Part 1: Favorite “FREE” SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Tools
This is the beginning of a series that I plan to do weekly on “Favorite FREE SEO Tools.”
I encourage comments on the tools that are featured each week. Please comment as follows:
1) Comment on the Tool that is featured.
2) Mention a similar Tool that you use that you like just as good or better.
3) Please do not simply link to Aaron Wall’s SEO Tools Page (just an example) and say, “Check out all these “FREE SEO Tools” by Aaron Wall.”
I hope you don’t mind me setting up the simple 3 step guideline above to keep the comments focused on just the tool being mentioned or other very similar tools.
Let’s start with one of my absolute favorites: SEO Quake for Firefox and Explorer.
If you don’t have it installed and like SEO, you should give it a whirl. It provides a snapshot very quickly of important data needed for foundational SEO. Here’s a screen shot:
After you install SEO Quake, you will have a request parameters button just below the search box before the rankings. Anytime you are surfing using a search engine, you can click REQUEST PARAMETERS to see all kinds of information on the page about all the sites on that page.
Here’s how I use it to make me look good in just seconds…
1) On the phone with a Potential Client
2) May I have your domain name
3) I’ll then usually either do a site:www. or I’ll use the SEO Quake Tool Bar that is installed. Either way, I gather some quick data.
4) I respond with… I see that you site is ____ months/years old, you have ____ links pointing to your site and you have ____ pages in Google.
5) Remember, this is just quick 15 second snapshot
Now, this is how I use SEO Quake to give additional feedback.
1) Armed with the information above.
2) What is a phrase that you would like to rank for.
3) I type that phrase in Google and hit request parameters.
4) I then look at the Age, Pages Indexed in Google and Links Pointing to the sites.
5) Remember, all of this is literally done in just 2 or 3 minutes. Quick Snapshot.
6) Based on info from the potential clients site and info from the Top 10 ranked sites, I may give combinations of feedback like…
“Your site is a June 2007 site and all of the Top 10 for that term are 2005 or older” (Hint: Site is too new to potentially compete.)
“Your site has 57 links and all of the Top 10 sites have at least 950+ links; however, this does not mean you cannot compete. Linking is more about quality, but I’ll have to dig further on this one.”
“Your site has 5 pages indexed. Most of the Top 10 sites have 100+ pages indexed.”(Hint: They are probably targeting more terms, have a good sitemap, have solid links, etc. Why does the site have only 5 pages? Is it really that small or just not being indexed well?)
Please don’t take me out of context. This is the short version of just some of the things you can do with SEO Quake.
Do you use SEO Quake? It will make you look pretty sharp in a matter of seconds when talking on the phone with someone. Please share your comments.
January 30 2008 05:14 am | Marketing and SEO
Joshua on 01 Feb 2008 at 4:08 am #
I’ve used SEO Quake…it’s pretty cool, except that having it on all the time rocks FF to death.
Thanks for the great examples of using its more valuable features! I do the same things, but with way slower tools (like everything SEO Quake does, except seperate). Duh!
I don’t know of any tool that does that, and does it better, but Aaron Wall has these tools…
David on 01 Feb 2008 at 5:39 am #
Joshuar,
I appreciate your comments and Aaron does have some very cool tools for FREE. I love FREE when it’s something that adds value.
Cheers,
David
Chip on 01 Feb 2008 at 9:03 am #
Thank You David,
This a great tool, I will definitely try it. Where does this tool takes information about the number of links, from Yahoo? I use Yahoo for checking backlinks and it’s pretty good. Do you know of any other reliable source for backlinks? Google returns only a tiny percentage on backlinks.
David on 01 Feb 2008 at 9:34 am #
Chip,
It does pull from Yahoo and Yahoo seems to be the most reliable source on backlinks checking.
You’ll love SEO Quake when you start using it.
David
Part 2: Favorite “FREE†SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Tools - This week is Quintura... | Create Business Growth on 06 Feb 2008 at 5:06 am #
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