Being a Minnesota Web Designer I’ve built quite a collection of tools that I use to test, optimize, and improve websites and I thought I’d share some of my favorites here.
Free Tools to Test and Optimize your Website
We’re talking free (as in beer) tools that you can use to improve your website, what more could you want?
1. Google (Webmaster Tools, Analytics, Adwords, Adsense, Etc.)
Google has an amazing assortment of tools to improve and monetize your site, and best of all they are completely free (you just need a Google Account).
First are the Google Webmaster Tools, it takes a little work to add and verify your site (upload a file to your server or add a meta tag to your homepage), but it’s completely worth it. The Google Webmaster Tools give you comprehensive statistics on your site, including: diagnostics, top search queries, what googlebot sees, internal and external links, and plenty of other useful tools to analyze your site.
Next up is Google Analytics. Google Analytics is all about site statistics, you simply add a small bit of javascript tracking code and voila, you’ve got some amazing visitor statistics. These stats include: # of visitors, bounce rate, average time on the site, # of pageviews, visitor’s geographic location, traffic sources, content overview, and a whole lot more.
Now it’s Google Adwords turn to advertise your site and bring in the traffic (and business)! Setup multiple Adwords campaigns and use the Keyword Tool to target specific keywords, to promote your website and your business. You can also use the Website Optimizer to track A/B scenarios to improve your website and generate more business! Now the advertising part of Google Adwords may not be free (well $50 of free advertising with a new Adwords Account), but all of the great tools that come with Adwords ARE free (Keyword Tool, Website Optimizer, etc.).
Don’t forget about Google Adsense! You can use Adsense to provide targeted advertising on your blog or website. Now you have the option of Adsense for Content (text and/or image ads in many different sizes), Adsense for Search (offer your users site search and get paid for relevant ads at the same time), Adsense for feeds (releveant ads in your RSS feeds from Google), Video Units (show youtube partner videos and get paid), or Adsense for Mobile Content (make money from your mobile website). So, as you can see the options are endless, and with the right ads you can make money from your website!
There are many other Google Tools that I have not listed here, but that offer some really great features and functions. To learn more about all that Google has to offer, check out the Google Products Page.
2. Yahoo Site Explorer
Site Explorer allows you to explore all the web pages indexed by Yahoo! Search. View the most popular pages from any site, dive into a comprehensive site map, and find pages that link to a site or even a specific page. Overall the Yahoo Site Explorer is a great tool for analyzing your own site (for pages indexed in Yahoo, as well as backlinks to your site), but it’s also a great tool to analyze your competitors sites (see their most popular pages AND the backlinks to their site).
3. Website Grader by Hubspot
Website Grader is a free tool from Hubspot that you can use to analyze your website for traffic, SEO, and social popularity, as well as keyword ranking and competitor site analysis. Simply enter your site address, a few of your competitors sites, and your email, and Website Grader does the rest. You will get a report on your website with a final grade (out of 100) on how well your website is optimized, and how well your site does compared to other websites.
Paid Tools to Test and Optimize your Website
Alright, so that was a decent list of free tools, but how about the sea of paid tools that you can use to optimize your website?
1. Web CEO
Web CEO is the motherload in the case of Website Quality Testing, Search Engine Optimization, and a whole lot more! Start off by finding your Niche through Keyword Research, Optimizing your Site, and Editing your Web Pages. Then you can move on to Promoting your Site with Search Engine Submissions, Link Partners, and Paid Search Campaigns. Finish off with Analyzing and Maintaining your Site by Checking your Search Engine Rankings, Analyzing your Inbound Links, Track and Analyze Visitors, Find and Fix Broken Links and Errors on your Site, and Monitor your Website in case it goes down. Like I said before, Web CEO is the motherload of paid website tools.
2. WordTracker
With a WordTracker Subscription you can optimize your website for popular keywords, generate relevant keywords to improve your search campaigns and build traffic, and research online markets to find the right niche for your site. There’s also the WordTracker Academy where you can learn all about keywords, niches and how to research and take advantage of online markets.
3. Compete
Compete’s slogan says it all, “Track your rivals. Then eat their lunch.” With Compete you can get comprehensive analytics and compare your site with up to 4 of your competitors. Find out how much traffic your competitors sites are getting, their most popular keywords, and more.
Well that should just about wrap up this post. If you have a really great tool for improving your website that you’d like to share, please feel free to post a comment here or contact me. And, if you’re looking to Analyze or Optimize your Website (or you’re looking for Minnesota Web Design), don’t forget to check out JB Design and Photo.
11 replies on “Awesome Tools to Improve Your Website”
you can also add http://www.pagealizer.com to the list. they help you understand bounce rate
Yea pagealizer looks interesting but it also looks quite expensive (free to $100/month depending on # of visitors).
Good compilations and reviews. Personally, I’ve been using Wordtracker for years, and give it a hearty thumbs up.
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I use most of google’s tools. They are free and very accurate!
Great tools to help anyone improve their website
Thanks
Google webmaster tools are great, but Yahoo still has some work to do. There set of tools seems to generic to me. But in the end its all about rankings, i couldn’t care less what tools the big 3 offer if my site is ranking high…lol.
I have heard that search engine submission tools and services are a scam, and that the best way to get found by Google is to have an inbound link from a site that ranks well.
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The general consensus is that you should never pay for search engine submission services, because there are too many free tools that do the same thing. When you first launch your site you will want to submit your site to the search engines and then forget about it and move on to building quality, relevant links to your site.
In fact a quality incoming link will get your site found faster than any search engine submission (at least from my experience, especially with Google). But don’t just stop there, the key behind Google’s search results are a sites incoming links (think of them as votes), and the more and higher quality links you can get the better.
Be careful though as there are some common pitfalls: 1. Don’t just focus on sites with high page rank as a link from them is usually more difficult to obtain, 2. You need to find the right balance between quality and quantity (don’t just get 1,000 links from garbage free directories and spammy sites), and the more links you can get from other sites in your category/niche the better.
Thanks so much for this info, very helpful in my research
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I just want to make some sweet money from home.initially i thought that it will be easy but now i have realized that its not that easy to make money online.especially if you are not that great with your focus and hard work.I am not an guru but i have observed very known bloggers.And i am also and student of work from home.just keep it up it will work for all of us for sure.Thank you for this lovely post.
Amazing write up, never read such an informative blog and enjoyed it. Thankyou. Keep up the good work. Looking forward to read more.