Webmaster Tools

This Page's Contents

Introduction

Introduction

Webmaster tools are web sites or programs that assist you as a web designer to do you work either easier or better.

Many of them help you to

• Pepare your site prior to submission to search engines
• Validate your HTML & CSS, i.e. Check for errors
• Spelling Checkers
• Graphic Programs

Prepare your site for Search Engines

General

In order to get your site higher on a Search Engine search results, the main thing to inprove is to have good quality unique content

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) that contains the key words and/or key phrases that you think that users may search for. Do NOT copy content from other sites.

Keywords

Your page must contain your keywords in strategic positions. See Site promotion.

You should list your keywords in a keyword Meta tag in the head section.

Some Search engines no longer require this, but others do. And many of the tools listed also require this.

To be effective keywords should appear on the page 3 to 8 times.

Use a keyword counting tool to help you with this task.

Try to use alternative words to your main keywords

If you want to get American viewers, use some American spelling, e.g. Color in place of Colour

Keyword Density Analyzer

This tool requires that your

• Page has been uploaded to the web
• Your page has a keyword meta tag

Use the tool on all your pages.
Also use the tool on any good ranking competitors page to see there keyword analysis. Use this information to help you optimise your pages.

More Keyword tools

http://wordtracker.com

 

WordTracker suggests alternative keywords that you can use on your site, to help promote your site in search engine listings. You can also obtain by e-mail Wordtracker top 500 keywords currently in use by search engines. There are 2 versions - with or without adult search terms.

 

http://www.analogx.com/contents/articles/linkseo.htm

 

FREE link checking software AnalogX LinkExaminer. While looking for broken links it also checks out for site and provides tips to help with your SEO

 

Free Keyword Analysis

Find broken links on web sites   Xenu's Link Sleuth

W3C free HTMLLink checker service at w3.org Find broken links. Enter URL,

W3C free HTML5 checker service at w3.org. Validates (X)HTML5 Enter URL, File upload, or Copy & paste into text field

W3C free CSS checker service at w3.org. Validates CSS. Enter URL, File upload, of Copy & paste into text field

Counters and Statistics

Check to see what your Web site host provides in the way of counters and statistics.

http://www.extreme-dm.com/tracking/

 

Small neat counter, various colours. Daily counter given in a ca lender style format

 

http://top.addfreestats.com/

Free stats

 

http://www.digits.com/

Free counters and Commercial Counter with Statistics here. I have had very good reports from Open University students for counters

 

http://www.goldstats.com/free/

Free stats. I am using this on my Tenerife information site. The only visible bit is the dirty great banner at the top of the home page. This gives me better stats but I would have to put that banner on all my pages to obtain the required information. If you can put up with the banner on every page it would be V GOOD

 

Site Ranking or Popularity

Page Rank - Free

A very useful tool is the Google toolbar. This tool ranks your site with a number between low ranking 1 to high ranking 10 if the site is indexed on Google. Check your site's rank agaist you competitors. You need the advanced features for the ranking, read the small print about privacy. The advanced features do track your movements.

Download from http://toolbar.google.com/

Traffic Rank - Free

This tool from Alexa ranks your site in a range from top site 1 to bottom site in the millions.

Alexa Toolbar

The Alexa toolbar is similar to the google one, but is appearrs to be invading ones privacy more that the Google toolbar. A search on a search engine will find the download page if you require it. Definatly read the small print. The above Traffic Rank tool provides site information that the tool bar does but is not as readily available.

Search Engine Rankings

Search Engine Rankings - Instant, online reports of web site rankings in 7 top search engines, including Google, Yahoo (Web), AOL Search, MSN, AllTheWeb (FAST), AltaVista, Teoma, and the top 3 web directories; Yahoo Directory, Open Directory, and LookSmart - FREE!

Note how your additional searches are displayed in the results window. You can then printout the results of several searches.

http://www.echoecho.com/toolposition.htm

Check your sites ranking on several search engines

.

http://www.linkpopularity.com

Find out how many sites link to your web site in 3 top search engines. Useful for site promotion

 

Web site Optimisation

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

Enter a URL and your web page is checked for download time. Advice on how to improve your page download time is given.

 

Misc.

Xenu Link Sleuth

 

Link checker A free downloadable small & fast program, by Tilman Hausherr, that will find broken links including internal links & external links. Highly Recomended

 

http://watson.addy.com/

 

Dr. Watson Version 5.02 (Not Microsoft's Dr.)
FREE online service to analyze your web page on the Internet. Does all requested checks in one go

• HTML syntax
• Verify regular links
• Verify image links
• Word counts
• Spell-check (American) non-HTML text. Suggests alternative spellings.
• Download speed,
• search engine compatibility,
• link popularity.

 

http://deadlock.com/promote/search-engines/tools.html

 

Web Site Garage - Check your load time, dead links, link popularity, spelling and HTML code.
META Medic - Check your META tags

 

http://www.bcentral.com/products/link_checker.asp

 

Checks for links on a web page

 

Colour

Tools to help you choose a colour scheme

http://www.webwhirlers.com/colors/wizard.asp

http://kohaistyle.com/scripts/quickcolor/

http://www.ficml.org/jemimap/style/color/wheel.html

http://www.pixy.cz/apps/barvy/index-en.html

http://www.juicystudio.com/services/colourcontrast.asp

http://www.serve.com/apg/cgi-bin/colorpicker.cgi

http://colorfilter.wickline.org/

http://www.vischeck.com/

http://h40099.bbn-stage.europe.hp.com/country/ie/eng/color/art_hp_colour_wheel.html

http://www.pixy.cz/apps/barvy/index-en.html