Search Engine Optimization is my meal ticket these days. I have been doing it for about three years now and I have developed a system that uses freely available tools to determine my markets. I will try to outline some of the tools I use here in hopes that they may help others along the way.

1. Niche Tools – I first like to discover if the niche I am trying to go into is worthwhile or not. I will use NicheBot (http://www.nichebot.com) and Digitalpoint’s Keyword Suggestion (http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/) to determine if the keyword is worth chasing.

2. Competition Analysis – Nothing beats using the big three to determine your competition. Typing in a search in the big three engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) will give you a pretty decent idea of what you are up against. I do both general and exact searches (search phrases inside quotes) to determine the competition of a keyword. If I find the keyword to still be worth the time, I will then gather a list of the top ten sites on each of the search engines and find which ones are common to all three. There are several tools that I use on my own sites that come in handy when determining what the correct “formula� for that keyword is. I will run their sites through Keyword Density Analyzer (http://www.seobench.com/keyword-density-analyzer/), Discover the number of backlinks they have by using the “link� command at Google (link:http://www.thiersite.com), Yahoo (linkdomain:http://www.thiersite.com), and MSN (link:http://www.thiersite.com). Though these are not always accurate they will give you a good starting point for your link building. I will then add their sites to my Google alerts for both the “link� and “site� commands and set it to, “web� and “as it happens�. This will allow you to keep tabs on your competitors site updates.

3. Site Optimization – When I begin optimizing my sites, I will compile the competition data and begin writing my copy. As I write, I keep in mind that I do not want to completely blow away the competition, this in my opinion makes the search engines think you are either spamming or inflating your keyword count. If your competition for keyword “FooBar� has a keyword density average of 5%, hit 5.1%, this is not the place to stand apart from the crowd to far. Once my copy is written, I will go back through it to determine whether I can link to internal pages from my copy. This helps spiders to find your internal pages faster and looks more natural. I will either build my own sitemap or use The Google Sitemap Generator (http://www.auditmypc.com/free-sitemap-generator.asp) to generate my Google Sitemap. This has helped me in the past get my sites crawled and indexed much quicker then normal. I am currently looking for a tool to optimize my navigation structure. I may just end up building this one myself.

4. Continued Optimization – As time progresses and I build my backlink base. I will use the Tools at Marketleap (http://www.marketleap.com) which include Keyword Verification, Search Engine Saturation, and Link Popularity to keep track of what is going on with my site. As I add new content I am always mindful to determine the keyword density of the page.

These tools are by no stretch of the imagination a complete list. These are the tools I use on a daily basis. I will list a few more at the end of this article that I use quite a bit as well.

Google Trends – http://www.google.com/trends

TouchGraph - http://touchgraph.com/

Google Keyword Tool - https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Google ZeitGeist - http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist/weeks-jul06.html

Jason Lewis is a Search Marketing Manager for a Medium Sized E-Commerce company and the webmaster of http://www.seo-wiki.com, a blog about the changing lanscape of Search Marketing