3 SEM tools you should have in your SEO arsenal!
December 10, 2007
Here’s 3 free SEM tools that you may have not used, but should! They are relatively new to my collection:
- Paessler Site Inspector - a downloadable programme that is great for web devlopers and SEOs in examining a web page.
- HTTrack Website Copier - allowing you to download a website onto your local machine. Great for on-page optimsation on long train journeys with no internet access.
- SPAM detector - this tool attempts to detect keyword stuffing, doorway farms and hidden text.
And here is a bonus tool that you probably have used, but if not - you should!
SEO Book Backlink Analyzer. Does what it says on the tin!
How do you view the source code?
November 7, 2007
Viewing the source of a website is always a good starting point when doing an SEO health check. Let’s look at a few ways:
- Do you use 'ctr+u' in firefox and take the old fashioned approach of checking out the code?
- Do you put on your xray specs to see key elements?
- My current favourite is the 'inspect’ option using firebug.
- Another option is to use the web developer extension and there is little doubt that its the best all rounder. Use the 'Outline block level elements' and 'Show elements names when outlining' to view HTML elements.
Do you have a another handy way?
Simple Online Shortcuts
May 13, 2007
We are all pretty familiar with shortcuts for our beloved Windows or Macs "“ but how savvy are you with online shortcuts? You've heard the saying every penny counts, well how about every second counts; and after all, time is money "“ so lets have a look at how we can knock off a few seconds from our daily surfing sessions.
FireFox, Internet Explorer & Opera Shortcuts
There are plenty of handy shortcuts for your browser of choice. Here is a fairly extensive list of such shortcuts. If you are after a snapshot, chekout the low-down that have worked well for me:
- Type the domain name into the address bar + ctr + ent - no need to type www. or .com "“ e.g. 'semconsultancy' + ctr + ent and you’re away
- ctr + j "“ opens downloader inspector
- ctr + t "“ opens a new tab
- ctr + tab (ctr + shift +tab) "“ toggle between browser tabs
- ctrl + l "“ jumps to address bar (F.F. and Opera only)
- / - find "“ same as ctr + f (F.F. and Opera only)
Integrate Del.icio.us and FireFox
I am a big fan of all things FireFox and all things Del.icio.us "“ and the recent integration of the two has made searching, browsing and editing of your bookmarks from FireFox rather simple. Here are a couple of useful keyboard shortcuts:
- ctr + d "“ allows quick-fire bookmarking
- ctr + b "“ giving easy access to your tags and bookmarks
Google Apps Shortcuts
If like me, you spend a fair amount of time with Google Apps such as GMAIL "“ be sure to checkout the Google keyboard shortcuts. You may also be interested in shortcuts for Google Reader "“ all of these need to be enabled within the settings.
Speed Up your Google Searching
You may wish to install Greasemonkey for FireFox, and add a script that sets some keyboard shortcuts for Google search. I spotted this over at the Google Operating System Blog.
This numbers the search results and allows for some neat shortcuts:
"¦you can also go to the next page of search results by tying n and go back to the previous page by typing p. To edit the query you have two options: either type e to select the query, so when you type something the query will be replaced, or type a to append something to the query"¦
Drop the Quotes for Phase Searching
Save an hour a year like Steve Rubel by avoiding the use of the shift button in phrase searching. Instead of "online shortcuts" try online-shortcuts.
Save 5 Mins a Day with 5 Handy Mozilla Extensions
February 22, 2007
We all need a helping hand from our browsers now and again. Fortunately Mozilla's massive range of extensions can do just that and also save you heaps of time in process too. Here's my first port of call with every fresh install:
- SEO for Firefox "“ packs a hefty punch in the research of SEO from search engines results. Also very useful for a bird's eye view in analysing competition.
- Search Status "“ offers Google PageRank and the Alexa Popularity Ranking in the bottom right of the browser, plus indexed pages and backwards links from Google, Yahoo & MSN.
- Google Notebook "“ has had mixed reviews, although I find it pretty useful. Just like a normal notebook, it's great for taking notes! Pretty simple really, and with the ability to create and move sections, it's not that bad at organising and prioritising to-do lists either "“ which makes this extension a worthy counterpart.
- Web Developer "“ this is an awesome developer's timesaving tool, useful for checking out the HTML & CSS or in some cases dodgy table based designs in new sites. It lets you pop open the site's bonnet, have a poke around - without having to get your hands too dirty.
- ColorZilla "“ if you have an interest in web design, ColorZilla's colour reading from any point in your browser is likely to add value and again save you a minute here and there.
There's a few of my favs "“ any other recommendations?
Microsoft Adcenter’s Adlab Advertising Tools
September 23, 2006
This summer has seen a new giant in the PPC world, that of Microsoft’s Adcenter. Cooler still, is the abundaSnce of adlab advertising tools available that compliment Google’s research tools and some of the Google’s labs tools and Yahoo’s lab tools.
The adlab can be broken down into the categories of paid search, contextual advertising, behavioural targeting and emerging markets.
The paid search advertising tools help to assist with keyword research that will help identify common misspellings, new keywords, acronyms and abbreviations. I particularly like the search funnel tool tool gives a good indication as to which keywords searchers use before and after a specific keyword search. Another neat tool, the search results clustering tool, groups semantically related keywords.
The contextual tools identifies relevant ads for publisher’s sites. It groups keywords or sites into content categories.
The behavioural tools analyses the behaviour of searches and lists predicted demographic information which can give indication of visitors intention to buy. The demographic prediction tool is great and gives an idea of the type of visitors you can expect to your site.
The emerging markets category is limited to a few states in the US and is used to detect a customer’s location based on their IP and then listing locals ads that are relevant to the location.
