Three Killer Tools to Fire Up Your SEO

SEO Tactics to Study and Beat the Competition

How the Pros Deploy SEO

Wouldn’t it be great if you could literally spy on your competition with no risk of them finding out you’re checking out their website, source code, top keywords, and Adwords?

This article will guide you to do just that with several free tools and a couple of our favorite stealth weapons for driving more traffic to your website.

If you’re reading this article, chances are you’ve got a decent sense for how powerful marketing online can be for your small business. And you probably want to learn more. Congratulations. Because most of your competitors are asleep at the wheel.

The simple truth is I meet business owners all the time who are getting their heads handed to them by their competitors. It’s okay that some business owners are late to the game with internet marketing. What I have a tough time understanding is the attitude I see and hear too often.

It goes like this…

"Oh yeah. I know all about internet marketing. I’ve got a website. But it doesn’t do anything for my business. Prove to me that it works and maybe I’ll consider marketing online."

All I need to do for this person is fire up a browser, search for what they sell and show them their competition sitting on the first search engine result page. Then, maybe then, I can get their attention.

The truth is we can’t always help the people who have their heads stuck in the sand. An ostrich is an ostrich is an ostrich. And it’s up to them to figure out the power of marketing online. We’ll be here to help them when the time is right.

If you are interested in learning how to be more effective with your online marketing, here are several considerations for you to think about.

1. Getting results online won’t happen overnight. You need to commit the time, energy and capital to do it right.

2. Your website is just the beginning. It needs to be optimized to grow your list and generate prospects, customers and new business.

3. Driving traffic to your website won’t happen by itself. Getting new traffic is done with proper research, analysis of the competition, search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click advertising (SEM). Social media can also be a powerful element.

4. You need to measure results and test everything. If you don’t have Google Analytics, start here. It’s free.

Before we take on a new website redesign or build we recommend our clients start with research. Here are several killer tools we use to do this research BEFORE we work on any site.

1. Search engine results. For any new client we search Google while trying to emulate the psychology of the person who would be looking for what our client sells. This gives us search engine results that tell us what companies are doing a good job with their organic SEO efforts and pay per click. You can do this yourself for free. We also use Google’s Keyword tool and several others.

2. Google Analytics. Assuming a client has the code embedded on all pages of their website, we evaluate this critical reporting tool. We see the key metrics such site usage, traffic sources and content overview. We learn how many people remain on the site, what pages they’re viewing, how long they stay on the site, and what content is keeping their attention. We also see from where people are leaving the site. You can do this yourself, for free.

3. SEOMozPro is a subscription-based service and we love it. It’s a very powerful tool that enables us to create a scan any website, including your top competitors, to see what’s going on. Specifically we look at rankings, on-page reports and the critical diagnostics that tell us what needs to be fixed on a website. (Yes, websites need constant maintenance if you want to be in the SEO game.)

4. Want to literally spy on your competition’s keywords and Adwords? We love Spyfu.com. This is a very stealth weapon to beat the competition at their own game. This is also a paid service by subscription. And well worth it if you’re planning to use it often as we do.

What tools do you like for SEO and conducting your research? What questions do you have about SEO, SEM and conducting the proper research to win more leads, prospects and customers online?

We always appreciate your questions and comments on the WealthNet Partners blog.