Tools of The Trade Location: Salon A
Successful Search Engine Marketers should be armed with the tools of the trade to make their lives easier. This panel will review some of the well-known tools and not so well known SEM tools. It will cover basics from research tools to advanced paid tools. Knowing how to interpret the data of the tools is just as important as knowing which tools to use.
Moderator: Joe Laratro Speakers: Todd Malicoat, Independent Marketing Consultant, Meta4creations, LLC Joe Laratro, President, Tandem Interactive Derek Vaughan, CMO, Techpad Agency Jessie Stricchiola, Founder & CEO , Alchemist Media, Inc.
First up is Derek Vaughan from HostMySite.com and he shows statistics for an eye tracking study. Researchers call the upper left the "golden triangle" and being below the fold is bad for you.
As far as Rankings, he uses a tool called WebCEO - www.webceo.com. It's easy to set up and use, supports multiple websites, it's easy for inputting keyword information, is automated and runs in the background. The warning is that long keywords can take hours and it's addictive. Its interface is beautiful, he says.
Analytics is extremely important and he uses IndexTools (www.indextools.com) It has the best view of your last 100 visitors in almost real time. This is extremely valuable especially if you produce timely content because it alerts you immediately when things get popular. He acknowledges that some people swear by Google Analytics but he doesn't.
What do I know what I don't know what I currently rank for? Use Spyfu (spyfu.com). It has a simple interface that gives you information in adwords, competitor sites, keywords, etc. It really is a deep source of information and is great for metrics superfreaks.
Understanding Traffic to Search Terms: Google Trends (google.com/trends). You can search for a term and see the historical traffic for high tonnage terms. This can help you create a deep list of keywords. Why it rocks: Straight from the horse's mouth, compare traffic over time for key phrases, and iteratively used to create a traffic list.
Tools for generating keyword lists: - WordTracker (www.wordtracker.com) - Google AdWords Keyword Tool - beyond the vast knowledge offered, there's a 'site-related keywords' tab in results where you can enter webpage URL to find keywords related to the content on the page. - Yahoo Keyword Search
Todd is up next and talks about his toolbox:
- Domain and server tools: whois.domaintools.com/domainname.com, dnsstuff.com, ip-report.com/index.php (safe IP blocks), number of sites on this IP bookmarket (Todd has this on his site at stuntdubl.com/tools - seologs.com/ip-domains.htm).
- Competitive tools: Spyfu, SEO for Firefox (tools.seobook.com), SearchStatus Firefox Plugin (quirk.biz/searchstatus), Proxy Switcher (extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info/switchproxy)
- Backlink/off page information: Link Harvester (linkhounds.com/link-harvester), Greg Boser's Tattler (www.gregboser.com/downloads), Hub Finder (www.linkhounds.com/hub-finder/hubfinder.php). Another way to get links is to use keywords and concatenate them with keywords that give you search results that have pages that are attainable (webuildpages.com/search). - Keyword Information: WordTracker, AdWords, Aaron Wall's keyword tool (tools.seobook.com). Google Sets (labs.google.com/sets) [Cut. I had to take a break. It was pretty important. I'll blog about it somewhere else.]
Some other things - - Mr Ploppy's Tools - Webuildpages.com/tools/ - WMC File Converter at cumbrowski.com
Next up is Jessie Sticchola and I missed the beginning but she says that a great tool is the External Greasemonkey script by Joost de Valk.
There's also DNScoop.com that gives you the age of a domain, the PageRank, and the approximate price.
Another domain research valuator is seochat.com/seo-tools/link-price.
What about project management? A great tool is 37signals BaseCamp.
You should check hothandadvantage.com - Brett's "personal" site.
Joe is also going to present some stuff but I missed a bit of his recommendations. Here's what I caught: - Google Webmaster Tools - MSN AdLabs (adlabs.microsoft.com) - TheFreeCrawler
