Tools for Monitoring SEO

When you’re developing your website, you should consider the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  As SEO best practices change regularly, it can be helpful to have one or more tools on hand to help you analyze the SEO performance of your website.  There are a number of tools which are easy to use and free to use, making them both time and cost effective.

Adwords Keyword Tool

 You need to start your SEO campaign with some basic keyword research.  The AdWords Keyword Tool from Google is ideal and it will give you the average volume of searches for keywords (in addition to a wealth of other information).  The tool can give you great keyword ideas.

SEO Book

 There are several free tools available through SEO Book for those who want to monitor SEO on their site.  To use the tools you need to create a free account on the site.  This will give you unlimited access to the different tools including an ad group generator for Google AdWords, a keyword density analyzer, a PPC keyword wrapper and a page comparison tool.  There is even a typo generator that helps you to consider common typos for the keywords that you are using.

SEMrush

SEMrush can help to provide you with answers about which keywords your competitors are ranked for and the Cost Per Click (CPC) data on those keywords.  You can run a report for free that will show 10 keywords when you enter a domain name. It will show the organic ranking, the CPC data, URL, the ad competition, and the trend for each of the keywords over the previous year.  The system will show you a keyword cloud, which can help you to generate blog ideas too.  It can be a useful tool when you are marketing your website, blogs and articles.

SEO Site Tools

 If you want to check on stats for a website that show the PageRank, Meta Description, Incoming Links, etc., then check out SEO Site Tools.  This is an add-on you can use if you have Google Chrome.  It will show a page ranking in the toolbar of any site that you are looking at and additional data can be accessed just by clicking on the magnifying glass symbol.  This tool can be used on your own website and then you can click on the suggestions tab to get a few tips on optimization.  For those who are not using Chrome, similar tools can be obtained from SEOmoz (can be used with both Firefox and Chrome) and SEOquake (suitable for use with Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome).

Authority Labs

Authority Labs will help you to monitor your keyword rankings.  All you have to do is put the domain name in and the keyword that you want data on.  There is a free 30 day subscription when you first sign up to the site.  You can monitor around 50 sites and 1000 keywords.  After the first 30 days you need to choose one of the paying plans or downgrade to the basic free plan that allows you to monitor one domain name and just 10 keywords.

Whichever tools you choose to use, keeping a close eye on your website is a good idea because you will be able to see what is working for you and what is not – from there it is just a small amount of effort to tweak your website and keywords.  In previous posts we’ve discussed SEO for beginners. Check out our first post on SEO for beginners. Please email me, Amy Grishman, with any SEO questions you might have at amy@socialfocus.com. Thank you!