Competitive Research Tools For SEO & SEM

Posted on January 29, 2011 by admin

Do you know what your competitors are doing to gain search engine traffic? There are many valuable insights to be had from competitive research as a part of your SEO or PPC strategy. You can find out where your competitors are doing well, where they are weak, and use this information to gain an edge on them. Because SEO strategies and PPC strategies are very different, so is the competitive information you want to gather. Here I have listed the types of information you should look for into SEO competitive research and PPC competitor research.

SEO Competitive Research

The types of information you want to look for when performing competitive research for SEO include, first and foremost, who your competitors are, what keywords your competitors are ranking for, how many and what types of inbound links they have, and general quality and authority of their website. Once you find out this information, you are armed with better knowledge of what you have to do to beat them.

PPC Competitive Research

On the PPC side, you will also want to find out who your top competitors are, an estimate of what they are spending on PPC per day, what keywords are they bidding on, how many other competitors are bidding on these keywords, and what their ad copy looks like. With this information, you may find keywords that you have not thought to bid on and identify keywords that are too high-priced for you to bid on.

So now you know what you should be looking for, how do you get the type of information you are looking for? There are a variety of tools, software, and websites that can help you out in your competitive research for both SEO & SEM. Some of these resources are free, with limited information, and some are paid. Some are just for SEO, some for PPC, and some of these tools solve the need for both.

The following tools are very helpful in finding out information on your competitors. Most are free with more functionality and information included in paid membership or subscription plans.

SpyFu

Spy on Your Competitors

 “SPY” on your competitors by finding out which keywords they rank for, how much they spend on PPC (estimated), and what keywords they are bidding on.
SEOmoz PRO

 Research your competitors’ links, learn SEO, and optimize your website with the use of dozens of SEO tools.
The SEO Book

 Aaron Wall’s SEO Book is filled with resources for learning SEO as well as a variety of web-based SEO and PPC tools from keyword suggestion tools to ranks checkers and much more.
SEO Powersuite

SEO tools

 A complete set of SEO software with tons of tools, from a website auditor, to informationon finding incoming links to compatitors.
Web CEO
Web CEO Online SEO Toolkit
 A complete set of online SEO tools included with tutorials, task lists, and monitoring center to run an efficient SEO program.
Compete Find keywords being used by your competitors for PPC and SEO, discover new traffic sources, and track your competitors’ online performance.
SEO Chat SEO Chat is a website that features many SEO tools, PPC tools, and whitepapers on how maximize SEO and PPC campaign performance.
SEOQuake SEOQuake is a toolbar plugin for Firefox that gives you insight into competitor’s websites as you visit them online in your browser.
Hubspot Tools for creating online content to optimize, keyword tools, brand monitoring, landing page creation and more for inbound marketing efforts.

Most of the SEO and PPC tools mentioned have a free or trail version that you can try out, see what it does, and how it works for you. I hope you enjoy these resources for competitive research tools, happy internet marketing and good luck!

Posted in Competitor Research Tools | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Google Tools You Can Use for SEO and PPC

Posted on January 29, 2011 by admin

If you are looking for tools to assist in keyword research for your SEO or PPC campaign, Google itself is a great place to begin. Google provides many tools that can help you to gain insight to popular keywords, estimating traffic volume and cost-per-click for AdWords keywords, as well as trending information around keywords. Check out each of these, and let us know what you think.

Google AdWords Keyword Tool

The free Google AdWords Keyword Tool can give you some very valuable information if you are performing keyword research and discovery. There are a few different ways you can use the tool.

First, you can start off with a few keywords that you think you might want to target, and enter them into the “words or phrase” box. Once you hit “search”, you will be presented with a list of suggested keywords. Not only will you get a list of keywords, but you can also get information on the number of competitors, monthly searches, month-by-month search trends, and the estimated average CPC (cost-per-click) for AdWords PPC.

You can keep refining your keywords, and you also have the ability to download the results into an Excel spreadsheet in order to sort, organize, and parse.

A very valuable tool, if you haven’t tried it, try it now!

Google Wonder Wheel

This is a great tool to use if you are a visual person. You can type in any keyword into the Google search box, then, in the left-hand column of the page, click on “search tools”, and then “Wonder Wheel”. You will then see related search terms that you can click on, and view keywords related to that keyword. You can do this over and over to identify certain keyword themes.

Google Insights for Search

Enter keywords into Google Insights for Search to get information on trends, related, upcoming keywords, and location trending information. You can also get similar information by using Google Trends to see what topics are rising in popularity.

Google Analytics

If you haven’t yet installed Google Analytics into your website, I would encourage you to do so ASAP. You can find valuable information in your analytics reports. You can identify keyword opportunities that you may not have been aware of before. For instance, you can retrieve information on which keywords people searched on to get to your site and which search engines they came from. This will allow you to optimize for these keywords to get higher rankings, resulting in an increase in traffic for these keywords. By viewing these stats in your report, you can also see if the keywords you are optimizing for are, in fact, sending more traffic to your website.

Google Webmaster Tools

Again, if you have not installed Google Webmaster Tools, you should do it now. You can check many factors that influence your website’s SEO health. You can see what keywords are sending traffic to your site, identify any broken links or server errors, upload your XML sitemap in order to properly index your site in Google, and many other valuable checkpoints for your website.

Google’s SEO Starter Guide

If you are a beginner to SEO, this starter guide is a great place to start. Easy to read and understand for the beginner, the Google SEO Starter Guide is perfect for learning the basic fundamentals you should know when optimizing your website for SEO. You can find the starter guide here.

These are just a handful of the many search engine marketing resources you can find by going straight to Google. If you are ready to move beyond these tools, you may want to check out some of the Best SEO & SEM Tools article for some great resources, both free and paid.

Posted in SEO Tools & SEM Tools | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Sitemap Generators to Create XML, Text and HTML Sitemaps

Posted on January 28, 2011 by admin

Why Should I create a Sitemap?

Creating sitemaps for your is a very important part in search engine optimization (SEO). An XML site map, for example, should be created in order to submit to Google, Yahoo! and MSN for proper crawling and indexing of your website. Basically, the XML sitemap tells Google, and the other search engines what pages are in your website, and gives you a higher probability of getting all of the pages in your website crawled, indexed, and ultimately ranked.

What Types of Sitemaps Are There?

In addition to XML site maps, an HTML site map is also useful to human visitors to your website, and increases your website usability, as your visitors can easily find the specific page they are looking for by going to the sitemap page, and easily click to the specific page.

How Do I create a Sitemap?

Creating sitemaps is very simple, especially when you use an online sitemap generator found at XML-sitemaps.com. You can use the free online tool to create site maps in txt, XML, and HTML versions. If you need to create larger site maps (over 500 pages), there is a paid version of the software, which is only $19.99.

What Do I Do With the Sitemaps Once I Create Them?

Once you create your XML sitemap, you will want to submit your sitemap to Gooogle Webmaster Tools. In addition, you can submit your site map to Bing webmaster tools in order to ensure your site is also indexed in both Bing and Yahoo! search engines.

If you use the sitemap generator at XML-sitemaps.com, you can also create an HTML version of your sitemap that can be imported into your website to provide quick navigation for your website visitors.

Are There Any Other Reasons I would Want to Create a Site Map?

If you have never created a site map before, you may have simply lost count of the pages on your website. Perhaps you are doing a website audit of your site, and need an inventory of all of the web pages on your site. Creating a site map is a great way to take a quick inventory.

Creating XML and HTML sitemaps is a simple, yet important part of SEO as well as usability. If you do not currently have either, I encourage you to create one now, it will only take a few minutes of your time.

Posted in SEO Tools & SEM Tools | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Looking for the Best SEO Tools?

Posted on January 19, 2011 by admin

If you are implementing any type of SEO or SEM campaign, choosing the right tools will save you time, and give you important information necessary to analyze, track, and report on your efforts over time. There are quite a few choices for SEO tools and SEM tools, and many of them quite useful, and better yet, many are free.

The differences between paid and free versions of software are typically the amount of data you are able to receive at one time, access into deeper information, and the ability to save or export your results. The great thing about free SEO software is that you can at least try it out and compare to other SEO tools, and make a more informed decision on which software you should pay for if you decide you need more of the functionality than the  free SEO tool provides.

So, just to get you started, whether you are new to SEO and SEM, or are a professional who is just looking to find the best option, we have provided a variety of top-notch SEO and SEM software for you to choose from.

SpyFu

Spy on Your Competitors

 Online SEO and PPC tools with both free versions as well as subscription versions.
SEOmoz PRO

 Online SEO dashboard and learning tools. Some tools are free, but with a paid membership, you gain access to all tools.
The SEO Book

 Many free SEO tools online as well as SEO learning resources. Access to more SEO tools and training materials with a subscription.
SEO Powersuite

SEO tools

 Downloadable SEO software available in a limited free version or paid versions. You can use the whole suite of software or just the software you need.
Web CEO
Web CEO Online SEO Toolkit
 A complete set of online SEO tools to download. There is a free trial version of the software available.
Compete Online SEO tools that are available both free and paid. The free version of the tools limits the amount of data you are able to receive.
SEO Chat SEO Chat is a website that features many SEO tools, PPC tools, and whitepapers on how maximize SEO and PPC campaign performance.
SEOQuake A toolbar plugin you can download for Firefox that gives you website SEO factor information on sites you visit.
Hubspot Tools for creating online content to optimize, keyword tools, brand monitoring, landing page creation and more for inbound marketing efforts. Free trial available.

There are many more SEO tools and software available online, we will be featuring some of the lesser-known optimization in future posts. In the meantime, let us know what your favorite SEO or SEO tool or software.

Posted in SEO Tools & SEM Tools | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment