Following up from our SEO tools for starters post, I’d like to suggest some other tools and operative commands (commonly called operators) to use on the major search engines.

 

After you have researched your keywords, built your site and put it live you will need to measure, test and analyse your progress.

 

3 of the most handy tools to track and analyse your progress are:

 

* Google Analytics is good for tracking traffic and user behaviour, converting keywords – know which words work, which pages work, which ones don’t where you need to work most. It is also free. There is a slight delay on the results, about 24 hours.

 

* Google Webmaster Tools tells you where your links are coming from, if you have any errors in your URLs, sitemap or robots. txt files. Free as well.

 

* Clicktracks can be used to analyse your user behaviour, manage your PPC campaigns and the content on your site but unfortunately, is not free.

 

* All in one SEO workbench. Know where your links are coming from, where you rank, how your content needs to be improved, what your competitors are doing etc. Free trial.

 

All of these sites are available online – just search in Google…or Yahoo!…or MSN…whichever engine you prefer.

 

One of the most obvious issues about having a website is to get traffic. There are many ways to do this, even a few link building tools out there to help – I would recommend doing it yourself though because this is a very subjective task (or it should be) and software can’t be intuitive like humans when it comes to deciding whether a site is good enough to link to or whether it would add value to your site by linking to you. You can try social media to get links; it is time consuming but can be very rewarding in terms of links and traffic earned as well as knowledge gained. There are a lot of articles you can read to help with your research into this area, and we can start you off with some of our own suggestions on using social media to get links and traffic on our blog.

 

On the subject of links, you can use Yahoo! Site Explorer to see which sites you are getting links from. You can also use the “link:” operator to see where you are getting your links from. Simply type link:(website) into a search engine search box, (website) would be your website – it has been suggested that you receive more results from Yahoo! than you do from Google when trying to find backlink results, but you can compare this yourself.

 

Other operators you can use are:

 

· site: – Indexed pages in your site (site:website)

 

· cache: – The current cache of your site (cache:website)

 

· info: – Information about your site (info:website)

 

· related: – Pages that are similar to your site (related:website)

 

A great way to see where your competitors are getting their links from is by using the link: operator or by simply typing in you competitor’s website into a search box surrounded by “ “s e.g. “(website)” – this will show you which web pages contain that URL. You could then try and get links from those sites too.

 

Another way you can keep an eye on your competitors is by downloading some SEO Plugins for your browsers – such as SEO Quake. These types of plugins allow to you view how many links, the Page Rank, Alexa rank etc your competing website has – underneath its URL in the search engine results.

 

Interleado’s “All in one SEO workbench” offers search engine marketers a chance to analyse their site/s against 45 different SEO factors too – using only one tool. There is a free trial available as well as a short video demo outlining the SEO software capabilities – this includes social media tracking and a press release distribution tool. Have a look at www.interleado.com to find out more about the pricing and features.

 

The Search Engine Optimization, or SEO of your website is very important in order to get a high ranking with the major search engines, like Google and Yahoo. Though there are many websites that boast of SEO techniques and tips that guarantee top placement in the search engines, it is better to use the help of SEO software to help you with your optimization needs.

It is always better to use a reliable software program, and there are several different types of search engine optimization software available on the internet. However, the best software implements the two major SEO techniques: On-page optimization and Off-page optimization.

On-page optimization software uses title tags, alt-image tags, meta tags, quality content, ease of navigation, H1 and H2 tags, internal linking and other features to optimize your website for search engines.

On the other hand, off-page optimization software specializes in link building techniques to increase your website’s page rank and popularity. For achieving this, off-page optimization software uses techniques such as reciprocal linking, directory submissions, PPC advertisements, use of keyword rich anchor text for the linking of text and in non-reciprocal linking.

Off-page optimization is usually considered to be more valuable than on-page optimization. This does not mean that on-page optimization has no value, and is not required because in order to make your website more search engine friendly you need to use both of these techniques appropriately.

There are many types of SEO software programs which help in the implementation of off-page optimization and this software helps in the improvement of link popularity with reciprocal and non-reciprocal links. Some websites offer monthly membership for the use of their Link Popularity software while other websites offer them for a one-time fee.

When you buy software, buy it from a website with good technical support and a proven track record. Avoid websites that are one time sellers with no indication of future upgrades. It is also better to choose websites that have a discussion forum with quality user feedback. SEO software from a website that has a good product review is always safer. However, there are many companies that have their own product reviews which look more like self propaganda, and cannot be considered as an honest product review.

Submission of articles to websites is a great means of boosting traffic to your website. Upon writing effective articles, the next step lies in submitting your article into the appropiate category. Instead of doing this manually, it is better to use good SEO software that helps with the submission of articles to various article directories.

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) is another means of getting traffic to your website. Though there are many PPC programs available, the main point lies in choosing the right keyword that provides meaning to the content of your website. With the best search engine optimization software, the adwords campaign is optimized to help choose the right keyword combo for the PPC. This procedure saves you time and money.

There are several types of software programs found on the internet. However the best search engine optimization program for your website depends upon the needs you have for the software. It is best to read product reviews, and note the important features of a website selling SEO software to decide which software is the best search engine optimization software.