean and concise, and your site should be free of broken links or missing images. Most popular web authoring programs (for example, DreamWeaver and FrontPage) can validate your HTML and XML and check your links. Code Validator and Link Validator -
See Your Site as a Search Engine Sees It
Crawler-based search engines rank pages based on the result of their algorithm – there is no human intervention. For that reason, spiders only index content that they can “see.” This includes your HTML source code, and excludes any graphics, Flash, or animation. Try a spider simulator to see what your site looks like to the search engines: Search Engine Spider Simulator -
Avoid Spamming the Search Engines
This includes keyword stuffing, hidden text, sneaky redirects, or anything else designed to trick the search engines. You really can get banned. -
Create and Submit XML Sitemaps
At Google Webmaster Central, you can submit all of your pages to Google, notify Google when pages have been updated, and run reports about the visibility of your pages on Google. Yahoo! also offers Yahoo! Site Explorer. To create your XML site map, try this free XML Sitemap Generator or the reasonably priced Coffeecup Google Sitemapper.
Measuring Your Results
As you develop your SEO and PPC campaigns, you’ll always want to keep in mind the goal of your web site. Yes, you want to drive traffic to your site. But to what end? Your bottom-line focus should always be on conversions. High traffic is good, but only if it meets the goal of driving conversions.
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Web Site Statistics
If you have access to web site statistics, be sure to record this historical data before beginning you SEO campaign. As with online sales, web site traffic changes should be compared to similar time frames, taking into account any statistical anomalies. For a robust, free statistics program, consider Google Analytics. -
Web Site Rankings
One of the most important measurements you will want to record before implementing SEO changes is your baseline search engine rankings for your target keywords. A software program such as WebPosition can automate this task.
Targeting the Right Keywords
All of your SEO and PPC efforts will be in vain if you don’t target the right keywords. Your goal should be to increase conversions by driving qualified traffic to your site by using the right keywords. The following online tools will help you find search queries that people are actually using.
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Google AdWords Keyword Tool
This free service from Google provides you with a list of terms to potentially target. Enter a word or phrase and the tool returns a list of searched-for phrases containing those words, listed in descending order. Be sure to enter common misspellings in your query. -
Yahoo! Keyword Selector Tool
This free service from Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) shows queries from Yahoo!’s ad network. Simply enter a word or phrase and the tool will return up to 100 of the most popular queries over the past month. It also provides a “count” specifying how many times that term was searched on last month. It combines singular and plural forms, lumps in misspellings with correct spellings, and doesn’t always return phrases in the exact order used by most searchers. Still, it is a good, free tool for brainstorming. -
Wordtracker
Unlike the previous two tools, Wordtracker is a fee-based service. Wordtracker utilizes a database of queries compiled over the previous eight weeks from MetaCrawler.com and Dogpile.com. Much more robust than the free tools, Wordtracker can use lateral and thesaurus searching to scour the net for related terms. Wordtracker provides many interesting statistics. Also try their Free Keyword Tool and be sure to read their FREE Keyword Research Guide -
Keyword Discovery
There are emerging keyword research tools, most notably Keyword Discovery. However, Wordtracker is still considered the tool of choice for SEO professionals. Master Wordtracker first, and then give Keyword Discovery a try. -
Nichebot
Nichebot is a free tool that returns top results from Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery, and Yahoo!. Plus, it has other useful tools. If your SEO budget is tight, this is a good free alternative.
Optimizing Your Content
Search engine algorithms evaluate “page factors” such as titles, body text, and image alt tags along with “off the page factors” such as quality and quantity of incoming links when determining your ranking.
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Make the Meta Title Tag your top priority
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The Meta Description Tag is still useful
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Forget the Meta Keywords Tag
Building Link Popularity
An inbound link to your web site is like a vote for the quality of your site. In the past, sheer numbers of votes would play a factor in how high the search engines ranked your page. But today search engines take into account who is casting the vote.
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Competitive Link Intelligence
The best place to find relevant links is from the search engines themselves. Perform a search for your primary keywords, look at the top links, and contact any non-competitive sites to see if they will link to yours. Make it easy for them by including the HTML coding in your email request. Try this Link Popularity Check -
Directory Submissions
A great source of incoming links comes from submitting your site to reputable Search Engine Directories such as Yahoo! or Open Directory (DMOZ). -
Local Search
Make sure your business is correctly listed in Google Local and Yahoo! Local. -
Web 2.0 Sites and Social Media Marketing
Popular sites to explore include YouTube (videos - owned by Google), Flickr (photos - owned by Yahoo!) Craigslist, MySpace, Facebook, Technorati, Del.icio.us (owned by Yahoo!), and other top Web 2.0 sites.
Starting a PPC Campaign
Pay-per-click ads only incur charges when a prospect clicks the ad (a click-through). You are not charged for impressions.
Resources
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Top SEO Ranking Factors
Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz.org surveyed top SEO experts to gain insight into the search engine rankings. The experts examined over 100 possible ranking factors and posted their agreements and disagreements on the most important ranking factors -
SEO Blogs
A one-page listing of top articles from respected SEO Professionals