Search Engine Optimization Tools

Using Optimizing Tools (Tip 14)

It's very tempting to use a search engine optimization tool to change a web site to help it get a better search engine position. However this can often be counterproductive. The developers of search engines are continually on the look out for any tricks that are being used to unfairly boost the position of web sites.

So the very best advice is to use the suggestions of web search position tools but not to take them too literally. Any mechanical use of tools is prone to be detected and discriminated against, it's much better to use a tool to get a general idea of the main weaknesses at the moment and then use manual techniques to restructure the text and keywords. A good tool will tell you that you are making too many or too few mentions of a keyword and check that the keywords are used in the page's description, title and headings.

No tool can guarantee a better placement it can only indicate an approach that may or may not improve it. Firms that 'guarantee' good placement do this by working on very rare keyword combinations which may well be unique to your site but nobody is ever likely use them. You can test this yourself by copying a few words (say eight) from a page and using this as a search phrase. In most cases you'll be amazed at how well you're positioned.

• Improving Page load time (1)
• Keyword Specification (2)
• Robot Visits (3)
• Renaming a Page (4)
• Finding out about a Site (5)
• Keeping a Domain (6)
• Curtailing Spam (7)
• Resizable Pages (8)
• Readable Text (9)
• Alexa Data (10)
• Headers count (11)
• Using ALT text (12)
• Choosing a domain name (13)
• Using Optimizing tools (14)
• Optimization tricks to avoid (15)
• Getting Quality Links (16)

Site Position is not an optimization tool, however it provides you with all the data you need to see how to optimize a web site.