[Build Backlinks Online] The 100 Best Free SEO Tools & Resources for Every Challenge - Interactive

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'The 100 Best Free SEO Tools &
Resources for Every Challenge - Interactive'


Posted by Cyrus-Shepard

At Moz, we love using premium SEO Tools (especially our own). Paid tools are
essential when you need advanced features, increased limits, historical
features, or online support.


For other tasks, a free tool does the trick.


Below you'll find an interactive list of 100 best completely free tools, tools
with both free and paid options, and free trials. Simply select the checkbox for
the area you're working in, and view the tools forr that category.




Select All/NoneA/B TestingAnalyticsAPIsCompetitive
IntelContentCRODiagnosticEmailInfographicsKeyword ResearchLink BuildingLink
ResearchLocalProductivityRank TrackingRobots.txtSERP
TrackingSitemapsSocialSpeedStructured DataTechnical SEOToolbarTools SuiteVideo






Free Tools


Anchor Text Over Optimization Tool

http://www.removeem.com/ratios.php


Link Research, Technical SEO


Worried about Google's Penguin algorithm hitting you for over-optimized
anchor text? Simply type in your URL for a full report of which links might
raise flags.



Bing Webmaster Tools

http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster


Tools Suite, Diagnostic


Similar in function to Google Webmaster Tools, Bing offers a suite of
interesting research tools and resources for webmasters.



Bitly

https://bitly.com/


Social, Analytics


Most people use Bitly for URL shortening, but the real power of this
platform comes from its analytics.



Boomerang

http://www.boomeranggmail.com/


Email, Productivity


Boomerang lets you follow up on emails, even when you forget. Great for link
building or any time you send a lot of emails.



Buffer

https://bufferapp.com/


Social


Optimize your online social media sharing. Buffer allows you to share with
your audience at the optimal times for greater visibility.



BuiltWith

http://builtwith.com/


Competitive Intelligence


Use BuiltWith to discover what technology nearly any website was, well,
built with. Great for competitive intelligence as well.



Buzzstream Tools Suite

http://tools.buzzstream.com/link-building


Link Building, Tools Suite, Email


Most people know Buzzstream as an outreach platform, but they also offer a
number of free link-building tools. This company gets it.



Caption Tube

http://captiontube.appspot.com/


Video


Free and easy resource used to create captions for YouTube. Helps with
usability and offers viewers a readable transcript.



CircleCount

http://www.circlecount.com/


Social, Analytics


Google+ analytics ramped up. Free resource to track your followers and
analyze your shares. See how many followers you've gained over time.



Content Strategy Generator Tool

http://seogadget.com/content-strategy-generator-tool-v2-update/


Content


This tool from SEOgadget helps you plan your content strategy intelligently,
using keyword research and estimating your audience size.



Convert Word Documents to Clean HTML

http://word2cleanhtml.com/


Content, Productivity


Despite the rise of Google Docs, Word still dominates much of the world.
Copying and pasting has always been a hurdle, but this tool makes it easy.



Copyscape

http://www.copyscape.com/


Content


Copyscape serves both as a plagiarism checker and a duplicate-content
checker. Great to use if your content has been distributed across the web.



Domain Hunter Plus

http://domainhunterplus.com/


Link Building


This magic extension for Chrome not only helps you find important broken
links, but also tells you if the links point to an available domain.



Easel.ly

http://www.easel.ly/


Infographics


Free tools for creating and sharing inforgraphics. The templates allow
anyone to create a professional-looking graphic.



Email Format

http://email-format.com/


Email, Productivity


Email Format helps you find the proper structure for thousands of companies
and organizations across the web.



FindPeopleonPlus

http://www.findpeopleonplus.com/


Social


The ultimate Google+ directory that's great for research, outreach, and link
building. Sort by keywords, profession, country, and more.



Frobee Robots.txt Checker

http://www.frobee.com/robots-txt-check


Robots.txt, Technical SEO


Many robots.txt files contain hidden errors not easily visible to humans.
Run your file through this tool and you never know what you'll discover.



GetListed

https://getlisted.org/


Local, Moz


This awesome local SEO tool scores your local SEO visibility and gives you
actionable next steps to raise your score.



Google Keyword Planner

http://adwords.google.com/keywordplanner


Keyword Research


The tool to replace Google's popular keyword tool has been derided by some,
but still offers data not available anywhere else.



Google Analytics

http://www.google.com/analytics/


Analytics


The most popular of all the analytics tools available, Google Analytics
continually innovates and sets the standard.



Google Analytics API

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1008004?hl=en&ref_topic=1008008


API, Analytics


The Google Analytics API is great for building custom reports and tools, and
also for pulling data straight into Excel or Google Docs.



Google Map Maker

http://www.google.com/mapmaker


Local


Among other things, Google Map Maker allows you to contribute to public map
information, which may be shared and incorporated into Google Maps.



Google PageSpeed Insights

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights


Speed


Tools, data, and insights to improve your page speed. Page speed is
correlated with better rankings and user engagement, so this matters.



Google Public Data

http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory


Content


Drawing on vast public databases, Google public data offers a great starting
point for content research, infographics, and more.



Google SERP Snippet Optimization Tool

http://www.seomofo.com/snippet-optimizer.html


Technical SEO, CRO


That SEO Mofo! Use this tool to see how your snippet may appear in Google's
search results. Add structured data, review stars, and more.



Google Structured Data Testing Tool

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets


Structured Data, Technical SEO


If you use Schema.org microformats or any other type of structured data,
this tool will verify your markup.



Google Trends

http://www.google.com/trends/


Keyword Research


See what's trending in Google search results and view keyword search
popularity over time. A must for trends.



Google Webmaster

http://www.google.com/webmasters/


Tools Suite, Diagnostic


The interface recently received an overhaul, and Google Webmaster remains a
must-have resource of diagnostic and health tools for site owners.



IFTTT

https://ifttt.com/


Productivity


IFTTT stands for IF This, Then That. The tool allows you to create automatic
triggers between various apps, like Gmail and Twitter.



Infogr.am

http://infogr.am/


Infographics


A great free Infographics resource that allows you to easily create graphics
and data visualizations.



Internet Marketing Ninjas SEO Tools

http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/tools/


Tools Suite


The Ninjas are some of the best SEOs and online marketers out there, and
they've put some of their best tools online for free.



Linkstant

http://www.linkstant.com/


Link Building


This nifty analytics tool alerts you anytime someone links to your website.
Great for outreach and intelligence gathering.



Linksy.me Email Guesser

http://linksy.me/find-email


Email, Link Building


Need to send an email, but you don't have the recipient's address? Type in
what you know and this nifty tool will help you figure it out.



MailTester.com

http://mailtester.com/


Email


Need to send an email to an untested address, but you don't want to spam
them? Check it first with this mail tester to verify.



MozCast

http://mozcast.com/


SERP Tracking, Moz


Want to know if Google is testing its algorithm this week? MozCast gives you
a daily weather report to track changes in the SERPs.



MyBlogGuest

http://myblogguest.com/


Link Building, Content


Guest blogging is still alive and thriving. MyBlogGuest helps you find the
good opportunities out there.



Panguin Tool

http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/panguin-tool/


Analytics


This awesome tool connects with your Google Analytics account to help you
see if and when you've been hit by Google Algorithm updates.



Pingdom

http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/


Speed


Pingdom offers an entire suite of speed tools to help analyze page load, DNS
issues, and connectivity.



Piwik

http://piwik.org/


Analytics


Piwik is a lightweight web analytics solution, and a great alternative to
Google Analytics.



Rank Checker for Firefox

http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/


Rank Tracking


This light and easy desktop tool checks rankings with the click of a button.
Quick, easy and free.



Rapportive

http://rapportive.com/


Email, Link Building, Productivity


Rapportive works with your Gmail inbox to give you near-instant rich contact
information for almost everyone you want to reach. A must-have for marketers.



Remove Duplicate Items

http://ontolo.com/tools-remove-duplicates


Productivity


Ontolo offers a suite of link building software and a few helpful
productivity tools for link builders. The remove duplicates tool solves a common
problem.



Robots.txt Checker

http://tool.motoricerca.info/robots-checker.phtml


Robots.txt, Technical SEO


Use robots best practices and discover hidden errors in your robots.txt
files that may cause search engine crawling problems.



Schema Creator

http://schema-creator.org/


Structured Data, Technical SEO


Everyone loves using Schema.org, but the microformats are difficult to write
by hand. This generator from the folks at Raven simplifies the task.



Scraper for Chrome

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scraper/


Productivity


If you've never scraped a webpage, you're missing out. Scraper for Chrome
puts the power of simple web scraping in your hands without the need for code.



Seer Toolbox

http://www.seerinteractive.com/seo-toolbox/


Tools Suite, Analytics, Link Research


SEER opened up its internal toolbox for everyone in the world to use. These
are the same tools used in-house at SEER, and they rock.



SEO Toolbar

http://tools.seobook.com/seo-toolbar/


Tools Suite, Toolbar, Technical SEO


On of the most popular tools available, The SEO Toolbar puts a ton of
information at your fingertips including backlinks and competitive research.



SEO Tools for Excel

http://nielsbosma.se/projects/seotools/


Tools Suite, Analytics, Social


You don't need to be an Excel ninja to use Niels Bosma's SEO Tools for
Excel. This plugin does so many things many SEOs won't work without it.



SEOgadget Links API

http://seogadget.com/api/


API, Link Research


The SEOgadget Links API lets you easily gather not only backlink data but
contact information as well. A huge time saver.



SEOgadget Tools

http://seogadget.com/tools/


Tools Suite


This suite of tools from the Gadget lab includes several Excel plugins, a
content strategy generator, and more.



SEOQuake

http://www.seoquake.com/


Toolbar, Tools Suite, Technical SEO


More raw data than any other SEO toolbar out there.



SharedCount

http://www.sharedcount.com/


Social, Analytics


Want to know how any piece of content was shared socially across the major
services? This is the tool to use.



SharedCount API

http://www.sharedcount.com/documentation.php


API, Social


Harnessing the combined statistics of Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and more,
the SharedCount API puts a ton of social data at your fingertips.



Similar Page Checker

http://www.webconfs.com/similar-page-checker.php


Content, Technical SEO


Use this tool to check for duplicate content issues. The Similar Page
Checker will give you a score of how closely the HTML of two pages resemble each
other.



Sitemap Generators

http://code.google.com/p/sitemap-generators/wiki/SitemapGenerators


Sitemaps


Google offers a slew of free, top-notch sitemap generators. Most of these
live on your server and generate new sitemaps automatically.



Social Authority API

https://followerwonk.com/social-authority


API, Social


How much reach and social authority do your followers have? How about the
people you're trying to connect with? The free Social Authority API will tell
you.



Social Crawlytics

https://socialcrawlytics.com/


Social, Analytics


Social Crawlytics allows you to conduct competitive research by showing you
your competitors' most-shared content. Lots of other features as well.



Social Mention

http://www.socialmention.com/


Social


Social mention offers real-time social media search and analysis. Enter a
search term and see who's sharing what, right now.



Text Cleaner

http://www.textcleanr.com/


Content


Some of the best tools solve the simplest problems. Text cleaner cleans up
all kinds of text formatting when copying and pasting between aplications.



Ubersuggest

http://ubersuggest.org/


Keyword Research


Every SEO loves Ubersuggest for its ease of use and wealth of keyword
research ideas. Utilizing the power of Google Suggest, it returns hundreds of
potential results.



URI Valet

http://urivalet.com/


Technical SEO


A great tool for digging into server headers, canonical information,
analyzing redirect problems and more.



Virante SEO Tools

http://www.virante.org/seo-tools


Tools Suite


Virant offers a number of high quality SEO tools to the public. These are
often the same tools developed for the Virant team, opened up for public use.



Wayback Machine

http://archive.org/web/web.php


Competitive Intelligence


Want to see the history of your website or your competitor's site? The
Wayback Machine allows you to step back in time and track important changes.



WebPagetest

http://www.webpagetest.org/


Speed


Quick and easy website speed tool. Offers suggestions for improving
performance.



Wordle

http://www.wordle.net/


Content


Create beautiful word clouds. Great for visualizations, graphics, and
research.



Wordstream Free Keyword Tools

http://www.wordstream.com/free-keyword-tools


Keyword Research, Tools Suite


In addition to its paid offerings, Wordstream offers a suite of free keyword
tools offering access to thousands of keyword suggestions.



Xenu's Link Sleuth

http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html


Diagnostic, Technical SEO


Winner of the ugliest-SEO-tool-on-the-planet award, Xenu is also one of the
most useful. Crawl entire sites, find broken links, create sitemaps, and more.



XML-Sitemaps.com

http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/


Sitemaps


XML-Sitemaps offers probably the easiest sitemap creation solution anywhere.
Great for smaller sites when you need a sitemap in minutes.



Yahoo Pipes

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/


Content, Productivity


A great mashup tool that combines different feeds into content and other
magical creations. Used for link building and whatever you can dream of.



Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin

http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/


Technical SEO


If you could only choose one WordPress plugin for you site, the first would
be from Yoast, and so would the second. This one sets the standard.



YouTube Analytics

https://www.youtube.com/analytics


Video, Analytics


Offers video-specific analytics for YouTube videos. A must-have for YouTube
video publishers.


Free and Paid


Ahrefs

https://ahrefs.com/


Link Research, Link Building


One of the more popular link research tools, Ahrefs offers a large index and
nice anchor text distribution charts. Mostly a paid tool, but they offer some
free data.



Banana Tag

http://bananatag.com/


Email


Banana Tag allows you to track your emails after you send them. For example,
check your email open rates from Gmail.



CloudFlare

https://www.cloudflare.com/


Speed


How do they make CloudFlare free? It works both as a CDN and a security
service to provide your website with speed and safety.



Followerwonk

https://followerwonk.com/


Social, Analytics, Moz


Perhaps the coolest thing about Followerwonk is the ability to track your
followers. Smart SEOs also use it for outreach and research.



Keyword Eye

http://www.keywordeye.com/


Keyword Research


Keyword eye adds a twist to keyword research by adding rich visualizations
â essential when you want to move beyond keywords to valuable concepts.



KnowEm

http://knowem.com/


Social


KnowEm allows you to check 100's of social profiles at once to check
availability. Looking for the perfect brand name? Check KnowEm first.



Majestic SEO

http://www.majesticseo.com/


Link Research, Competitive Intelligence, Link Building


You've probably seen Majestic SEO link charts all over the Internet. Great
crawling technology combined with several free options make for great link
research.



Majestic SEO API

http://blog.majesticseo.com/general/majestic-seo-api-now-explained/


API, Link Research


Majestic makes much of its backlink data available for free via its API.



MozBar

http://moz.com/tools/seo-toolbar


Tools Suite, Toolbar, Moz


The standard SEO toolbar for legions of marketers, the MozBar allows you to
perform over 50 key tasks right from your browser. Highly recommended.



Mozscape API

http://moz.com/products/api


API, Link Research, Moz


Companies everywhere incorporate the Mozscape API into their own products,
but it's also available to individuals, and much of the data is free.



nTopic

http://www.ntopic.org/


Content


nTopic is one of the few proven methods for giving your content a relevancy
score and offering keyword suggestions to improve it.



Open Site Explorer

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/


Link Research, Moz, Competitive Intelligence, Link Building


When Google and Yahoo started removing backlink data from the public, Moz
built Open Site Explorer to fill a huge need. See backlinks, anchor text,
popularity metrics and more.



Piktochart

http://piktochart.com/


Infographics


A cute and easy infographic generator. No experience required.



RowFeeder

https://rowfeeder.com/


Social, Analytics


RowFeeder allows you to track social usernames, hashtags and keywords and
load that information into Excel for easy social media monitoring.



Screaming Frog

http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/


Diagnostic, Technical SEO


A powerful website crawling tool with a ton of features and customizations.
A must-have for most serious SEOs.



Searchmetrics Visibility Charts

http://suite.searchmetrics.com/en/research


SERP Tracking, Competitive Intelligence


Track the search visibility of any website, in addition to tracking winners
and losers in Google's search results.



SEMrush

http://www.semrush.com/


Tools Suite, Keyword Research, Competitive Intelligence


The paid and organic keyword data offered by SEMrush is often scary good and
comprehensive. Also great for researching competitors' ads.



SERPmetrics

http://serpmetrics.com/flux/


SERP Tracking, Competitive Intelligence


SERPmetrics flux charts track the flux for US search results across Yahoo,
Bing and Google over a 30-day period. A paid API is also available.



SimilarWeb

http://www.similarweb.com/


Competitive Intelligence


Impressive competitive intelligence across a number of online industries.
Competitor website stats are hard to come by, but Similar Web does a good job.



StatCounter

http://statcounter.com/


Analytics


Free, quick, and lightweight analytics solution. Often used by those who
want to avoid using Google Analytics for privacy reasons.



Trello

https://trello.com/


Productivity


Project management and tracking made simple. Used and endorsed by Moz.



Whitespark Local Citation Finder

https://www.whitespark.ca/local-citation-finder/


Local


Finding local citations is key to local SEO. Whitespark offers a number of
free and paid solutions to find the local citations to rise above the
competition.



Whois Lookup

http://whois.domaintools.com/


Competitive Intelligence


Find registration, contact, and administrative information for any domain.



Wistia

http://wistia.com/


Video


The king of online video, Wistia offers SEO-friendly solutions for video
hosting. Both free and low-cost options available.


Free Trials


Moz Analytics

http://moz.com/products


Tools Suite, Diagnostic, Moz, Rank Tracking, Social


The flagship of the Moz software suite, Moz Analytics offers a dashboard of
all your important marketing data in one place with actionable analytics for
better marketing.



Optimizely

https://www.optimizely.com/


A/B Testing, CRO


Easy A/B testing and analytics to help you move toward success in your CRO
efforts.



Raven

http://raventools.com/


Tools Suite, Diagnostic, Content, Social


Raven offers a classic suite of SEO, content, and research tools popular
with many marketers.



Visual Website Optimizer

https://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/


A/B Testing, CRO


Visual Website Optimizer allows you to run A/B tests with a simple online
editor that lets you test content without knowing code.



Wordtracker

http://www.wordtracker.com/


Keyword Research


A powerful keyword research suite used by many top marketers, Wordtracker
offers a generous free trial option.




What's your favorite free tool?

Narrowing a list down to the 100 best SEO tools and resources is not an easy
challenge. Although I visited hundreds of webpages to compile this list, these
four resources offered particular value:


Annie Cushing's Must-Have Tools for Marketers
The Tools page at Inbound.org

Dr. Pete's APIs for Data-Driven Marketers

Free SEO Tools - A Curated List


The format for this ultimate interactive post was inspired by Jon Cooper's
complete list of link building strategies. You should check it out â it's
a great post.


Despite researching hundreds of tools, a few great ones didn't make the list.
What's your favorite free SEO tool? Let us know in the comments below.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but
want to read!






You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/O2JZ3jFIQ5g/100-free-seo-tools

You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com

[Build Backlinks Online] What To Do About Gmail Tabs

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'What To Do About Gmail Tabs'

In this edition of The Baer Facts, I talk withKyle LacyofExactTargetabout the
new tabbed folders in Gmail, and whether marketers should panic or largely
ignore this major interface change. Death by Tabs? If youve somehow missed this
story, which has created much gnashing of teeth among online marketers recently,
heres the summary: Gmail, when viewed [...]What To Do About Gmail Tabs is a post
from: Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy


You may view the latest post at
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/email-marketing-advice/what-to-do-about-gmail-tabs/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-to-do-about-gmail-tabs

You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com

[Build Backlinks Online] TITLE

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'Complete Guide to Enhanced Sitelinks'

As advertisers in the pay-per-click industry, we've recently been exposed to a lot of new changes. Everyone is aware by now that Google began transitioning all accounts over to Enhanced Campaigns last week, whether you wanted to or not. Despite the overall mixed feelings on Enhanced Campaigns so far, there are a few features we can all be excited about.

One of the features that excited me the most was the changes to Ad Extensions, specifically Sitelinks. This post looks to explore some of the recent changes to Sitelinks, and how you can better understand your sitelinks' performance.

I performed a couple of case studies to identify if the sitelinks themselves were responsible for improving performance, or if simply taking up more SERP space is all that matters.

Topics covered:

• Recap of changes to Sitelinks
• Understanding my Sitelinks' performance
• Why aren't my Sitelinks showing?
• 2 Case Studies on Upgraded Sitelinks
• Summary and My Humble Opinion

Recap of Changes to Sitelinks

First Google released a new feature that allows sitelinks to be set at the Ad Group level. Now instead of setting generic sitelinks at the campaign level to be applied to all ad groups within that campaign, we have the ability to set them at the ad group level.

Here are some findings on Ad Group Level Sitelinks:

• Each Ad Group can have up to 20 sitelinks
• The Link Text has been shortened from 35 to 25 characters
• Sitelinks can be scheduled to show for specific hours or days of the week
• You can create mobile-specific sitelinks

The second big change to sitelinks came when Google rolled out Enhanced Sitelinks. This new feature gives advertiser much more control and flexibility over their sitelinks, andddd it essentially allows you to create 5 ads in 1!

Here are some findings on Enhanced Sitelinks:

• Sitelinks can show in groupings of 2 and 4
• Description Lines 1 and 2 can be 35 characters each
• Sitelinks cannot violate the duplicate sitelink URL policy
• Sitelink text cannot be the same as other sitelinks in the same ad group/campaign or the main ad that's showing
• Sitelinks cannot use dynamic keyword insertion

Understanding Sitelink Performance

With all the new changes to sitelinks, I was very optimistic that Google was going to give us user-friendly data on individual sitelink performance. The data is out there, you just have to do a little more digging to find it.

If you're like me, the aggregated data Google gives us under the ad extensions tab for sitelinks isn't really what you're looking for. Below is an example of what you might see under the ad extensions tab (click the image to enlarge).

You'll probably notice your sitelinks have identical metrics. That's because these metrics reflect each time an ad was served while 2 to 4 of these sitelinks were shown too.

This information is useful to see how your ad performs while those sitelinks are showing, but it won't tell you if the sitelinks have any actual contribution.

First Method for Measuring Sitelink Performance

1. Select the campaign you want to see sitelink performance for and navigate to the Ad Extension tab.
2. Click the "Segment" dropdown and select "Click Type."
   
   
    
3. This allows you to see what people actually clicked on when your ad was being served with this particular sitelink across your campaign.

Understanding the Metrics

• The first line is an overview of the performance of all the ads being served while these extensions were shown too.
• The "Headline" row shows you the number of clicks your ad headline received.
• The "Sitelink" row actually measures this individual sitelink's performance.

Tip: When we segement by "click type" it's very apparent the headline is receiving the most attention. This means you want to make sure the main ad being served is pointing to the most important destination URL.

Second Method for Measuring Sitelink Performance

1. Select the Campaign, Ad Group or even Ad you want see the individual sitelink performance for and navigate to the Ad Extensions tab.
2. Click the "Segment" dropdown and select "This Extension vs. Other"

Understanding the Metrics

• This view allows you to see the number of clicks the sitelink accrued vs. "other" parts of the ad.
• The "Other" represents the portions of the ad that weren't that particular sitelink. Other could represent:
  • The headline of the main ad being served
  • Other sitelinks being shown
  • Other extensions such as: Location, Click to Call, etc.

Troubleshooting: Why Aren't My Sitelinks Showing?

There's nothing more frustrating than spending all this time on making new sitelinks and then doing a search to see them and coming up empty.

The factors according to Google on displaying sitelinks are:

1. Your Keyword's Quality Score
2. The position of your ad on the search result page
3. The landing page of your ads and sitelinks
4. Other ad extensions that are enabled in your campaign
5. The search term used by a potential customer
6. The relevance of other ads on the page

Best practices according to Google to increase chances of being displayed:

1. Your sitelink URLs within a campaign or ad group must each direct to a unique landing page, with unique content
2. Your ad should have one of the positions directly above or below Google search results
3. Your keyword should have a very high Quality Score
4. Your sitelink URLs must direct customers to pages that are relevant to your product or service
5. Add the maximum amount of sitelinks you can to your campaign. Your campaign needs a minimum of two approved sitelinks with different landing pages in order for sitelinks to appear with your ads
6. Keep sitelinks text short

Case Study 1: Enhanced Sitelinks for Lead Gen

For a case study on Enhanced Sitelinks in a lead generation account, I decide to look at a travel agency in the UK. In this case study I wanted to see how the sitelinks impacted overall campaign performance and if the sitelinks actually contributed to performance.

The sitelinks across the entire account followed a similar pattern of directing traffic to various pages on the site which had destination specific information on accommodations, hotels, special offers, and holiday offers. Each campaign had a similar set of sitelinks just substituting in the countries and destination URLs in for their respective campaigns.

I let the enhanced sitelinks run for 3 weeks, and then I measured the performance against the previous 3 weeks. Here are my findings:

The CTR results were what I expected but not to the extent I was hoping for. One would assume with the addition of description lines 1 and 2 to sitelinks and just simply the overall ad size/coverage on SERP would lead to higher CTRs.

The .04% increase in CTR was not as significant as I expected. More disappointing was the effect on conversion rate. To my surprise the conversion rate of the campaign actually dropped.

This second graph takes a look at the percentage of contribution from individual sitelinks to overall performance. There was no significant change in sitelink attributed clicks; however those clicks were much more likely to generate a conversion.

The results from this test varied from campaign to campaign, but the biggest win came from the Maldives campaign. This campaign didn't generate any conversions before I upgraded the sitelinks, and afterwards it generated 5 in a couple weeks.

Case Study 2: Enhanced Sitelinks for E-Commerce

In this case study I wanted to see how upgraded sitelinks would impact the performance of an e-commerce account. For this case study I chose an online shoe retailer in Canada. Similar to the other case studies I was interested in measuring overall CTR, Conversion Rate (1-per click) and Conversion Rate (many-per-click). After I compared the overall performance, the second aspect I looked at was the actual individual sitelinks' contribution to performance.

Here's what I found:

These results were much more in line with what I was expecting and hoping for. The upgraded sitelinks improved performance across the entire account. These improvements might not look too substantial at first, but if you step back and think about it, improving conversion rate just the slightest amount is going to have a significant impact. If all else stays equal and you can improve conversion rate by .5%, that could almost double your business!

The next graph takes a look at the individual sitelinks' contribution to total clicks and conversions.

This graph shows that the individual upgraded sitelinks had significantly more impact on clicks and conversions. These results show that if you want to get the most out of your sitelinks you should definitely upgrade them. Here's a look at one of the most successful campaigns since I upgraded the sitelinks (again, click to enlarge so you can see the stats):

Enhanced Sitelinks: Key Takeaways

I would recommend upgrading your sitelinks. The process of adding sitelinks can be time-consuming since there's no support in AdWords Editor yet, but here's why you want to:

• Whether the sitelinks are actually contributing to overall performance isn't the only dimension at play here. Just the fact the your ad takes up more space than your potential competition could be a win in itself.
• According to Google, on average ads with sitelinks have a 30% higher click-through rate compared to standalone ads.
• If you have an ad that is performing well in one campaign or ad group, you can replicate that ad as a sitelink in other campaigns/ad groups as long as it point to a different URL.
• Individual sitelinks are an opportunity to test out different language and calls to action in your ad copy.
• If you know you're going to be in one of the top positions or are paying achieve a top position I would definitely recommend upgrading your sitelinks to take advantage of all that "real estate" you're paying for.
• Now that you know how to measure sitelink contribution, you can continually make strategic decisions on what sitelinks to display for generating the highest return.

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

You may view the latest post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordStreamBlog/~3/IDenL_nggyA/enhanced-sitelinks-guide You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are posted. Best regards, Build Backlinks Online peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com

[Build Backlinks Online] TITLE

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'The PPC Guide for Beginners, Part 1: Intro to PPC ROI'

Getting Return on Investment from PPC

"Return on Investment" (ROI). It is a business school basic and a fact of life. If you get less out your efforts than you put into them, you're going backwards, not forward – and, eventually, you will be bankrupt.

One investor takes a chance on a start-up company and makes millions. Another puts her life savings into a "sure deal" and loses everything. Return on investment can make or break any operation – and it is a primary consideration for anyone considering a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign.

Before you chance a dime on Google AdWords, Bing PPC, or any other means of gaining more business, consider the potential and probable ROI of your actions. You won't know the actual results until after you've taken the plunge, but you can (and should) perform a pre-launch analysis of your situation to give yourself the best shot for success.

Does Anyone Really Win with AdWords?

If the probability of favorable ROI from an action isn't likely, there's no use wasting your time even considering it. Let's begin with a few case examples from users of Google AdWords – the most popular means of paid advertising on the internet, and a venue where each click can cost up to $50.

Google AdWords works for large companies, perhaps, but can a small business realize significant ROI there?

These companies gained business and increased revenue through AdWords campaigns:

• In 1988, the first Roy's Restaurant opened in Honolulu. Today, there are 31 locations and Roy's is in eight states on the mainland. They were early experimenters with mobile-only search, an option now simple to execute with AdWords – and, in 2010, Roy's restaurants used PPC to increase customer calls for information by 40%, paving the way for an ROI of 800%. Would you spend one dollar, if you knew it would bring eight dollars in return?
• Suzanne Golter is an animal lover extraordinaire, and she parlayed that affection into Happy Hound, a daycare and boarding facility for the lucky, pampered residents she serves. Her background in marketing provided an excellent grasp on the identity of her prime customers, so she began testing the various channels of reaching them – from magazine ads to getting out the word online. Today, Suzanne says she has determined the winner: AdWords brings in 90% or her business, developing an average of 40 new clients every month.

Of course, there are also plenty of examples of companies that lost money on Google AdWords campaigns.

Managed wisely, AdWords and other PPC campaigns can provide a healthy ROI. Done incorrectly, PPC can be an exercise in futility.

And that is why you want to start building on a strong foundation. Here's how to get started:

What makes the difference between success and failure with PPC?

That really is the big question, isn't it? When you are sure of getting a positive ROI, your only concern is about the magnitude of effectiveness. But when your likely outcome is a negative ROI, it's about as wise as flushing money down the drain. You work too hard for your cash to throw it away.

Successful PPC campaigns start at the beginning – they build from an informed foundation of critical insights. You may be in a rush to get going with PPC, or you may have already jumped in and now you are floundering and want to recover. Even if you are already on board and realizing a profit from your PPC efforts – these considerations are paramount.

How to Launch a PPC Campaign

When getting started with PPC, here are some of the questions you need to consider:

What are your goals?

How will you know when your efforts are successful? Are you seeking increased inquires and orders? Do you want to build your brand? Are you struggling to rank in search results and want to be sure your link gets seen by prospective customers or clients? All of these are excellent reasons to get going with PPC, but it is imperative you define your personal objectives and determine how you will know whether or not they are being achieved. Otherwise, you're just shooting in the dark, hoping to hit an unseen target.

Are your landing pages ready?

PPC is called "pay-per-click" because that's how it works: every time someone clicks on your link, you pay. But getting clicks isn't enough. In order to realize sufficient ROI from your PPC campaign, you need to make sure the clicked link takes the viewer to a page with a high probability of getting the reader to take the next step in your sequence – whether that is requesting more information (lead development), placing an order, receiving a message, or some other action.

[MORE: 12 Tests to Increase Your Landing Page Conversion Rate, Starting Today]

What words and phrases do potential customers use to search for your product or service?

Stuart Draper is the CEO of Get Found First, a company focused on helping clients get the most out of pay-per-click advertising. Here is what Stu has to say about the keyword prep work necessary for PPC:

Put yourself in the shoes of the potential customer getting ready to search for what you sell. What keywords and phrases might they search? Before doing anything else, do a few of those searches yourself. What do you find? Who is advertising? What is their value proposition? What calls to action are they using?  

As you search using variations of the keywords, do you see all of the same competitors or a large variety? A large variety means the space is very crowded with lots of advertisers fighting for space. If you don't see any advertisers, it may very well be that you don't have a good product or service for search advertising. PPC isn't for every product and service. The one area where I see the most failure in PPC is new inventions. People can't search for something they don't know exists. 

This article begins a series of posts aimed at helping those who are curious about PPC, who are just starting out with PPC, or who may be about ready to give up on the idea of PPC advertising altogether.

Our hope is that many who have yet to take advantage of the leverage PPC offers will be able to grasp the concepts involved, walk through the preliminary considerations, and launch a PPC campaign that will generate a healthy return on investment.

In the next installment, we will dig deeper into the foundations: your goals, your landing page, and your keywords.

This is a guest post by Don Sturgill, a freelance writer and speaker from Bend, Oregon—PPC capital of the world. Don is the author of The Roadmap to Freedom, a work focused on helping entrepreneurs reach their dreams.

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

You may view the latest post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordStreamBlog/~3/SZHPD-u_ECo/ppc-guide-for-beginners-1 You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are posted. Best regards, Build Backlinks Online peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com

[Build Backlinks Online] The 100 Best Free SEO Tools & Resources for Every Challenge

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'The 100 Best Free SEO Tools &
Resources for Every Challenge'


Posted by Cyrus-Shepard

At Moz, we love using premium SEO Tools (especially our own). Paid tools are
essential when you need advanced features, increased limits, historical
features, or online support.


For other tasks, a free tool does the trick.


Below you'll find an interactive list of 100 best completely free tools, tools
with both free and paid options, and free trials. Simply select the area you're
working in, and view all the tools listed in that category.




Select All/NoneA/B TestingAnalyticsAPIsCompetitive
IntelContentCRODiagnosticEmailInfographicsKeyword ResearchLink BuildingLink
ResearchLocalProductivityRank TrackingRobots.txtSERP
TrackingSitemapsSocialSpeedStructured DataTechnical SEOToolbarTools SuiteVideo






Free Tools


Anchor Text Over Optimization Tool

http://www.removeem.com/ratios.php


Link Research, Technical SEO


Worried about Google's Penguin algorithm hitting you for over-optimized
anchor text? Simply type in your URL for a full report of which links might
raise flags.



Bing Webmaster Tools

http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster


Tools Suite, Diagnostic


Similar in function to Google Webmaster Tools, Bing offers a suite of
interesting research tools and resources for webmasters.



Bitly

https://bitly.com/


Social, Analytics


Most people use Bitly for URL shortening, but the real power of this
platform comes from its analytics.



Boomerang

http://www.boomeranggmail.com/


Email, Productivity


Boomerang lets you follow up on emails, even when you forget. Great for link
building or any time you send a lot of emails.



Buffer

https://bufferapp.com/


Social


Optimize your online social media sharing. Buffer allows you to share with
your audience at the optimal times for greater visibility.



BuiltWith

http://builtwith.com/


Competitive Intelligence


Use BuiltWith to discover what technology nearly any website was, well,
built with. Great for competitive intelligence as well.



Buzzstream Tools Suite

http://tools.buzzstream.com/link-building


Link Building, Tools Suite, Email


Most people know Buzzstream as an outreach platform, but they also offer a
number of free link-building tools. This company gets it.



Caption Tube

http://captiontube.appspot.com/


Video


Free and easy resource used to create captions for YouTube. Helps with
usability and offers viewers a readable transcript.



CircleCount

http://www.circlecount.com/


Social, Analytics


Google+ analytics ramped up. Free resource to track your followers and
analyze your shares. See how many followers you've gained over time.



Content Strategy Generator Tool

http://seogadget.com/content-strategy-generator-tool-v2-update/


Content


This tool from SEOgadget helps you plan your content strategy intelligently,
using keyword research and estimating your audience size.



Convert Word Documents to Clean HTML

http://word2cleanhtml.com/


Content, Productivity


Despite the rise of Google Docs, Word still dominates much of the world.
Copying and pasting has always been a hurdle, but this tool makes it easy.



Copyscape

http://www.copyscape.com/


Content


Copyscape serves both as a plagiarism checker and a duplicate-content
checker. Great to use if your content has been distributed across the web.



Domain Hunter Plus

http://domainhunterplus.com/


Link Building


This magic extension for Chrome not only helps you find important broken
links, but also tells you if the links point to an available domain.



Easel.ly

http://www.easel.ly/


Infographics


Free tools for creating and sharing inforgraphics. The templates allow
anyone to create a professional-looking graphic.



Email Format

http://email-format.com/


Email, Productivity


Email Format helps you find the proper structure for thousands of companies
and organizations across the web.



FindPeopleonPlus

http://www.findpeopleonplus.com/


Social


The ultimate Google+ directory that's great for research, outreach, and link
building. Sort by keywords, profession, country, and more.



Frobee Robots.txt Checker

http://www.frobee.com/robots-txt-check


Robots.txt, Technical SEO


Many robots.txt files contain hidden errors not easily visible to humans.
Run your file through this tool and you never know what you'll discover.



GetListed

https://getlisted.org/


Local, Moz


This awesome local SEO tool scores your local SEO visibility and gives you
actionable next steps to raise your score.



Google Keyword Planner

http://adwords.google.com/keywordplanner


Keyword Research


The tool to replace Google's popular keyword tool has been derided by some,
but still offers data not available anywhere else.



Google Analytics

http://www.google.com/analytics/


Analytics


The most popular of all the analytics tools available, Google Analytics
continually innovates and sets the standard.



Google Analytics API

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1008004?hl=en&ref_topic=1008008


API, Analytics


The Google Analytics API is great for building custom reports and tools, and
also for pulling data straight into Excel or Google Docs.



Google Map Maker

http://www.google.com/mapmaker


Local


Among other things, Google Map Maker allows you to contribute to public map
information, which may be shared and incorporated into Google Maps.



Google PageSpeed Insights

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights


Speed


Tools, data, and insights to improve your page speed. Page speed is
correlated with better rankings and user engagement, so this matters.



Google Public Data

http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory


Content


Drawing on vast public databases, Google public data offers a great starting
point for content research, infographics, and more.



Google SERP Snippet Optimization Tool

http://www.seomofo.com/snippet-optimizer.html


Technical SEO, CRO


That SEO Mofo! Use this tool to see how your snippet may appear in Google's
search results. Add structured data, review stars, and more.



Google Structured Data Testing Tool

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets


Structured Data, Technical SEO


If you use Schema.org microformats or any other type of structured data,
this tool will verify your markup.



Google Trends

http://www.google.com/trends/


Keyword Research


See what's trending in Google search results and view keyword search
popularity over time. A must for trends.



Google Webmaster

http://www.google.com/webmasters/


Tools Suite, Diagnostic


The interface recently received an overhaul, and Google Webmaster remains a
must-have resource of diagnostic and health tools for site owners.



IFTTT

https://ifttt.com/


Productivity


IFTTT stands for IF This, Then That. The tool allows you to create automatic
triggers between various apps, like Gmail and Twitter.



Infogr.am

http://infogr.am/


Infographics


A great free Infographics resource that allows you to easily create graphics
and data visualizations.



Internet Marketing Ninjas SEO Tools

http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/tools/


Tools Suite


The Ninjas are some of the best SEOs and online marketers out there, and
they've put some of their best tools online for free.



Linkstant

http://www.linkstant.com/


Link Building


This nifty analytics tool alerts you anytime someone links to your website.
Great for outreach and intelligence gathering.



Linksy.me Email Guesser

http://linksy.me/find-email


Email, Link Building


Need to send an email, but you don't have the recipient's address? Type in
what you know and this nifty tool will help you figure it out.



MailTester.com

http://mailtester.com/


Email


Need to send an email to an untested address, but you don't want to spam
them? Check it first with this mail tester to verify.



MozCast

http://mozcast.com/


SERP Tracking, Moz


Want to know if Google is testing its algorithm this week? MozCast gives you
a daily weather report to track changes in the SERPs.



MyBlogGuest

http://myblogguest.com/


Link Building, Content


Guest blogging is still alive and thriving. MyBlogGuest helps you find the
good opportunities out there.



Panguin Tool

http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/panguin-tool/


Analytics


This awesome tool connects with your Google Analytics account to help you
see if and when you've been hit by Google Algorithm updates.



Pingdom

http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/


Speed


Pingdom offers an entire suite of speed tools to help analyze page load, DNS
issues, and connectivity.



Piwik

http://piwik.org/


Analytics


Piwik is a lightweight web analytics solution, and a great alternative to
Google Analytics.



Rank Checker for Firefox

http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/


Rank Tracking


This light and easy desktop tool checks rankings with the click of a button.
Quick, easy and free.



Rapportive

http://rapportive.com/


Email, Link Building, Productivity


Rapportive works with your Gmail inbox to give you near-instant rich contact
information for almost everyone you want to reach. A must-have for marketers.



Remove Duplicate Items

http://ontolo.com/tools-remove-duplicates


Productivity


Ontolo offers a suite of link building software and a few helpful
productivity tools for link builders. The remove duplicates tool solves a common
problem.



Robots.txt Checker

http://tool.motoricerca.info/robots-checker.phtml


Robots.txt, Technical SEO


Use robots best practices and discover hidden errors in your robots.txt
files that may cause search engine crawling problems.



Schema Creator

http://schema-creator.org/


Structured Data, Technical SEO


Everyone loves using Schema.org, but the microformats are difficult to write
by hand. This generator from the folks at Raven simplifies the task.



Scraper for Chrome

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scraper/


Productivity


If you've never scraped a webpage, you're missing out. Scraper for Chrome
puts the power of simple web scraping in your hands without the need for code.



Seer Toolbox

http://www.seerinteractive.com/seo-toolbox/


Tools Suite, Analytics, Link Research


SEER opened up its internal toolbox for everyone in the world to use. These
are the same tools used in-house at SEER, and they rock.



SEO Toolbar

http://tools.seobook.com/seo-toolbar/


Tools Suite, Toolbar, Technical SEO


On of the most popular tools available, The SEO Toolbar puts a ton of
information at your fingertips including backlinks and competitive research.



SEO Tools for Excel

http://nielsbosma.se/projects/seotools/


Tools Suite, Analytics, Social


You don't need to be an Excel ninja to use Niels Bosma's SEO Tools for
Excel. This plugin does so many things many SEOs won't work without it.



SEOgadget Links API

http://seogadget.com/api/


API, Link Research


The SEOgadget Links API lets you easily gather not only backlink data but
contact information as well. A huge time saver.



SEOgadget Tools

http://seogadget.com/tools/


Tools Suite


This suite of tools from the Gadget lab includes several Excel plugins, a
content strategy generator, and more.



SEOQuake

http://www.seoquake.com/


Toolbar, Tools Suite, Technical SEO


More raw data than any other SEO toolbar out there.



SharedCount

http://www.sharedcount.com/


Social, Analytics


Want to know how any piece of content was shared socially across the major
services? This is the tool to use.



SharedCount API

http://www.sharedcount.com/documentation.php


API, Social


Harnessing the combined statistics of Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and more,
the SharedCount API puts a ton of social data at your fingertips.



Similar Page Checker

http://www.webconfs.com/similar-page-checker.php


Content, Technical SEO


Use this tool to check for duplicate content issues. The Similar Page
Checker will give you a score of how closely the HTML of two pages resemble each
other.



Sitemap Generators

http://code.google.com/p/sitemap-generators/wiki/SitemapGenerators


Sitemaps


Google offers a slew of free, top-notch sitemap generators. Most of these
live on your server and generate new sitemaps automatically.



Social Authority API

https://followerwonk.com/social-authority


API, Social


How much reach and social authority do your followers have? How about the
people you're trying to connect with? The free Social Authority API will tell
you.



Social Crawlytics

https://socialcrawlytics.com/


Social, Analytics


Social Crawlytics allows you to conduct competitive research by showing you
your competitors' most-shared content. Lots of other features as well.



Social Mention

http://www.socialmention.com/


Social


Social mention offers real-time social media search and analysis. Enter a
search term and see who's sharing what, right now.



Text Cleaner

http://www.textcleanr.com/


Content


Some of the best tools solve the simplest problems. Text cleaner cleans up
all kinds of text formatting when copying and pasting between aplications.



Ubersuggest

http://ubersuggest.org/


Keyword Research


Every SEO loves Ubersuggest for its ease of use and wealth of keyword
research ideas. Utilizing the power of Google Suggest, it returns hundreds of
potential results.



URI Valet

http://urivalet.com/


Technical SEO


A great tool for digging into server headers, canonical information,
analyzing redirect problems and more.



Virante SEO Tools

http://www.virante.org/seo-tools


Tools Suite


Virant offers a number of high quality SEO tools to the public. These are
often the same tools developed for the Virant team, opened up for public use.



Wayback Machine

http://archive.org/web/web.php


Competitive Intelligence


Want to see the history of your website or your competitor's site? The
Wayback Machine allows you to step back in time and track important changes.



WebPagetest

http://www.webpagetest.org/


Speed


Quick and easy website speed tool. Offers suggestions for improving
performance.



Wordle

http://www.wordle.net/


Content


Create beautiful word clouds. Great for visualizations, graphics, and
research.



Wordstream Free Keyword Tools

http://www.wordstream.com/free-keyword-tools


Keyword Research, Tools Suite


In addition to its paid offerings, Wordstream offers a suite of free keyword
tools offering access to thousands of keyword suggestions.



Xenu's Link Sleuth

http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html


Diagnostic, Technical SEO


Winner of the ugliest-SEO-tool-on-the-planet award, Xenu is also one of the
most useful. Crawl entire sites, find broken links, create sitemaps, and more.



XML-Sitemaps.com

http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/


Sitemaps


XML-Sitemaps offers probably the easiest sitemap creation solution anywhere.
Great for smaller sites when you need a sitemap in minutes.



Yahoo Pipes

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/


Content, Productivity


A great mashup tool that combines different feeds into content and other
magical creations. Used for link building and whatever you can dream of.



Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin

http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/


Technical SEO


If you could only choose one WordPress plugin for you site, the first would
be from Yoast, and so would the second. This one sets the standard.



YouTube Analytics

https://www.youtube.com/analytics


Video, Analytics


Offers video-specific analytics for YouTube videos. A must-have for YouTube
video publishers.


Free and Paid


Ahrefs

https://ahrefs.com/


Link Research, Link Building


One of the more popular link research tools, Ahrefs offers a large index and
nice anchor text distribution charts. Mostly a paid tool, but they offer some
free data.



Banana Tag

http://bananatag.com/


Email


Banana Tag allows you to track your emails after you send them. For example,
check your email open rates from Gmail.



CloudFlare

https://www.cloudflare.com/


Speed


How do they make CloudFlare free? It works both as a CDN and a security
service to provide your website with speed and safety.



Followerwonk

https://followerwonk.com/


Social, Analytics, Moz


Perhaps the coolest thing about Followerwonk is the ability to track your
followers. Smart SEOs also use it for outreach and research.



Keyword Eye

http://www.keywordeye.com/


Keyword Research


Keyword eye adds a twist to keyword research by adding rich visualizations
â essential when you want to move beyond keywords to valuable concepts.



KnowEm

http://knowem.com/


Social


KnowEm allows you to check 100's of social profiles at once to check
availability. Looking for the perfect brand name? Check KnowEm first.



Majestic SEO

http://www.majesticseo.com/


Link Research, Competitive Intelligence, Link Building


You've probably seen Majestic SEO link charts all over the Internet. Great
crawling technology combined with several free options make for great link
research.



Majestic SEO API

http://blog.majesticseo.com/general/majestic-seo-api-now-explained/


API, Link Research


Majestic makes much of its backlink data available for free via its API.



MozBar

http://moz.com/tools/seo-toolbar


Tools Suite, Toolbar, Moz


The standard SEO toolbar for legions of marketers, the MozBar allows you to
perform over 50 key tasks right from your browser. Highly recommended.



Mozscape API

http://moz.com/products/api


API, Link Research, Moz


Companies everywhere incorporate the Mozscape API into their own products,
but it's also available to individuals, and much of the data is free.



nTopic

http://www.ntopic.org/


Content


nTopic is one of the few proven methods for giving your content a relevancy
score and offering keyword suggestions to improve it.



Open Site Explorer

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/


Link Research, Moz, Competitive Intelligence, Link Building


When Google and Yahoo started removing backlink data from the public, Moz
built Open Site Explorer to fill a huge need. See backlinks, anchor text,
popularity metrics and more.



Piktochart

http://piktochart.com/


Infographics


A cute and easy infographic generator. No experience required.



RowFeeder

https://rowfeeder.com/


Social, Analytics


RowFeeder allows you to track social usernames, hashtags and keywords and
load that information into Excel for easy social media monitoring.



Screaming Frog

http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/


Diagnostic, Technical SEO


A powerful website crawling tool with a ton of features and customizations.
A must-have for most serious SEOs.



Searchmetrics Visibility Charts

http://suite.searchmetrics.com/en/research


SERP Tracking, Competitive Intelligence


Track the search visibility of any website, in addition to tracking winners
and losers in Google's search results.



SEMrush

http://www.semrush.com/


Tools Suite, Keyword Research, Competitive Intelligence


The paid and organic keyword data offered by SEMrush is often scary good and
comprehensive. Also great for researching competitors' ads.



SERPmetrics

http://serpmetrics.com/flux/


SERP Tracking, Competitive Intelligence


SERPmetrics flux charts track the flux for US search results across Yahoo,
Bing and Google over a 30-day period. A paid API is also available.



SimilarWeb

http://www.similarweb.com/


Competitive Intelligence


Impressive competitive intelligence across a number of online industries.
Competitor website stats are hard to come by, but Similar Web does a good job.



StatCounter

http://statcounter.com/


Analytics


Free, quick, and lightweight analytics solution. Often used by those who
want to avoid using Google Analytics for privacy reasons.



Trello

https://trello.com/


Productivity


Project management and tracking made simple. Used and endorsed by Moz.



Whitespark Local Citation Finder

https://www.whitespark.ca/local-citation-finder/


Local


Finding local citations is key to local SEO. Whitespark offers a number of
free and paid solutions to find the local citations to rise above the
competition.



Whois Lookup

http://whois.domaintools.com/


Competitive Intelligence


Find registration, contact, and administrative information for any domain.



Wistia

http://wistia.com/


Video


The king of online video, Wistia offers SEO-friendly solutions for video
hosting. Both free and low-cost options available.


Free Trials


Moz Analytics

http://moz.com/products


Tools Suite, Diagnostic, Moz, Rank Tracking, Social


The flagship of the Moz software suite, Moz Analytics offers a dashboard of
all your important marketing data in one place with actionable analytics for
better marketing.



Optimizely

https://www.optimizely.com/


A/B Testing, CRO


Easy A/B testing and analytics to help you move toward success in your CRO
efforts.



Raven

http://raventools.com/


Tools Suite, Diagnostic, Content, Social


Raven offers a classic suite of SEO, content, and research tools popular
with many marketers.



Visual Website Optimizer

https://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/


A/B Testing, CRO


Visual Website Optimizer allows you to run A/B tests with a simple online
editor that lets you test content without knowing code.



Wordtracker

http://www.wordtracker.com/


Keyword Research


A powerful keyword research suite used by many top marketers, Wordtracker
offers a generous free trial option.




What's your favorite free tool?

Narrowing a list down to the 100 best SEO tools and resources is not an easy
challenge. Although I visited hundreds of webpages to compile this list, these
four resources offered particular value:


Annie Cushing's Must-Have Tools for Marketers
The Tools page at Inbound.org

Dr. Pete's APIs for Data-Driven Marketers

Free SEO Tools - A Curated List


The format for this ultimate interactive post was inspired by Jon Cooper's
complete list of link building strategies. You should check it out â it's
a great post.


Despite researching hundreds of tools, a few great ones didn't make the list.
What's your favorite free SEO tool? Let us know in the comments below.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but
want to read!






You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/O2JZ3jFIQ5g/100-free-seo-tools

You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com

[Build Backlinks Online] Do Brand Characters Help or Hurt Visual Content Marketing on Facebook?

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'Do Brand Characters Help or Hurt
Visual Content Marketing on Facebook?'

Marketers and advertisers have relied for decades on brand characters like Tony
the Tiger and Mr. Clean to build brand trust and awareness through print, TV and
packaging. Today, brand marketers use these same characters in visual content on
Facebook in an effort to engage their target audience. Which poses an
interesting question do [...]Do Brand Characters Help or Hurt Visual Content
Marketing on Facebook? is a post from: Convince and Convert: Social Media
Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy


You may view the latest post at
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-case-studies/do-brand-characters-help-or-hurt-visual-content-marketing-on-facebook/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=do-brand-characters-help-or-hurt-visual-content-marketing-on-facebook

You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com

[Build Backlinks Online] SEO Finds in Your Server Logs, Part 2: Optimizing for Googlebot

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'SEO Finds in Your Server Logs,
Part 2: Optimizing for Googlebot'


Posted by timresnik

This is a follow-up to a post I wrote a few months ago that goes over some of
the basics of why server log files are a critical part of your technical SEO
toolkit. In this post, I provide more detail around formatting the data in Excel
in order to find and analyze Googlebot crawl optimization opportunities.


Before digging into the logs, itâs important to understand the basics of
how Googlebot crawls your site. There are three basic factors that Googlebot
considers. First is which pages should be crawled. This is determined by factors
such as the number of backlinks that point to a page, the internal link
structure of the site, the number and strength of the internal links that point
to that page, and other internal signals like sitemaps.


Next, Googlebot determines how many pages to crawl. This is commonly referred
to as the "crawl budget." Factors that are most likely considered when
allocating crawl budget are domain authority and trust, performance, load time,
and clean crawl paths (Googlebot getting stuck in your endless faceted search
loop costs them money). For much more detail on crawl budget, check out Ian
Lurieâs post on the subject.


Finally, the rate of the crawl â how frequently Googlebot comes back
â is determined by how often the site is updated, the domain authority,
and the freshness of citations, social mentions, and links.


Now, let's take a look at how Googlebot is crawling Moz.com (NOTE: the data I
am analyzing is from SEOmoz.org prior to our site migration to Moz.com. Several
of the potential issues that I point out below are now solved. Wahoo!). The
first step is getting the log data into a workable format. I explained in detail
how to do this in my last server log post. However, this time make sure to
include the parameters with the URLs so we can analyze funky crawl paths. Just
make sure the box below is unchecked when importing your log file.




The first thing that we want to look at is where on the site Googlebot is
spending its time and dedicating the most resources. Now that you have exported
your log file to a .csv file, youâll need to do a bit of formatting and
cleaning of the data.


1. Save the file with an Excel extension, for example .xlsx


2. Remove all the columns except for Page/File, Response Code and User Agent,
it should look something like this (formatted as a table which can be done by
selecting your data and ^L):




3. Isolate Googlebot from other spiders by creating a new column and writing a
formula that searches for âGooglebotâ in the cells in the 3rd
column.




4. Scrub the Page/File column for the top-level directory so we can later run
a pivot table and see which sections Google is crawling the most




5. Since we left the parameter on the URL in order to check crawl paths,
weâll want to remove it here so that data is included in the top level
directory analysis that we do in the pivot table. The URL parameter always
starts with "?," so that is what we want to search for in Excel. This is a
little tricky because Excel uses the question mark character as a wildcard. In
order to indicate to Excel that the question mark is literal, use a preceding
tilde, like this: "~?"




6. The data can now be analyzed in a pivot table (data > pivot table). The
number associated with the directory is the total number of times Googlebot
requested a file in the timeframe of the log, in this case a day.




Is Google allocating crawl budget properly? We can dive deeper into several
different pieces of data here:


Over 70% of Google's crawl budget focuses on three sections, while over 50% goes
towards /qa/ and /users/. Moz should look at search referral data from Google
Analytics to see how much organic search value these sections provide. If it is
disproportionately low, crawl management tactics or on-page optimization
improvements should be considered.
Another potential insight from this data is that /page-strength/, a URL used
for posting data for a Moz tool, is being crawled nearly 1,000 times. These
crawls are most likely triggered from external links pointing to the results of
the Moz tool. The recommendation would be to exclude this directory using
robots.txt.
On the other end of the spectrum, it is important to understand the directories
that are rarely being crawled. Are there sections being under-crawled?
Letâs look at a few of Mozâs:




In this example, the directory /webinars pops out as not getting enough Google
attention. In fact, only the top directory is being crawled, while the actual
Webinar content pages are being skipped.


These are just a few examples of crawl resource issues that can be found in
server logs. A few additional issues to look for include:


Are spiders crawling pages that are excluded by robots.txt?
Are spider crawling pages that should be excluded by robots.txt?
Are certain sections consuming too much bandwidth? What is the ratio of the
number of pages crawled in a section to the amount of bandwidth required?


As a bonus, I have done a screencast of the above process for formatting and
analyzing the Googlebot crawl.






In my next post on analyzing log files, I will explain in more detail how to
identify duplicate content and look for trends over time. Feel free to share
your thoughts and questions in the comments below!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but
want to read!






You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/noIYBEP9OCw/seo-log-file-analysis-part-2

You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com