SoloSEO

New SEO Tool – Backlink Anchor Text Analyzer

Posted by Michael D Jensen on January 8th, 2007

Last week we announced a new tool every day (except New Year’s), and we thought we’d kick off this week with one more tool announcement. We just finished the “Backlink Anchor Text Analyzer”, and are excited for you to start using it. This tool checks the backlinks for your site (or any site), and then displays the actual link text (anchor text) used for the links.

Why is knowing the link text helpful?
The link text, or anchor text, is an important aspect of the “link vote”. When someone links to you, the search engines see it as a vote of approval of sorts. In order for the search engines to understand your page better, they consider the text that a user would actually click on, and extract any semantic value. They also consider the text of the URL, at least to a small extent. This text is then used, along with the content found on the page being linked to, to help the search engine consider you for placement for that keyword.

Googlebombing uses this same principle. If a lot of links use the same or similar keywords as the anchor text, that is an indication to the search engines that the page is related to that topic or keyword.

It’s cool and all, but how can I use it to help my SEO?
When you are link building, you are trying to obtain links to your site from others. If you are requesting links, it is best to have a pre-formed link to help the webmaster giving you the link to install it properly with the right word and spelling. If you find links that have spelling problems or perhaps are off-topic or just too general in the link text, then there may be opportunities to request the site owner to change the link text.

This tool is just one of many tools of a complete suite of SEO tools to help make your SEO easier.

Try a Free 2-Week Trial »

8 comments Visited 8235 times January 8th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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New SEO Tool – Search Engine Viewer

Posted by Michael D Jensen on January 5th, 2007

In SEO we spend so much time improving our rankings, getting links, optimizing content, and watching competitors (all good things), but it is easy to neglect optimizing the actual listing of each page in the search engines. The “Search Engine Viewer” is just that tool. And more than just showing you how it looks, we tell you what needs fixed!

Screenshot

Obviously what your listing says has a bearing on whether you get selected out of the list of results. Your title alone can make or break the decision. If your title is okay, but your description is irrelevant (or lousy), the potential customer is going to choose another link.

A very common problem with websites is the use of the same meta tag description in every page. Although the search engines don’t always display the meta tag description (they will use excerpts from the content body or from an open directory listing), it is important to make it relevant and unique for that page. The Search Engine Viewer tool compares your meta tag description to your other pages, and alerts you if it is not unique. The title is also checked for uniqueness.

Google only shows a limited number of characters in the title and description, so it’s a good idea to try to keep your title and description within these limits. This way you can control exactly what is being shown, without it being cut off.

We have found this extremely useful for our own sites, discovering several meta tag descriptions that were using the default description from our home page!

We hope you have enjoyed the new SEO tools this week (Dead Link Checker, XML Sitemap Generator, and the Top Subpages Tool). We just finished one more tool and will announce it on Monday, so check back next week for another handy SEO tool!

In the meantime, if you haven’t tried SoloSEO, you’re missing out! SoloSEO is a do-it-yourself SEO solution, providing all the tools and reports you need to do SEO for yourself or your clients.

UPDATE: We are pleased to announce Michael Gray of Wolf-Howl.com has just posted a review of SoloSEO on his site, you can read his full report here. I had the opportunity to meet with Michael briefly at PubCon, and both Aaron and I consider Michael as a foremost authority on the current state of SEO, and visit his blog frequently. We have already discussed the contents of Michael’s review and plan on addressing his suggestions in the near future. Thanks to Michael for his time, insight and willingness in reviewing SoloSEO.

Try a Free 2-Week Trial Now! »

2 comments Visited 5724 times January 5th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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New SEO Tool – Top Subpages Tool

Posted by Michael D Jensen on January 4th, 2007

This week we have announced a new tool each day, starting with the dead link checker that checks your site for internal and outbound links that point to a dead (not working) URL. Next we announced the XML Sitemap Generator now integrated with SoloSEO, so with just a click of a button you can create or generate an XML Sitemap.

Today’s new SEO tool is our “Top Subpages Tool”. Although similar to Jim Boykin’s Strongest Subpages Tool, the Top Subpages tool lets you quickly assess the best page to request a link for, out of all of the pages of a potential link site. The Top Subpages tool is integrated within the link management system built into SoloSEO, so you can easily add potential links directly to your Link Manager. With the Top Subpages tool you can go straight to a list of the actual backlnks, so you can do a quick scan for quality and strength. The PageRank for each individual page is also included, to give you a general idea of the strength of the page.

What’s the benefit of the Top Subpages tool?

In link building, inbound links (backlinks) are like a vote to whoever they link to. Rather than every vote counting as exactly one vote, the more authority and trust your site has, the bigger your vote is and the more credibility and trust it passes on to those it links to.

If you look at your own site, you might have dozens, hundreds, or thousands of pages. More likely than not, the number of pages on your site that have many links are going to be far fewer than the number of pages with one or no links at all. If we can identify those pages that have many links we can maximize the “authority” or size of the vote that is passed on to us from a link vote.

I hope you’ll give the new tool a try!

Try a Free 2-Week Trial »

Check back tomorrow for our last tool announcement for the week! We are really excited about this one, and I know you’ll find it incredibly helpful in your SEO.

1 comment Visited 7276 times January 4th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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New SEO Tool – XML Sitemap Generator

Posted by Michael D Jensen on January 3rd, 2007

Today’s new tool in SoloSEO is an integrated XML Sitemap Generator. Previously you just had to create your own, now we’ll do it for you! All you have to do is initiate the process by clicking a button, and the Sitemap is created while you go on with your SEO. We’ve made it easy to have the most up-to-date sitemap with a small PHP file that calls the XML from our server, but puts it on your own. Google (and the others I am guessing) require the sitemap to reside on your server.

What is an XML Sitemap?
Most people know a sitemap as a page that lets you see the whole site at a glance, like a map. An XML Sitemap has links to the whole site, but because it is XML it is more so intended for a computer rather than a person. Google, Yahoo, and MSN search engines will all take this file and will use it to supplement their crawl of your site. Some people call this search engine submission 2.0, where 1.0 was submitting page URLs to search engines.

Why do I need an XML sitemap?
If you’re a new site, this is one of the fastest ways to get noticed by the search engines. This is the first thing I do (along with Adwords and Analytics) for any new site I create. Typically I find my new sites indexed within a matter of days of doing this.

For not so newer sites, you may not have your whole site indexed by the major search engines (for some reason or another that you should look deeper into), and the XML Sitemap will help Google et al. to see your whole site.

In my opinion, anything that can increase the level of trust by Google et al. to your site, will help you. It’s hard to know if submitting your XML sitemap has any actual effect on your rankings, but if Google trusts you more because of it, I’m in.

But aren’t there tons of free XML Sitemap Generators?
Yes there are! But many of these services, like many free SEO tools, are not maintained, updated, or have just vanished! There is one that I like, XML-sitemaps.com. I paid for the download and it works great, but they have a free version that would work fine for most anyone. With our new tool you can create and update your sitemap with just a simple click, and if you have multiple sites you manage in SoloSEO, it makes it that much easier. Then all you need is to install the 3 or 4 line PHP file on your server, and it will automatically grab your sitemap XML from our server for Google et al. to see.

Try it out for yourself, it will make your SEO life easier.

Don’t forget to check back Thursday and Friday for a new tool each day!

3 comments Visited 6900 times January 3rd, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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New SEO Tool – Dead Link Checker Tool

Posted by Michael D Jensen on January 2nd, 2007

This week we are announcing a new tool each day (so stay tuned by subscribing). Today’s new tool is the “Dead Link Checker” tool. Many of you have probably seen Google’s tool (inside Google Webmaster Central) that reports pages on your site that can’t be found in their crawl. Although this is helpful, it falls short. SoloSEO’s Dead Link Check tool will go through each page of your sitemap and check each internal and outbound link to make sure the content exists (and does not give a 404 error, etc).

Why is the Dead Link Check tool important for SEO?

1) Search engines don’t like dead links. It makes your site appear like it is not being updated, that it is not fresh. If a search engines considers your site outdated, this is more than likely going to reflect in your rankings against more “fresh” and updated competitors.

2) People hate dead links. It drives me nuts when I find a page that links somewhere, internal or external, but then I’m at a dead end because it’s a bad link. This quickly turns me off and points me directly to the back button. And if people hate them, then you can bet search engines will consider this in their algorithms.

3) Dead links are hard to find. I was surprised during the testing stage of this tool to find 2 dead links of my own on one of my sites. I would have had no clue that I had (1) mistyped a URL and (2) was linking to a page that did not exist any longer. Even if you have just 20 or 30 pages of content, going through each link is going to take you forever. Do you have dead links? Only one (easy) way to know…

You can use the Dead Link Checker tool even if you are in a free trial. The tool takes only 1 second to initiate, because all you have to do is click a button to tell SoloSEO to initiate the tool. It runs in the background, and will send you a nice email when its finished for your convenience.

Check back tomorrow for another new SEO tool in SoloSEO!

3 comments Visited 9959 times January 2nd, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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New Affiliate Program and New SEO Tools for SoloSEO

Posted by Michael D Jensen on January 2nd, 2007

We are excited to announce a new affiliate program for SoloSEO, with a payout up to $75 per referred sale! The structure of the payout is $15 for the initial sale, and then a recurring commission of $5 each month for up to 12 months (referred subscriber must be active for monthly commission). When you join the SoloSEO affiliate program, you’ll even get $25 in your account for just signing up (it only takes 30 seconds to sign up).

Become an Affiliate Now »

Announcing New Tools!
This week we will be announcing one tool each day, so be sure you subscribe with your feed reader to stay in the know. We have some really sweet tools that after you try them, you won’t want to do SEO without them.

User Reviews of SoloSEO
Since our launch we have had many great reviews, and would like to share a few of them with you. We are committed to listening to our users, for what they want and need in order to do SEO day in and day out. We are also using SoloSEO for our own businesses and websites (even SoloSEO.com), and so we can relate with what SEOs and do-it-yourselfers need. We are committed to bringing you the best SEO tools, all in one place, with SoloSEO. Here are a few snippets from users’ real experiences with SoloSEO that have been posted since our launch:

From Loren Baker at SearchEngineJournal.com:
“Is SoloSEO the replacement for an expert SEO staff member or agency? No. But for those businesses which want to try and tackle basic SEO themselves or learn from the ground up, or for the private SEO contractor looking to consolidate multiple tools into one all around simplified project management offering, SoloSEO could be a Godsend.”

From Todd Malicoat of StuntDubl.com:
“SoloSEO is a very nice suite of tools for the DIY SEO’er. The only problem I see it having is scalability due to all the one man shops that will find high value from it. Online SEO Project management for any site.”

From Andy Beal of MarketingPilgrim.com:
“While software for search engine optimization has existed for years, there really hasn’t been a solution that allows you to set-up, track, manage and progress your SEO campaign…until now.”

“There’s no doubt that SoloSEO.com offers a selection of tools and project management options not currently available to search marketers,” said Beal. “I’ve practiced search engine optimization for years and SoloSEO.com offers the most comprehensive features I have ever seen.” (included in our Press Release)

From Thomas McMahon of TopRankBlog.com:
“I’ve been working with SoloSEO, a web based SEO project management solution, and it’s a good start to what could be quite a nice system. It doesn’t have quite all the features I’d like, but it does work well at keyword research and ties into search engines for inindex and backlink reporting.”

From Paul Drago:
“Thus far it seems fairly interesting– the pricing of 29 dollars a month is rather reasonable. Its great to have all of these tools in the same place (finally). I love these kind of projects where after you see it you simply so “duh” why the hell did it take this long for a web-based PM system like this to exist for a very web based industry.”

From Chris Bennett at 97thFloor.com:
“First off I gotta say I have used everything, IBP, Web CEO, SEO Elite, you name it and the first thing I am excited about is the online capabilities. It will be so much easier to manage clients sites from anywhere as I won’t have to install and keep updating my software on every computer. I won’t have to pay extra for…running it on more than 2 computers which is pretty much standard on all the other products I have used.”

From BloggingExpertise.com:
“One of the strongest parts of SoloSEO seems to be the tools to help you pick good keywords. They’ve taken some of the best-known tools in the SEO industry and put them together in an easy-to-use page.”

Try a 2-week Free Trial Today »

1 comment Visited 5476 times January 2nd, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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Check out the Photo Tour of SoloSEO.com

Posted by Michael D Jensen on December 22nd, 2006

A new photo tour of SoloSEO.com helps you to see the interface and many features of SoloSEO.com, even before you sign up for the free trial. The photo tour will take you from the very first page (Dashboard) to all the major components, including the Keyword Manager and tools, Content tracking, Link Building, Reports, and Competition watch.

Several reviews about SoloSEO have mentioned how simple and easy the interface is, and that it is easy to just start exploring to see all that SoloSEO can do.

We have had a great response since our launch, with new trials and subscribers starting every day. We also have some exciting announcements for the new year! Until then, enjoy your family and your holiday! Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!

1 comment Visited 4383 times December 22nd, 2006 Michael D Jensen

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Announcing SoloSEO.com, a new SEO Project Management solution

Posted by Michael D Jensen on November 29th, 2006

It’s official! SoloSEO.com launches today a SEO Project Management service for search marketing professionals as well as do-it-yourself web marketers. The SoloSEO service saves you time and headaches by managing keywords, content, and link building all from one integrated service.

Try a 14-day free trial and see for yourself how SoloSEO can help you. There’s no credit card required for the free trial, and it only takes 60 seconds to sign up. Thereafter the monthly service is available at an introductory price of $29 per month for up to 5 websites.

After trying it out we encourage you to write a review of SoloSEO. As an incentive, the first 20 reviews will get a free 12-month membership to SoloSEO! (see details below)

A few highlights of SoloSEO:

Keywords – manage your lists of keywords in one place, organize by topic and “top” keywords, with easy search and sort options. Powerful keyword tools for finding keywords including a tool that searches 3 keyword sources simultaneously and another tool that scans a site for keywords (yours, a competitors, etc).

Content – track the backlinks (inbound links) and PageRank of landing pages and other important pages of your site to help focus content optimization and link building on pages that need it the most.

Link Building – a powerful system for managing link building from start to finish. Find potential links with optimized search queries from the Link Search tool, assess the strength of a link with Link Build It! (a bookmarklet), and easily add the link to your link manager. Add comments when a link has been contacted and change the status as a link progresses. After a link has been contacted, SoloSEO automatically checks the linking page if the link is there or not.

Reports – run informative reports for competitive analysis and keyword ranking. Reports are saved and can be emailed to clients, etc.

Site Statistics – Your statistics for your site including backlinks, pages indexed, PageRank, and Alexa rating are automatically updated weekly and can show the progress of each SEO campaign over time.

Competitors – Find competitors and look at their backlinks quickly, then add potential links directly to your link manager. Find and keep a list of your competitors, including statistics like backlinks, pages indexed, PageRank, and Alexa ranking.

SoloSEO’s tools and reports will make it easier for anyone doing search engine optimization. Once you try it, it will be hard to go without it! Sign up now to try SoloSEO for free for 14-days.

** First 20 Reviews – Rules **

As an incentive to try out SoloSEO and share your own review, we are giving away 12 month subscriptions to the first twenty (20) reviews of SoloSEO. Reviews should be honest (we realize there are still improvements to make) and based on a thorough test of the system. This offer is subject to the following rules:

1) An email must be submitted to reviews@soloseo.com and include the URL (link) to the review along with the username of the trial account of the reviewer.

2) This offer is open to anyone 18-years and older.

3) Reviews must be posted on the Web and be available for public access without registration.

4) Reviews must be a minimum of 500 words, and must be unique (don’t copy from our site or other reviews). A link back to this blog post or the site should be included.

5) Reviews must be based on a thorough test of the system (will be verified by internal server logs of SoloSEO)

6) Submissions should be an honest review at the benefits and features of SoloSEO. Reviews will not be rejected if negative comments are a part of the review, as long as it is honest and gives an explanation.

7) SoloSEO reserves the right to reject any submission for any reason. (Not that we will, but just in case)

You agree to allow SoloSEO to use your review and your name for any promotional purposes.

9) SoloSEO reserves the right to change or cancel this offer at any time for any reason.

6 comments Visited 9090 times November 29th, 2006 Michael D Jensen

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