Google Chrome is SEO for Dummies
Google Chrome is SEO for Dummies
Google Chrome is SEO for Dummies
Ever since it became a matter of life and death to get first page rankings, Google's been commenting on the dos and don'ts of search engine optimization via its principle engineer Matt Cutts. As the face of search public relations at Google, Cutts frequently answers questions from advertisers and marketers regarding how to optimize a site and rank better in Google SERPs. Between creating some of the most widely used search software to date and serving as the face of Google's best practices, Cutts is a certified expert when it comes to SEO and a gatekeeper when it comes to the search giant's algorithm. With the overwhelming amount of interest in how to optimize a site for Google, it's no wonder Google Chrome was created. With all the bugs officially worked out, Chrome offers anyone a free look at SEO data and reports on virtually any website.
Among the myriad of applications Google has released over the years, the updated (bug free for now) Google Chrome is a stone cold stunner to the big business of SEO reporting and optimization tools. Many SEO products and services can range from a few hundred dollars to a few hundred thousand dollars, depending on the length of service. The free Google web browser, Google Chrome, was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows in 2008. By 2010, it was the third most widely used web browser on the Internet. Among many features, Chrome offers users downloadable extensions with simplified search engine optimization tools and reports.
It seems like this tool would be geared towards small businesses, but large in-house SEO departments can benefit greatly from the Google Chrome site auditor. Take, for instance, the convenience factor. Once you've downloaded Chrome and its additional extensions onto your computer, simply open it up and type in a URL. You'll notice at the top right hand corner a few widgets you can click on which open an on-page window with pertinent search engine information.
Google Chrome Extensions for SEO
Chrome SEO
This helpful little button brings up a window with headings showing pages indexed, backlinks, traffic and rank, search stats, bookmarks, cached versions of the website and date it was cached, onsite factors and domain details. The best part about this is it's instant! No waiting on a report to generate the information, just Google' it and voil! If you zero in on one section (say the backlinks) and click on one of the options provided (say Yahoo), it pulls up Yahoo's result page for whatever URL you've used. What's really cool is that is shows the backlinks from major social bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious, Dmoz, etc.
Chrome SEO Site Tools
Up next on the tool set is another handy extension with six drop down slides that include external page data, page elements, social media, page terms/tools, server/domain info, and suggestion.
1.) External Page Data This slide displays things like PageRank, the number of indexed pages, domain links, popularity, etc. The information is gathered from various search engines, such as Google, Bing, Alexa Data, Yahoo Site Explorer, Quantcast, and so on.
2.) Page Elements Click on the next slide down and you'll see information like the websites title, canonical URL, internal and external follow, meta description, meta keywords, anchor tags, image tags, H1 through H5 Tags, and Page Headers. It's like taking an instantaneous snapshot of any website and getting on demand SEO data at the click of a widget, literally.
3.) Social Media The third slide is devoted to Social Media, and rightly so. Now that it plays such an integral role in a site SEO strategy, Chrome SEO Site Tools puts it smack dab in the middle of the window. Social data from Facebook, reddit, StumbleUpon, Digg, del.icio.us lets you know what type of presence the site has on social networks and whether it's in the game or not.
4.) Page Terms / Tools Once you've had your fill of Social Media, click on the Page Terms / Tools for an in-window search of the sites keywords and other information, like how long it takes the page to load, a plagiarism checker, keyword search volume, window size and the corresponding percentage of users. It's nothing new but the way it's presented makes it so convenient. Whatever tool you click on automatically brings up specific information related to the site you're on so you spend less time inputting the data!
5.) Server / Domain Info The fifth slide is the Server / Domain Info and shows the hosting company, the type of server software, Robots.txt, if there's an xml sitemap, and the IP. It also pulls an entire site record and profile from the Domain Tools website.
6.) Suggestions Last, but certainly not least, is the Suggestions section which provides foolproof SEO tips and recommendations for improving SEO best practices on the site. It covers link quantity, the title tag, the meta description, keyword tags, Img alt tags, canonical link tag, gzip compression, page size, stop words in title, text phone number and URL length. Site-specific tips are automatically populated and the colors red, yellow and green are applied to indicate a site's strengths and weaknesses (red being a major issue, yellow being something to consider fixing and green being everything looks good).
Chrome WooRank
Another excellent extension is Google Chrome's WooRank, which generates an automatic site audit report that includes information like site traffic, content, In-Site SEO, Off-Site SEO, and much more. It even generates a PDF of the report for easy storage or for sharing. Talk about an easy way to check out the SEO status of potential client websites.
1.) Visitors The first section gives you a quick look at the traffic estimation, Alexa rank and complete rank of the site you're currently WooRanking.
2.) Content- This includes the number of pages indexed by Google and the most popular pages on the site.
3.) In-Site SEO This is where you start to get into the meat of the site with a breakdown/analysis of the homepage. Things like URL, title, meta description, meta keywords, headings, images, text/HTML ratio, frames and flash are all covered. It's a very clean and straightforward presentation of information for easy viewing. Next is an inside analysis of the site that checks to see if the titles and descriptions are unique for each page. Last is website compliance. This part tells you whether or not the site is redirecting traffic to duplicate domains, if there are robots.txt, XML sitemaps and other more technical but very important pieces of the puzzle.
4.) Off-Site SEO This covers things like popularity (like Google's last crawl date, the total number of backlinks and backlinks from educational and government sites), what directories the site is listed in, and its social media presence.
5.) Usability Just how easy is it to read content on the site? This feature assigns a reading level/measurement of the approximate level of education necessary to understand the content.
6.) Website Information This will tell you things like the load time of the site, the IP address, and even the physical location with a Google Map. Included is a list of related websites and the domain profile via Whois.
All in all, Google Chrome's site auditor tools make viewing how well a website is optimized very simple and fast. It works great as quick reference tool for sizing up what type of strategies a website has implemented and how well it's ranking.
Can Bing Really Compete With Google? Mastering Google Adwords - How To Lower Your Adwords Cost Per Click By Getting A High Quality Score Google Chrome OS, the OS for netbooks Ways To Make Money Fast From Google Adsense Pros And Cons Of Google Adwords Cleveland CG15 Satin Chrome Wedge's Review Google Presents... Google Chrome Os? Google Is The Keyword Google Analytics Know How To Make Money From Google Google Watch - A Variety Of Topics In Great Breadth And Depth Free Training For Google Adwords The Debut of Google E-books