The Maine SEO Blog

Let’s get right to it, shall we?

Keywords/Trends

1. Keyword Discovery – for all the keyword research you could ever care to know. It does require a subscription – this or Word Tracker (which I’ve never tried) are considered the best.
2. Google AdWords Keyword Tool – supplement keyword research; also gives better stats as to what people are actually searching for.
3. Webconfs.com Keyword Density Tool - there are a million keyword density tools out there, but I’ve found this one to be the most user friendly.
4. Google Insights/Google Trends – both give good insights as to what’s hot and what’s not.  Insights will also give you upcoming popular search terms.

Link Building

1. Marketleap’s Link Popularity Checker – gives you both Google and Yahoo!’s index of backlinks, plus others.

Plug-ins and Apps

1. SEO for Firefox – see nofollow links; look up PR, backlinks, meta-tags; plus much much more!
2. SeoQuake – many of the same benefits as SEO for Firefox, but you don’t necessarily have to have Firefox.  Plus, when activated, SeoQuake will give you a handy little toolbar with at-a-glance SEO stats.

Analytics (the one and only)

1. Google Analytics – it’s free and gives you everything you need.  Why go for something else??

I use quite a few more, but these are my favorite, and the ones I use the most often.  Do you have any favorites?

Nicki Hicks
I think I need a bigger toolbelt…

Are you a little over-excited when you check your Google Analytics because your stats look great?  You might be if you, people at your company, or maybe a consultant are on your website a lot.  Your analytics pick up those high stats from you!

So what to do?  Block your IP address! Check it out:

First, go to your homepage for Analytics – Analytics Settings – and click on your filter manager.

Click “add filter”.  You’ll see this screen:

Insert your filter name (using the IP address is a pretty easy choice), choose the filter type (to exclude all traffic from an IP address), and insert your IP address.  Below that, choose which sites you’d like to filter, and you’re all set!

You’ll find that your Analytics may no longer look as impressive, but at least they are no longer skewed!  Also – be sure to filter any other IP addresses you don’t want included in your analytics!

Nicki Hicks
Filter your measurements

Google has put its algorithms to good use and given a great gift to SEOs everywhere: introducing Google Insights! The great part is that you don’t necessarily need to be an SEO to appreciate this, so let’s see all the fun things it can do, shall we?

I performed a search for “SEO” under the default location setting of “worldwide” and time range “2004 – present,” and added the “Internet” category. This is the map of where those searches come from globally:

You can see both with the colors on the map as well as the numbers to the left how easy it is to see where the majority of searchers are coming from.  Then I changed my query to view a graph that shows the growth of the search term “SEO” as it is relative to the “Internet” category over the past four years (this graph still shows the global results):

SEO is going up..Up…UP!! (As is the “Internet”!)  You can also compare a given search term over a given period of time with Insights. The following graph shows how the search volume for “SEO” has increased between 2004 and 2007 (this time we’re looking specifically at the United States):

It seems there are tons of possibilities with this new program. In a nutshell, you can cross reference any of the following with one another: search term, location, time range, and category – essentially making it possible to look through search history (since 2004, that is) pretty easily.

Nicki Hicks
“Insightful” SEO