In terms of online business resources and tools, seo is the final frontier for me. I've spent time learning programming, social media, wordpress, marketing, and advertising, but never focused my efforts on seo. Until recently.

There are so many tools that even the playing field when learning about SEO. One of the most interesting parts of seo is how it relates to google local search. There has been a tremendous amount of research in this area (much more than you would think), and there are a few blogs that bring all of that information straight to you. 

But enough rambling. Let's get to the free stuff.

1. Cherry Picker Software

I'm not trying to sell you anything when I say this is only going to be up there for a limited time. Ryan Deiss put this software up completely free to download for all, but I know it was a promotion for his perpetual traffic program, which has already launched and closed. Grab this software as soon as you can. So what does it do? Here is a screen shot of the program:

 

When you plug in any keyword, the software shows you the top search engine results, how many links are going to that url, how many links are going to that domain, how many pages are indexed, and the page's PR. He even has a video on the homepage showing you how to use the Cherry Picker Software.

The most surprising part of using this software was seeing how relevant the domain, title tag, and links pointing to the domain really are. Look at how far down the youtube video result is. The reason? It's most likely because there are no links pointing to the domain, and there are extra words in the title tag.

SEO is not an exact science, but using this software, you can see how you rank up against your competitors, but more importantly you can discover niches that are still untapped. In fact, the birdhouse niche might actually be a good one, since 75 links to the domain really isn't too many. When you go to a niche like "insurance" or "mortage broker", there are thousands of links to the top domains. This can take years to achieve.

2. SEO Quake

SEO Quake is a plugin that works with mozilla firefox, chrome, and safari

Here is the download link: SEO Quake Plugin

SEO Quake acts as a real time SEO feedback tool for your google search results. See the picture below:

After doing a search for the same thing, "how to build a birdhouse," I get my google results. Look at the bar right below each of the results. SEO Quake gives you the PR, incoming links, alexa info, delicious links, and a few other things. This helps you size up your competition, and you don't even need any other software. But the coolest part about this plugin is that you can actually sort the results based on page rank, links, or anything else.. 

If you need to see the page with the biggest page rank in your niche, you can do it. If you only want to post comments and read blogs with a certain page rank, you can do it. 

3. WinYourLocalMarket.com

Want to rank well in your local town?

Todd Temaat has put together a great site to do exactly what it says it will do: win your local market! He has a free guide you can download that shows you the most important factors for ranking high in the google local search results. I originally thought that google local search was the same as the regular search results, but nothing could be farther from the truth. There are a few factors that overlap, but for the most part it's a different challenge all together. 

4.  Local Search Ranking Factors Report

This isn't just another article about local search. This is probably the greatest report on the subject I've seen on the web. They even talk about how using a local phone number is better in google than an 800 number… It's definitely detailed.

Information from dozens of experts on the subject has been compiled in a comprehensive survey. This report details what's important, and what's not. Check out the local search report here.

5. The Web Optimist Report

Richard V. Burckhardt allowed me to give my blog readers a copy of the book, as long as I kept the links intact. No problem. This 34 page ebook was a great introduction to all that is SEO 101. It's a great resource to build your knowledge upon.

You can download the SEO 101 report here, but I also recommend signing up for his newsletter, since his tips are second to none. 

6. All in One SEO Plugin / Google XML Sitemap Plugin

Many people probably already know about these plugins for wordpress, but if you don't, here they are. These plugins go right into your wordpress blog, and help you get ranked better in the search engines. The reason I put them together is that you should really have them both on your blog.

The XML sitemap makes a sitemap of your blog, which is easier to crawl for the google spiders. The all in one seo lets you add keywords, descriptions, title tags, and more to all of your posts and pages. Again, after using the cherry picker software I began to see how important the title tags really are. 

7. Scribd.com

This is bit outside of the realm of SEO, but I think Scribd is going to gain steam in the near future for what it can really do. It's really the YouTube for PDF reports. I posted a free report about one of my other sites, just to get the report out there and get a link back to my site. What I didn't know was how easy the link would show up.

Less than 24 hours after I had posted the report, I had hundreds of views on the report, but I also had a link back to my site that was showing up in google. Scribd lets all of the major search engines know about your report instantly. I was on the first page of google for the name of the report, despite competition, and the report brought in traffic. 

So if you have a free report you can distribute, 10 tips guide, or just an ebook you want to share, post it on the site and watch how fast it gets some views and links back your site. 

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