Free For Your Site

Straight out of the hive is 103 Bees, an analytics tool that focuses on organic search engine traffic. This free online application delivers metrics that web masters can use to build traffic from search engines by increasing their rankings and discovering keywords. If you want to learn more about how you can optimize your site for search engines to boost traffic, then using this application will be as sweet as honey.

103 Bees lets you view the latest search terms used to find your site, along with ranking and landing page information for each term. The Related Keywords tool also displays related keywords for each search query, allowing you to broaden your keyword list. Users can also find out the search engines that deliver the most traffic to their sites. 103 Bees also contains colorful graphs that display your search engine traffic metrics visually. One graph helps you differentiate between your most popular keywords and “long tail” keywords. Another graph compares traffic from search engines with traffic from site referrals and paid advertising. All these tools are undeniably useful for SEO planning.

Users need to have minimal knowledge of HTML to paste the JavaScript code on their site. Don’t worry if you’re unsure about where to paste the code - the 103 Bees site contains a short guide on how to do this.

The 103 Bees site runs on most web browsers and their analytics service is free for sites that have less than 100,000 visitors per month.

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Nowadays, web analytics services are getting a better share of the limelight. Site owners are discovering just how powerful these number crunching tools can be. They turn what used to be guesswork into a more scientific approach, which translates into efficient business spending and a greater return on investments.

HitTail is one such service. Like other popular analytics tools, it also requires users to paste a JavaScript code at the bottom of every page they wish to track. It gives you real-time stats about who visited your site and when, what keywords they used to reach you, and conversion tracking

However, HitTail is unique in its approach to keyword optimization. Dubbed the “Long Tail Method”, it looks at search terms that got visitors to your site but are not being used by most of your competitors. HitTail can give you suggestions as to which of these keywords to focus on. It works in the belief that if your content is better optimized for these terms, you’ll get more traffic from search engines.

The basic account is offered for free, and is suitable for small web sites that get 100,000 hits a month or less. For a small fee, you can upgrade to HitTail Plus, which lets you create sitemaps, receive keyword suggestions via RSS feed or email, keep all the data forever, view keywords trend over time, and use the tool on secure web pages. Plans for high volume web sites are also available.

With a little patience and determination, this service can be a tremendous boost to your business.

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Google Analytics is God’s gift to mankind - or rather Google’s gift to web designers, web developers, business executives, advertisers, and virtually anyone who makes a living out of the Internet.

This free online tool gives a wealth of information which enables you to track and evaluate web site performance, and make the corresponding modifications to increase effectiveness. Best of all, it’s as easy as 1-2-3. Simply open a Google Analytics account, copy-paste a few lines of code into the pages you’d like to track, and voila, sit back and let the reports trickle in. You can also schedule these reports to be sent to you via email on a daily or weekly basis, or at any time that you please. The option to collaborate with other users makes it ideal for use in an office environment.

You can use Google Analytics to measure the efficiency of your marketing campaign strategies such as ads, email newsletters, affiliate campaigns, referrals, paid links, search engines, and keywords. It can even give you a trend of your site’s performance over a pre-defined period of time, so that you’ll know if you’re heading towards the right direction. It’s also possible to study your visitors’ demographics like country, city, language, connection speed and other pertinent data. A map is available showing the location of your visitors, which will be helpful in fine-tuning future ad campaigns to reach your target audience.

Truly, Google Analytics is slowly but surely changing the e-commerce landscape. If you can learn to maximize its host of features, you’ll soon be converting more clicks into tangible profit.

Google Analytics is viewable on most internet browsers.

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If blogging were a disease, then we have on our hands a pandemic - and people are happy to be part of the statistics. Eleven years after the concept was first floated, it’s estimated that there is close to 100 million blogs on the Internet today. With that big a crowd, it becomes a challenge as to how to promote your site and get people to read what you have to say.

BlogCatalog is a web log directory which can assist you in reaching out to a wider audience. It lists sites available on the Internet so that people searching for blogs on various topics can find them easier. They are all arranged neatly according to categories and tags. There’s also a search box that is helpful for those looking for a very particular topic.

Site membership is free. Just make your account and you can start taking advantage of the BlogCatalog services. An added benefit of BlogCatalog is a discussion forum where you can promote your blog, ask fellow bloggers about tips and tricks of the trade, or anything else under the sun.

Blogs have evolved from being mere online diaries into alternative newspapers, photo galleries and even video blogs. There is also a growing number of people who now make a substantial amount of money through their blogs and advertising. This booming business is here to stay, and it will continue to be competitive. BlogCatalog is just one of those tools that help you stay ahead.

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Metty is a simple tool that even novices can use to create clean meta tags for their web sites. It contains a form with several textboxes in which one enters key facts about the web page. With one click, Metty automatically generates the meta tags which can be copied and pasted onto the head of the web page. This being the case, a little know-how with HTML will go a long way.

Meta tags used to be crucial for search engine rankings. Although their significance has declined over the years, meta tags are still useful in aiding search engine spiders and directories with categorization. This is especially true when including relevant keywords in the title and description tags.

Metty actually comes in two versions - a downloadable freeware, called Metty Freeware Meta Tag Maker, and an online tool, called Metty Online Meta Tag Generator. Both have the same interface and functionality. They feature easy import of existing HTML files from your hard-drive or the web. You can also save tags as a file for use as a template, and have limited support for Dublin Core meta tags. The Freeware version can generate 33 meta tags while the Online version can generate 30.

Version 1.1 of the Online version has also been updated to be XHTML compliant. Users can observe that the code it generates now end with a terminating slash and that tags are written in lower case - all in accordance with the stricter XHTML rules.

Metty Freeware Meta Tag Maker is compatible with all Windows versions from Win95 to WinXP.

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Remember when you launched your first link building campaign? You probably started out by submitting your site to hundreds of link directories. Of course, this process required you to type your site name, URL, description, and keyword list repeatedly. This could be fun for the first ten directories you submit to, but after realizing that you have to do this hundreds of times more, the process starts sounding tedious. Site Sub makes directory submission easier and faster to accomplish. Instead of typing up the required information over and over, you only need to enter it in Site Sub once, and just copy and paste after. It’s straightforward to use, which makes it great for beginning web site owners.

Site Sub is handy to have, especially since different directories have varying requirements. Some directories require a maximum of 200 characters for the description and keyword list, but others require 100 or 150. With Site Sub’s character count feature, you can easily tell if your site information is within the directory’s requirements. Those days of counting letters with your fingers are now over. The “Always on top” option lets you have Site Sub above other windows on your desktop, so you don’t have to go to the taskbar repeatedly to access your site details. You can also save your site details, allowing you to use Site Sub for multiple sessions until you run out of directories to submit to.

The application is also portable, so you can save it on your USB thumbdrive and carry it around in your pocket. This lets you work on your link building campaign anytime you want, as long as you have some free minutes and internet access.

Site Sub 1.0 runs on all versions of Windows.

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Links Assistant won’t bring you your morning coffee, but it’s a helpful application that organizes your link building campaign. This program is a great solution if you’re fond of promoting your web sites via link exchanges. With Links Assistant, all the information about your link building campaign is stored in a database, and you can automate several of the repetitive tasks that come with the process. This includes writing emails, updating your link codes, and keeping track of important information.

You can save a database for each web site you own, and even separate your link partners into different categories. You can then filter them out by category, the status of your link exchange, and whether they’ve linked back to you or not. You can also save several types of email templates for link exchange requests, telling your partners that you’ve added their link, and a thank you letter. Links Assistant automatically places your name, URL, and your link partner’s information onto the email body. You can even create your own customized templates for other purposes.

Using Links Assistant requires some basic knowledge of how link exchanges work, but this isn’t a major obstacle to new webmasters since there are several how-to guides on the internet. The Links Assistant download page even links to an SEO guide that contains several helpful articles on link building. Once you’re familiar with how link exchanges work, you’ll realize how simple and straightforward Links Assistant is.

This program runs on Windows 98, XP, and Vista.

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Good Keywords is a simple keyword research application that uses results from the Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool, Yahoo, Google, MSN, Ask, and Alexa. Even though you can get these results individually from each site, Good Keywords makes it easy for you to perform all your keyword research in one user-friendly interface. This means that if you usually spend hours doing keyword research from free tools, Good Keywords can let you accomplish this in minutes.

Apart from being a keyword research application, Good Keywords also has several tools that you can use to apply basic SEO onto your site. You can create keyword meta tags to use for your web pages. A built-in site popularity meter allows you to compare your traffic with competitors, and a link popularity meter checks the number of backlinks that you have. An additional feature for version 2.0 of the program also lets you create hundreds of keyword phrases from a list of words you choose - a relief for those of us who do this manually.

If you want to take your keyword list a bit further, a misspelled word generator tool gives you a list of misspellings that users are likely to input into search engines. This can be useful because some internet users have a tendency to make spelling and typographical errors. If you competition hasn’t targeted their web page for these inaccuracies, you can have an edge over them.

Good Keywords may have a small 500KB download size, but it’s definitely a keyword research heavyweight. It runs on most versions of Windows, including Vista.

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Finding the perfect keywords for optimizing your web site is like digging for gold – it takes a lot of patience, research, and hard work. If you do it right, it can be very profitable and rewarding. Because of this, it’s no surprise that keyword research takes so much time and effort. After all, it will be the foundation of your search engine marketing campaign. Thankfully there are applications like Keyword Digger that help streamline the process.

Keyword Digger is a simple program that suggests relevant keywords you can use for implementing SEO on your site. This is useful for web publishers who want to try their hand at SEO, and for seasoned SEO professionals who want to come up with a keyword seed list.

To use Keyword Digger, enter one of your chosen keywords into the search box and click the “Go” button. The program then “digs” for similar keywords and shows you how many searches for those keywords have come up in the previous month. The results are based on the searches made on 3 of the most popular search engines in the world: Overture, Yahoo, and MSN.

As if it wasn’t useful enough, the developers of Keyword Digger created a “Rebranding” tool you can use to market your web site through distributing the program. This tool lets you put any 468×60 ad banner within the program interface, making it visible to anyone who uses it. You can also add a URL that will lead visitors to your site when they click your banner. This makes Keyword Digger useful to those who are looking for a creative web site marketing strategy.

Keyword Digger will run on any version of Windows.

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