The power of research is endless when it comes to search engine marketing. Not only can you see what your competitors are doing, but what gaps your business may be missing as well. There are countless free tools available that provide you with data within seconds. From search positions to traffic to conversations on Social Media Web sites, the info is all there. The question is, how your business will use this information?

Here are 5 of my favorite free online research tools:

http://www.spyfu.com/
Spyfu allows you to lookup a domain and view both organic and pay per click details. Organic keywords and rankings, keywords being targeted on Google AdWords, estimated spending on Google AdWords as well as organic and PPC competitors. Spyfu is free, however if you subscribe (paid) you can view a larger set of key phrases and stats than the free version.

http://www.twazzup.com/
Are you on Twitter? Are your competitors on Twitter? Whether you are or not, you should research and see if your company and products are being discussed on Twitter. If they are, then you should start building a presence on Twitter and take advantage of the direct line of communication you can create with your customers. If your audience isn't there yet, chances are they will be sooner than later. Twazzup is a free tool monitoring conversations on Twitter. Type a phrase or domain in and see the latest activity surrounding that topic or URL.

http://www.whostalkin.com/
Social Media is exploding, so stay tuned in to what others are discussing in regards to your industry, business and competitors. Whostalkin allows you to enter a key phrase or URL and search various News sources, Photo Web sites, Videos, Forums and more from one interface. The biggest mistake a company can make is not monitoring what is being said and taking advantage of creating relationships with customers and potential customers.

http://www.compete.com
Compete will provide you with general traffic estimates for Web sites. They are not 100% accurate however the overall trends typically are. So the next time you get a weird link request for some new directory, go check it out on Compete and really see if it's as great as they say it is. Compete is free. Create a free account and you are able to use a few more features than without the account.

http://www.google.com/alerts
Google Alerts allows you to get alerts when Google discovers news, links, or content around your chosen key phrases or domains. You have the ability to have alerts delivered through email (daily, weekly or as it happens) or a RSS Feed. Set up Google Alerts for your domain to track new links as well as your competitors. You also should create alerts on your most important key phrases as well as other industry terms to monitor the buzz of the industry.

Labels: Organic SEO, PPC Advertising, SEM Back to Basics, Social Marketing

Autumn is here and as the days are growing shorter, and temperatures are dropping, it's time to say good bye to summer for another year. As much as I'll miss the heat and sun, fall is my favorite season. The colors of the leaves, the crisp fall air, it's hard to ignore all the changes going on outside. As the seasons change, why not take a minute and look over your Web site to see what changes you can make this season?

How long has it been since you read through the content on your Web site? Too often, content is outdated, making your Web site look unprofessional. Check the dates in your content. Make sure you reference current information. Review your company information for changes in personnel and contact information. Make sure everything on your Web site is up to date and relevant. While you're checking for outdated information, keep an eye out for misspellings as well.

Nothing dates a Web site like old images. Stock photo services are easy to use and relatively inexpensive, but can give your Web site a fresh new look in no time. Don't forget about the Alt IMG tags. The Alt IMG tag allows you to input alternative text if the image is not available to users, and to describe the image to search engines. Use an optimized Alt Image tag with relevant keywords for the most benefit.

Why not develop some new content for your Web site this month? Create an informative, resourceful page that will educate your audience, and help to establish you as an industry leader. Contact your Search Engine Marketing firm for great recommendations on what kind of content will work best for your Web site. No Search Marketing firm? Check out the E-Power Marketing's Linkbait article for some more general suggestions.

The search engines reward Web sites that consistently revise or add to the content on their Web site. Blogs are an important tool for increasing search visibility when well written, optimized posts are added regularly. Have you looked at your Blog recently? How often do you post to it? Publishing at least one new post every week is a great goal to shoot for. Already posting once a week? Why not try to do more. The more optimized content you publish, the better your chances are of getting top positions for the keywords that matter to you.

There is never a bad time to update your online presence. Turn a critical eye to your Web site, and figure out what you changes you can make before the snow starts to fly. Whether you have a few minutes or a few hours, you can easily make updates to your Web site that may make a big difference to your potential customers.

Labels: Organic SEO

Would you consider your Web site to be visually appealing to your visitor? Is it heavy in graphics, photos and colorful displays that catch the eyes of your customer and make them want to proceed on and click through to other pages? For SEO having a dazzling Web site that features all the bells and whistles can be a great tool to keep visitors there and possibly returning, but this could cause a problem with how they get to your site from search engines.

Search engine spiders are blind when it comes to images and graphics - they can only see text. When a spider crawls your site, it's indexing it based upon the pages' text and not the hi-def photos that give it the visual appeal. This is why SEO gurus say "content is king." A page that has little to no text, but stunning images that may be relevant to a search, is not going to seen by the robots, which means it wont be seen in the search results.

It's not to say that images are bad. They can actually be made to work to your advantage. The simplest way to enhance your site's search visibility with images is to add an Alt IMG Tag. The Alt IMG Tag is placed within the HTML code as a description for an image or graphic. This is the text that appears when you run your mouse over a photo.

Much the same for search engine robots, Alt IMG attributes identify and describe images for the visually impaired through text-to-voice software. By not using Alt IMG attributes you could be missing out on making conversions with qualified customers because the pages are not completely described and seem to be irrelevant to their search.

Search engines index Alt IMG Tags. So they can contribute to the relevancy of a page by providing search engine spiders with additional information. But don't spam Alt Tags by stuffing them with keywords. Accurately and naturally describe the image using relevant keywords. Keep this in mind the next time you're reviewing or designing your Web site.

Labels: Organic SEO