Evaluate your on-page SEO

When it comes to getting feedback on your SEO, check out the SE Inspector website, a really helpful tool that will analyze your on-page characteristics and show you how much of your potential you’re maximizing. The SE Inspector will analyze a few different aspects of your site, like how you’re doing with your titles, meta descriptions, meta keywords, and keyword densities, etc.  You’ll analyze just one page at a time, one aspect at a time.

The tool will show you what percentage you’ve maximized of your potential.  Then, if you look right under the percentage and stars, you’ll find more advice on how you can make this page better for the aspect you’re looking at.  If you look on the right side of the screen, you’ll see some more tips on how to make this page better for search engines.  Be sure to click through all the tabs at the top of the page, so you can analyze it according to several features and not just one aspect.

Several of the numbers they dish out are debatable, as just about anything can be when it comes to SEO, but it’s a great starting place.  One of most important tabs to look at is the keyword density page.  You want your top 2-3 keywords on the page to be at about 3-5%

You may also try the following tools or additional feedback:

Self SEO

Submit A Website’s Ranking Report

Site Report Card

Common problems with Digg for newbies

When using Digg, many newcomers run into the following common issues:

1) Your article is no longer showing up on Digg,

2) Your page lowered in placement under Google, or

3) Your site shut down because it’s getting too much Digg traffic

Here are some explanations for these three scenarios:

1) If you don’t get enough diggs (or if you get buried too much in the first 24 hours, you won’t make the favorites list.  Go to http://digg.com/faq  and read “Digging, Burying, & Promotion” for more details.

2) Pages go up and down in Google listings all the time, based on what other pages are up and how content, links, and marketing tactics, etc. have changed.

3)  This happens if your site does not have enough band width or space to support the traffic you’re getting.  Often free blogs or affiliate sites cannot support the amount of traffic that comes from a great Digg article.

Keep working on finding good keywords/phrases over 10 on freekeywords.wordtracker.com and under 30,000 in a Google allintitle search, and keep plugging away submitting posts on those topics to Digg.  If you’re brand new, it’s a great idea to read through other people’s posts for awhile.  Make sure to click on links to their sites and make comments.  The big dogs of Diggers pay attention who has Dugg them, and will often look into what work you’ve done.

Search Engines vs. Directories?

Keep in mind that search engines and directories are two different things entirely. If you do a search in Yahoo and you find your site, it doesn’t mean you’re incorporated in Yahoo’s Directory (which costs $299).

Search engines rely on robotic software to crawl through pages online, but directories require real humans to review and determine quality and therefore rankings for the sites they visit. You may have submitted to free directories before like DMOZ Open Directory Project (Google) or the SEO Company. These offer good opportunities to get your site out there and recognized online.

The Yahoo Directory can provide a distinct advantage for people who have quality websites established and are looking into serious marketing techniques. Yahoo can be a huge step above many of the free options, if you’ve optimized a quality site and are serious about promoting it. You aren’t guaranteed to be listed just because you pay out the dough, so make sure you’ve fully optimized your site with a good amount of content on every page first to make sure you can make the most of this investment. It can sure pay off once you’re ready to use it!

Keep in mind that DMOZ (free) is linked to Google (the biggest search engine by far), but it can also be hard to get on their list. If you want to gain credibility with Google, submit your QUALITY site and only submit it once. Any way you look at it, optimize your site and take it seriously before you try too much marketing, especially any time it involves spending money.