A compilation of free Search Engine Optimization (SEO) resources for website owners who want to improve their rank in Google, Bing and Yahoo.

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• XML-Sitemaps.com (http://www.xml-sitemaps.com) -
creates a sitemap for your site
• Google XML Sitemaps
(http://wordpress.org/plugins/google-sitemap-
generator) - plugin that creates and maintains a
sitemap for WordPress sites. Also, pings search
engines whenever new content, such as a page or
post are created.

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• Google Webmaster Tools
(http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools) - view how
Google sees your site – submit your sitemap, learn about crawl
errors, see what keywords Google thinks your site is about,
learn how many pages are being indexed by the search engine,
see keywords you’re ranking high for and getting clicks from
• Bing Webmaster Tools
(http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster) - similar
functionality as Google’s only from a Bing perspective
• Microsoft Free SEO Tool
(http://www.microsoft.com/web/seo) - a free tool from
Microsoft that gives SEO suggestions

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Use these tools to see how fast your website is loading, learning
what things are slowing down your site and what actions you can
take to improve your page load speed.
• Google PageSpeed Insights
(http://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights)
• GTMetrix (http://gtmetrix.com)
• Pingdom (http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt)
• Web Page Test (http://www.webpagetest.org)

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• CloudFlare (http://cloudflare.com) - a content delivery network (CDN) that
offers a free plan
• Compressnow (http://compressnow.com) - upload images to compress them
and make them a smaller size
• Online YUI Compressor (http://refresh-sf.com/yui) - a tool that can minify
javascript and css files which you upload to your site
• JSCompress (http://jscompress.com) - Javascript (JS) file minifier that
combines .js files
• W3 Total Cache (http://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache) - WordPress
plugin that improves the site’s performance with caching, minification and
integrating with CDN’s
• WP Supercache (http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache) - WordPress
plugin that caches content for faster page loading

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• Alexa (http://www.alexa.com) – see some of the keywords that are leading to visits to competitor site
• Bing Keyword Tool (http://www.bing.com/toolbox/keywords) - use Bing’s advertising platform to get keyword
ideas (and see search volumes). You don’t need to run a paid campaign to use the tool.
• Follow.net (http://follow.net) - see the keywords your competition is: ranking high for, getting traffic from, and
advertising for
• Google AdWords (http://thinkstrategy.com/free-seo-tools/www.google.com/AdWords) - similar to Bing’s tool,
use Google’s keyword tools to get ideas
• Google Analytics (http://google.com/analytics) - once you’ve set this up, it will tell you terms people are
searching for to get to your site; what you’re ranking high for, and what words are turning into leads/sales for
you
• Keyword Eye (http://www.keywordeye.com) - they offer a free plan where you can do 10 keyword searches per
day to get ideas on what you should be trying to SEO
• Uber Suggest (http://ubersuggest.org) - free service that provides a ton of keyword suggestions based on
common variations of the words you enter
• Wordstream (http://www.wordstream.com/keywords) - offers a limited number of free searches you can do for
keywords

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• Moonsy (http://moonsy.com/google-keyword-rank-checker) -
tells you where your site ranks for a given keyword, if you rank
in the top 100 on Google
• SEOCentro (http://www.seocentro.com/tools/search-
engines/keyword-position.html) - tells you where you rank for
a keyword, allows you to compare yourself to competitors, and
shows the URLs of the top ranked sites along with if they are
using the keyword in metas

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• Meta Length (http://www.metalength.com) - counts the
characters you enter for your meta tags so you can make sure
that they are as description as possible without being too long
• SEOmofo (http://www.seomofo.com/snippet-optimizer.html) -
a cool tool that will show you what your web page will look
like in Google in search results as you enter your meta tags

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• Image SEO Tool (http://www.feedthebot.com/tools/alt) -
checks images on a web page to see if they are tagged for SEO
(i.e. alt tag)

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• Copyscape (http://www.copyscape.com) - Checks to see if
your content is unique or if someone has copied you. If search
engines think that your website content isn’t unique and/or
you copied it from another site, then you will fall in rankings.

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Use these tools to see what other sites are linking to you. If you
find that they are sites that are low quality, not relevant to you,
or otherwise spammy, you may consider disavowing them in
Google Webmaster Tools.
• Backlink Watch (http://backlinkwatch.com)
• Digbacklink (http://www.digbacklink.com)
• Open Site Explorer (http://www.opensiteexplorer.org)
• Rank Signals (http://www.ranksignals.com)

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• Remove’em (http://www.removeem.com/ratios.php) - Checks
links to your site to determine what anchor text is being used.
Your site can be hurt in search rankings if you aren’t
diversifying your anchor text enough.

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• Google Structure Data Testing Tool
(http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets) -
tests that your rich snippets are correct for a web page
• Google Structure Markup Data Helper
(https://www.google.com/webmasters/markup-helper) -
helps you do the coding for a web page to make rich snippets
work
• Schema.org (http://schema.org) - the labeling format used by
the search engines for rich snippets

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Local directories where you can list your business for free and boost
your local search ranking.
• Bing Places (https://www.bingplaces.com)
• Foursquare (http://foursquare.com)
• Google Places (http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter)
• Hotfrog (http://www.hotfrog.com)
• Yellow Pages (http://www.yellowpages.com)
• Yelp (http://yelp.com)

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• Moz Local (https://moz.com/local/search) - Checks that your
business contact info is consistent across the internet. If your info
is inconsistent then the search engines may be viewing each
unique address/phone number as a different location, lowering
your position in local searches.

16. thinkstrategy.com