Google

If you don’t have the money to spend on an SEO specialist (or if you are one but haven’t quite figured out how to do it just yet), there are a number of ways that you can use Google’s own tools to figure out how to optimize your website for the best results possible.
Why Look at Google
Google is, at least for now, the world’s most popular search engine (that can of course change – before Google it was Yahoo! and before that it was Alta Vista – you get the idea). Therefore, it pays to work with them to find out how to do SEO in a way that makes your website work better for you.
Google actually offers dozens of tools which can help your efforts at SEO, though today we’re going to focus on three specific ones which can be useful for SEO specialists and do it yourselfers in the SEO field.
How Google Can Help
As previously noted, there are any number of tools that may be helpful to your specific niche. For example, Google Maps may be useful for you to set up a link to show people how to get to your place of business and Google News is useful for those who run news websites.
However, the following three tools should be part of any webmaster’s toolbox in order to maximize your SEO efforts.
Finding the Right Keywords — Adwords
First of all, in order to do SEO properly, you need to find the right keywords to target for your website. Fortunately, Google makes it easy to do. You can go to adwords.google.com to do research. Just enter a keyword (pretty much any keyword) that comes to mind and you’ll see how many searches there are for it.
However, what is more valuable is that Google’s keyword search feature will also let you see alternative keywords. You can then drill down and find keywords that don’t have so much competition which will then give you a better shot at actually getting your content noticed on the Internet, which should be the goal of any SEO specialist.
Choosing Between Keywords – Google Trends
Another great feature that Google offers you for SEO is Google Trends. This feature, unlike Adwords, is not designed to find specific keywords. It’s meant to help you to figure out which keywords are more popular right now.
Enter two keywords (for example, Cincinnati lawyer, lawyer in Cincinnati [they have to be separated by commas]) and the website will show you which keywords are more popular right now. This way, you can choose which one is more useful to your SEO plans. Just go to trends.google.com to get started.
Advice – Webmaster’s Blog
Finally, for those searching for SEO advice, you could do worse than to check out Google’s own webmaster’s blog. The blog offers advice specific to making your content more effective for Google (which in turn, helps your SEO efforts and your search for keywords). It’s well worth taking a look at it for some useful ideas.