Small Business SEO Tools

Internet marketing and basic search engine optimisation for businesses is the key to get more visitors.But what should you be doing to give your business the best chance of getting ahead of the local competitors?

In order to get more traffic on your website, you should always consider optimizing your website, so that search engines can pick it up quickly. There are some useful tools which you can use from the beginning that will make your website to be discovered by search engines:

1. Google WebMaster Tools

Webmaster tools give you the ability to improve your target keywords for search results by providing indexing issues, keyword visibility, impressions, time spent on your site, average position of search terms, and the click through rate. You can even set up goals, such as converting a browser into a customer.

2. Google Insights for Search

Another great tool from Google is their Insights for Search tool. This allows you to input any keyword and see the distribution of how heavily that keyword is searched in areas, ranging from the whole globe down to the city level. Insights also provides a list of other relevant terms that gain search traction for that topic.

3. URI Valet

URI Valet is the Swiss Army Knife of SEO. This tool is great for performing technical audits and gives the user statistics on server headers, the time it takes to download, internal links, external links, object details, as well as a text to HTML ratio.

4. Xenu’s Link Sleuth

Another great tool for site audits that downloads directly to your desktop is Xenu’s Link Sleuth. This tool analyzes your site and gives you a report on any broken links, lost mail servers, and the type of code that is being used on specific pages. Not only is this tool great for site audits, but can be an amazing resource when scraping your site for link building opportunities.

5. SEO Browser

SEO Browser breaks down a web page into a text file that easily allows you to see the layout of the page, from the title tag to the H1 headers and so on. This is a great tool when looking for a quick report on page structure information.

6. Rank Checker

When you want to check multiple rankings and have little time, the Rank Checker tool offers a quick and easy interface that allows you to check where a site ranks on Google. This tool runs directly off your browser, which can pose a couple problems. One, localization of search results can affect true search results, and two, if you are signed into a personal browser account, it will use your previous browsing history and tendencies. Negatives aside, this is a great tool for quickly checking where sites rank for the keyword you input.

7. SEO Toolbar from SEOmoz

Possibly my personal favorite of all the SEO tools I use is the MozBar. This tool gives you an instant look at the page authority and domain authority of the page you are on and even offers an in depth link analysis for anyone mining for quality links.

8. Shared Count

Shared count moves away from the traditional SEO techniques and into the social side of SEO. Shared count gives the user the numbers of Facebook likes, Tweets, Google +1’s, Diggs, LinkedIn shares, Google Buzz’s, and stumbles on StumbleUpon. Not only does it show your social status, but it has an open API so you can build specific tools to build on your social statistics.

Building a high-ranking site not only involves onsite metrics, but finding great linking opportunities outside of your site. With these amazing tools and some practice, you can start building awareness through optimizing your current webpage as well as finding great off site linking opportunities.

Our Love-hate Affair & Why GM Broke Up with Facebook

 

I started booking Facebook ads for our Qatar based media agency in 2007, not because we were forward thinking about social media, but because we used every tool at our disposal to spread our social initiatives and ideas. Sure we were early adopters, but the Middle East demands the “latest fashion” so you have to try everything new as soon as it’s available. No hero biscuits for brilliance deserved.

We were early adopters of new ways to reach our community and especially affordable ones.  Facebook ads were dirt cheap in 2007 and our measured results soared over Yahoo and Google.

In mid May 2012, on the eve of the Facebook IPO, GM announced that it’s pulling a 10 million dollar ad campaign with Facebook.  So what’s the problem? Why did their ads not work? Is Facebook’s success overcrowding and diluting its effectiveness? Is a lack of “niche” targeting catching up with Facebook? Is it just too all over the place? Was GM’s messaging and social media strategy simply wrong? How would a $10 mil campaign with Linked In compare?

I’m personally no longer receptive to commercial banner ads on Facebook. Apart from the negative, sick in the gut of my stomach feeling I get when “friends” try to sell me on Facebook, I also am not receptive to being “sold” by the big brands. The nature of the ads being all over the place doesn’t help. Why would I be interested in knowing my friends “liked” the Canadian Tire page? What is the GM image impact of their ad being placed beside a chemically drenched junk food ad? In fairness my only recent recall of Facebook ads are the Canadian Tire and VISA "like" ads (because they annoyed me) and a welcomed, enlightened Kickstarter ad for Amanda Palmer's Indie album launch.

What is your experience and frame of mind when you are on Facebook? I am of mixed minds; annoyed that I can’t figure out how to eliminate the endless, bothersome, presumably mindless game invitations, perturbed at some of the privacy trickery that led to decent people’s peeking at trashy articles being publicized unknowingly, sympathetic toward the people who keep posting sad and sage advice images, and frantically ecstatic to absorb all the “speed of web” latest news in entrepreneurship, tech, social media, humanity and art from my favourites like TED, Venturebeat, Fastcompany, techvibes, techcrunch, mashable, and wamda….

Yes Facebook is predominantly my RSS feed and when my mind is extrapolating that wonderfully mind blowing next wondrous innovative idea, I don’t want to be interrupted by ads about yesteryear, planet polluting, cash eating products or energy busting junk food, or even news about green smoothies workshops where I will be sold a life changing diet and exercise experience so I can resemble all those pictures my “friend” posted of herself.

Listen up GM. What I would be interested in seeing in a Facebook campaign would be a link to a docu series highlighting how the GM Foundation or partners are making the world a better, more humane, less hungry, less sick and poor, more enlightened, healthier, cleaner and greener place. That would get my attention and, if delivered properly, could engage me enough to “follow” and eventually maybe even take interest in their latest products.

That’s just me, but if GM looks further at the social trends, I think they will see I am not alone.