Search Engine Optimization can be a long, complicated and arduous process. Think "solving our energy crisis" complicated. That's ultimately why a lot of companies end up outsourcing the work. For those that choose to do it themselves though, there are some nifty (did I just use that word?!) tools out there can simplify your life and enhance your program. Below are just a few of them along with a brief description of each.
Keyword Data Tools
The FREE resources below will help you vet existing keywords/phrases and come up with additional words. The perfect words to optimize for are ones that strike a balance of popularity, high relevance and low competition. Google's Tool especially can help you measure popularity and competition. It also allows you to enter multiple words at once. You should utilize these tools during the discovery phase of your SEO project to help you determine a list of keywords to optimize your site for.
http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com
You can also perform the following search on Google to find out just how popular a specific word or phrase is AND if your competitors are also optimizing their sites (Title META tags in particular) for said terms. The results will be all of the web sites whose title tag contains that particular term.
allintitle: "keyword"
Any SEO expert will tell you that the number and quality of inbound links (other sites linking to yours) is crucial to any SEO program's success, especially when it comes to Google (affectionately referred to as the "Second coming"). How many inbound links do you have? Perform the following search on Google and MSN to determine just how many.
link:http://www.yourdomain.com/yourpage.html
Indexed?
In order for your pages to be found, they have to first be indexed by the search engines. Perform the following search on Google to determine if all of your pages are being indexed (especially those all-important landing pages).
site:yourdomain.com
For Yahoo, simply visit Site Explorer at the URL below and type your domain into the search box.
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
"At least they are talking about you!"
To find out who's talking about you via social media sites, visit:
www.socialmeter.com
I'd also encourage people to sign up for Google Alerts. It will notify you of any mentions it finds for the term specified (company's name would be a good one to start with).
These are just a few of the many tools available. For some more and for some useful advice, feel free to send me a note at jfanning@flightpath.com.
Happy Optimizing!
