by Boca Raton SEO Guy
18. April 2010 09:04
Search Engine Optimization Tools fall into several main categories of which two I will speak about today as part of our seo basics series.
Competitive Analysis:
I consider competitive analysis an essential part of my daily activities, in large part due to the fact that seo is such a competitve industry and I want to keep track of who my competition is and what they are doing so that my business does not get blind sided by an up and comer. So here in no particular order is my list of free competative analysis tools.
- Google: Google is by far the best way to find out what your competition is doing, and the best way to search is by viewing each of your competitors by their latest activity. How: do a Google search for your keyword and then click on the show options link at the top left and finally click on the latest link, by doing so you can view your competitors most recent activity and take appropriate action.
- Newspapers: If you are competing on a local level (which everybody should be these days), it is important for you to also watch what your competition is doing offline to gain traction. How: Read your local newspaper.
- KeywordSpy.com: Keywordspy.com and other PPC spy engines as I like to call them track PPC ads on Google and show alot of information regarding what your competitors are doing. Note that thier service is not free, but they do give you a free preview of the top 10 or so in each category.
- Yahoo! Site Explorer: Yahoo site explorer gives you a more comprehensive view of your competitions backlinks. Please note that although Yahoo shows more links than Google it should not be considered the end all be all of backlinks. How: https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
Keyword Research:
Keyword research is also an important part of my arsenal of free seo tools, namely because I do not want to miss out on any traffic that I could be getting or losing to my competition. It is also important to note here that as time goes by, keywords and keyphrases may shift slightly or may change entirely as industries grow, slow or get technologically shifted out of existance. Take for instance the business that sold horse shoes in the early 1900's, when the automobile came along their entire industry collapsed from underneath them. They did not have the technology back then to anticipate or even see a rapid change coming, but in today's world with instant communication we can be alerted in real time to what is happening to our industry. That being said, here is a list of the free tools that I use for keyword analysis and research.
- Keywordspy.com
- SpyFu.com
- Google Trends
- Google Adwords Keyword Tool
- Google Adwords Keyword Explorer
- freekeywords.wordtracker.com
- Google Search Based Keyword Tool
Join us in the seo forum for more discussion about this and more seo tips
That's All For Now,
The Boca Raton SEO Guy