• Keyword Suggestion tool
• Search Engine Optimization/KSP tool
• Single Page Analyzer
• SEO Multi-Page Information tool
• Check Server Page tool
• And an SEO Cloaking Checker

These free tools don’t require a login, credit card info, or software download. Use them as much as you like from the Free SEO Tools page on SEOToolSet.com.

To give you a chance to see in action how the data you get enhances your organic SEO efforts, this miniseries covers each of the free SEO tools. (See the whole miniseries here!) In this post, you meet a lightweight version of our most frequently used SEO tool, the Single Page Analyzer.

• Today’s free SEO tool: single page analyzer
• How to use it
• 5 ways to use this data
• How not to use this data
• How to Decode the Single Page Analyzer Report
• FAQ: What are the advantages of using SEO analysis tools in web optimization?

Today’s Free SEO Tool: Single Page Analyzer

Tool type: On-page content analysis, on-page optimization

What you’ll learn: When you submit a URL, the tool:

• Grades the optimization of page components (meta data, other tags and body content)
• Flags any SEO errors, and
• Provides suggestions on how to improve your web page optimization.

Why this matters: Proper page analysis is key to improving your web page optimization. Review this data for your own pages and for top-ranking competitors to discover what makes a web page rank high in the search engines for your industry and keywords.

Run the Single Page Analyzer:    

How to Use It

1. Enter a single URL and click Run Page Analyzer. You can enter your own web page or a competitor’s URL. The tool can analyze only one page at a time.
2. The Single Page Analyzer (SPA) produces data about various elements of a web page. This free version returns a report that’s separated into three sections:
   • The first category, Tag Information, examines the tags for a page.
   • The second category, Text Metrics and Readability, analyzes the content and scores the reading level of the text.
   • The final category, Word Phrase Usage, breaks down the most commonly used words and phrases used in various elements on the page.

How to get more from the SPA: The SPA tool featured here is a lightweight version of the tool, which means it’s not the full version. However, you can now access the complete version of this robust tool by signing up for the SEOToolSet. The full version of the Single Page Analyzer tool is available with a low-cost SEOToolSet subscription.

5 Ways to Use This Data

The point of running the SPA is to spot any SEO-related issues with the content on a web page. This tool in particular will show you any major errors, weak areas, as well as any elements that are missing from the page. You can use this information to fix those errors, strengthen weaknesses, and add the missing elements that are vital to the optimization of that page.

Our SEO analysts usually run this tool over and over again to see how the changes they’ve made meet SEO best practices and to learn from their competitors. Before we get into the specifics of how to use the tool and decode the reports, this is what you get from the Single Page Analyzer’s data analysis.

Here are five valuable ways you can use this data to enhance your search engine optimization strategy for a web page:

1. Improve the optimization of your meta tags. Is your meta description too long or too short? Because it matters. Are your tags in the right order? That matters, too. There are basic dos and don’ts to writing meta tags. Use the Tag Information report provided by the SPA to fix or strengthen your tags according to SEO best practices. If you find errors in red, fix them. If you discover that you’re missing any tags, add them. Once you’ve made the changes and have added the missing elements, you can then run the tool a second time to examine the recent changes.

2. Adjust the reading level of your text. High-quality web content has many characteristics, and an appropriate reading level is one of them. Content that is too simple or too complicated can lose the attention of your target audience and fail to bring conversions. So how do you know if your content is written in the appropriate reading level? The SPA will tell you.

Using the Text Metrics and Readability section of the report (outlined below), find out the reading level of your text. If it’s too high, consider adjusting it by reducing the number of three-syllable words and shortening your sentences.

While most web content should be simple to digest, certain industries or businesses require a higher reading level.

Tip: A good way to find out the appropriate reading level for your business or industry is to check out a competitor that is ranking high in the SERPs. Run the SPA on a competitor’s page and get a breakdown of their text. You can then emulate the same writing style and language accordingly.

3. Improve the keyword density on a page. As mentioned above, quality content has many features that set it apart from low-quality content. Does your text feature the keywords and phrases searchers use to find your products or services? Are these important words used in the right places and in the right frequency? The Single Page Analyzer can give you a great snapshot of the most commonly used words on the page and where they’re located. Find out whether you’re using the important words often enough and in the right locations and edit your content accordingly.

4. Locate opportunities. The reports provided by the SPA can help you spot opportunities you otherwise might not have noticed. The Tag Information section, for example, can help you pinpoint keywords that you’re not using in anchor text.

5. Research and learn from your competition. The Single Page Analyzer tool can be used to examine on-page elements of a competitor’s web page. You will want to choose a competitor who is ranking well in the search engines that is similar to your website (Wikipedia and Amazon are probably not the best competitors to examine). Submit a web page into the tool and get a report of everything they’re doing right or wrong. Both sets of information can help you improve your own SEO for a similar page. For example, if you notice that they don’t have any errors in the Tag Information tab, you can get an idea of properly crafted meta tags. On the other hand, if you spot any problems with the page, it could be a great opportunity to beat the competition by making sure your own web page is free of those errors.

How Not to Use this Data

Now that we’ve covered how to utilize the information in the Single Page Analyzer report to improve the optimization of a web page, here’s one way you shouldn’t use this data:

Without applying wisdom. Just because you see a red error message in the SPA report doesn’t mean you should fix it without thinking it through. For example, certain pages of BruceClay.com come up with red error messages when run through the SPA. However, these same pages may rank high in the search engines, so it’s always important to consider the bigger picture before making any changes to important elements on a web page.

How to Decode the Single Page Analyzer Report

Here’s a closer look at the data produced by this free SEO tool and how to read it.

Tag Information

This section is where you’ll find a breakdown of your tags and whether you’re crafting them according to SEO best practices. The Tag Information section examines the title, meta description, and keywords tags. For each tag, the report tells you the total word count (Word Count), Stop Words, Used Words (the number of stop words minus the Word Count), and the character length of the tag.

The Tag Information section also tells you if there are any issues with those tags. You will see any issues listed in red in the last column of the report (the Tag Contents column). In that same column you will also find suggestions on how to solve those problems to improve the SEO of the page. For example, if the SPA discovers that your meta description is too long, you will see two notes in the Tag Contents column: the first note will inform you that the tag is longer than desired, and the second note will tell you the preferred average length of the meta description according to SEO best practices.

Text Metrics and Readability

In the second section of the SPA report, you will see text-specific metrics that help examine the reading level of your content. Here you’ll find everything from how many sentences you have on each page to the average number of syllables per word in the body of the page. The first column shows the metrics, the second features the value, and the third provides a description of the value so that you can better understand the numbers you’re looking at.

Along with text statistics, the SPA produces reading scores based on three different formulas or readability tests. Each test has its own scoring system, so make sure to read the information in the Description column to find out where your content stands according to each test. (The three readability tests are the Fog Reading level, Flesch Reading Ease level, and Flesch-Kincaid Grade level, if you’re wondering.)

Word Phrase Usage

The SPA can help you examine the most commonly used words and phrases on the page and let you know whether you’re using them appropriately, in the right places and according to a frequency that’s common and natural for your industry.

In the Word Phrase Usage category of the SPA report you will see a list of the most commonly used keywords and phrases on that page, listed in order with the longest phrases first. This list is not necessarily your chosen keywords, but the phrases that are the most prominent on the page.

Next to each keyword you will find the number of times the word or phrase is used in various elements on the page, such as in the title, meta description, keywords tag, in the headings, and alt tags. The report also shows you how many times the words are used in the first 200 words of the page, in the body, and in all of the on-page elements combined.

So how do you read the errors? Pay attention to colors. Numbers in red mean that the keyword or phrase is not used often enough, while numbers in blue mean you’ve used them too often.

Note: A red zero appears when you have no instances of a keyword in an element; however, the red color means that it’s a best practice to include it there.  A dash also means there’s no keyword in the element, but you don’t have to add it. This happens often with alt image tags.

Discover More Free SEO Tools

Free and easy to use, the SPA is an advanced search engine optimization tool that provides a full page analysis of a webpage. You can use it to identify broken areas and key places on a page that need improvement. It’s a tool you can use to take small but effective steps to improve the optimization of each page. Finally, it’s a testing tool you can keep going back to reassess the enhancements and additions to the page.

Take the free, external SPA for a spin, but remember that this is just a taste of what the full SPA has to offer. Within the full SEOToolSet, you get a more robust SPA and many other tools that will help you better optimize your website for both search engines and human beings. It even includes our integrated Bruce Clay SEO plugin for WordPress!

For a more comprehensive look at the other free tools and techniques available to you, check out our SEO guide!

FAQ: What are the advantages of using SEO analysis tools in web optimization?

Web optimization is paramount for ensuring your online presence reaches its full potential. Integrating SEO analysis tools into your strategy will change the game, and as an expert in this field, I can vouch for their many advantages.

Website analytics provide invaluable insight into the performance of your website, providing invaluable data such as keyword rankings, organic traffic levels, and click-through rate analysis that enables you to make data-driven choices about website and content that will increase search engine ranking.

User experience is a cornerstone of successful web optimization, and SEO analysis tools play a pivotal role here. These tools help identify and rectify any issues that might deter visitors, such as slow loading times or broken links. Addressing these concerns promptly ensures a seamless and engaging user experience, a critical factor in retaining and converting visitors.

Moreover, SEO analysis tools empower you with competitive intelligence. They allow you to analyze your competitors’ strategies, unveiling their strong and weak points. With this knowledge, you can adapt and outmaneuver your rivals in the ever-competitive digital landscape.

Another often underestimated benefit is that SEO analysis tools keep you up to date with industry trends and algorithm changes. Search engines like Google frequently update their algorithms, and failing to adapt can lead to a drop in rankings. These tools send alerts, ensuring you’re always in the know and can promptly adjust your strategy.

Finally, time-saving is a significant advantage. SEO analysis tools automate many manual tasks, saving you precious hours and ensuring you can focus on the most critical aspects of your web optimization strategy.

The advantages of using SEO analysis tools in web optimization are clear and compelling. These tools offer valuable insights, enhance user experience, provide competitive intelligence, update you on industry trends, save time, and help keep pace with an ever-evolving digital landscape to maximize your online presence and stay at the top.

Step-by-Step Procedure: Leveraging SEO Analysis Tools for Web Optimization

1. Understand Your Goals: Clearly define your web optimization objectives, whether it’s increasing organic traffic, improving user experience, or boosting conversions.
2. Select the Right Tools: Research and choose the most appropriate SEO analysis tools based on your goals and budget.
3. Keyword Research: Use the tools to identify relevant keywords for your niche and target audience.
4. Website Audit: Conduct a comprehensive website audit to pinpoint areas for improvement.
5. On-Page Optimization: Implement on-page SEO recommendations, including optimizing meta tags, improving content, and fixing technical issues.
6. Competitive Analysis: Utilize the tools to analyze your competitors’ strategies and identify opportunities.
7. Content Strategy: Develop a content strategy based on keyword research and user intent.
8. User Experience Improvement: Address any issues revealed by the tools, such as slow loading times or broken links.
9. Regular Monitoring: Monitor your website’s performance and make data-driven adjustments.
10. Stay Informed: Subscribe to updates and alerts provided by the tools to stay informed about algorithm changes and industry trends.
11. Adapt and Evolve: Adjust your strategy to maintain and improve your website’s optimization.
12. Data-Driven Decision-Making: Use the insights from the tools to make informed decisions about your web optimization strategy.
13. Time Management: Benefit from the time-saving features of the tools to focus on high-impact tasks.
14. A/B Testing: Experiment with different strategies and analyze results with the tools.
15. Regular Reporting: Generate regular reports to track your progress and identify areas for further improvement.
16. Collaboration: Involve your team or stakeholders in the optimization process using collaborative features provided by the tools.
17. Training: Ensure your team is well-trained in using the tools effectively.
18. Continuous Improvement: Embrace a culture of continuous improvement and adaptation.
19. Benchmarking: Use the tools to set benchmarks and measure your progress against them.
20. Celebrate Success: Acknowledge and celebrate milestones and achievements in your web optimization journey.

The post Free SEO Tool Alert! On-Page Content Analyzer appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

You know what’s also useful? Brief how-tos without fluff. To help you get the most out of our free tools, we’ve created the Free SEO Tool Alert series – short, easy-to-digest blog posts on the free SEO tools in our toolbox. Today’s free SEO tool is:

The SEO Cloaking Checker

Tool type: page analyzer, server health

What you’ll learn: The free SEO Cloaking Checker shows you if you’re cloaking, or featuring two different versions of the same URL – one for search engine robots and the other for human visitors.

Why this matters: Cloaking goes against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and is considered a “deceptive” SEO technique. If you discover cloaking on your site while using this tool, you can dig deeper to fix the root issue(s), improve the health of your server, and improve your search engine rankings. You can resolve to be transparent.

This is the SEO Cloaking Checker; submit a URL to use the tool.

SEO Cloaking Checker

How to Use the Tool

1. Submit a URL into the SEO Cloaking Checker and press Check for Cloaking.
2. This free SEO tool shows you the SEOToolSet Page Cloaking Report, a straight-forward chart that features major search engines Google, Bing, Yahoo, as well as web browsers Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, and Opera.
3. Use the chart to see if the page you have submitted is cloaking according to each listed search engine and web browser.

Here is an example of a site, www.bruceclay.com, with a negative cloaking report:

A green check mark means there was no cloaking found; a red X means cloaking has been detected.

5 Ways to Use the Data

The SEO Cloaking Checker tool is a quick way to discover whether a web page is cloaking according to the search engines. Use the chart to:

1. See if major search engines and browsers detect cloaking on your web page. If you’ve run the complimentary SEO Cloaking Checker and received a report with one or more red “Xs,” the tool has discovered possible cloaking. Now what? While a positive cloaking report is not necessarily a good thing, knowing there is cloaking on your site gives you a starting point from where you can hunt down the issue and fix the problem. But before we dive into what comes after a Positive Cloaking Report, let’s take a break to learn how the tool works and what sets it apart from other cloak checkers.

Positive Cloaking Report

With a positive cloaking report in your hand, here’s what you need to do next:

2. Investigate the source of cloaking. A simple cloak checker will not tell you what the issue is, only that cloaking has been found. See a positive cloaking report as a red light, signaling you to stop and explore the possible cloaking issues that might be negatively affecting your rankings.

There are many different types of cloaking, some done on purpose to manipulate rankings, some that are not deceptive by nature but still show up as cloaking, some are pure accidents, and a host of practices fall in the grey area.  While checking your site for the source of cloaking you might even find that it was placed by a hacker.  Since not all cloaking is considered deceptive, it’s up to you to decide whether what the tool has found is something you want to fix or keep. Of course, this is when an experienced SEO comes in handy. With enough experience and wisdom, a manual check should lead to the discovery of a cloaking technique that’s affecting your site.

3. Fix cloaking issues found on your site. Once you’ve discovered the type of cloaking that is affecting your site, go to work to resolve the problem. The opportunity to take care of any cloaking issues ensures that you’re showing search engines exactly what you’re showing your users, and this type of transparency is rewarded by the search engines.

4.  Improve rankings.There’s a reason for a sudden drop in rankings or that manual spam report you received.  Learning that a search engine has found cloaking on your site means that you’ve found one possible reason it is not performing as well as it could be in the SERPs. Cloaking can result in the outright exclusion of your site from Google’s index, and when you fix the issue, there’s a great chance you will improve your rankings and make it easier for your customers to find you online.

In addition to finding a positive cloaking report – and using the information to identify the issue, fix the problem, and hopefully improve your rankings – you can use the information in the Page Cloaking Report to:

5. Discover that your site has no cloaking issues. You’ve submitted a URL into the SEO Cloaking Checker tool and received green check marks across the chart. Congratulations, the page you’ve entered has no cloaking issues. Interpret this data as a green light to move on to other monthly maintenance checks and server health procedures.

When to Use This Tool

The Free SEO Cloaking Checker is fast and easy way for you to find out if your site has cloaking issues. Making sure your site is free of cloaking ensures that it’s not running afoul of Google’s quality guidelines.

If you have the SEOToolSet Lite or Pro package, this free SEO tool gets run automatically each time you run the Single Page Analyzer, our robust on-page SEO analyzer tool.  But if you don’t own it yet, you can easily use this complimentary tool to check for cloaking as often as you want, including:

• During a regular maintenance check. Use the SEO Cloaking Checker on a monthly basis to ensure the overall health of your server.
• After a major change to a site. Whether it is a big server change or a back-end change to how the pages are rendered, run the cloaking check tool to make sure the page is working as it should.

10 Free SEO Tools

Bruce Clay, Inc. offers 10 Free SEO tools you can use right now without logging in. You don’t have to register or provide your credit card information. Although free, these tools are strong enough to improve your search engine optimization strategy today, starting with a quick check to find out whether your site is cloaking according to the search engines.

If you enjoyed learning and using this tool, then explore the rest. Our Free SEO Tools Series will then introduce you to each new tool, show you how to use them, and show you how to make sense of the information.

For even more in-depth information, check out our step-by-step SEO Guide!

The post Free SEO Tool: Maintain a Transparent Site with the SEO Cloaking Checker appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

I’ve got a sweet spot for tools that give me an idea of how I’m doing as a search marketer and content publisher. One test of an SEO tool’s power is if the software can do the job of a careful human expert in a fraction of the time.

The following experiment details what happened when an SEO tool meets F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” While it was devised in fun and out of true curiosity, it ended up being a real-life study of SEO tools at work, worth sharing.

The Setup

I’m a writer at digital marketing agency Bruce Clay, Inc., and I’m also an avid reader. Literature lovers like me can spend hours picking apart themes and character dynamics. SEO analysis, meanwhile, should be as efficient as possible with time and resources. Can an on-page analyzer tell me:

• How hard or easy text is to understand
• The relationship between characters (or in the case of websites, the relationship between keywords)
• And the theme

If a tool can accomplish that with a piece of literature, then it can certainly analyze a web page for appropriate language and SEO relevance. I used a free tool, the SEOToolSet’s Single Page Analyzer, and much to my delight, the SEO tool was able to peg character relationships, point to the theme of this American classic, and crunch 46,000 words in a fraction of the time a person requires. Super sweet.

Fair warning: Yes, there are some spoilers for “The Great Gatsby” but nothing that will keep you from enjoying the book – or Baz Luhrmann’s recent cinematic stunner. (Highly recommended, by the way.)

Reading Level

It’s relatively straight-forward for a computer program to grade the difficulty of text content. Readability is one of the word metrics reported by the Single Page Analyzer.

The SPA puts the text at a Fog reading level of 11.5 – which is right on target, as “The Great Gatsby” is most often taught during the junior year.

While the 11.5 grade level is fine for Fitzgerald, for your average web page, it’s a little higher than the recommended target. If this was your own website, you could use the reading level score to think about how accessible your text is to your target audience.

Characters and Their Relationships, or Keywords and Distribution

One of the basic tasks an on-page analyzer performs is identifying the most commonly used words and phrases on a page – in SEO world, a page’s keyword phrases.

The Single Page Analyzer reports the most-used words on a page, organized as one-word, two-word, three-word and four-word keyword phrases. Here are the one-word and two-word keywords of “The Great Gatsby” according to the SPA:

The first three one-word keywords are the main characters of the novel, a good indication that the analysis is on point. The SPA has correctly identified that “The Great Gatsby” follows the story of protagonist Gatsby, Tom, Daisy, and the narrator, Nick Carraway. In this analysis, we see Nick as he’s most often referred to as “old sport” – the most frequently used two-word keyword phrase and Gatsby’s favorite term of endearment. Also among the two-word phrases from the analyzer are more central characters and the main location of the action, West Egg.

So far, so good.

A Clue about Relationships, Care of the Keyword Heat Map

Here’s a unique feature of the SPA. Keywords get a visual treatment in the keyword heat map. The report lays out the identified keywords like a topographical map, where the words used the most are the highest peaks, and words that are physically located close together in the text are also placed near each other on the map.

Here’s the SPA’s keyword heat map for “The Great Gatsby”:

Notice that Gatsby and Tom and more closely connected than either of the men are with Daisy! A superficial reading of “The Great Gatsby” may suggest the book is a story of a romance between Gatsby and Daisy. But, this data visualization reveals the layer of meaning beyond that. There is a great distance between Gatsby and Daisy. Gatsby is much closer, in fact, to his foil, Tom, reflecting their constant competition and the story’s central tension. How’s that for in-depth character analysis?

Through these three metrics/reports we’ve assessed reading difficulty and important keywords/characters. Next, the real magic of the SPA’s analysis: understanding the theme.

Identifying the Theme

A theme is more than keywords; it is the underlying meaning or idea expressed. On a web page, a theme is pretty much determined by the topic (or subject) and the purpose (do/know/go, i.e., transaction, information, or navigation).

In a novel, a theme is more complex. We can’t understand a literary theme by looking at the keywords alone, but, of the nearly 46K words the SPA counted in “The Great Gatsby,” the most frequently used words can clue us in to where to look closer for the theme.

If you filter out character names from the list of one-word keywords, a few words stand out, namely: house, eyes, and time, all of which are critical thematic elements in “The Great Gatsby.” Together, the keywords of time, house and eyes do, in fact, point to major themes when explored further: an obsession with the past (time), a preoccupation with wealth and materialism (house), and the modernist shift away from God (eyes).

Time

“The Great Gatsby” is filled with references to time. An obsession with time is laced throughout the pages from start to end — particularly with the past. Recall narrator Nick Carraway’s opening lines: “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since,” as well as the closing lines: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” The entire premise of the book is a man obsessed with a time gone by. (And note that other top keywords support this idea, too: came, went, back. The tense looks itself tends to look backward, and the actual adverb “back” is mentioned enough to appear in the top keywords.)

House

Chapter 1 holds Nick’s first description of Gatsby’s house, standing next to his own.

“My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard — it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion.”

Countless descriptions of Gatsby’s house tell of a lavish palace in nouveau riche style —the setting of constant celebrity-studded galas that last until morning and set the night sky ablaze with lights. Both Gatsby’s house and Daisy’s house (over which Gatsby keeps near-constant vigil) play integral roles in the text. Gatsby’s house, after all, was bought for two reasons: its proximity to Daisy and its grand splendor, with which he hopes to impress her. And both homes speak to the “unprecedented prosperity and material excess” of American in the 1920s (SparkNotes).

Eyes

There are multiple descriptions of characters’ eyes throughout the book, but they’re all overshadowed by the recurring focus on Eckleburg’s eyes.

Remember T.J. Eckleburg? Eckleburg is a faded sign advertising an eye doctor that Gatsby & co. pass by every time they drive into New York from West Egg: “Above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic — their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose … his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground.”

More than just a pair of eyes, Eckleburg is often seen as a god-like figure watching over the sordid affairs of the main players.

Putting It All Together

Here’s my final analysis: “The Great Gatsby” would likely require a few days of engrossed reading to cover the above ground. However, the Single Page Analyzer’s computer processing power effectively discovered key elements and themes of the text, successfully performing a complex analysis of hundreds of pages of signal-dense text in minutes. Wasn’t that fun?!

Want more SEO power tools?
Check out the sixth generation of our SEOToolSet® and integrated Bruce Clay SEO Plugin for WordPress!

The post The Power of a Page Analyzer: I Ran ‘The Great Gatsby’ through an SEO Tool & This Is What Happened appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Today’s tool is the Check Server Page tool. The Check Server Page tool reports a page’s server header response codes to help you spot any server-level issues that might be affecting your site’s performance in search engine rankings.

It’s a simple diagnostic tool that helps you keep your server running its best. Dive in to learn exactly what it shows about your server and how to use the data to improve your organic search engine optimization strategy.

Today’s Free SEO Tool: Check Server Page Tool

Tool type: diagnostic tool, header check, server health What you’ll learn: the “crawlability” of your site and if there are any issues that might be blocking your site from showing up in search results.

Why this matters: The data you get from this tool shows you the header response codes for any page on your site, which gives you the opportunity to fix any errors. Fixing server-related errors makes your site easily crawlable for the search engines and provides a pleasant user experience. This is the Check Server Page tool; try it now.

Check Server Page Tool

Please submit your URL, one URL at a time:

How to Use It

1. Submit a URL and click the Check Response Headers button. You can only enter one URL at a time.
2. The Check Server Page tool produces a report that features information about the response codes for the URL you entered, including the server’s response headers, tags like the content type, expire date, and other important information like the server type, DNS IP & average ping time.

The HTTP response headers in the Check Server Page tool report vary depending on the type of server and the website you have. But a typical report gives you information about the following response headers:

• Status: Where you will find HTTP status codes, or a list of your redirects and any errors
• Content length: This is the size of the resource in bytes
• Expires: The date after which the resource will be outdated
• Server: The type of server
• Connection: Typically “keep-alive” or “close”

In addition to HTTP response headers, the report also provides other information about the page, including:

• The original URL
• DNS IP address
• Ping

How to Use This Data

When you run your key pages through this tool, you’ll learn server-level issues that might be affecting your site’s performance in search engine rankings.

Use the information provided in this report to do several things:

1. Identify server-related problems with a webpage.

Are you concerned about a recent falling out or a drop in rankings? The first place to check is your server. Apart from using it as a regular maintenance check, the Check Server Page tool should be your go-to diagnostic tool when there’s problem with your website’s ranking or visibility. To see potential problems, pay attention to the server status codes in the report.

To see the service status codes, run the tool and look at the Value column next to the Status header. Within that column the report will give you the server status codes for that URL the way search engines see them. What you do next depends on what you find.

A Healthy Server: 200 If you see the number 200, then you know the page is normal and healthy. If you’re doing a regular maintenance check, you should be satisfied with the results. However, if you’re trying to discover the reason for a fluctuation in your rankings, a healthy server means that you can now move on from this tool and focus your diagnosis on other SEO factors to find the cause of a drop or fall out.

Red Flag Error Codes: 302? 404? There are many different server status codes and each one gives the search engines specific information about your webpage. Some status codes should be seen as red flags, letting you know that there’s a real issue with how your site is being crawled by the search engines.

For example, a 302 server status code tells the search engine that a webpage has temporarily moved from one URL to another. This can give search engines the wrong idea and may delay passing the accumulated link equity (“link juice”) to the redirect destination. It is almost always better to use a 301 (permanent) redirect in these instances.

Another common server status code that could raise a red flag is the 404 error code, which basically tells search engine spiders that the webpage they are requesting is not there. Similar to the way human visitors react when coming across such a page, search engine spiders have no choice but to leave, which could stop them from indexing all of the pages on your site.

Common Error Codes It’s also possible to find error codes that might not be responsible for a fall out or a drop in rankings. Nevertheless, an error is an error. Even if it doesn’t raise a red flag, an error server code should be fixed in order to have a healthier server (and site).

2. Fix server error codes.

As mentioned above, the Check Server Page tool shows you any errors that might be stopping a search engine spider from properly indexing the web page. Now that you have identified these obstacles, it’s time to use the data you got from our SEO tools report to repair the damage.

For example, as we mentioned earlier, if you find a 302 redirect code, change it to a 301 status code. Unlike the temporary 302 redirect, a 301 redirect means that the webpage has moved permanently. This code allows a spider to travel easily from the old page to the new one without any problems and has the added benefit of transferring link juice to the new destination.

Repairing these errors can be a quick and easy way to improve the health of your server and boost your website rankings.

3. Check the page speed.

While the server header section of the report gives important information about your server, there’s a lot more to the report than the page status. Another valuable piece of data you will find in the report is the average ping time. This information is located at the bottom of the report in the category Other Info. Average ping time can often reveal network latency or overall site speed issues. You can expect an average ping to be anywhere from 30 – 100ms. Anything longer than that and you may have an issue. While ping time is not enough to confirm that there is a problem, it can signal a potential issue that can be revealed by performing a more thorough check of site speed and performance.

When to Use This Tool

The Check Server Page tool is a free diagnostic tool you can use anytime to find potential URL level server issues. Keeping your server healthy allows search engine spiders to react to pages on your site the way you want them to. Bookmark this Free SEO Tool Alert to use this tool as often as you need, including:

• After a site migration, to make sure that you’re using the proper redirect rules (using as few jumps as possible) and that those redirects are traveling through a 301 redirect instead of a 302.
• Before you manually submit your site to search engines to index new content, run a quick server check.
• Run it regularly, as part of your ongoing maintenance. It will help to ensure that your server is clean and healthy, especially for important landing pages.

Discover More FREE SEO Tools

If using free SEO tools works well for you, take advantage of this miniseries to learn how to use all 10 of our free tools. They are embedded within this miniseries as well as in our SEO Guide, which provides detailed context and education about the tools within our time-tested search engine optimization methodology.

If you like the complimentary tools, start using the SEOToolSet^®. Then you can save your projects and analyze your site more completely. The full SEOToolSet includes our Ranking Monitor.

If you’re serious about SEO, then the SEOToolSet is designed to give you the data and reports that you need to grow your business through organic search engine optimization. Also, the Bruce Clay SEO plugin for WordPress is included if your site runs on WP.

You can try both risk-free with a 7-day free trial. So give our tools a try!

The post Free SEO Tool Alert! Keep Your Server Running Its Best with the Check Server Page Tool appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Today’s Free SEO Tool: SEO Multi-Page Information Tool

Tool type: competitive research, on-page optimization

What you learn: Enter up to six pages and the tool pulls from each: page title, meta description, meta keywords tag, and H1. You also learn each page’s canonical tag, should an analyzed page have one.

Why this matters: The metadata and Heading 1 are among the strongest on-page ranking factors. Collect this information for top-ranked pages in your space to understand the language and focus search engines deem relevant for your keywords.

Here’s the SEO Multi-Page Information tool: Enter up to six URLs (one per line) and click Get Data below.

How to Use It

1. Enter up to six URLs (one per line) and click Get Data. Make sure to use fully qualified URLs such as https://www.bruceclay.com/blog.

The URLs you enter can be high-level competitor URLs, like your competitor’s home page, or deeper web page URLs, like a link to a specific landing page or blog post. You can also look at your own information by entering any of your own web page URLs.

2. The tool will return a list of pertinent information about each submitted web page, including:

• Page title tag
• Meta description
• Meta keywords
• H1 text
• Canonical URL if one is indicated on a web page

 

5 Ways to Use This Data

The SEO Multi-Page Information tool helps you analyze the effectiveness of high-value on-page elements like the meta tags and level-one heading tag.

Use the data supplied in this tool to:

1. Discover new niche-specific keywords: Using keywords in your title tag and H1 is SEO 101. As such, mining you competitor’s meta tags can be a great way to discover the market-specific keyword phrases also relevant to your business.

When you see phrases in your competitors’ H1 and metadata that look like keyword leads, add them to your keyword research spreadsheet and run them through a keyword research tool, like the free Bruce Clay, Inc. keyword research tool.

2. Inspire the structure and style of your own meta tags: Since every single page of your website needs a meta title and description, it’s a wise idea to approach the meta tag writing process with a structure and style strategy.

Whether you’ve been tasked with an on-page SEO audit or you’re looking to improve your current approach you can learn a lot from analyzing your competitor’s meta.

• What format are your competitor’s using? For instance, are they using pipes or dashes to break up their titles? How do they work in their brand name? Should your meta titles and descriptions take on a similar style and/or structure?
• How many characters are they using?
• What is their tone?
• How and where are they using action words?
• What’s their character count?
• How are their keyword phrases incorporated into their meta tags?
• Are they using keyword synonyms? (Learn more about semantic keywords.)

Think of this step as a part of your competitor analysis strategy. Observe what competitors are doing, feel out how successful their efforts are, and then decide if you want to follow suit or try something new.

3. Uncover weak spots (and ranking opportunities!): If your competitors are doing a good job, then consider following their lead. But if they’re doing a bad job, then their oversight may be a great opportunity for you to get one step ahead!

As you’re analyzing their metadata and Heading 1 tag, ask yourself:

• Are there any keyword gaps? If they’re not optimizing for high-volume keywords on your list, then they’re not ranking for those keywords — which could mean a big opportunity for you. Consider this a part of your competitive analysis.
• Is the meta description style lacking? Your title tag is a high-value ranking factor and your meta description contributes to CTR. Do your competitor’s meta descriptions sound dry and formulaic? If so, this is a great opportunity for you to use your meta description to stand out with a personality-rich description that highlights your page benefits and makes a click-inspiring connection. 

4. Pretty data charts make it easy to present competitor metadata to stakeholders: If you are the person tasked with proposing a new meta tag structure/style guide, then you may want to present some competitor analysis to your stakeholders at one point or another. The SEO Multi-Page Information tool is a great resource for this type of data collection and presentation; just run the tool and take a screenshot of your competitor information charts. (If you’re using Chrome, I really like the Full Page Screen Capture Chrome extension.) Using the SEO Multi-Page Information tool and screen captures is much easier and quicker than going to View Source on six separate websites and collecting the information into charts by hand.

5. Make sure your clients aren’t abusing the meta keywords tag: While Google and Bing do not consider the meta keywords tag a ranking factor, that doesn’t mean that they don’t consider it. The search engines do cache it with the page, and our research shows that they will refer to it in some cases. It is also publicly known that Bing is actually using the meta keywords tag to identify spammers and devalue websites that abuse the tag. Knowing this, the SEO Multi-Page Information tool can be used as a client metadata diagnostics tool; just plug in a few of your client’s web pages and the SEO Multi-Page Information tool will show you at-a-glance if there’s any keyword stuffing or other spammy abuse happening. [Updated: See Editor’s Note below]

Explore More Free SEO Tools

The SEO Multi-Page Information tool is a free on-page optimization tool that you can use for competitor research, or to scope out your own on-page meta data and H1 tags. If you find it useful, please bookmark this blog post and run the tool as many times as you want, with as many unique websites as you want. There is no limit; you can enter competitor websites all day long as long as you enter them six at a time. You can also find this tool embedded within the Content Optimization step of our (also free) online SEO tutorial.

If you would like to see more free SEO tools, then keep an eye on our Free SEO Tool Tuesday blog series. Or, if you want to play with all 10 of the free tools now, then you can access our free SEO tools from our SEO tutorial. All 10 free tools are embedded throughout the online guide, and they’re all free, all the time. (Seriously. They’re free.)

 

[Editor’s note: Item number 5 in the “5 Ways to Use This Data” section was added two days after publication in response to a blog comment that got us thinking. Thank you to reader kwojcie for reminding us that the SEO Multi-Page Information tool lends itself to a worthwhile conversation about when and how to use the meta keywords tag appropriately. — CA]

The post Free SEO Tool Alert: On-Page Optimization Tool Improves Organic Ranking Elements appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Today’s Free SEO Tool: KSP Keyword Research Tool

Tool type: keyword research

What you learn: pertinent information about potential keyword search volume and context

Why this matters: The eight fields of data you get from this tool offer a well-rounded view of how your keywords measure up, who’s using them, and whether the keywords mean to the general public what you think they mean. By comparing the stats of up to 12 keyword phrases, you can make cuts and prioritize your keyword list.

Here’s the tool; enter up to 12 keyword phrases to try it out.

KSP Keyword Research Tool

How to Use It

1. Enter up to 12 keyword phrases separated by commas or line breaks into the KSP tool, and click the Run KSP button.

2. The tool will return a list of pertinent information about your keywords:

• Google, Bing and Yahoo monthly search volume
• An estimate of total search volume across all engines (the Activity column)
• The current paid search click-through rate (CTR) percentage and CPC bid amount for each term in Bing
• The Bing category associated with each keyword

Use the monthly search volume for all engines and the overall search activity numbers as an indication of relative popularity. For instance, think of a keyword phrase with a search volume of 12,000 as roughly twice as popular as a phrase with a volume of 6,000, and significantly more popular than a phrase with a volume of 1,000 or 50.

3. Mouse over each of the keyword phrases to see demographic information about the individuals searching for your keyword phrases.

7 Ways To Use This Data

The KSP is a great SEO tool if you’re looking for keyword statistics that can help you prioritize and vet a keyword research list.

Use the data supplied in this tool to:

1. Discover potential silo themes: The Categories column tells you what categories Bing associates with your keyword phrase based on its understanding of the keyword’s meaning and searcher’s intention. Sometimes these category suggestions can provide an ah-ha moment that can become a foundation theme for a brand new siloing strategy.

2. Discover more context about your keyword phrases: Just as the Categories column can reveal new avenues for thematic keyword exploration, the info reported under Categories can also clue you in to potential trouble. If you see an unexpected category reported for your keyword, you may be looking at a red flag requiring your investigation.

Here’s an example. If you enter “spiral staircase” into the KSP tool, you’ll see one of the categories reported is “Games & Puzzles.” Turns out that this is because enough people search for “spiral staircases minecraft” (to get more info on the popular and addictive structure-building game Minecraft) that Bing has associated this keyword phrase with the game.

At first glance seeing “Games & Puzzles” associated with your “spiral staircase” query might make you think that the results are way off; instead, unexpected categories should make you think “this query is multidimensional; I should further investigate its context.” Remember, part of the keyword research process is to make sure your keyword means what you think it means, and that its volume is productive converting volume – not tangentially related (or unrelated) volume that is going to bounce (see our Keyword Research: A 6 Point Checklist). Discovering that “spiral staircase” has a game association gives you a 360-degree understanding of your query and allows you to make a more educated decision about the query’s potential value.

3. Think like a semantic search engine: Using the Categories column to discover the context of your keyword phrases can also help you get into the mind of the semantic search engine. Remember, in the age of semantic search, how the search engine interprets meaning and intention plays a large role when it comes to ranking potential. If there are lots of unexpected categories associated with your keyword phrase, the search engine may have a watered down understanding of that phrase’s meaning/intention, which could mean lower rankings or inappropriate rankings where you end up clumped with the wrong crowd.

4. Vet conversion potential: The CTR (click-through rate) column in this report tells you information about how your keyword phrases are performing in Bing paid search. Use the CTR percentage to get an idea for how many clicks these words have the potential to inspire, then use that data as a clue to help you prioritize your keyword research list. Think of these numbers in relation to one another; for instance, a query with a 5 percent CTR has a relatively stronger conversion potential than a query that only has .87 percent CTR.

The CPC (cost per click) column in this free tool report tells you how much your fellow marketers are currently willing to pay per-click for traffic from this keyword phrase. Or, in other words, how much this keyword phrase is worth to your competitors. This matters because keyword phrases that are worth more per click tend to be keyword phrases that have been proven to convert better.

5. Assess competition: Queries that show high per-click bids in the CPC column convert better – but those high bids also mean that query is more competitive. For example, a CPC of $54 means there are a lot of people fighting to optimize for this term. When you see a high CPC think: “This phrase merits more research. There is potential here (it could be high converting), but who is the organic competition? Do I have a chance to rank on the first page?”

6. Evaluate whether a keyword phrase is a good match for your target market: Hover over your keyword phrases to see demographic statistics about the people who are using your potential keyword phrases. Does the demographic profile you see match the demographic profile of your target market? If not, consider dumping this phrase from your list; you want the right kind of traffic, not just any traffic, after all.

7. See how query keyword volume compares across three search engines: The first three columns of this free report show you how often people are entering your keyword phrases into Bing, Google and Yahoo search engines. This side-by-side view gives you a holistic understanding of each keyword’s popularity, and it can also help you spot anomalies that can help you better understand your keyword’s potential market.

For instance, notice in the example below that the Yahoo and Bing search volume for each query is about the same all the way down the column, until you get to the last query – “tennis shoes.” For “tennis shoes,” Yahoo sees 30,000 more searches per month than Bing; even thinking relatively, that is a pretty significant jump. Anomalies like this are great clues that offer even more insight into who is using the keyword phrase, and accordingly, what kind of traffic a first page ranking for that phrase would attract. In this case I see a disproportionate amount of people using Yahoo to search for this query, so I think: “People who prefer to search using Yahoo, also prefer to use this keyword phrase. How can I use Yahoo demographic statistics to learn more about the type of people using this phrase?”

Explore More Free SEO Tools

The free KSP tool is a free-forever keyword research tool. If you like it, please bookmark this blog post and run the tool as many times as you want, with as many keywords as you want. There is no limit; you can enter a million keywords as long as you enter them 12 at a time. You can also find this tool embedded within the keyword selection step of our SEO Guide.

If you like free SEO tools, keep an eye on the blog as we’ll be highlighting Bruce Clay, Inc. tools regularly as part of Free SEO Tool Tuesday. Or, if you want more free SEO tools right this very instant, you can see all 10 of our free SEO tools embedded within our SEO Guide right now. They’re all free, all the time, no exceptions. (Did we mention free? Just checking.)

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