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SEO (search engine optimization) is essential to generate and manage website traffic.  There are many questions about enhancing your website’s traffic with SEO. I’ve picked four great starting points to improve your SEO situation.

1.      Robots.txt is a simple text file that helps manage search engine crawlers indexing your site and what to crawl or not to crawl.  Search engine spiders are programmed to look for this file.  The suggested location for the robots.txt in the same directory as your index file; generally the root directory.

Having your entire site crawled is not always necessary.  Keeping crawlers away from unfinished pages benefits the site by preventing unfinished work displaying in search engines.  Other areas of a site that isn’t necessary to index would be the following: directories with thank you or error pages, files that contain sensitive data (but not sensitive enough to password protect), and doorway pages.  Setting up a robots.txt is a convenient and easy way to improve your website ranking and protect your site from being labeled as a “spam” site.

How to write robots.txt: http://www.outfront.net/tutorials_02/adv_tech/robots.htm

2.      Sitemap.xml is a file that allows crawlers to index your site on a more advanced level.  This XML file “draws a map” of your site enabling search engine spiders to help accurately rank sites and perform more accurate searches.  Creating a sitemap.xml file can be done multiple ways.  There are free sitemap.xml generators for smaller sites and Google Webmaster Tools can generate maps for larger sites.  Once the file is created it is recommended to make an entry in the robots.txt file that informs spiders where the sitemap.xml file is located.

Robots.txt file:
Sitemap: http://www.mysite.com/sitemap.xml

Free Sitemap.xml generator: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

3.      Google Analytics is a free tool that has multiple uses.  One feature is seeing which keywords are actually creating user traffic. This will allow you (or your marketing team) to improve keyword optimization.  The better keywords you have the more web traffic you’ll have, which in the retail world can lead to more sales.  Another feature is viewing which pages are getting the most traffic, which pages are creating high revenue, and which pages have a high bounce rate.  Knowing page traffic will tell you where you should place important information and which pages need to be reworked.  The last feature I’ll be talking about is who are your website visitors?  Google Analytics will track new and returning visitors, geography location and referral sources.  Understanding the geography of your visitors allows you to make smarter web decisions.  For example, you wouldn’t sell snowmobile parts if your biggest audience is located in the Southern United States.

Google Analytics Tools: http://ezinearticles.com/?5-Benefits-Of-Google-Analytics-In-A-Search-Engine-Optimization-Campaign&id=925838

4.      Google Webmaster Tools is a free tool that ties all the previous information together.  From submitting your sitemap.xml, analyzing the robot.txt file, and improving your Inbound Linking Quality Score; why wouldn’t you want this tool in your toolbox of tricks?  Instead of waiting for a Google to find your site, you can submit information to Google.  Submitting information also gives you feed back of any errors and status updates with sitemap.xml and robots.txt files.

Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools can be integrated.  When you setup Google Analytics you can submit this information to Google Webmaster Tools, putting more information in one spot.

Google’s ranking algorithm uses Inbound Linking Quality Score, which can be improved with relevant keywords in anchor texts.  Google Webmaster Tools gives you the ability to see your Quality Score and analysis needed to improve this score.  The benefits and features of Google Webmaster Tools are endless.  So why wouldn’t you use this free and easy to setup tool?

Google Webmaster Tools: http://ask.enquiro.com/2008/why-you-should-use-google-webmaster-tools/

So there you have it.  Four easy and free tools to help you get started with your SEO adventure.  There are many SEO options, some are free some are not.  Finding what works best for you depends on your goal, target audience and resources that you’re willing to use.

Filed under: SEO   Tags: Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, robots.txt, seo, sitemap.xml,
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