This session will focus on free and low-cost tools that can help beginners get started with their search and online marketing campaigns. The speakers will all reveal their favorite "tools on a budget." This session is geared for beginners to help them to understand the areas they need to tackle first and which tools are available to help them increase rankings and drive sales, so they can afford to move to higher-level tools that require subscriptions or hefty investments.
Moderator:
Jennifer Laycock, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Guide
Speakers:
Matt McGee, Director of Strategic Search, KeyRelevance
Scott Allen, CEO, Hybrid6 Studios
Joe Abraham, VP of Marketing, SageRock
Matt McGee
Don’t let the tools make the decisions for you, but use the tools to get information so you can make the decisions.
SEO Tools: Firefox and Friends
SEO for Firefox http://tools.seobook.com for Google and Yahoo, it gives you lots of information under each listing in the SERP. Gives you page rank, age of domain, inlinks, where it has listings, etc.
Search Status http://www.quirk.zib/searchstatus/ Provides some of the same data as SEO for Firefox. Instead of providing it in the SERPs, provides as you’re looking at an individual page.
SEO Quake Lot of people use it, but Matt doesn’t like how it slows down the browser.
Keyword Research
Keyword Discovery. http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html. Shows search frequency of queries. URL is to free version.
SEO Book Tool http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/. Tons of information here.
Backlink tools
Site Explorer. https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ One of the best backlink tools if you don’t verify the site with the search engines, Google doesn’t give nearly comprehensive results for sites.
Link Diagnosis http://linkdiagnosis.com/ Gives backlinks, anchor text, if it’s nofollow, lots of other data, repackages from Yahoo.
Link Building Tools
Hub Finder http://www.linkhounds.com/hub-finder gives top ranking sites for the keyword, then gives sites that link to these sites.
Traffic Marks http://www.trafficmarks.com/.
PPC Tools
Local Keyword List http://5minutesite.com/local_keywords.php provide zip code, radius, and keywords. Looks up zip code database, concatenates list of keywords with city locations.
Domain Tools
Domain Tools http://www.domaintools.com/ Whois record, title, meta description, internal and outbound links, dmoz listing, etc. etc. etc.
Spider Tools
SEO Browser http://www.seo-browser.com/. Gives additional info about links, page load times, etc.
Scott Allen
Competitive Research
Compete.com
Free tools let you compare traffic with competitors and get limited keyword data
Premium tools provide detailed data on what keywords are driving traffic to specific competitors.
Even though best data isn’t free, good site to have on your radar.
Google Trends for websites
Similar to some of compete’s tools, but less in-depth
Shows info about other sites’ traffic
Regions visitors are from
Other sites visited
Keywords that other sites’ visitors have search for
Can be used to
Derive who competitors are
See some top keywords driving traffic to competitor sites
Drill down and analyzer further
Spyfu
Excellent PPC data for competitors
Find data by domain or keyword
Find out what competitors are spending on PPC and see ad data
Find out what keywords they rank for and are bidding on
Ability to drill down and download data for further analysis
SpyFu UKI recently launched
Google Insights for Search
Google provides data specifically for marketers based on what people are searching for
Decipher trends
Locate appropriate regional markets
Determine best messaging/phrases based on search data. Helps you determine what types of messages will be best received.
Find competitors in your market
Competitious
Store data about competition
Create matrix to compare competitor features / attributes
Pulls in RSS feeds
Pulls in search results
Clip and save anything that looks interesting from search or blog feeds
WordPress as an SEO tool
Note: refers to WordPress on your own domain, not the wordpress.com.
Popular blog platform
Well suited for SEO, even right out of the box. Modifications can help make it even better.
Many plugins available to expand functionality
Can be used by beginners/experts
Free: download at wordpress.org
Installs in minutes
WordPress SEO benefits
Helps user create basic optimized content even with little SEO knowledge
Once setup all you have to do is write (for best results 2-5 times a week)
Building links and awareness (ping)
Social Media Marketing plugins and friendly content
Recommended settings
Search engine friendly URL’s
Settings -> permalinks -> month and name (or something more friendly than numbers)
Indexable by search engines
Settings -> privacy -> blog visibility “I would like my blog to be visible
Communication with other blogs
Settings -> discussions (look for way to ping)
Plugins: Caveats. Some plugins may not work with different version of WordPress. For security/integrity only download from author’s site or wordpress.org.
Where to find wordpress plugins. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins. Type exact name into search box (of plugins listed in this presentation
All in One SEO Pack
On-page (Content) SEO benefits
Optimizes Title Tags (still important to write keyword rich yet natural headlines)
Prevents many duplicate content issues
Generated meta description tags automatically
Internal Linking Important to improve internal linking throughout blog.
WordPress related posts
Pagination Most blog platforms are weak in this area and requires a plugin to fix (both navigation and ranking issue). Adds page numbers.
WP-PageNavi
Social Media makes it easier for site visitors to submit your content to social media sites or vote for your content
Sociable
RSS Feed. Feeds are published but rarely optimized with out-of-the-box blog software
RSS footer: easily add copyright notice and other stuff.
Caching: Traffic spikes can cause server to buckle under the load (dig, etc.). Don’t want site down long time for both users and search engines
WP Super Cache
Joe Abraham
Google Keyword Suggestion
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Now gives you approximate search volume!
Search by specific term
Let Google Suggest terms by URL
Shows approximately how competitive the term is.
See what Google thinks our site is about, see what it thinks other (competitor) sites are about.
WordTracker
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
Up to 100 phrases
Each term with an approximate search count
Keyword Discovery
http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html
Up to 100 free terms with estimated search volumes
Microsoft adCenterLabs
http://adlab.msn.com/
Free Demographics Tools! Comes from when people are logged into Microsoft products.
Input a URL or a List of Phrases; Get Predicted Demographics Back!
Demographics Prediction Tool. Gives you an idea of who is visiting that website, gender, age range.
Keyword Forecast Tool
XML Sitemaps
SitemapDoc.com (up to 500 pages)
XML-Sitemaps.com
Google Webmaster Central
What’s an XML Sitemap?
An XML file that lists all of the pages on your site that you want indexed
Lists relative importance of pages
Allows engines an easy way to find pages
Does not guarantee inclusion. NOT an excuse to use bad code, just because a page is in the site map doesn’t mean it will be included in the index.
Google, Yahoo and MSN all support this protocol
Google Webmaster Central
Directly submit your XML sitemap to Google
Once verified, gain access to some Google Data on your site
Content Analysis
Top Search Queries
Web Crawl Statistics
Can be added to iGoogle
Has great way to check robots.txt file. You can put in a URL and see if it would be excluded.
Usability
Crazy Egg is a Heat Mapping Tools
Visual Stats program
Creates different visual overlays of site with statistics. Gives some different information than Google Analytics heatmap
Creates heat maps. Use of color indicates activity