Having spent a great deal of time researching search engine optimization, I’ve come to rely on several sources that I call my “SEO toolkit”. These are a collection of tools that I use to gauge the performance of my website and point me on the right track to making my site found.
There are a lot of sites out there with various collections of SEO tools. The ones that I’ve chosen are those I regularly visit. I’ll go to these sites weekly, depending on how often I update my site. I keep a spreadsheet with scores where applicable to track performance over time.
WebsiteGrader
This site gives an all around performance rating based on your site’s web presence. It looks for a blog and feed as well as inbound links. I like the fact that it gives a score based on 100. Easy to remember, easy to track.
TermTargeting–SEOmoz
This tool is one of a collection of tools on this website. This particular one tells you how a given page is doing based on a keyword. A nice way to check your choice of keywords. The other tools are helpful too, but I like this one for its focus. The hitch though, about this site, is that you need to register to use it. If you don’t set up a paid account you have a limit to the number of uses for the tool.
IWebTool
This site has probably the best collection of tools I’ve come across. Be aware too, that the same type of restrictions apply to this site as the previous. One tool here is especially useful. The HTML optimizer is a nice way to bring down the file size of your pages. On one page I tested it, it brought the page down by 2k. Don’t use this particular tool though if you are in the process of editing a page. For completed pages only.
WebsiteOptimization
This is a great tool for checking page size, etc., though if you’re not following its guidelines for image sizes, etc., you’re liable to be frustrated for how your page gets rated. The tool suggests 30k limit on image sizes. For an art site with a gallery that can be tough. I have found the tool helpful with other pages in my site without a lot of images to optimize them. Sources I’ve checked advise a 50-70k page size for best search engine friendliness, so its stern advice can be most helpful.
DomainTools SEO Text Browser
Finally, the SEO text browser allows you to see your site how a crawler sees it. There is a science about content placement that this tool illuminates. It points out some obvious SEO issues like alt text and height and weight declarations. The percentage score is nice too for performance tracking.
There is a lot of information out there. In the end though, search out the tools that help you optimize for your niche.
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