Free SEO Tools | Use Free Keyword Tools to Increase Web-Site Traffic

• Market Samurai: $149
• The Keyword Academy: $33 / month
• WordTracker Keyword Tool: $69 / month
• The Google AdWords Keyword Tool: free
• The Google Wonder Wheel Feature: free
• Keyword Questions: free
• SEO Blogger: free

As you might have noticed, the last four SEO tools come for free! Learn how to effectively use all these free SEO tools by reading this article. In no time you will gain a sound understanding of some of the best white hat SEO techniques (courtesy WordTracker) and you will be implementing them in you web-site to gain more traffic. You will also be learning the whys and hows of long-tail keyword techniques. So what are you waiting for?

SEO is simply an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization whose reason for existence is justified by lazy people like you and me who do not like long words.

OK, we'll talk in terms of Google. Since they are the current leaders in this segment. A bit history to start with.

Back in 1996, Stanford Universty Graduate students Larry Page and Sergei Brin created a search engine called "BackRub" as their research project. BackRub used the number of backlinks for a page to measure its importance. On the other hand, other search engines used keyword density at the time. In their experiment, they noticed their algorithm (which they named PageRank) is producing better results than the competition. So they commercialized their idea and founded Google.

Source: Google, Wikipedia

Now back to how does a search engine work.

For each of the search terms typed in the search bar, Google creates a list of pages sorted according to their relevancy also taking into account their PageRank and various other factors (Google never releases its actual algorithm). Only the top ten pages are then listed in the first page (default option).

To incorporate newly created web pages to their current set of data, Google unleashes the mighty web crawlers from time to time. But this means that the newly created pages must be linked from one or more older pages that are already listed by Google.
(If not, you may submit your site to Google using the Google WebMaster Tools.)

The important factor to consider here is that pages are not reviewed by humans, they are crawled by bots instead. That brings us to the importance of SEO techniques.

“Remember, SEO techniques are merely a way to prevent your well-written article from ranking badly and NOT a way to promote your poorly-written article.”

Since I hardly doubt anyone is ever going to quote me, I quoted them myself! But the sooner you take these words by heart, the better off you will be.

In brief, SEO techniques are important for,

1. Improving the visibility of a web-site or web-page in search engine results.
2. Remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.

OK, we are done with the foundation here. Now let's move on to SEO tips.

Inspired by WordTracker

The Mad Hatter Is Definitely Rather Loony

• T: Title tag
• M: Meta description and keywords tag
• H: Header tags: H1, H2, H3
• I : Image file names and alt tags
• D: Diverse keywords
• R: Relevancy
• L: Reputable links

To gain a deeper understanding of SEO, why not read the original article? Here is a link to "SEO your web page for Google". You can either watch the video or read the PDF transcript.

The following free keyword tools, ranked according to their priority, will help you increase web-site traffic to your your page without you ever spending a penny.

• The Google AdWords Keyword Tool
• The Google Wonder Wheel Feature
• Keyword Questions AND SEO Blogger both from WordTracker Labs

Each tool is discussed in detail in the following paragraphs along with important SEO tips or search engine optimization tips.

Let me be honest with you, the Google AdWords Keyword Tool is not primarily for SEO-ing your site. It's aim is to help Google AdWords advertisers plan their AdWords campaign. Yet it doubles as a free SEO tool simply because Google has the largest possible dataset on search terms. It is rather good (excellent! actually) for estimating market trends. You'll get a clear idea of what people actually search for.

Since two excellent articles are already available on HubPages on the use of The Google AdWords Keyword Tool, I'll simply link to them. One is "Google Keywords Tool Secrets Exposed" and the other is "Google Keyword Tool Common Research Mistakes".

Why target long tail keywords when generic one or two phrase keywords are searched many more times?

I'll try to answer the question in a moment. But let me first define long tail keywords.

Long tail keywords are keyword phrases with three or more search terms.

As Dustin Woodard, a veteran SEO and long-time Hitwise client showed in his blog-post "Sizing Up the Long Tail of Search", web-sites receive traffic through a wide variety of keywords. So targetting the 100 most searched keywords will only cover about 10% of search-traffic.

In the mysterious world of search engines, being jack of all trades, master of none just doesn't work. You must achieve a top-ten rank at something rather than being the 20th at everything.

The only solution then is to target a few very specific and highly related long tail keywords.

Remember, only the top ten sites in any search result actually win. I'd rather search with a different term than take a look at the second page of the search result if the first page does not contain what I am looking for, probably realizing I searched with the wrong keyword.

Yet another very effective free SEO tool from Google after the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. A typical scenario of usage of this free keyword tool is like this,

• Search for a term in the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to find 3-5 popular keywords highly relevant to the article you are going to write.
• Click on each of the terms. A new tab with Google search results will open for the term.
• You'll find the phrase Wonder Wheel at the bottom-left of each search page. Click on it. The phrase you searched for now appears in a blue wonder-wheel.
  
• Explore the branches of the wheel to find possible long tail keyword ideas. Clicking on any of the branches will generate a new wheel based on the clicked term.
• For each keyword ideas, size-up your competition first. Check the PageRank of the top-ten results for each key phrase. But most importantly, assess whether they contain useful information or not. If they don't, you have a better chance of out-ranking them.
• Don't get too excited about new ideas, because without traffic they are of no value. For each potential key phrase you wish to target, measure the number of global monthly searches using the Google AdWords Keyword Tool.

For a more thorough tutorial on the use of Google Wonder Wheel, refer to "Find Long Tail Keywords with Google Wonder Wheel - Easy Tutorial".

What questions do people type into a search engine? Find out with this cool new tool.

Assess how many people will be interested in your article even before writing it. Maybe surprise yourself with some of the questions that people actually ask. Before using this tool I could have never imagined that so many people actually search for what does SEO stand for or how does a search engine work. Giving a new dimension to your thought process is the key.

This free SEO tool, although created for bloggers (WordPress), is a handy tool for digging deep into the WordTracker database of keywords. You will quickly find many long tail keyword ideas also.

Just select multiple key phrases you wish to target and calculate in realtime how many times you have used each key phrase in your blog.

When I am not blogging, I simply put all the keywords I am targetting into the SEO Blogger tool and use it as a to-do list. An all-time reminder of what key phrases I must use somewhere in my article.

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