Yslow is what I would consider to be an essential tool to any SEO or developer’s toolbox. I am a big fan of tools and methods that help you improve the structure and architecture of your website, and YSlow is the perfect addition to FireFox to help you analyze, dissect, and improve a your website’s structure and load times.

After installing the YSlow plugin on FireFox, simply run it on any domain and it gives you the following breakdown:

YSlow gives your site a composite grade based on a total of 22 different contributing metrics. Each metric is analyzed in order to help you crack down on page load times and code structure of your website. YSlow will give you a grade on each metric to help you determine which areas of your site need attention.

As you can see on the screenshot, when I ran YSlow on xkcd.com – it scored an F for “Content Delivery Network”.  From here, you click on the grade and YSlow gives you a breakdown of which components contributed to the score and a link on how to fix them at the bottom if you’re not sure how.

I personally rely on YSlow often to get a snapshot of client webpages. YSlow is a great way analyze things like http requests and how css/javascript are performing.

Especially considering its a free tool, there really isn’t a reason you shouldn’t be using YSlow!

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Is there a tool that you think we should review? Let us know!

If you’re like me and totally PC free (mac only) – anytime you make any design changes on a website, you don’t have any way to check compatibility in Internet Explorer without bugging one of your friends. Well, luckily there’s a tool for all of us.

NetRenderer is a simple yet brilliant tool that allows you to view how webpages appear in Internet Explorer versions 5.5, 6, 7, & 8. One place to see your website in IE as far back into compatibility history as you’d like.

Simply input your URL, and select the version of IE to render:

And voila! It spits out the page rendered in IE. (This site doesn’t look so good in IE 5.5):

Sweet, simple, and extremely useful. Since getting rid of my PC that I pretty much only used for IE compatibility checks, I’ve come to rely on it.

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Let us know about tools, tips, and tricks you use!

]]> http://awesomeseotools.com/review-net-renderer-140/feed 0 http://awesomeseotools.com/review-ontolo-107 http://awesomeseotools.com/review-ontolo-107#comments Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:55:17 +0000 admin http://awesomeseotools.com/?p=107

Here’s a tool for all of you obsessed with links. Thanks to Rhea of Outspoken Media for showing it to me originally in a Skype chat

öntolo is an extremely valuable tool that helps you source new places to build links. It makes searching for link opportunities a no brainer with the drop-down menu options and search query generation.

The interface is really simple, just put in your targeted keyword and select from the following menus:

Linkable Asset Type

Linkable Opportunity Type

Targeted Content Type

Say you want to build some links for the term “netbook” since you know you’re going to have to stay competitive with the newly released iPad. Maybe you’re going to run a contest giveaway. Just select the appropriate fields from the dropdowns, and plug in “netbook” to the keyword field, and it returns a list of suggested queries for finding related sites to run contests on with links.

With a resource like this, there should be no shortage of link prospects for whatever campaign you’re working on!

Did we forget something?

A tool or idea that you love that we forgot to mention? Post in the comments so we’re sure to mention next time!

One of my absolute favorite tools is SEO Browser. SEO Browser is a simple tool that I use all the time to see what the search engines see. SEO Browser allows you to select from googlebot, msnbot, yahoo slurp, MSIE 7 (Win Vista), Firefox, Windows Mobile, or the SEO Browser crawler and view what content is visible from the perspective of the spiders.

This functionality is especially useful for sites that have known indexablity issues, such as sites with flash or javascript, where you may not be sure of what content will be visible to the engines. It’s also great because you can navigate the site in the tool and it will show each page from the viewpoint of the selected spider.

In addition to this, SEO Browser also gives a download of information such as: the canonical link to the page, page load time, title and description information, word counts, and much more.

Lastly, at the top of the page SEO Browser offers links to 13 other resources for further analysis of the domain and page you are viewing.

SEO Browser is an incredibly powerful and lightweight tool that all SEO’s should consider using regularly. Added to the fact that it’s free, there is no reason not to use this tool.

One thing I always teach my clients is that not only is it important to build out a keyword list, but to build a keyword list that is going to drive qualified traffic to your website. After doing extensive keyword research, any good SEO will testify that you will often find keywords that you thought would be a top priority aren’t, and keywords that you didn’t even think of are the ones you need to focus on.

One of the tools that has become indispensable to my belt for keyword research, is the Google keyword tools. They’re free, easy to use, and at least somewhat reliable data since it’s straight from the source.

Sktool

The first of the two tools Google offers is the Search-based Keyword Tool. This tools offers two primary functions, keyword generation based off of a domain and keyword generation based off of other words/phrases. Both of these are useful for different things.

Domain Keyword Generation

In the first use of the tool, you input your domain and it gives you a list of likely relevant keywords based off the content from your site.

Other than basic keyword research when you’re starting a campaign, one extremely useful application of this tool, is to export the data to .csv, and import it into a ranking tool like the one SEOBook offers to get a snapshot of how a website performs. This obviously isn’t the most accurate portrayal of a website’s performance, but it’s something I often refer to over the phone when trying to asses competition, link prospects, or how difficult a potential client campaign may be.

Word/Phrase Keyword Generation

The other use of this tool is sourcing keyword ideas from a current list of keywords and/or phrases that you already have.

This use of the tool is common and good for basic keyword research, especially when applied to longer tail keyterms. Use your analytics to find straggling phrases you rank for in conjunction with a keyword tool like this to beef up your SEO and long-tail rankings!

The last feature that has a lot of uses that gets overlooked, is the top keywords in all categories tool. This is a great way to see what types of searches are most popular in the top categories. This has endless use, for example, you could use this as a research tool to get ideas for new affiliate campaigns.

Adwords Keyword Tool

The second, and in my opinion, more popular keyword tool that Google offers, is the Adwords keyword tool. This is a tool that I use all the time. Like the search-based keyword tool, the Adwords keyword tool also offers keyword generation based off of website content and off of words/phrases, but the most important and defining factor about this tool is the search volume data that it gives.

Keywords are grouped in to related phrases and reported volume is given for “Global Monthly” (or monthly average) and “Local Search Volume: [month previous]” (or average volume for the previous month). You’ll note that the sktool also had volume data, but keyword data for the sktool correlates to specific domains, and volume numbers aren’t given as global averages as they are on the Adwords tool.

Volume data is obviously very valuable for any keyword research and SEO campaign. Often I have found keywords that I thought to be secondary and less important to show higher volume numbers than keywords I assumed should be more important. Of course, understanding that search volume is only a part of what makes a keyword valuable is what makes a good SEO

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Speak up! We love to hear your feedback and opinion on what tools you recommend and how you use them!

While grading tools are often looked at as simply a way to measure your ego, they can be a valuable addition to your SEO toolbox when employed properly.

Grading tools are a great way to get a quick snapshot of a website without having to do any in-depth analysis yourself. I sometimes employ the use of these tools when evaluating potential link prospects, prospective clients, and for general curiosity purposes. While I tend to use my terminal command line prompt more than any one of these tools, they are definitely a resource I keep in my back pocket, and so should you.

Domain Tools

First up, and probably my personal favorite is Domain Tools. Domain Tools comes in especially handy when evaluating link prospects because it gives you information such as: registrar history, reverse ip, ip history, and nameserver history. In addition to these handy tools, it gives a site profile view that shows everything from number of links internal and external on the page, to listings in DMOZ and Yahoo!, along with general traffic information including alexa and compete ranks.

Trifecta

The Trifecta tool from SEOmoz gives a clean breakdown of metrics including: pagerank, google url mentions, Y! SE links, and ranking for the first 4 words in your title, along with an overall “score”. While the information provided here is somewhat basic, it can be useful especially when the tool is used in comparison for multiple sites. This will give you a more accurate picture of the strength of different sites in their relation to each other, which is typically how I tend to use this type of tool.

Website Grader

The Website Grader from Hubspot gives a detailed breakdown of both on-page and off-page elements. On-page the grader looks at: title tags, meta data, headers, images, and even rates the readability of your content. One thing I like specifically about this tool is that you can simply scroll through, and elements that they find missing or have determined to be unsatisfactory, are highlighted in red so they are easy to spot. This is a good way to digest what areas on the analyzed site need attention. Off-page the grader analyzes: domain history, pagerank, index number, last crawl, traffic (according to alexa), inbound links, DMOZ and Yahoo! listings.

In addition to these on and off page elements, there are additional blog, social media, conversion, and competitive analysis available as well. However these additional analyses seem somewhat basic and not as useful.

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Let us know in the comments which tools are your favorites so we can be sure to check them out!

As we kick things off here at AwesomeSEOTools.com, we thought it appropriate to start off with a round up of what we think are some of the best free tools around. While there are many, many awesome paid tools that we’ll be covering, there are also lot’s of great free tools that you can employ to help you with your SEO campaigns.

No SEO campaign is complete without proper link analysis, and no SEO toolset is complete without some powerful link analysis tools. Whether you’re looking to cut down on your overhead, and replace some of the pricey paid tools with free ones, or simply see what’s out there for free, this is our recommended list of free link analysis tools to boost your SEO campaign!

Site Explorer

Our first tool on this list is of course Site Explorer, probably the most well known link analysis tool among SEO’s. SE offers a list display overview of any sites inbound links. Supposedly, links are displayed in order of quality, but this is arguable at best. Make sure to select “except from this domain” & “to entire site” to get an accurate portrayal of all inbound links to a domain.

Majestic SEO

Majestic is probably my favorite when it comes to link analysis. While it also offers link analysis data in the form of listed inlinks, it has additional detail such as number of referring domains, date seen, links by type, along with various types of charts and graphs for displaying and analyzing your links. Majestic offers free tools for all, along with additional metrics if you can prove you own the site. If you don’t you can pay for credits to get information on your competitors at an affordable rate.

Backlink Watch

While certainly not the prettiest of the link analysis tools, Backlink Watch gives valuable data such as: referring domain, anchor text, outbound links on referring page, and if the link is nofollowed or not, in a digestible format. Simple and easy.

Link Harvester

Link Harvester takes a unique approach by going against the conventional list/column display method and shows data in blocks depending on the type of referring TLD. They also offer handy links to sites such as: whois record, web archive, google cache, DMOZ, & Yahoo! directories for each referring link-domain. While this tool is handy and useful, I find it hard to digest and put to use.

Honorable Mentions

Backlink Analyzer -

While this tool looks very interesting, it is PC only And I am a mac.

Linkscape -

Although there seems like big potential, the free version of the linkscape tool has limited data and what is presented is seemingly inaccurate.

Did we forget something?

Let us know in the comments which tools are your favorites so we can be sure to check them out!