Is traffic slowing to your site? This could be related to any number of search engine optimization issues. There are some free tools out there that you can use, but you need to investigate them thoroughly. They vary greatly on their accuracy and reliability. Some of the data they provide is flat out wrong, and if you follow their advice, it can cause you to make mistakes in your site design.
One of the free tools out there provides keyword statistics that are so cryptic, disorganized, and wrong that it is impossible to use. Even a second test a few days later provided the same types of results.
There are many search engine optimization tools out there that you have to pay a fee to use, and they work very well. However, many websites do not have the cash flow needed in order to cover this additional expense. So we will focus on a good free tool.
One tool that works well and is new to the market and addresses the main search engine optimization issues is The Website Health Check (tools.seobook.com/website-health-check) which was created by Aaron Wall. It provides reliable information without being complicated to use. All you need to do is to type in the website URL, and it will provide complete, easy-to-read reports that list problem pages with clickable URL links. The tool is not limited by size of website. This tool can even crawl huge ecommerce websites, although the larger the website, the longer it will take to pull the report.
Aspects of search engine optimization that are covered by the Website Health Check include:
- Missing Title Tags and Description: Makes sure that all pages in the site have title tags and description tags. Every page should have both.
- Missing Descriptions: Check for missing descriptions only.
- Duplicate Title Tags: Checks to make sure that no pages have the same title tags. Each page should be unique.
- Duplicate Descriptions: Checks to make sure that no pages have the same description tags. Every page should have a unique description describing the unique content of the page.
- WWW Versus Non-WWW: Verifies the status of your true canonical home page. In order to avoid search engine confusion and the splitting of your Google PageRank numbers, there should only be only one canonical URL for your website.
- Multiple Index Pages: Verifies if you have more than one true index page.
- Check Error Handling: Analyzes the ability of the website to handle errors.
Checking these basic items of the core structure of your website will go a long way toward search engine optimization. These basic building blocks should be in place before you take more sophisticated steps. Please contact us here at KARTHOST.com if you have any questions, or if you need any help. Keep in mind that we aren’t a success unless you are.
Roy Randolph
Head Hostmaster
Follow us on Twitter
@KARTHOST
