2
– Google Webmaster Tools
Want
to know how the largest search engine in the world sees
your website? Google's Webmaster Tools will give you loads
of information such as the pages that are indexed, errors
found by the Googlebot (dead links), your search engine
rankings for specific search phrases, your anchor text on
inbound links, internal and external link data, and
robots.txt and sitemap data.
By
knowing how Google sees your site you will find some basic
items that you'll need to change in order to reach your
maximum potential in search engine traffíc. You can sign
up for Google Webmaster Tools at:
https://www.google.com/webmaste
rs/tools/
3
– SEOmoz's Page Strength Tool
SEOmoz
is one of the leading search engine optimization (SEO)
firms and their website provides a wealth of information
through their blog, articles and tools. Their Page
Strength Tool shows you the "relative importance
and visibility" and the "potential
strength and ability of a page to rank in the search
engines." SEOmoz provides a quick way to get a
basic look at the strength of your page. The Page Strength
Tool can be used at:
http://www.seomoz.org/page
-strength
4
– Sitening.com's
SEO Analyzer
Sitening
is another leading SEO firm with several valuable tools on
their website. The SEO Analyzer differs from SEOmoz's Page
Strength Tool in that it checks the internal structure of
your site to determine how well it is constructed (in
terms of search engine optimization). The structure of a
website is the framework for a good SEO campaign, and Sitening.com's
SEO Analyzer will help you to build the right framework. Sitening.com's
SEO Analyzer can be found at:
http://www.sitening.com/seo
-tools/seo-analyzer/
5
– Mike's Marketing Tools
MikesMarketingTools.com
has two tools that every webmaster should use regularly.
The Search Engine Rankings Tool will show you where your
site ranks in several of the top search engines for a
specific word or phrase. You can save time by using this
tool instead of visiting each search engine and clicking
through the search engine results pages to find your
website.
The
Link Popularity Tool will quickly show you how many
inbound links each search engine recognizes for your site.
Inbound links are a major factor in search engine rankings
and each search engine recognizes a different number of
links. From this tool you can also clíck through to see
the specific pages that are linking to you. To use these
tools visit:
http://www.mikes-marketing
-tools.com/free-marketing
-tools.html
6
– Summit Media's Spider Simulator
The
spider simulator shows you "how a search engine
reacts to your pages and what can be done to boost your
usability." Search engine spiders see web pages
much differently than human visitors do. A page may look
attractive and well-designed to a human visitor, but a
search engine spider may not be able to find what it is
looking for. This page is a great tool to assure you that
your site is built for maximum search engine results. The
spider simulator can be used at:
http://tools.summitmedia.co.uk
/spider/
7
– SelfSEO Page Speed Checker
Your
average website visitor will have a very short attention
span. To have the best chance of making a positive first
impression on new visitors your page must load quickly
enough that they do not leave right away. SelfSEO has a
Page Speed Tool that shows you how long your page takes to
load. The tool allows you to enter multiple pages to chëck
at one time. It is a good idea to compare the load time of
your page against pages from several other websites. Try
entering your homepage and the homepage of several of your
competitors. If your page loads considerably slower than
the others, try to make the file smaller by reducing the
number and size of images or by cleaning up the coding.
The Page Speed Tool can be used at:
http://www.selfseo.com/website
_speed_test.php
8
– Dead Links Checker
Having
dead links on your website can frustrate visitors and
damage your search engine rankings. However, checking all
the links on your site manually is not realistic.
Fortunately there are a number of tools online that will
automate the process. The W3 Link Checker will crawl
through your pages and report which links are broken. To
use this tool visit:
http://validator.w3.org
/checklink
9
– GoogleRankings.com
GoogleRankings.com
will show you which words and phrases appear most
frequently on your website throughout the text of the
page, title, headings and meta tags. This is a useful tool
to be certain that your pages are optimized for the words
and phrases that you are targeting.
10
– FeedBurner
If
you publish a blog, FeedBurner's service is a must have.
Feedburner will provide you with statistics regarding your
blog's feed and you can give your readers the option to
subscribe by email instead of RSS. There are a number of
other features that you can read about at FeedBurner.
With FeedBurner you can always see how many subscribers
you have and how many of them are clicking through from
your feed to your site.
About
The Author
Steven Snell is a web designer for Vandelay Website
Design. Steven regularly writes new articles on the topics
of design, blogging, marketing and eearch engine
optimization. His articles can be read on the blog at http://www.vandelaydesign.c
