Last Update: April 9, 2015
Search engine optimization in its purest form is very simple – increase your company’s website visibility and overall monthly visitors by top-ranking them for various relevant keywords and phrases. If only it was that cut and dry for small businesses, huh?
Unfortunately, many small businesses are unaware of the proper tools needed to be successful in the extremely competitive search engine optimization (SEO) landscape. If you are looking to increase your online visibility, here are a few tools to get started:
SEOBook’s SEO Toolbar
This comprehensive and extremely useful tool can be used to reverse engineer for SEO. The Toolbar essentially gives you a birds-eye view of the ranking factors for any website you view using Mozilla Firefox.
SEMRush
SEMRush is a keyword research tool that allows you to optimize your site by analyzing competitive keyword rankings both organically and via Google AdWords.
Yahoo Site Explorer
Surprised to see this particular tool here? Well, don’t be. The Yahoo Site Explorer can be useful for finding the most accurate data for links pointing to a website. A large portion of SEO is about off-page factors, so in-bound links are very important.
Google Analytics
Web traffic reports show where your site traffic is coming from so that you can see which pages bring in the most traffic. This allows you to decide what needs to be tweaked and improved. It’s one of the many helpful features Google Analytics provides. You can also use Analytics to track email or keyword campaigns you are using to promote your site, and how they are impacting site traffic. Additionally, social metrics are becoming more integrated so you can track your Facebook likes, Tweets, and how many people Google +1 your site.
Google Webmaster Tools
Google’s Webmaster Tools are extremely important for SEO. First of all, it’s a free way to diagnose any problems your site might be having and analyze the links coming into your site.
Google Keyword Tool
The Google Keyword tool allows you to search for the exact terms people search for in your niche. For instance, if you are a personal injury attorney, you can type this into the keyword tool, click the “Exact Match” box, and immediately see what terms having to do with “personal injury attorney” are being searched by Google users.
Jason Hennessey, Internet marketing guru and SEO expert, is the CEO of Everspark Interactive, an industry leading full-service SEO agency that specializes in getting their client’s websites to rank in the top positions on Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Currently, Everspark Interactive has roughly 25 clients and $2 million in revenue. Connect with Everspark Interactive via Twitter.
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