Free SEO Tools
Success. No matter what type of industry we are in, we all thrive on it. We are desperate for recognition, revenue, and accomplishment. Therefore, it is not outlandish to think that webmasters only want the same thing. However, for them, success is measured quite differently. The one thing we all want is traffic. Free traffic that will not only help us become the largest site on the internet, but also allow us to pay our overflowing bills.
Although it is an uphill battle to generate more visitors, it is entirely possible. Luckily, there are dozens of quality sites which will help you optimize your website. No matter what your goal is – free search engine optimization tools are on the internet and ready to take the burden off of your shoulders. Below are wonderful websites that will help you change your website’s fate.
- LinkVendor.com: This website is great for any new webmaster. It is a site filled with FREE professional SEO tools. This means that you can visually check your page rank, as well as see how many outbound links your website has acquired. If you are still unhappy with these general tools, there are dozens of others. From keyword density tests to domain popularity, it is easy to start your success.
- Googlebanned.com: The first thing you will want to do is make sure your website is not banned by Google. Many times webmasters buy already established websites off of an auction site. There are hundreds of frauds on the internet, and many of these sites are already blacklisted. It is important to check before buying!
- Seomoz.org: This site will go beyond the surface and help you dig deeper. While many of these sites have similar tools, Seomoz takes it one step further. This service has a tool called “Sandbox Checker.” It is crucial to see if Google has “hidden” your website.
- Addme.com: No matter what type of success you have had, it is always important to add your website to search engines. Google, Yahoo, and Msn are not the only vital lungs of the search engine world. There are constantly new search directories popping up, therefore you need to add your site to everything! After all, quality links are a must.
- SEOpen.com: This website is unique because it provides a free SEO Firefox extension. With one click of your mouse, you will have everything at your fingertips.
Building Keywords
We all have a dream of conquering the internet world and somehow making a name for ourselves among the thousands of websites. In any case, it is a universal desire – an obsession to want to stand out and show the world how great our talents are. Unfortunately, in order to complete such a task, one has to go to great lengths to stand outside of the crowd.
Luckily, there are techniques to increase your visibility. For instance, building strong keyword lists will be a great way to not only generate more revenue, but to also get a better search engine rank. The first thing you need to do is tap into your creativity. It is imperative to think of your site’s topic and what main words stick out. This will help you get into the search engine mindset. What will visitors be typing into Google? For example, if you have a site dedicated to a television series such as Seinfeld, chances are people are going to search for a sundry of different terms. These keywords could include the character’s names, actors, and popular phrases from the show. Therefore, it is important to repeatedly mention these keywords in your content. Although this is extremely crucial to your website’s success, it is also essential not to overdo it. After all, the last thing you want to do is to alienate your visitors. Once you come up with a strong list of keywords, you should check how popular they actually are. Google Overture; a type of research tool used to help webmasters generate more revenue, provides a great service which allows you to see how often a particular term is searched for. It also gives you different alternatives, if you need more keyword ideas. It is a great instrument to use if you are unsure of all of the options that are out there. This way it’ll be easier to edit your list and generate a stronger list of keywords.Another great way to build a better keyword list is to look at your web stats. This can usually be found within your hosting control panel. Most hosting services generally use a program such as Awstats, which will allow you to analyze all of the information that has been acquired from your site. For example, Awstats will show you what people are searching for in order to find your site. This means that a list of top search terms will be provided and you can directly view how visitors come across your link. It is a great tool because this will help you learn what terms are the most popular. If you rank very high on the term “Seinfeld,” then you may want to continue using such a keyword.No matter what type of approach you decide to use, building a strong list of keywords is crucial to your website’s success. We all want our site to be ranked highly on Google and Yahoo. We also want to generate as much revenue as we can from the high paying keywords we have selected. However, it is vital to focus on the quality of a website. Without great content and a strong list of keywords (ones that aren’t overdone), it will take a long time to climb the ladder of success.
Search Engine Optimization
It was around the year 1997 that surfers on the net began hearing about SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, following the launch of the first search engines online. The idea behind Search Engine Optimization is to attain the highest possible ranking on search engines, and thus bring more traffic to your website. More traffic flow means more response and potential clients, and the results of using SEO as an advertising strategy can be quite lucrative. There are even SEO specialists whose role is to employ analytical methods in order to bring a higher quantity and quality of visitors to a website.
In the early years, webmasters were able to find ways to manipulate the simple indexing systems that the first search engines used in order to increase their rank – oftentimes by providing false information in order to lead more visitors to their sites.
This widespread abuse, known as “Black Hat” SEO practices, gave rise to the new search engine, represented by such well-known names as Google and Yahoo. These new search engines made use of more complex algorithms to generate organic search results. The new algorithms took into account a wider variety of factors, including domain name, HTML tags, term frequency, and keyword proximity, adjacency, and sequence.
Google in particular introduced a revolutionary concept to the Search Engine game: PageRank. Rather than rely on the often fallacious information provided by web content providers, Google’s algorithm used the page’s incoming links to determine its rank. The higher the PageRank, the more likely a random web surfer will arrive at a particular website.
This provided a new challenge to Black Hat practitioners, who responded by exchanging, buying, and selling the most valuable links. Black Hat Search Engine Optimizers are always trying to crack the ever-changing algorithms employed by the major search engines. It’s a risky game. A business caught using these illicit means to generate more traffic can be demoted in rank or even banned outright from a particular search engine.
“White Hat” is the name given to more honest SEO tactics. These entail creating real content for actual users, and optimizing that content in order to garner a higher ranking, while following all the guidelines set out by the search engine. These days, SEO is widely considered to be but one component of Internet marketing. Increasingly, search engines have begun to reach out to Search Engine Optimizers by providing guidelines on attaining an effective rank, even offering paid inclusion and advertising as one method by which to ensure that a particular webpage is included in a search engine’s listings. In the end, professional analysts agree: marketing tactics – guerilla and otherwise – aside, a high quality website is what leads to a higher quality – and quantity – of web traffic.
Google Adsense
AdSense is the name of an advertising service that is administered by Google, perhaps the most popular of search engines. It allows webmasters to enroll in the program in order to feature advertising on their websites, and thus generate a bit of extra income. All of the advertisements are administered by Google. Payments are made on the basis of either per click or per every thousand impressions. In the future, Google may also offer a cost per action service.
Geographical location, website content, and other related factors are used by Google to determine which ads to serve to particular sites. The sites wanting to be advertised are able to sign up through a Google program called AdWords. The advertisements on AdSense are smaller and therefore less obnoxious than banner ads, and so this method of advertisement has become quite popular. It is also considered useful because the advertisements are generally thematically related to the website they are place on.
Google AdSense employs JavaScript to place ads on to a specific website that has chosen to participate in the program. AdSense is widely used as a method for capitalizing on a site’s content. Webmasters use three methods to increase their AdSense revenue. The first is by utilizing traffic generating techniques, including advertising online. Then, they work hard towards improving the quality of content on their website. The higher quality the content, the more likely it is that it will attract valuable AdSense advertisements. These ads pay better when they are clicked on by visitors. Finally, they try to encourage people to click on the ads on their websites. While Google doesn’t allow phrases like “Click on my ads, please,” they will accept phrases such as “Sponsored Links” which might draw attention to the ads and encourage visitors to click on them.
Of course, some webmasters use unscrupulous means in order to exploit the AdSense system. One example of this is what has become known as a “splog” or a spam blog. These sites consist of high-paying keywords, and little else. Other “zombie” sites are manufactured to lure searchers on to their AdSense, enabling them to profit from the clicks. Even scarier, there have been reports of “Trojans,” which manufacture fake AdSense ads that appear like authentic ones. They download themselves through an unsuspecting computer and replace existing ads with their own fabrications. If you suspect this has happened to your site, report the issue to Google immediately.
What Is PageRanK (aka: PR)?
PageRank is the essential algorithm that makes serious search engines such as Google function. The PageRank system was actually invented by Google founders Larry Page (hence the name “PageRank”) and Sergey Bin at Stanford University in the mid-1990s. The idea behind it is to measure a web page’s value by the traffic it receives from other websites. So in other words, the more a site gets linked to, then the more “votes” it will get in the PageRank system. This means that those popular pages tend to show up first in Google’s search engine. As Google has grown, it continues to add different components to its system for garnering search results. Still, the PageRank equation seems to continue to form the basis of what Google does.
A more recent development in the PageRank story is “nofollow.” That’s the name given by Google to a new value that webmasters can implement if they want to create links outside of PageRank’s considerations. These links will not be counted in the “voting” system that constitutes PageRank. Google’s intention is to prevent “spamdexing,” a process by which webmasters take advantage of the PageRank system by artificially inflating their rating.
How does one go about determining their own site’s PageRank? The Google Toolbar, which is available as a free download, contains a feature that reveals, on a 0 to 10 scale, the importance of each visited page. It is not known how Google calculates this value. Some speculate that the PageRank is rehashed and republished every few months. If this is true, then the ToolBar PageRank may not be the most reliable source for an actual PageRank reading. The problem is further complicated by the fact that the ToolBar calculation can be manipulated. Savvy webmasters frequently employ a method called “spoofing” in order to give a higher or lower rank to their PR.
Another unsavory practice common in the SEO business is the buying and selling of links. The higher a site’s PR rating, the more valuable it is considered, and a lucrative links trading network has been established with the intention of increasing enterprising webmasters’ traffic. Google discourages this practice, even threatening to punish sites who are caught trading links illicitly.
And how do Google themselves fair in the PageRank game? Unsurprisingly, their site is generally given a 10 point rating. Although, oddly enough, the Google rating occasionally slips down to an 8. Could it be that Google is starting to lose some of its verve only a decade into the game that they themselves pioneered?