Most of us with Websites to optimize only have limited time
and/or resources to do so. Working full-time at our day job,
it’s usually not a good idea to install SEO software
on the work computer for lunchtime SEO. That leaves our optimization
time to whatever we can squeeze in after a full day of work
and hopefully some quality time at home.
I’ve been there - believe me. The other problem was
trying to afford an SEO consultant. The really good ones
were way too expensive so I bought lots of books. Some were
really bad (but I didn’t know enough to realize it
at the time).
I finally made it as an SEO professional and Web designer,
but it took a lot of research and a good plan. I’d
like to share that information with you now. Just take the
ideas that work for you and leave the rest.
Information:
Whoever said, “Knowledge is power” must have
been psychic and thinking about search engine optimization.
When it comes to SEO you really need the latest and greatest
information. That said; there are books that I wholeheartedly
recommend for real “SEO on the Go”. The first
is a good mass-market publication - ‘Search Engine
Optimization for Dummies’ at $24.99 soft cover or $16.99
digital (Amazon.com link is way to long to include). The
second is a lesser-known gem - ‘SEO Answer Book’ available
at Amazon.com or through http://www.SEOAnswerBook.com. Written
specifically for Website owners, Webmasters and up and coming
SEO Professionals – each with their own special section,
you’re getting 160 pages of consulting advice from
$300 per hour SEO professionals ($19.99 soft cover or $12.25
digital).
Tools:
If you are trying to optimize your site, don’t spend
a ton of money on expensive tools unless you really need
to. So many are free these days and some can even be used
online, which is where we’ll concentrate.
First let’s focus on keywords. Hands down, Overture’s
keyword suggestion tool is the best I’ve ever used
online. It’s located at http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
and has been around a long time. But even if you’ve
used it, here’s something you might not know… Take
the number of searches reported times five and that’s
about how many searches were conducted on Google (it used
to be 8X before Yahoo! dropped Google for search results).
For all other SEO tools, try http://www.seopartner.com/
(tool links on right). They have over a dozen great SEO tools
already and add at least one new one each week based on visitor
suggestions. You’ll find standard tools like a nice
rank checker but you’ll also find real SEO specialist
stuff like an IP address checker to tell if your site is
static or dynamic, a nice keyword density analyzer, broken
links checker, META tag generator, deep link analyzer – even
a spider simulator and more. It’s definitely worth
a visit.
Now that you’ve got the portable knowledge resources
and the great online tools get out there and optimize!
Michael Small is a founding partner of Virginia Design Group,
Inc. An SEO professional with seven years experience, Mike
manages the optimization division of Virginia Design Group
and is available at
http://www.VirginiaDesignGroup.com for
questions or comments.
