Website’s Onsite Optimization Tools

Some parts of your SEO take place outside of your site.  Links, social media, hosting options and the like are all offsite SEO.  Plenty of other parts of your SEO, however, depend on on-site content, code and tweaks.  There’s a lot to consider; your meta data, you images, your content, your navigation and much more.  It’s hard to keep every little detail in mind, let alone learn how to manually make every tweak.  That’s where these tools come in.  They can help you with some of the tasks you find before you while you’re optimizing your site.  Some are just helpful tools to streamline a process; others are essentially analytics in a can, to help you correct mistakes before you make them.

1. Keyword Research with Keyword Eye

Keyword Eye is unique among keyword research tools in that it presents its results in a word cloud, a graphical representation of keyword research.  Different keywords show in different sizes to represent quality, and different colors to represent activity.  Additionally, Keyword Eye will analyze the content on your site to attempt to identify keywords and trends you may not realize lie under your content.  All of this combines with other link analysis tools, question finders for more detailed keyword research – including potential semantic search questions – and more.

All in all, Keyword Eye is a quality program that can cut out hours of brainstorming and keyword research.  The basic version is limited to certain keyword databases, with a fixed number of searches you can perform each day and a limited number of suggestions each report.  The professional version quadruples the results, gives you unlimited searches, adds competitor analysis and a host of other features.

2. Title and Meta Optimization with SEOBin’s Optimization Tool

The SEO Optimization Tool doesn’t have a fancy name.  It’s hosted on SEOBin.org, it’s very no-frills and it’s completely free.  What does it do?

Primarily, the SEO Optimization Tool helps you analyze and optimize your title and meta tags.  These are what determine your snippet in the Google search results, so it’s a good idea to do everything you can to optimize them.

The main function of the tool is to show you what other titles and snippets already exist for a given keyword phrase in a given country.  It will also give you a handful of related keywords, which you may consider working into your content as you write.  You can create a title and meta description right there in the tool, and it will generate a preview that looks just like what your result would look like on the live results.

3. Image Optimization with Image SEO Tool

Feed The Bot’s tool, the Image SEO Tool, is another quick and easy, no-frills tool without a fancy name.  It’s an incredibly simple tool.  It has a form and a button.  In the form, you plug in the URL of a live image, on your website or elsewhere.  You click the button and let it do its thing.  It will scan your image file name, your alt text and the size of your image.  If there is an SEO problem with any of those – a meaningless filename, no alt text or too small or large an image – it will tell you.  If no alert appears, your image is fine.

The real power of this tool, however, is not really in the tool itself.  The tool’s creator, Patrick Sexton, has created a full dozen other tools with other varying minor, simple and quick effects.  Check social media counts.  Check the HTTP header of a website.  Check if your website supports the header If Modified Since attribute.  Generate a quick and basic link report.  It’s all available and it’s all easy to use.

Okay, so those three tools are helpful, but they’re only scratching the surface of what you can do with useful tools for your onsite SEO.  Here are a few bonus tools, to make your life that much easier.

Bonus 1. Scan for Content Duplication with Copyscape

Modern websites need a constant flow of high quality content to succeed.  Many businesses choose to hire external writers or freelancers to create that content.  Some choose to buy the content directly from a content mill.  There’s always a risk when buying content from a third party; it’s possible that the content is not unique.  That’s where Copyscape comes in.

Copyscape is an incredibly helpful tool that assists you in protecting yourself from content theft, content scrapers and plagiarists.

• Run a piece of content through Copyscape before you purchase it to make sure it’s completely unique, and won’t risk a duplicate content penalty.

• Run your current website through Copyscape to make sure none of your past content was posted elsewhere without your knowledge, before you posted it.

• Check your current site for any issues where content scrapers have stolen your content and reposted it. It generally doesn’t hurt you when it happens, but you can report content theft to Google.

Bonus 2. XML Sitemap Generation with Many Generators

One of the easiest ways to maintain an up to date index of your site within Google is tosubmit an XML sitemap to the search engine.  This sitemap is pure code; it doesn’t bother with a public face, because it’s designed specifically for the search engines.  You can, of course, skin it for a public table of contents if you wish.

To create an XML sitemap, you have two options.  You can either painstakingly log the locations and upload dates of every page of your site, including category pages and index pages, or you can use one of these many generators.  Each generator on that list has its own ups and downs.  Some work on specific site architecture.  Others work as ongoing plugins.  Still others are tools you can download and use.

Once you have an XML sitemap created, you can use this tool – XML Sitemap Inspector – to make sure it’s formed properly and includes all of the information it should have.  It’s also worth it to run your sitemap through the inspector every few months, to make sure nothing has broken in the interim.