You’re pretty lucky because there is a lot of great software out there that can help you turn your website into a profitable business that brings in a lot of money every month. One of the reasons you will have so much success is because you will be able to own the search engines. You won’t literally own Google, but you will be able to claim a lot of first-page rankings.
The only way you will be able to own the search engines is if you use some great SEO software that will help you rank your website. If you are just getting started you might not know where to begin, so we can look over some of the things you will want to use. Everything that is on the list won’t cost any money, so you don’t need to worry about opening your wallet just yet.
Google Analytics
When you start publishing articles on your website you will start ranking for keywords before you even try to rank for anything. You need to install analytic tracking code on your site so that Google knows what is happening. They will tell you what keywords people are searching for when they land on your site. You want to target those keywords first because they will be the easiest to rank for.
Webmaster Tools
Another thing you want to sign up to as soon as possible is Google Webmaster Tools. There are others you can sign up for, but Google is the most important search engine. You will be able to find out some great things that will help your SEO efforts. As an example, you will be told if there are any broken links on your site so you can go and fix them in order to please the search engine spiders.
XML Sitemap Generator
Every website needs a sitemap because it is another thing that will help the spiders crawl it. If you don’t have one your rankings will be affected. It won’t cost you anything as long as there are less than 500 pages on your site. Once you create a sitemap you need to upload it into webmaster tools and your website will definitely be crawled.
SEO Quake
If you use Firefox you should install this plugin and you will get a wealth of information for free. When you are searching on Google it will tell you lots of information you would want to know about each of the websites you want to beat to the number one spot. When you are thinking about trying to rank for a keyword you will know in less than a few seconds whether or not it’s worth tackling.
Google Keyword Tool
You need to start using the Google Keyword Tool before you write any articles. You will be able to see what keyword you should target because it will tell you how many searches each one gets per month. It’s a waste of time ranking for a keyword if only a few dozen people will be searching for it. There is premium software available, but you don’t need that when you’re just getting started.
