We’re passionate about SEO and like to keep abreast of developments in the field. Here are some fantastic tools, links and learning resources we rely on.
SEO Tools
Everything you need to know about your site’s traffic is here.
GA is a tool with great power and depth with comprehensive data on site performance, user behavior, acquisition, demographics, platform used, comparative time ranges, and a million other features. It’s a must-have for every website owner or administrator.
Google AdWords Keyword Planner
Google’s AdWords tool enables forecasting of likely traffic for different keyword combinations. Viewing current search volume for your terms can help gauge whether a narrower focus (long-tail keyword) is more desirable, and test different scenarios with keywords and synonyms you’d like to target.
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Other Keyword resources include
KWFinder, Moz’ Keyword Explorer, and *(especially) Keyword Tool, which suggests longtail keywords generated by Google’s Autocomplete feature. Finding search volume for your prospective terms requires a paid account – or a quick trip to the AdWords keyword planner to test your new-found suggestion.
An AdWords campaign does the keyword translation heavy lifting for you, making it the lazy but expensive alternative to keyword research. With enough persistence and discipline in your keyword research and content creation program, you’ll get to a point where you don’t need an ad budget.
As useful as these tools are, the most effective tool is empathy with your customers, anticipating what they’ll be typing at their pain point, and providing content pointing to the solution. If you start with this empathic approach, and then check your keywords for traffic, you’re ahead of the game.
This tool is most useful when you’re redoing your site. Evaluate your internal linking and url profiles, export url lists before rebuilding a site for the redirects you’re going to need. Screaming Frog is a keyword profile, url list, and link analysis (desktop app). The free version has a crawl limit of 500 urls. The paid version is £150 (Aug 2017).
SEO Links and Learning Resources
This informative blog is a great source of breaking news and developments in all things related to Search Engine Optimization.
Search Engine Land is another source, tracking research and development.
Both of these sites track developments in the Googleverse, including data from studies suggesting elements of Google’s proprietary algorithms, testing and reporting what works and what doesn’t.
Search Engine Roundtable is an SEO forum aggregator service, publishing a roundup of collected wisdom from various Search forums.
Google’s own SEO guide is a pdf straight from the horse’s mouth.