A Small Business Guide to SEO Tools
January 7, 2013 2 Comments
There are a number of SEO tools available on the Internet that your business can use to ensure that your website is as fully optimized and therefore as high up the page rankings as possible. These tools help you evaluate how well your pages and site are doing, they help you keep an eye on your competitors and help you to plan your future online marketing.
While many small businesses are using the Internet more and more, and becoming more SEO-savvy than in previous years, many times SEO tools can be hard to understand and therefore many business owners do not find the value in them. However, these tools can offer insight into traffic and other trends that won’t be found anywhere else, and are therefore necessary to understanding your online audience.
Valuable Traffic Insight
The Web is full of companies selling the latest SEO gizmos and offers the consumer a baffling array of options. However, the basic point about any SEO tool is that it should give you insight into trends and your website traffic that would be impossible to determine otherwise. SEO tools enable you to harness the power of the search engines for online marketing and help you to work with them rather than against them.
Identify Effective Keywords
One of the great things about SEO tools is that they enable you to identify keywords. You can check out the most popular search terms to find the right ones for your business, but remember: the most popular search terms will obviously be good to use, but it can be hard to be seen amongst all the competition when you just stick with these over used words.
Besides finding relevant keywords, SEO tools can also help you identify gaps in the keyword market and find search friendly terms that may have been missed. They can also help you to identify keywords that are highly relevant for your business, yet low in competition, giving you a boost in visibility.
Keyword-Rich Domain Names
SEO tools are also excellent for finding domains. If you are starting a business, you can use an SEO tool to find available domains that include great keywords, which can help you be found in a search. A memorable SEO friendly name is the perfect start to your new venture. Many businesses neglect this until it is too late and then are saddled with a name that does not reflect what they do.
Link Analysis
Inbound links, or the links from other websites that point to your site, are vital for a high page ranking. SEO tools enable you to check out your inbound links so that you can see where your traffic is coming from, and use that information to your advantage.
You can employ an SEO tool for link building to maintain your existing links in fully working condition. SEO tools also enable you to check out your competitors by revealing the amount of back links they have.
Link competition analysis will enable you to see how many links you need to get to the coveted top position. Search engines value links to good quality sites; by ensuring that all links are suitable and unbroken, you will help strengthen your online visibility by ensuring that your links are coming from high-quality sites.
SEO tools will help you see trends in traffic and engagement that can help you make informed decisions about the future of your website and business. Creating original user-friendly content that people wish to read is vitally important for your page rankings and is an important aspect of online marketing. Original content that pleases the search engines as well as your customers will keep your site fully functioning, active and high up the page rankings. While SEO tools will not write your content or make your business decisions, they can help you with your online marketing strategy and are a vital component of successful internet business practice.
What SEO tools do you use for your business? Do you have any tips for using SEO tools? Let us hear your insight in the comments!
This post was written by David Silva of AdCom Online Marketing.
Your article has certainly educated me. Rank Tracker Tool is another nice tool to automatically track various parameters of a website such as serp, backlinks etc. The link is http://www.ranktrackertool.com
Thank you for your comment, Kate! RankTracker is certainly an excellent example of an SEO tool with multiple applications.