Traffic. Everyone wants free traffic, and what better way to get it than optimizing your site?
There are some very simple things that you can do to optimize your site. If you want to get more from your website, then implement these strategies, use these tools, and make your website spider food for the search engines.
Below are some of the best sites I have found for optimizing my sites.
1. Check your site.
Before you start tweaking your site, you need to make sure that it's either in Google or not banned by Google.
The truth is, you want to optimize your site for Google, which is now the number one search engine in the world.
It won't do you any good to optimize your site if Google won't accept it.
Use this tool to check your site.
Google Banned - http://www.googlebanned.com
2. Toolkits
If you can find the tools you need in a collection, this will save you a lot of time, as well as frustration because you will know exactly what you need to do to properly optimize your site.
You'll want to check different aspects of your site like page rank, metatag information, and links. Nothing will drive your potential customers away faster than broken links.
This site, in addition to offering a forum on search engine optimization, also offers a nice collection of tools for helping you optimize your site.
SEO Chat - http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools
These two sites also offer search engine optimization tools. It's really a matter of preference, as well as what tools you need to optimize your site.
Add Me - http://www.addme.com
Evrsoft - http://www.evrsoft.com
3. SEO Software
You can also use software to help you optimize your site. Where software will help you the most is to actually help you optimize your site for the keywords you are trying to target. It's a waste of time to optimize your site if you haven't optimized for the right keywords.
This is the software I use, and it's free. It works for both MAC and PC, and it has some of the best documentation I've ever seen on search engine optimization because it's written for the average person. It also includes a basic search engine optimization training course, a 50 page manual, and excellent, step by step directions for preparing your website for the search engines.
Web CEO - http://www.webceo.com
4. ROR Generator/Robots Text Generator
A what?
ROR is similar to a robots.txt file in that it gives information about your site. The difference is that an ROR file is in XML format.
You can use this generator to create an ROR file for your site, and then paste a button to the main page of your website. When the search engines spider your site, they'll spider this file and have a better description of what your site is about.
I would also recommend that you create a robots.txt file because this will tell the search engines what not to spider on your site. If you own a members' area, or you sell anything, you don't want the search engines spidering your download pages.
ROR Generator - http://www.rorweb.com/rorgenerator.php
Robots Text Generator - http://www.searchenginepromotionhelp.com/m/robots-text-creator/simple-robots-creator.php
5. Site Map
A site map is not only a great tool for letting your customers know where everything is located on your site, it can also help you with the search engines.
By creating a site map, you will have an index of all the pages on your website. When the search engines spider your site, they'll find all of the pages. This will help you with your rankings.
Creating a site map, especially if you have hundreds, or even thousands of pages on your site, can be very time consuming. This generator will speed up the process.
Spider Map Creator - http://www.searchenginepromotionhelp.com/m/spider-map/creator.php
6. XML Site Generator
Google is now offering webmasters a chance to submit an XML site map.
An XML sitemap is a search engine friendly sitemap of your site. This isn't written for your visitors though. It's written for the search engines so that they can find all of the pages on your website.
Even if you include a sitemap on your site for your visitors, I would still recommend that you use an XML sitemap. This can speed the process of getting your site indexed by Google. This is an easy way to make sure that all of your pages get indexed.
Creating a sitemap is easy. You can use the generator listed below. Once you've created your sitemap, submit it to Google.
XML Site Maps - http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/index.php
Submit your sitemap to Google - https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login
7. Linking
There's been a lot of talk about linking because linking is one of the most important strategies for getting high ranking in the search engines.
The more links you have pointing back to your site, the higher the page rank you will get, as well as creating a way for others to find you. You can use this strategy to get referrals from other sites, which is free traffic. It's targeted, and you are being recommended by another site.
Before building your linking strategy though, you should check your popularity. See who you are linked to first.
Link Popularity Checker - http://www.marketleap.com/siteindex/default.htm
Once you have checked your link popularity, begin by building links back to your site. Below are two sites that offer directories you can submit your site to.
Directory Manager - http://www.123promotion.co.uk/directorymanager/
Free directories that don't require a link back - http://www.directoriezsubmission.com/free-web-directories.htm
Linking can drive a lot of traffic to your site. The more backlinks you have pointing back to your site, the more popular it will be. You'll also get a lot more traffic.
Before you start to market, complete your site. Optimize it for the search engines, and use these tools to help you get higher rankings.