Many of these pages that exist are of limited value however there are a few sites that offer automated SEO tools that are good quick ways to give website owners and understanding of what could be improved on their website to help with usability and allow search engines to understand more about the content.

SiteProfiles.com is in the process of building a few of these pages and will be testing some out, probably in our Australian SiteProfiles section.

It’ll be a work in progress and as is the same for most automated tools online, it shouldn’t be used as a definitive set of answers but will be a good research tool to help website owners thing about where there could improve on the SEO on their website.

While Google is the predominant search company in the world, there are still many other companies that have high levels of searching going on in their own sites, especially local search companies who are targeting a specific geographical area and know the keyword searches for their own areas quite well.

The challenge is finding some of these that have a keyword search tool that will help you find extra words that you can use to promote your site to the widest possible audience.

One reasonably unique thing to use as a keyword search tool isa domain name generator which can be very helpful in showing you all of the keywords that the domain company associates with other words and the domains that they suggest. If you look at the domains that they suggest, often this is called “domain spinning”, then you may well come across words or combinations of phrases that you haven’t considered targeting in the past.

Whatever it is you use as a keyword search tool beyond the main offerings, remember to look at areas online where companies have put effort into matching one thing with another and you may find hidden gems that produce the same result as keyword tools but have not been designed specifically to do that.

Perhaps you could even look at your what “similar” products your local e-commerce site returns?

These programs can usually be set up to go out on a regular basis or as and when you want them to, on a specific set of keywords and they’ll automatically search for where those keywords rank. They’ll then report back to you with the place of the keyword in the search result, often with comparisons across the different search engines.

While most search engines would probably prefer that these rank checkers were not used (and they might even block ones that query too much), they’re still very useful for keyword rank checking analysis and can certainly save hours worth of scrolling and taking notes on where your websites rank on the keywords that you’re most interested in.

Keyword Rank Checking Example Programs

• Rank Checker from SEOBook – http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker
• Advanced Web Rankings – http://www.advancedwebranking.com
• CuteRank – http://cuterank.net

If you have any feedback on what these keyword checkers are like, please add them into the comments below. Is there one that you us and recommend?

It can be difficult to get the mix right for some sites, particularly the sites that are e-commerce related and have massive product portfolios.

Generally it is accepted that keywords in URLs is a good thing, it’s just a question of how good and how far do you go?

Matt Cutts (Google WebSpam team lead) has said in video’s that there shouldn’t be long strings of keywords in URLs as Google will see that as looking a bit spammy (he used seven keywords in a URL string all separated by hyphens as an example) however where is the right mix?

It may be that the best option is to have just a couple of highly relevant keywords in the URL that are targeted specifically to the page that people are visiting.

A good example here would be…

on a shoe product page, rather than using a URL like this;

http://www.shoestore.com/?product=456

You might use one like this without the variable in the domain and a static keyword that’s relevant to the product;

http://www.shoestore.com/blue-shoes-456/

This allows search engines an extra indicator of what’s on the page that is referenced by the keywords in the URLs as well has helping the user see exactly what the page is relevant to based on the URL structure prior to clicking through.

In the above example you still maintain the product code (the “456″) so that your own system has an identifier of the product however the URL is a lot more search engine friendly as well as being more user friendly.

One blog post from searchengineguide.com stands out in the SERPs (search engine result pages) when you are looking for information on effective keyword research. The post is written by Lisa Barone and covers five main steps people should follow when planning their research.

The five steps covered are;

• Demolishing Misconceptions
• Creating the list and checking it twice
• Befriending the keyword research tool
• Finalizing your list
• Plan your Attack
• Rinse, Wash Repeat

More than anything, this list is a good example of the planning and research that is required to build a good keyword set ready for your SEO or SEM campaign.

As I have recently had described to me by a SEO professional;

If you’re not targeting the right keywords and phrases, then even the best rankings are of little value!

The hardest part of effective keyword research is making sure that you don’t spend too much time on it while still going deep enough into a topic that you have covered the major bases.

Good luck!

Having a look at the source keywords will give you a better understanding of exactly what people are typing in to get to the content you have written and it will also help you to think about other keywords that you are not already targeting that you know you could be receiving traffic on.

First, login to your Google Analytics account. You will see the Dashboard displayed as the first page. Click the Traffic Sources navigation link on the right-hand menu and then the Keywords link.

You will now see a traffic graph and list of source keywords that have been typed in to all search engines (e.g. Google, Bing & Yahoo plus many more) where the user has clicked through directly to your website after entering the term.

The main heading on the report will read something like “Search sent 50,000 total visits via 20,000 keywords”.

If you are running paid campaigns (e.g. on Google Adwords) you will have the option to click the “paid” keywords filter link underneath that main heading to show the source keywords in Google Analytics for paid search campaigns.

Reasonably new to the scene on keyword analysis tools is the latest from the benevolent giant that is Google called Google Insights for Search. While it’s still in its beta format (what isn’t from Google) it provides a significant improvement on the usability front compared to other keyword analysis tools.

While the tool is not particularly clear on the exact number of keyword searches that are being made on the phrases you’re looking at, the trending graphs give you a brilliant display on what’s hot and what’s not in comparison to each other.

It’s incredibly useful for keyword research and will even give you a list of keywords from content on a specific web page.

Over time you’ll find technical information, in-bound and out-bound links, whois lookups, content keywords and even traffic rankings from different websites across the globe.

Keep an eye on us for site profiles from around the web!

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