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• XML-Sitemaps.com (http://www.xml-sitemaps.com) - creates a sitemap for your site

• Google XML Sitemaps (http://wordpress.org/plugins/google-sitemap-generator) - plugin that creates and maintains a sitemap for WordPress sites. Also, pings search engines whenever new content, such as a page or post are created.

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• Google Webmaster Tools (http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools) - view how Google sees your site – submit your sitemap, learn about crawl errors, see what keywords Google thinks your site is about, learn how many pages are being indexed by the search engine, see keywords you’re ranking high for and getting clicks from

• Bing Webmaster Tools (http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster) - similar functionality as Google’s only from a Bing perspective

• Microsoft Free SEO Tool (http://www.microsoft.com/web/seo) - a free tool from Microsoft that gives SEO suggestions

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Use these tools to see how fast your website is loading, learning what things are slowing down your site and what actions you can take to improve your page load speed.

• Google PageSpeed Insights (http://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights)

• GTMetrix (http://gtmetrix.com)

• Pingdom (http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt)

• Web Page Test (http://www.webpagetest.org)

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• CloudFlare (http://cloudflare.com) - a content delivery network (CDN) that offers a free plan

• Compressnow (http://compressnow.com) - upload images to compress them and make them a smaller size

• Online YUI Compressor (http://refresh-sf.com/yui) - a tool that can minify javascript and css files which you upload to your site

• JSCompress (http://jscompress.com) - Javascript (JS) file minifier that combines .js files

• W3 Total Cache (http://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache) - WordPress plugin that improves the site’s performance with caching, minification and integrating with CDN’s

• WP Supercache (http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache) - WordPress plugin that caches content for faster page loading

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• Alexa (http://www.alexa.com) – see some of the keywords that are leading to visits to competitor site

• Bing Keyword Tool (http://www.bing.com/toolbox/keywords) - use Bing’s advertising platform to get keyword ideas (and see search volumes). You don’t need to run a paid campaign to use the tool.

• Follow.net (http://follow.net) - see the keywords your competition is: ranking high for, getting traffic from, and advertising for

• Google AdWords (http://thinkstrategy.com/free-seo-tools/www.google.com/AdWords) - similar to Bing’s tool, use Google’s keyword tools to get ideas

• Google Analytics (http://google.com/analytics) - once you’ve set this up, it will tell you terms people are searching for to get to your site; what you’re ranking high for, and what words are turning into leads/sales for you

• Keyword Eye (http://www.keywordeye.com) - they offer a free plan where you can do 10 keyword searches per day to get ideas on what you should be trying to SEO

• Uber Suggest (http://ubersuggest.org) - free service that provides a ton of keyword suggestions based on common variations of the words you enter

• Wordstream (http://www.wordstream.com/keywords) - offers a limited number of free searches you can do for keywords

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• Moonsy (http://moonsy.com/google-keyword-rank-checker) - tells you where your site ranks for a given keyword, if you rank in the top 100 on Google

• SEOCentro (http://www.seocentro.com/tools/search-engines/keyword-position.html) - tells you where you rank for a keyword, allows you to compare yourself to competitors, and shows the URLs of the top ranked sites along with if they are using the keyword in metas

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• Meta Length (http://www.metalength.com) - counts the characters you enter for your meta tags so you can make sure that they are as description as possible without being too long

• SEOmofo (http://www.seomofo.com/snippet-optimizer.html) - a cool tool that will show you what your web page will look like in Google in search results as you enter your meta tags

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• Image SEO Tool (http://www.feedthebot.com/tools/alt) - checks images on a web page to see if they are tagged for SEO (i.e. alt tag)

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• Copyscape (http://www.copyscape.com) - Checks to see if your content is unique or if someone has copied you. If search engines think that your website content isn’t unique and/or you copied it from another site, then you will fall in rankings.

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Use these tools to see what other sites are linking to you. If you find that they are sites that are low quality, not relevant to you, or otherwise spammy, you may consider disavowing them in Google Webmaster Tools.

• Backlink Watch (http://backlinkwatch.com)

• Digbacklink (http://www.digbacklink.com)

• Open Site Explorer (http://www.opensiteexplorer.org)

• Rank Signals (http://www.ranksignals.com)

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• Remove’em (http://www.removeem.com/ratios.php) - Checks links to your site to determine what anchor text is being used. Your site can be hurt in search rankings if you aren’t diversifying your anchor text enough.

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• Google Structure Data Testing Tool (http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets) - tests that your rich snippets are correct for a web page

• Google Structure Markup Data Helper (https://www.google.com/webmasters/markup-helper) - helps you do the coding for a web page to make rich snippets work

• Schema.org (http://schema.org) - the labeling format used by the search engines for rich snippets

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Local directories where you can list your business for free and boost your local search ranking.

• Bing Places (https://www.bingplaces.com)

• Foursquare (http://foursquare.com)

• Google Places (http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter)

• Hotfrog (http://www.hotfrog.com)

• Yellow Pages (http://www.yellowpages.com)

• Yelp (http://yelp.com)

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• Moz Local (https://moz.com/local/search) - Checks that your business contact info is consistent across the internet. If your info is inconsistent then the search engines may be viewing each unique address/phone number as a different location, lowering your position in local searches.

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