Link Popularity Tool http://www.instantposition.com/link_popularity_check.cfm This tool measures total number of links or "votes" that a search engine has found for your website. This is a pretty cool tool because as well as tabulated data it also produces a nice graph of resulting data. One final key element of this tool is its ability to compare your website to your competitors to help you with your overall marketing strategy.

Meta Tag Generator http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/meta-tag-generator.shtml This automatically generates a Meta Keyword tag by reading page you specify, removing common words from it, and picking most used words on page. Extra weight is given to words in a heading tag

Search Term Suggestion Tool http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ Displays how many times a certain keyword was searched for at Overture.com. Shows all related searches for entered keyword. A good measure to use in determining frequency of search among related keyword phrases

Search Engine Optimisation Tool http://www.instantposition.com/seo_doctor.cfm. A very impressive tool that tests performance of a web site, by analysing a page on important elements of web page creation, such as its title and content. It then scores page against given criteria for top search engines, followed by some valuable SEO advice to improve overall ranking. The report produced is well laid out and easy to follow for anyone doing their own optimisation. A freebie tool that works better than many costly SEO tools I know!

The area of online SEO tools is an exciting area of growth as SEO developers come up with more and more tools to represent website positions on internet. No doubt we will be revisiting this area again….

Internet Marketing Manager

Ambleton Computing Experts in all areas of Internet Marketing, inc. SEO and Web Design.

At this point, you should have a list of keywords. If you have a very short one, or are having trouble thinking of some, you can gain access to professional software at minimal cost. Just start a Google adwords campaign, or a CPC campaign on Overture. Each of these sites have "keyword suggestion" tools that will give you several keywords based on your product or service, and will include relative popularity of each one.

TIP THREE: PLACE KEYWORDS CAREFULLY

Once you have your keywords, you’ll want to use them in right places. The goal is to help search engines find your site for those phrases, so you will want to place them in spots engines look closely at. These include page Title, inside meta tags, inside heading tag, in domain name (more about this in a later lesson), and keyword tags.

You will also want to sprinkle them liberally throughout content (text) of your site, with special consideration for top of your page and its first paragraphs. This is especially important on your home (index page), which is one that most search engines will cache when spidering through. And please, have some real content on your page, and not just a list of keywords, or your site could go down in its rankings. Search engines do rank according to content relevancy, and site that says "Our dealership provides quality used Chevrolet cars, reconditioned to meet our customer’s needs," (with at least 100 words of good, relevant content) will always rank higher than site that says, "cars, cars, cars, buy quality used Chevrolet cars, quality used cars are here". In addition, you won’t drive away customers offended by poor quality writing and obvious over-usage of marketing phrases.

But you do want to maintain a certain ratio of keyword density in your text; a keyword density of 5 to 7% is usually recommended. If you don’t feel comfortable writing copy using keywords, a professional copywriter who specializes in online writing can help you.

THREE COMMON MISTAKES TO AVOID

Mistake #1: One common error that many people make is to forget to place ALT tags for their graphics. You may have a beautiful logo or graphic on your web site, but if you don’t have an alt tag, search engines can’t "read it". Be sure to place keywords there, and to label graphics with names that reflect keywords.

Mistake #2: Always have text on your site. When creating your site, search engines depend upon text to decide what your site is about. The more relevant text, better. The spiders and bots can’t "read" graphics as mentioned above. Don’t just make text for site one big graphic, as some firms do. The search engines will skip over graphic, and assume you have no content at all.

Mistake #3: Finally, please don’t spam (by trying to ‘hide’ your keywords by using a font same color as background, or repeating keyword phrases over and over in title and meta tags). Search engines are now excellent at finding those who try to break rules (and their technology for doing so is getting more sophisticated all time), and will drop spammers from their indexes like a hot potato. So play by rules, and when in doubt, ask an ethical SEO firm for advice, or visit one of many excellent forums online (such as Jill Whalen’s High Rankings Search Engine Forums).

Your site will rise more quickly, and enjoy higher rankings, if you follow these tips and their advice. And your traffic will increase, at no cost to you!