SEO Tools
Get Smart. Have Fun. Dig Into the Web and See What You Find.
Do something good for your business. Do some keyword research. Find out what the competition is up to. See if your website really is all that and a bag of chips. The free tools below make it fun to be a geek.
Go on. Try it. You’ll like it.
Keyword Research Tools
Search engine optimization without keyword research is like coffee without the caffeine. Looks like coffee. Tastes like coffee. Sure doesn’t ACT like coffee. Keywords, when strategically integrated into your web pages, help to drive targeted traffic straight to what they are looking to buy, know, inquire about, read, sign up for, or whatever is you want your target market to do.
The first thing a SEO consultant should do before starting a campaign is ask you for a keyword "seed list." A seed list is a list of 30-50+ keyword phrases that both describe your offerings AND match that which your target market would likely type into a Google search. Two important things to note when doing keyword research:
- One-word keywords are usually a bust. Too generic. Too competitive. Think phrases .
- Get inside the minds of your target market. What vocab might they use to describe your offerings?
Two very helpful keyword research tools are Wordtracker’s Free Keyword Suggestion Tool and Google AdWords Keyword Tool . Both do a nice job of showing you possible key phrases you may not have thought of prior. They also indicate relative search volumes. Just remember not to get too literal with these tools. The number of searches indicated by Wordtracker is an approximation only, and Google doesn’t even provide numbers. Instead, Google uses histogram-type bars to illustrate relative search volumes.
If you’re here for a good time, not a long time, just type any old keyword phrase into the box below. Follow the simple instructions and see what you get. But we’re warning you: this keyword stuff can be a little addictive.
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Link Popularity Check
Links matter. You could have the most spectacular website on the planet and it won’t matter hardly a bit if no one is linking back to you. A link from another website to your website is a "Yes" vote for your web page. But for a web page to really benefit from an incoming link, the web page the "back link" is found on should (generally) be:
- Of a related subject matter.
- Of decent quality (no spammy or otherwise unmentionable content).
Think democracy but with an elitist twist–you want the cool kids to notice you. Not nerds who smell funny. To get the popular kids to notice you, focus on creating good content for your website. This makes linking to you much more appealing. Sometimes you’ll have to ask for a link, but often, if your content is hot (interesting, relevant, current, etc.), other webmasters will link to your page without so much as a "please." Why? Because they believe what you have to say is also of interest to THEIR audience.
On the world wide web, what goes around comes around.
Remember though, you don’t just want back links to your main domain (www.mysite.com). You also want links from quality websites coming into other important pages of your site. Search engines rank pages, not sites, and every page is an opportunity for a potential buyer to come knocking!
If you want to be all competitive about it (and you probably should), head over to MarketLeap’s Link Popularity Checker . This tool allows you to compare the number of backlinks to your site URL with up to 3 other URLs. It spits out a very nice little "link pop" report that you can then use to research potential linking opportunities for your own site (sneaky, huh?).
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