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Recommended Web Marketing Tools
Recommended Web Marketing Tools | StepForth Web Marketing Inc.
StepForth has compiled a list of the tools of our trade. Some are well known and some are not but in all cases they are excellent programs worthy of your consideration.
Keyword Research Tools :: Web Site Analytics Tools :: Competitor Analysis Research Tools ::
Web Ranking Reporting Tools :: Search Engine Friendly URL Solutions :: XML Sitemap Creation Tools
Other Miscellaneous Must Have Tools (NEW!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keyword Research Tools
Before conducting any search engine promotion it is extremely important to know the ‘terrain’ of your online marketplace. The following tools will aid you by providing a glimpse into the search habits of your prospective customers.
1.KeywordDiscovery ($) **** Highly Recommended!
This is an impressive tool that will provide you with a glimpse into the annual search frequencies for particular search terms. Also of relevance is a graph provided in the paid version which outlines the seasonal use of keywords (i.e. when is your phrase searched for less during the year). This type of seasonal data can help you plan the keyword targets for varying seasons, ultimately saving you money.
2.KeywordSpy ($) – This tool is especially affective at finding the keywords your competitors are targeting and which keywords are the most profitable. There are also other effective tools available from this great service.
3.WordTracker ($) – This tool has been around a while so the services it provides are time tested and informative. WordTracker is used and recommended by the best in SEO.
4.Google AdWords: Keyword Tool (FREE) – Where better to get your keyword intelligence than from the source itself? Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool is a powerful alternative to the paid options. It doesn’t offer any of the project saving capabilities or advanced query search options but the data is undeniably useful.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to Top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Website Analytics Tools
1.Google Analytics (Free)
Opened to the public as a free service in August 2006 this program is very powerful and flexible. It features integration with Google Adwords promotion and a whole host of very cool reports. Google Analytics does not, however, provide fraud reporting and analysis for pay-per-click marketing – a significant disadvantage over ClickTracks. In addition, the segmentation capabilities that were added in late 2008 are a welcome addition but they still lack some of the capabilities built into ClickTracks.
2.Omniture ($$$$)
Probably the most complex and full featured web analytics program available today. Our experience with Omniture has been very positive but the system is too intense for small business. If you have a large company or a site with loads of traffic (think millions of unique visitors per month) then this is the program for you.
3.WebTrends ($$)
We had extensive experience with this program in the early years of StepForth and it was a great tool then and I hear it is holding its own with interesting new functionality being added all of the time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to Top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Competitor Analysis Research Tools
Need to research a competitor? Are you planning to do this yourself? If so here are three of the top programs you need. Think of them as your personal SEO detective kit.
1.The Above Keyword Research Tools: The keyword research tools noted near the top of this page offer the ability to find out what keywords competitors are using.
2.OptiLink ($) : Discover where your competitor’s backlinks are coming from by compiling a list of their backlinks and automatically analyzing them with OptiLink. This program is reasonably priced and provides awesome support plus updates for life – you can’t ask for better. This is a mandatory tool in our SEO toolbox.
3.OptiSpider ($) : Similar to OptiLink this tool will take a different angle when analyzing your competitor’s site. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to know just how your competitor’s have optimized their website’s? This tool will crawl and catalogue their site just like a search engine spider and provide you with a very revealing report.
4.Advanced Web Ranking ($): Find out how your competitors are doing in search engines around the world and in specific locales (yes, this tool offers local-targeted ranking checks).
5.SEO for Firefox (Free) : A great plugin from SEO Book for analyzing websites while you surf the web in the excellent (and free) FireFox web browser.
6.Raven Internet Marketing Tools ($): Research and track competitors via keywords and social networks. You can also monitor a great deal of competitive data for your own website through this very popular and useful service package.
7.XENU Link Sleuth (Free) : A popular tool for many SEOs, XENU can quickly analyze your own or a competitor’s site.
8.Compete ($) : This great tool can provide a statistical comparison of up to 5 different websites. Excellent for competitor analysis but the final data should be taken with a grain of salt because Compete can only produce stats on the limited data available.
9.Majestic SEO ($): This is a great tool for conducting extensive and complex link analysis for those very large competitors out there.
10.PR Prowler ($) : Although PageRank is not nearly as black and white as it once was, PR Prowler serves as a helpful method for finding the best sites to get links from or to advertise on.
11.Check Server Headers Tool (Free) : This somewhat technical tool that StepForth offers free of charge provides valuable insight into the setup of yours or your competitor’s servers. For example, StepForth uses this tool to verify that our clients have properly set up their server redirects (301’s) so that duplicate content issues are avoided. It is also used extensively within our competitor analysis reports; it is useful to see how your competitors might have an edge over you.
12.DomainTools.com (Free) : Domain Tools is one of my favorite sites for competitor analysis. The most useful component, the Reverse IP Tool, allows me to plunk in a single competitor’s domain and then see every other website that is hosted on its server. In rare instances where the co-hosted domains are owned by the competitor I can get a hint at any future marketing plans my clients should be made aware of.
13.Robots.txt Syntax Checker (Free) : There is nothing worse than making an error in a Robots.txt file and accidentally dropping a site out of the search engines. The free Robots.txt checker will review your Robots.txt file; ensuring it is properly created and it will provide you with the rules within the file in plain language to ensure everything meets your approval. This is a valuable tool for avoiding serious indexing issues.
Not so sure you want to tackle your own competitor research? StepForth offers basic to advanced competitor analysis services.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to Top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ranking Reporting Tools
Keep an eye on your search engine rankings across the major and minor search engines; should you see a drop or increase in your rankings you will be better informed and know how to respond.
◦Advanced Web Ranking
Advanced Web Ranking is the best tool we know of for conducting ranking research globally on search engines. The myriad of features that were included in this relatively new tool is exhaustive and impressive. If you still feel ranking reporting is a necessary part of your web marketing intelligence then this is the tool we recommend – hands down.
What, That’s It? Yes, we recommend no other service because we cannot find any that compare! Of all the programs we have tested Advanced Web Ranking is the only one that has reliable data (more often than not) and has exportable/email-able reports that are actually easy on the eyes. If you would like to submit your software for review please let us know but expect that we will require a full professional copy of the software to test the program.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to Top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SEO Friendly URL Solutions
In many cases website URL’s are the reason that web sites are not fully indexed by visiting search engine spiders. Here are a few rewrite solutions that you can employ to correct your unfriendly URL’s and open the door to search engine spiders:
1.Apache Servers: Mod Rewrite (Free, capability comes with Apache)
In Apache servers the URL rewriting feature is named Mod Rewrite. Here is a link to a search engine watch forum thread discussing this feature and how to enable it.
2.Windows (IIS) Servers: ISAPI Rewrites ($)
This is a 3rd party software program designed to enable custom URL rewriting features for Windows IIS servers. More information on ISAPI Rewrite.
3.Windows: .Net Rewrite
Ok, I am no programmer or system administrator so I am getting out of my depth here but I believe this is another tool that would work for rewriting URL’s for web sites using .Net (this link is definitely for techies only!)
UNCERTAIN?
Are you unsure if your site uses unfriendly URL’s? The answer to an SEO question titled “What are Good and Bad URL’s and How to Fix the Bad Ones” may answer your question. In addition, I highly recommend reading “Is Your Website Search Engine Friendly? ” to ensure you have not missed anything else that may be impeding your online success.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to Top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
XML Sitemap Creation Tools
The following XML sitemap creation tools are extremely handy for creating and maintaining website XML sitemaps for submission to search engines:
◦Vigos Google Sitemap Generator (Free) : this great free tool will make your life easier by spidering and automatically generating a slick XML sitemap for your website. Plenty of useful controlled page update options are also provided.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other Miscellaneous Must Have Tools
The following are tools that we use on a daily basis at StepForth and wouldn’t know what to do without. They do not, however, fit under the other categories on this page; thus the birth of the infamous “Miscellaneous” category!
◦RoboForm (Free Trial / $30 to buy – one time fee for life):
Hands down, this is our most important tool at StepForth; and everyone in the company has a copy in his/her arsenal. Sounds over-done right? Well, we are not overstating this at all. We all have countless logins and passwords we use on sites all around the web; from directory accounts where we can update our paid and non-paid listings, to a multitude of Social Media accounts and even client accounts. We have used RoboForm for at least 7 years to manage our logins and passwords. Even better?!? All of our passwords are securely encrypted and saved on our computer AND on a server at RoboForm for free so we can access that information from other computers. I tell ya, for the $29.95 (one time fee! which includes all updates) we haven’t looked back. In fact, I will not switch to a new web browser unless it has the ability to run the RoboForm plugin.
Ooops!: I forgot one thing which is unforgiveable to have missed. RoboForm also automates the filling of forms online using multiple identities. Say, for example, you didn’t want to fill in a form with all of your most personal, accurate information but you wanted to use information that included generalized info such as an email address you don’t mind getting spam to. Well, just click on that identity in a drop down in your browser and VOILA! Your form will be filled with that information and you just have to hit submit. It will even include login and passwords for you that you have setup prior. Anyway, I just had to add this.
◦Notepad++ (Free): If you are an SEO or you do any webmastering work then it is 100% certain you will be using some sort of code visualization and editing tool. Well, many of us use NotePad in Windows to work on code in a quick and dirty manner but it has many issues that make this difficult. NotePad++ is a separate program (it does not overwrite your standard Notepad application) that provides all of the bells and whistles you could need to do code writing and editing. Best of all, it is 100% free.
◦XMind (Free or Pro for $49/yr) or MindJet MindManager ($$$): If you are anything like our CEO, Ross Dunn, then you are probably a visual thinker and troubleshooter. In that case, these two tools are your answer because they provide easy to use mindmapping tools that allow you to put your ideas in a graphical format so easily you will be addicted in minutes (our CEO is!). Now, Ross Dunn uses MindJet MindManager which is worth every penny but at the same time it is far from free. If you cannot afford MindManager then XMind is his next recommendation and it is 100% free and offers many of the same basic capabilities as MindManager. Enjoy!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recommended Web Marketing Tools | StepForth Web Marketing Inc.
StepForth has compiled a list of the tools of our trade. Some are well known and some are not but in all cases they are excellent programs worthy of your consideration.
Keyword Research Tools :: Web Site Analytics Tools :: Competitor Analysis Research Tools ::
Web Ranking Reporting Tools :: Search Engine Friendly URL Solutions :: XML Sitemap Creation Tools
Other Miscellaneous Must Have Tools (NEW!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keyword Research Tools
Before conducting any search engine promotion it is extremely important to know the ‘terrain’ of your online marketplace. The following tools will aid you by providing a glimpse into the search habits of your prospective customers.
1.KeywordDiscovery ($) **** Highly Recommended!
This is an impressive tool that will provide you with a glimpse into the annual search frequencies for particular search terms. Also of relevance is a graph provided in the paid version which outlines the seasonal use of keywords (i.e. when is your phrase searched for less during the year). This type of seasonal data can help you plan the keyword targets for varying seasons, ultimately saving you money.
2.KeywordSpy ($) – This tool is especially affective at finding the keywords your competitors are targeting and which keywords are the most profitable. There are also other effective tools available from this great service.
3.WordTracker ($) – This tool has been around a while so the services it provides are time tested and informative. WordTracker is used and recommended by the best in SEO.
4.Google AdWords: Keyword Tool (FREE) – Where better to get your keyword intelligence than from the source itself? Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool is a powerful alternative to the paid options. It doesn’t offer any of the project saving capabilities or advanced query search options but the data is undeniably useful.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to Top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Website Analytics Tools
1.Google Analytics (Free)
Opened to the public as a free service in August 2006 this program is very powerful and flexible. It features integration with Google Adwords promotion and a whole host of very cool reports. Google Analytics does not, however, provide fraud reporting and analysis for pay-per-click marketing – a significant disadvantage over ClickTracks. In addition, the segmentation capabilities that were added in late 2008 are a welcome addition but they still lack some of the capabilities built into ClickTracks.
2.Omniture ($$$$)
Probably the most complex and full featured web analytics program available today. Our experience with Omniture has been very positive but the system is too intense for small business. If you have a large company or a site with loads of traffic (think millions of unique visitors per month) then this is the program for you.
3.WebTrends ($$)
We had extensive experience with this program in the early years of StepForth and it was a great tool then and I hear it is holding its own with interesting new functionality being added all of the time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to Top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Competitor Analysis Research Tools
Need to research a competitor? Are you planning to do this yourself? If so here are three of the top programs you need. Think of them as your personal SEO detective kit.
1.The Above Keyword Research Tools: The keyword research tools noted near the top of this page offer the ability to find out what keywords competitors are using.
2.OptiLink ($) : Discover where your competitor’s backlinks are coming from by compiling a list of their backlinks and automatically analyzing them with OptiLink. This program is reasonably priced and provides awesome support plus updates for life – you can’t ask for better. This is a mandatory tool in our SEO toolbox.
3.OptiSpider ($) : Similar to OptiLink this tool will take a different angle when analyzing your competitor’s site. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to know just how your competitor’s have optimized their website’s? This tool will crawl and catalogue their site just like a search engine spider and provide you with a very revealing report.
4.Advanced Web Ranking ($): Find out how your competitors are doing in search engines around the world and in specific locales (yes, this tool offers local-targeted ranking checks).
5.SEO for Firefox (Free) : A great plugin from SEO Book for analyzing websites while you surf the web in the excellent (and free) FireFox web browser.
6.Raven Internet Marketing Tools ($): Research and track competitors via keywords and social networks. You can also monitor a great deal of competitive data for your own website through this very popular and useful service package.
7.XENU Link Sleuth (Free) : A popular tool for many SEOs, XENU can quickly analyze your own or a competitor’s site.
8.Compete ($) : This great tool can provide a statistical comparison of up to 5 different websites. Excellent for competitor analysis but the final data should be taken with a grain of salt because Compete can only produce stats on the limited data available.
9.Majestic SEO ($): This is a great tool for conducting extensive and complex link analysis for those very large competitors out there.
10.PR Prowler ($) : Although PageRank is not nearly as black and white as it once was, PR Prowler serves as a helpful method for finding the best sites to get links from or to advertise on.
11.Check Server Headers Tool (Free) : This somewhat technical tool that StepForth offers free of charge provides valuable insight into the setup of yours or your competitor’s servers. For example, StepForth uses this tool to verify that our clients have properly set up their server redirects (301’s) so that duplicate content issues are avoided. It is also used extensively within our competitor analysis reports; it is useful to see how your competitors might have an edge over you.
12.DomainTools.com (Free) : Domain Tools is one of my favorite sites for competitor analysis. The most useful component, the Reverse IP Tool, allows me to plunk in a single competitor’s domain and then see every other website that is hosted on its server. In rare instances where the co-hosted domains are owned by the competitor I can get a hint at any future marketing plans my clients should be made aware of.
13.Robots.txt Syntax Checker (Free) : There is nothing worse than making an error in a Robots.txt file and accidentally dropping a site out of the search engines. The free Robots.txt checker will review your Robots.txt file; ensuring it is properly created and it will provide you with the rules within the file in plain language to ensure everything meets your approval. This is a valuable tool for avoiding serious indexing issues.
Not so sure you want to tackle your own competitor research? StepForth offers basic to advanced competitor analysis services.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to Top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ranking Reporting Tools
Keep an eye on your search engine rankings across the major and minor search engines; should you see a drop or increase in your rankings you will be better informed and know how to respond.
◦Advanced Web Ranking
Advanced Web Ranking is the best tool we know of for conducting ranking research globally on search engines. The myriad of features that were included in this relatively new tool is exhaustive and impressive. If you still feel ranking reporting is a necessary part of your web marketing intelligence then this is the tool we recommend – hands down.
What, That’s It? Yes, we recommend no other service because we cannot find any that compare! Of all the programs we have tested Advanced Web Ranking is the only one that has reliable data (more often than not) and has exportable/email-able reports that are actually easy on the eyes. If you would like to submit your software for review please let us know but expect that we will require a full professional copy of the software to test the program.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to Top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SEO Friendly URL Solutions
In many cases website URL’s are the reason that web sites are not fully indexed by visiting search engine spiders. Here are a few rewrite solutions that you can employ to correct your unfriendly URL’s and open the door to search engine spiders:
1.Apache Servers: Mod Rewrite (Free, capability comes with Apache)
In Apache servers the URL rewriting feature is named Mod Rewrite. Here is a link to a search engine watch forum thread discussing this feature and how to enable it.
2.Windows (IIS) Servers: ISAPI Rewrites ($)
This is a 3rd party software program designed to enable custom URL rewriting features for Windows IIS servers. More information on ISAPI Rewrite.
3.Windows: .Net Rewrite
Ok, I am no programmer or system administrator so I am getting out of my depth here but I believe this is another tool that would work for rewriting URL’s for web sites using .Net (this link is definitely for techies only!)
UNCERTAIN?
Are you unsure if your site uses unfriendly URL’s? The answer to an SEO question titled “What are Good and Bad URL’s and How to Fix the Bad Ones” may answer your question. In addition, I highly recommend reading “Is Your Website Search Engine Friendly? ” to ensure you have not missed anything else that may be impeding your online success.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to Top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
XML Sitemap Creation Tools
The following XML sitemap creation tools are extremely handy for creating and maintaining website XML sitemaps for submission to search engines:
◦Vigos Google Sitemap Generator (Free) : this great free tool will make your life easier by spidering and automatically generating a slick XML sitemap for your website. Plenty of useful controlled page update options are also provided.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other Miscellaneous Must Have Tools
The following are tools that we use on a daily basis at StepForth and wouldn’t know what to do without. They do not, however, fit under the other categories on this page; thus the birth of the infamous “Miscellaneous” category!
◦RoboForm (Free Trial / $30 to buy – one time fee for life):
Hands down, this is our most important tool at StepForth; and everyone in the company has a copy in his/her arsenal. Sounds over-done right? Well, we are not overstating this at all. We all have countless logins and passwords we use on sites all around the web; from directory accounts where we can update our paid and non-paid listings, to a multitude of Social Media accounts and even client accounts. We have used RoboForm for at least 7 years to manage our logins and passwords. Even better?!? All of our passwords are securely encrypted and saved on our computer AND on a server at RoboForm for free so we can access that information from other computers. I tell ya, for the $29.95 (one time fee! which includes all updates) we haven’t looked back. In fact, I will not switch to a new web browser unless it has the ability to run the RoboForm plugin.
Ooops!: I forgot one thing which is unforgiveable to have missed. RoboForm also automates the filling of forms online using multiple identities. Say, for example, you didn’t want to fill in a form with all of your most personal, accurate information but you wanted to use information that included generalized info such as an email address you don’t mind getting spam to. Well, just click on that identity in a drop down in your browser and VOILA! Your form will be filled with that information and you just have to hit submit. It will even include login and passwords for you that you have setup prior. Anyway, I just had to add this.
◦Notepad++ (Free): If you are an SEO or you do any webmastering work then it is 100% certain you will be using some sort of code visualization and editing tool. Well, many of us use NotePad in Windows to work on code in a quick and dirty manner but it has many issues that make this difficult. NotePad++ is a separate program (it does not overwrite your standard Notepad application) that provides all of the bells and whistles you could need to do code writing and editing. Best of all, it is 100% free.
◦XMind (Free or Pro for $49/yr) or MindJet MindManager ($$$): If you are anything like our CEO, Ross Dunn, then you are probably a visual thinker and troubleshooter. In that case, these two tools are your answer because they provide easy to use mindmapping tools that allow you to put your ideas in a graphical format so easily you will be addicted in minutes (our CEO is!). Now, Ross Dunn uses MindJet MindManager which is worth every penny but at the same time it is far from free. If you cannot afford MindManager then XMind is his next recommendation and it is 100% free and offers many of the same basic capabilities as MindManager. Enjoy!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
