SEO week: #3 – SEO Tools
This week, I’m trying something new. Each day, I’ll write about a topic that I’ve been studying. This week’s topic: search engine optimization (or SEO, for short). Check back each day for a new post, or why not just subscribe to the RSS feed?
SEO Tools from seomoz.org
A collection of over 20 SEO tools designed to help with a variety of search engine optimization. It groups the tools into different categories, such as Page & Site Analysis Tools, Competitive Analysis Tools, Keyword Research & Discovery Tools, etc.
Free Search Engine Rankings Check from Mike’s Marketing Tools
The site isn’t very pretty, but the tool is pretty awesome. Type in your website, the keywords you are targeting, pick your search engines, and go. A pop-up window appears showing where your site ranks on up to 8 different search engines (if you’re within the top 100 listings, otherwise, it just says “no.”)
I learned that when searching for “danielle baird” my site ranked #1 on all, except for Bing, where it was #3. I was curious, so I did a Bing search, and sure enough, my old, old, OLD portfolio site (which I thought DePaul had taken down and I no longer have admin access to) and someone else’s MySpace account appeared above www.daniellebaird.net. All of the SEO research I’ve done doesn’t mesh with the way Bing is operating…I don’t consider it a credible search engine anyway.
And finally…
The Google Toolbar by Google
Among other things, the Google Toolbar includes the PageRank of the site you are currently browsing. The PageRank isn’t an obvious part of the toolbar – it’s located between the Bookmarks and Translate buttons. If you hover your mouse over the bar, a tool tip appears “PageRank is Google’s view of the importance of this page (X/10)” with X as the numeric value assigned to that page.
Up next:
In tomorrow’s post, I’ll share some ideas on how to build up your page rank, without the help of a web designer or developer. Don’t miss it: subscribe to the RSS feed.
