Creating an effective website has never been more important than it is today. A website should not just look trustworthy or aesthetically appealing, but it also has to contain relevant information without being too content heavy, it has to showcase the website owner’s purpose for creating the website, and it has to be easy to use.

But more than just usability and content, the most important part of creating a website is being able to rank it in search engines. Everyone’s goal is for their website to appear on the first page of search engines like Google or Bing – and this is exactly what you want to achieve for your website. It seems there are a lot that goes on in creating a website, and much like when you are starting a renovation project at home, it is easier to deal with when you have the right tools to use.

Create a relevant domain name with Name Mesh

The trick to creating a domain name is that it has to be short and memorable. You can always choose your business name or your own name as the domain, but you run the risk of not getting enough traction for it to stick to people’s minds. For this reason, countless tools have come out to help create a domain name that is relevant to the website’s nature and is also easy to remember.

Name Mesh is one of those tools – it suggests prefixes, suffixes, synonyms, and antonyms as your domain name. You just need to type the word you want to use in the field, and it uses 20 generators to suggest. However, if you are on the lookout for a domain that already exists, you can always do a domain lookup and see if it expires soon. You can do a domain backorder for it so that once it expires, you can get first dibs to purchase it.

Target the right keywords with Google AdWords Keyword Planner

Keywords are essential for website optimisation because it is what drives targeted traffic to your page for free. The keywords are basically what people type in the search box when they are making online queries – these could be just one or two words, or a whole phrase.

The most helpful keyword tool to use is the Google AdWords Keyword Planner because it shows you everything, from keyword performance to combinations of words used when users are making queries. The Keyword Planner also allows you to create and save your own plan. So you can look up traffic for a specific keyword, mix it with other keywords, and see which ones work best for you. You can even upload data from your own research campaign.

Get comprehensive link analysis through the Open Site Explorer

Backlinks are what you call the trustworthy links that are directed to your website. These are vital for optimisation because it increases your authority score on search engines. With Open Site Explorer, you can find backlinks without doing searches manually. This free tool analyses your links and presents in an easy to understand table; this table then shows you how those links can affect your ranking.

All you need to do is copy-paste your URL on the search box and the top five data will be shown (only five will be presented on the free version, but it is useful nonetheless). You can even type in a competitor’s URL so you can compare their performance with yours. Apart from how backlinks can influence your ranking, you can also check your nofollow links and check your anchor text.

These free tools make all the difference. Go on and study how you can fully utilise them so you can boost your website’s ranking.