Travelin’ Light: SEO Tools to Have in Your Back Pocket

As SEO consultants, we're asked a variety of questions. Many of them are strategic questions like: "How do you know if a page is optimized for the right terms?" or tactical questions like: "How do we structure our site to be more SEO-friendly?"

But just as often, the questions are fundamental ones: "How do I know if one keyword is searched on more than another?" or "How do you know what type of redirect is being used?"

And whether you're a seasoned SEO expert, or an in-house SEO manager new to your position, having a few SEO tools in your back pocket can help answer some of those fundamental questions.

A Little Background:

The impetus for this post came from a current client who is getting ready to "step into the spotlight" for SEO within her company. She's relatively new to SEO and is feeling the pressure of needing to be The Expert, so I was going to send her a few quick (and free) SEO tools for her to keep in her back pocket as she fully assumes this role.

Then I thought there might be others out there who'd be interested in this info.

And here we are.

So here’s a short collection of free SEO tools and tips I often reference to help answer some of those fundamental questions – or sometimes, just to make the job a little easier.

Enjoy.

Keyword Research Tools – Use 'Em Wherever You Go

In general, keyword research tools are best considered to be relative indicators of keyword search volume. Some tools use a form of "panel" research and extrapolate the data to make search volume projections, while others represent volumes that include "automated queries" and thus can skew the results (e.g. making the search volume for a term appear much higher than it is). As a result, any tool being used should be thought of as a general guide, rather than an indicator of absolute numbers.

Below are four free tools that I've found helpful when conducting keyword research for SEO – and the best part, beyond being free, is that you can access them wherever you've got an internet connection – which makes them useful for answering questions 'on the fly':

1 - Keyword Discovery (free version):

http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html

Note: There is also a subscription version of Keyword Discovery, which can be purchased for as little as one month at a time for about $50, along with the option of testing out their service via a free trial. The subscription version gives much more robust data but the free one is good for indications of relative search volume.

2 - Google Adwords: Keyword Tool

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Note: Google's free keyword research tool recently began including search volume numbers. However, some experts caution relying on those numbers because they can include searches that come through automated queries and from "parked domains". If using this tool, I’d recommend at least setting the Match Type to "Exact" when reviewing the search volume results.

3 - Google Trends

http://www.google.com/trends

This is a great tool for comparing the relative search volume between keywords. For example, if you're trying to decide between "training materials" and "training documentation", this can illustrate which term has higher relative search volume.

4 - WordTracker

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

Note: WordTracker also offers a free 7-day trial.

A note about tool comparisons:

Between WordTracker and Keyword Discovery, I'd recommend Keyword Discovery because its database and methodology are generally more robust. Also note that WordTracker reports volumes for one month, while Keyword Discovery reports volumes over 12 months, so the volumes can seem radically different when using both tools for the same keyword.

On-Page SEO: Where To Start?

Very often, we're asked to prioritize SEO recommendations for sites in order of importance – or, more bluntly, we're asked what recommendations will get the most bang for their buck.

And while SEO recommendations should be implemented as part of a complete website strategy for strategic online marketing goals, if there are only a few SEO changes you can make to a page's content and code, I'd recommend these, in priority order:

1. Title Tag
   Keep it around 65 characters to avoid truncation in search results
2. Meta Description Tag
   This should be around 150 characters to avoid truncation
3. Meta Keywords Tag
   Arguably, this tag carries very little weight in the SEO world, but we've seen it used heavily by the internal search engines of some sites, so don't discount it entirely
4. HTML body copy
   Very often, we see website pages that are simply a collection of links, which is a missed SEO opportunity to more effectively convey to the search engines what the page is about. Even if you can only add 250 characters of actual text on a page, it can help with SEO
5. Page Title
   The page title on many website pages is often represented as an H1 tag. If your page has a Page Title, but it isn't an H1 tag, make it so. If you don't have a Page Title, add one, and make sure it's an H1

Of course, there are many other areas of a page in which to incorporate targeted keywords, such as H2 and H3 tags, image ALT text, and strategies such as bolding or italicizing targeted keywords to give them additional emphasis.

However, if you take a web page that has not been optimized and incorporate targeted keywords into each of those 5 areas listed above, you will be well on your way to having a well-optimized page.

If you're the one actually writing the Title Tags and Meta Description tags, below is a character and word counting tool I've found to be very useful:

Keyword Counting Tool - Free
http://www.fwointl.com/FWOFormatter.html

This is a great little tool to use when writing Title Tags and Meta Descriptions. I stumbled across it years ago and keep coming back to it. It makes it easier to quickly determine how many characters are in a Title Tag (one should generally keep them to 65 characters) or Description Tag (they get truncated in search results after about 150 characters), without having to take the time to do the "Word Count" function in a Word doc.

Redirects and Indexation – The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

I was on a phone call with a client last week who was asking about SEO for a new online marketing initiative. In a nutshell, the objective of the initiative was to increase natural search visibility for a series of partner pages, that would subsequently increase traffic to my client's site – but she couldn't figure out why none of those partner pages were showing up in search results.

So, first of all, I thought we'd check to see if those partner pages were getting indexed.

A quick and simple way to check if a page is indexed is to simply paste the URL of the page into the SEs search box (in this case, I'm using Google):

As you can see, the particular page we were discussing was not indexed. And if a page isn't indexed, it's not going to rank at all for any search query in the world.

Digging a little deeper in this example, we discovered that this page was the product of a redirect from a vanity / marketing URL that was being used in my client's promotional efforts.

Ahhhh.

So we went to one of my favorite tools for determining what redirects that are in place:

SEO Browser

http://www.seo-browser.com/

In order to check for redirects using this tool, I recommend selecting the "advanced" option in the upper right hand corner.

And this is what we found:

A Meta Refresh was in place, which was also most likely contributing to this page's lack of natural search visibility, because search engines don't effectively follow Meta Refreshes. For optimal SEO benefit, the most effective redirect is a 301.

Checking Rankings

Another common question people ask is: “how do I know if my page is ranking in natural search?” There are a number of software programs available, such as Advanced Web Ranking and WebPosition, which automate the rank checking process. These programs are very helpful when you're managing a large set of keywords.

However, if you have a relatively small set of keywords you need to check, nothing beats a quick "live check." Just type your keyword into a search engine’s search box, hit enter and check to see if your page is ranking. I’d recommend only checking the first 4 pages of search results, aka the “Top 40″. Rankings after page 4, even after page 3 really aren’t going to garner much natural search traffic, if any.

Wrapping It Up and Hitting the Road

Certainly, this isn't meant to be an exhaustive list of SEO Tools. There are many excellent collections of SEO resources available. In fact, if you're interested in taking a deeper dive, SEOmoz is one that does a nice job of providing a comprehensive set of SEO tools. Some of them are free, but many require a subscription.

But at the end of the day, the tools listed above are the ones I come back to the most. And if I were new to SEO and seeking the answer to some fundamental questions, I'd start with knowing more about keyword search volume, indexation, redirects and rankings for my key pages and targeted terms.

Happy trails!