I’ve grouped various tools into different  categories (alth0ugh some tools do belong in multiple categories).  Most of the tools listed below are free, some are paid, and many of the paid services also offer a free (cut down) version of the tool as well.

Keyword Analysis Tools

• Google Instant – an often overlooked but very quick and easy way to check for high volume search keywords
• Google Keyword Tool – Allows you to enter trial keywords or a website name. Shows list of related search counts globally and locally
• Google Insights – A great tool for for showing trend data – you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties
• Google Analytics -  Looking at your own analytics data is a good way to see which keywords are already working well
• PPC Data – setting up a PPC campaign and analysing click and conversion rates can be a very effective (and quick) way to get data about high converting (as opposed to high traffic) keyword phrases
• Your Customers – Talk to your customers to see what keywords they would/did use to find your business
• Brainstorming – talk to friends/colleagues to brainstorm related keyword phrases (don’t just rely on the keywords that you think are good)

Many of the “traditional” Keyword Tools used by SEO Pros (such as Wordstream, Keyword Discovery and Wordtracker) were felt to be of limited use to Australian users – although they can be very useful for very detailed analysis, because their data is sampled, and largely USA biased, for the most part they were not considered to be useful for Australia based keyword analysis.

Browser Plugins

Firefox was widely accepted as the web browser of choice  for SEOs – largely because of it’s plugin capabilities , with other browsers (Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, Flock etc) mainly only used for compatibility testing.

• SEO for Firefox – considered one of the most comprehensive (and useful) of the many SEO plugins available
• Chatzilla – useful IRC plugin to ask people for advice suggestions on SEO
• Firebug – possibly for of a developer than SEO tool but VERY handy for debugging HTML/CSS and lots of other web page/ browser based issues

WordPress Plugins

With WordPress becoming increasingly important as a blogging platform / Content management System (CMS) we felt that we simply had to imnlcude some of the many SEO related plugins for WordPress

• All In One SEO- one of the original and still arguably best general purpose SEO plugins
• Google XML Sitemaps – auto generates a special XML sitemap which will help search engines to better index your blog.
• Google Analytics for WordPress – easy setup your Analytics code, allows you to track your blog easily and with lots of metadata.
• SEO friendly Images – automatically adds alt and title attributes to all your images.
• SEO Smart Links – can automatically link keywords and phrases in your posts and comments with corresponding posts, pages, categories and tags on your blog.
• Sexy Bookmarks – adds an attractive social bookmarking menu to your posts, pages, index, or any combination of the three.
• WordPress SEO by Yoast - all in one SEO solution for your WordPress blog: SEO titles, meta descriptions, XML sitemaps, breadcrumbs & much more.
• And also a number of Search Engine Friendly Themes got an honourable mention – e.g. StudioPress – Genesis Theme, and Thesis

 Analytics Tools

Pretty much the ONLY tool discussed was of course Google Analytics.  Way too much about this tool to cover here, but it is likely to be the topic of a future Meetup

Ranking  Tools

We were pretty pleased to discover that no-one was particularly interested in PageRank, and that even our clients had started to get the picture that PageRank in itself is not something worth obsessing about.  However, ranking reports can be a quick and easy way to monitor the impact of SEO strategies over a period.  Many of the SEO Suite based tools (see below) offer rank tracking tools and

BackLink Tools

• Yahoo Site Explorer – once recognised as the single best way to get fairly decent backlioni data on your competitors site – is now seen as no longer reliable and on it’s last legs as a useful tool
• Webmaster Tools – the most accurate source of backlink data for your own site – not available for competitors though (dammit !!!)
• Open Site Explorer – SEOMOZ’s famous Link Popularity Checker + Backlink Analysis Tool
• Majestic SEO – perhaps the worlds most comprehensive source of backlinks information
• Market Samurai -  a Suite tool (see below) that offers some good backlink reporting
• Backlinkwatch – enter a website URL to get detailed information about quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to the site
• Blekko – a “search” engine with a difference.  “slashtag” capabilities extend the info that Blekko offers – try www.yourdomain.com /seo

Conversion Optimisation Tools

There are hundreds of specialist tools that can be sued for Conversion Optimisation – here are a few that were mentioned :

• Google Website Optimizer – Google’s free website testing and optimization tool makes it quick and easy to implement A/B split testing and monitor and measure results.
• ClickTale - discover everything visitors do on your website. Visitor Recordings, Mouse Move Heatmaps, Heatmap Suite, Form Analytics and more…
• CrazyEgg – simple and affordable heat mapping tools that allow you to visually understand user behaviour
• Screenr – web-based screen recorder makes it a breeze to create and share your screencasts around the web.  From a CRO perspective this is a great tool to record test users behaviour – including their commentary on what/why they are doing thing.

SEO Tool Suites

• SEOMOZ SEO Tools – A comprehensive (and sexy) array of SEO tools : Link Building, Competitor Analysis, Keyword research, Optimisation, and more….
• SEO Powersuite – offer a range of SEO Tools from LinkAssitant – including Rank Tracker, Website Auditor,  SEO Spyglass and Link Assistant
• Raven SEO Tools – Internet marketing tools for SEO and Social media  (tends to be higher end, more sophisticated/complex tools for SEO professionals/agencies)
• Market Samurai – Great general purpose and good value tools for internet marketing and SEO

THE Most Important SEO Tool of All ??

And the single most important tool for any self respecting SEO is of course…  EXCEL.  Excel is critical for Collating, Filtering, Analysing and Sorting the reams of data that most SEOs accumulate in their day to day activities.

Once upon a time (not so very long ago), simply having a website might have been enough, but these days, with more and more business realising the benefits of the web, and far greater competition for top search rankings, most businesses are finding they also need to ensure their site has been optimised to be found easily ion search engines. The best way to do this is through Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – which is not simply a matter of popping in the right key words. Keywords are a certainly an important part of it (and probably the place you should start), but there is a lot more that could (and should) be done  to increase traffic to your website.

While SEO can be a full-time job (and is for me) the average small business (and many medium to large businesses as well) probably can’t justify a full time SEO on their payroll.
However, Businesses still have the option of handling SEO on a part-time basis, either  in-house or outsourcing it. There are a number of issues that should be taken into consideration before deciding whether or not to outsource your SEO.  I’ve outlined below,  the main things to consider when planning to outsource your SEO or keep it in house.

When to Outsource SEO?

The main factors that might influence your decision to outsource SEO to an SEO  professional or consultant are:

• Workload – If your staff are already flat out dealing with their normal day to day tasks,  adding another task or responsibility may not be possible. Assigning another task to an already stretched role, is a great way to ensure that it is not done properly – and may also cause a distraction and impact on the effectiveness of tasks that are so far running smoothly. If you don’t have the man hours or staff available to allocate to your website’s SEO then outsourcing may be your only option. Because SEO is so important to the success of your website, and your business, you can’t afford to assign it to an employee and expect it to be done properly if they are making a half-hearted attempt at it in their “spare time”.
• Experience – If none of your staff knows the first thing about search engine optimisation, or only has limited experience, letting them “experiment” on your business website could be very risky.  You are probably much better off getting a specialist SEO company or consultant to handle your website’s SEO needs. Search Engine Optimisation is a dynamic and constantly changing field, and learning and keeping up with what’s happening with SEO can be a lot of work. If your company doesn’t have anyone interested in keeping up to date with current  SEO, trends and strategies, the optimisation of your website won’t be as effective as it otherwise might be.
• Tried and Failed – If you’ve already had a go at handling your company website’s SEO in house and you haven’t seen an increase in page ranking or traffic to the site, letting an outside company handle your SEO needs is probably your best option.

When NOT to outsource SEO

• Limited Budget – If you don’t have the money, you don’t have the money. While outsourcing your SEO doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive, it does cost money.   SEO is rarely a “quick fix” and is likely to take some time to be effective. To ensure it is done properly, you will probably need to engage an SEO consultant for at least  a few months while things are analysed and set up. If you are a medium to large sized company you may be able to re-prioritise, and rework your budget so that you can afford to hire an SEO consultant. But if you are a new or small business, you may not be able to justify, or afford it.  If you really don’t think you can afford an SEO to do everything for you, you may be able to commission a consultant to provide some SEO training, or at least advice on what optimisation steps that you can afford to take, so it is probably worth at least talking to an SEO consultant to see what the options (and costs) might be.
• Inside SEO expertise – If you already have a staff member who understands SEO,  enjoys it and keeps up to date on the changing dynamics, then there should be no need to outsource. Give them the time and tools that they need to keep up with the website’s SEO needs, make sure that they are monitoring, measuring and reporting on the outcomes of their activities, and  you’re ready to go.

Brisbane SEO Consultants

WebConsulting provides a specialist SEO Consulting service to small medium and large businesses in Brisbane, South East Queensland and throughout Australia.  We specialise in Search Engine Optimisation, Conversion Optimisation and Analytics Review, and can work with your existing team or provide training, analysis or advice to help optimise your business website – to improve rankings, traffic and increase your online sales or enquiries.

We don’t typically work on a monthly retainer basis, but provide consulting as and when required.  This ensures that the most effective optimisation strategies can be provided when you need it, and you are not paying for any idle time.

If you’d like to discuss your SEO Consulting or Optimisation needs, please feel free to contact us to arrange an obligation free consultation.

Recently a client asked me what a “good bounce rate” should be, and in considering my response, I realised that Bounce Rate in particular was one statistic that site owners don’t really “get” – which is a great shame because it can be a very useful statistic. This post therefore focuses on the Bounce Rate – explains what it represents, how it should be interpreted, and how it can be used to help increase the effectiveness of your site by improving your conversion rates.

What is a Bounce Rate?

Google ‘s definition of a bounce rate is : “the percentage of single-page visitors, or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page” – i.e. the percentage of your site visitors that only view a single page on your site. So, the higher your bounce rate, the fewer visitors are actually spending time on your site.

A high bounce rate indicates that the 1st web page your site visitors see is not appropriate to them – there is nothing on these pages to encourage them to look further into the site – (although it may also suggest that the one page they looked at provided exactly the information they were looking for). A low bounce rate indicates that visitors have an interest, look at multiple pages and stay for a longer time on your site, and most of the time the longer visitors stay, the more likely they are to convert (purchase a product or make an inquiry).

A bounce rate also provides an indication of the “quality” of a page, and it is quite possible that the search engines might take this statistic into account among the factors influencing search rankings. Its also wise to bear in mind that bounce rate applies to a particular page and that each page on your site might have some other bounce rate.

What makes a Good Bounce Rate?

Exactly what makes a good bounce rate is a bit harder to specify, because it will very much depend on the type of your site and the market you are in. It will also rely on which page you are looking at. A high bounce rate on a contact page may be OK, because it suggests that the visitor was looking for your contact details and may be phoning or emailing you, i.e. they found what they were looking for. However, a higher bounce rate on your home page (or even worse your most important product pages) is much more of a concern because it indicates that people are not interested in this page, are being turned away by what they see, or are not being encouraged to click further into your site.

I generally see bounce rates of between 50% and 70%, however, many of my clients (mostly in niche areas) are obtaining bounce rates of 20% or less.

Why would I want a better Bounce Rate?

Bounce rate is an indication of page quality. A higher number of pages on your site with low bounce rates means that users are spending longer on your site – and are therefore significantly more likely to convert. Reducing bounce rate is a Conversion Optimisation strategy, and can eventually be a lot more effective way to improve sales and inquiries on your site than conventional SEO techniques.

How can I improve my Bounce Rate?

Generally you ought to be trying to achieve as low a bounce rate as you possibly can. We recommend that you start off by examining the bounce rate of your key pages such as your home page, landing pages for PPC campaigns, and pages associated with conversions (inquiry form, product pages, etc).

Take a close look at these pages from a users perspective – do they provide the information or functionality that a user would want or expect?

The original source of the traffic to your high bounce rate pages should also be examined. You should normally expect a lower bounce rate for direct traffic than you would for search traffic. A very high bounce rate for search traffic may suggest that the page is ranking for keywords and key phrases which are not properly answered on that page. After some manipulation of Google Analytics, it is possible to ascertain which key phrases are ending in greater bounce rates for a certain page (if you’re unsure on how to do this, contact us and we can help you to analyse your usage stats).

If you are operating a Paid advertising campaign make sure you take a very close look at the bounce rate of your Ad landing pages – if these are receiving a high bounce rate, not only are you wasting cash on click costs, but your Cost per Click is also apt to be high because of a low quality score.

In this post we’ve really only had a chance to provide simple facts on the information open to you through your web site usage statistics, or techniques that will help you to enhance conversions of your site. If you’d like to discover more about Web Analytics or Conversion Optimisation, don’t hesitate to contact us at WebConsulting.

Some PPC features

• Fast results – can normally start to see results within hours (or even minutes) of activating a campaign
• Only pay when a user clicks
• Reasonably easy to focus on the Keywords you want
• Don’t necessarily have to change your web site
• Great Tracking capabilities (so that it is easy to monitor, measure, adjust and improve)
• You get to define where users go (you define the website landing page)
• Can target distinct regions/localities for your ad to be displayed
• Achieve first page visibility quickly and easily (but not always cheaply)

PPC can be an effective way to get exposure for a site (particularly a new site). However once you stop paying, your ads stop showing, and your traffic volumes drop – there may be few long term benefits. PPC is comparatively quick and easy to setup – but keep in mind that it is also easy for your competition – if they have bigger budgets, they could ultimately win.

Provided that you recognize how much a click is worth, and are certain that the rewards outweigh the expense, PPC can be highly effective. You would not for instance care if it costs you $2,000 (or more) a day provided that it generates $5,000.

PPC is among the few ways a fresh site can get found in the search engine results and start to build traffic (and sales revenue) while the long term Seo methods kick in. The data generated from a PPC Campaign (such as which keywords are converting) can also be an extremely useful source of information for an SEO campaign.

Search engine optimisation Advantages

Below are some of the positive aspects of Search engine optimization:

• Visitors from Organic Search are Totally free
• The rankings a website achieves through SEO can continue for a very long time after the work has been done
• On-page improvements (that are most likely necessary for SEO) can help improve conversions along with traffic
• Commonly more searchers click the natural search results (88%) versus the pay per click ads (12%), so you may well get a good deal more traffic from Organic results.
• Users typically feel Organic Search Results have a higher “trust” level

Of course SEO is not free – it requires effort and investment, frequently over a long period. In some demanding niches it can be extremely hard (or even impossible) to attain page 1 rankings, but in most niches it is possible to comparatively easily achieve respectable rankings and traffic. In any case, it’s the user that should be at the heart of any SEO strategies. Almots anything you do to improve the user experience may well increase your rankings and conversion rates (and ultimately increase sales/enquiries)

Both PPC and SEO have their benefits and drawbacks and depending on your specific goals, either (or even both) could be best for your needs.

There is specific data about your web site that you should be looking at in your log files on a regular basis. Several variables should be examined monthly or even weekly to ensure your site design and page optimisation is on the right track:

Entry Paths

Most sites can be developed and analysed around the concept of visitor pathways. If, for example, your site is a Business to Business (B2B) site and you service small, medium and large businesses, there should be pathways through your site designed for each class of visitor. An extremely simplified example would be:

Clients coming to the site through an optimised home page:

• home page —> small business page —> order page —> order confirmation page
• home page —> medium business page —> order page —> order confirmation page
• home page —> large business page —> order page —> order confirmation page

The site entry pages for these pathways are often optimised home pages or optimized content pages. The final page of this route is often the action that you want clients to take on your site (e.g., sign up for your newsletter, buy your products online or contact you for further information). You can easily determine how effective your pathways are by tracking the entry paths on a regular basis via your site stats.

You should have some idea of the main pathways that clients take through your site, both for monitoring the effectiveness of your page optimisation and conversions, and for the purpose of subsequent site redesign(s). A good starting point to track the pathways through your site is via the graph or chart called “Entry Paths” in your log files / site statistics.

Top Exit Pages

These are pages from which most visitors click away from your site. Why is it useful to track these? Because exit pages can tell you:

• If there is a technical problem with the page that is causing visitors to leave your site. For example, if there are broken links, or the form on the page is not working properly etc.
• If your site design is breaking the strategic pathway, for example, you may have links to external sites that are inducing clients to click away before buying your product or signing up for your newsletter.
• If there is something on these pages that is encouraging visitors to leave your site. For example, an unprofessional design or confusing layout.

In your log files / site statistics, the graph or chart called “Top Exit Pages” is the place to learn why visitors are leaving your site.

Single Access Pages

These are entry pages that are viewed once before the visitor clicks away from your site. Similar to Top Exit Pages, Single Access Pages can tell you a lot about why people are not staying on your site for long.

Have a close look at the search terms used to find your site. Single Access Pages can often indicate that your target search terms are too broad. For example, you may be getting a lot of traffic by targeting “printer cartridges” but if you only stock a particular brand of cartridge, then people seeking other brands are not going to find what they truly seek when they arrive at your site so they will leave immediately. This can be resolved by narrowing down your search terms to be more targeted and focused on your niche products and services, for example, by changing “printer cartridges” to “HP printer cartridges” and so on.

To see what pages of your site are viewed once, look for the graph or chart called “Single Access Pages” in your log files / site statistics.

Most Requested Page(s) and Top Entry Pages.

Tracking these pages is key to measuring the success of your SEO campaign. If your optimization is effective, the Top Entry Pages and Most Requested Pages should be those that you have optimised for target keywords. The Top Entry Pages are particularly relevant as you consider the pathways through your site. Do the most popular entry pages have any relationship to the start pages for your plotted visitor pathways? Or are visitors entering and navigating your site via ways you didn’t intend? You can use this information to continually tweak your page optimization to guide visitors to the right pathways.

To see your most requested pages, look for the graph or chart titled “Most Requested Pages” in your log files / site statistics. Also look for “Top Entry Pages”.

Referring Domains and Referring URLs

Where are your visitors coming from? Are they coming from sites that are linked to yours? Are blog authors or forum members talking about your site? Referring Domains will tell you what sites are linking to yours, while Referring URLs will list the actual pages where the links are located. These can be little gold mines because you can often find valuable sources of traffic via links to your site that you didn’t even know existed.

In terms of an SEO campaign, these links can all add to your site’s overall link popularity, an important factor in the ranking algorithms of many search engines, particularly Google. Monitoring these metrics can tell you if your site requires a link-building campaign or help you measure the effectiveness of various online and offline advertising campaigns.

In your log files / site statistics, Look for the graph or chart titled “Referring Domains” and “Referring URLs”.

Search Engine Referrals

How many of your visitors are coming directly from search engines? What percentage of overall traffic does this represent? This is a good variable to track to help you keep up with how many search engines are listing your site (both free submission and paid submissions), how much traffic they bring and whether to renew your paid submissions. It can also tell you whether you need to increase the number of search engines your site is submitted to in order to build on your link popularity. As a a very rough guide, you should be receiving at least 30 percent of your site traffic via search engine referrals.

To see search engine referrals, look for a chart or graph called “Search Engines” within your site statistics.

Search Keywords

This topic is related to search engine referrals generally, but gives added insight into what terms you were actually found for in the search engines. Do these terms match what your site was optimized for? Are there any surprising terms that you might want to develop site content for? Some log file analysis programs will even break down what specific phrases your site was found for in which particular search engines. The more detailed the data you have, the more closely you can tweak your optimization campaign to your precise market.

To see the search phrases your site was found for, look for “Search Phrases” or “Search Phrases by “Search Engine”.

Landing pages for PCC Campaigns, etc.

If you run a pay-per-click campaign or dedicate specific pages to advertising product specials, you may use special landing pages or tracking ids to monitor your traffic and conversions. Your site logs can help you track these by showing you how many visitors they each had and what they did after they visited those pages.

Metric values that show dramatic change from developing trends

Any site metrics that show a dramatic change from one month to the next could pin-point a problem with your site or with your optimisation campaign. For example, if your search engine referrals have dropped dramatically, it could indicate that you have been penalised in a search engine (or more than one). Noticing changing trends early gives you the chance to investigate problem areas and make adjustments if necessary.

Please note that all log file analysis and site statistics programs are different and use slightly different terms to describe the metrics listed above. If you’re confused, ask your site admin or hosting provider to highlight these for you.

Remember, your log files are gold mines filled with nuggets of information about your optimized web site. If you keep digging on a regular basis, you’ll eventually strike it rich with success.