Free SEO Tool Alert: On-Page Optimization Tool Improves Organic Ranking Elements

How to Use It

1. Enter up to six URLs (one per line) and click Get Data. Make sure to use fully qualified URLs such as https://www.bruceclay.com/blog.

The URLs you enter can be high-level competitor URLs, like your competitor’s home page, or deeper web page URLs, like a link to a specific landing page or blog post. You can also look at your own information by entering any of your own web page URLs.

2. The tool will return a list of pertinent information about each submitted web page, including:

• Page title tag
• Meta description
• Meta keywords
• H1 text
• Canonical URL if one is indicated on a web page

5 Ways to Use This Data

The SEO Multi-Page Information tool helps you analyze the effectiveness of high-value on-page elements like the meta tags and level-one heading tag.

Use the data supplied in this tool to:

1. Discover new niche-specific keywords: Using keywords in your title tag and H1 is SEO 101. As such, mining you competitor’s meta tags can be a great way to discover the market-specific keyword phrases also relevant to your business.

When you see phrases in your competitors’ H1 and metadata that look like keyword leads, add them to your keyword research spreadsheet and run them through a keyword research tool, like the free Bruce Clay, Inc. keyword research tool.

2. Inspire the structure and style of your own meta tags: Since every single page of your website needs a meta title and description, it’s a wise idea to approach the meta tag writing process with a structure and style strategy.

Whether you’ve been tasked with an on-page SEO audit or you’re looking to improve your current approach you can learn a lot from analyzing your competitor’s meta.

• What format are your competitor’s using? For instance, are they using pipes or dashes to break up their titles? How do they work in their brand name? Should your meta titles and descriptions take on a similar style and/or structure?
• How many characters are they using?
• What is their tone?
• How and where are they using action words?
• What’s their character count?
• How are their keyword phrases incorporated into their meta tags?
• Are they using keyword synonyms? (Learn more about semantic keywords.)

Think of this step as a part of your competitor analysis strategy. Observe what competitors are doing, feel out how successful their efforts are, and then decide if you want to follow suit or try something new.

3. Uncover weak spots (and ranking opportunities!): If your competitors are doing a good job, then consider following their lead. But if they’re doing a bad job, then their oversight may be a great opportunity for you to get one step ahead!

As you’re analyzing their metadata and Heading 1 tag, ask yourself:

• Are there any keyword gaps? If they’re not optimizing for high-volume keywords on your list, then they’re not ranking for those keywords — which could mean a big opportunity for you. Consider this a part of your competitive analysis.
• Is the meta description style lacking? Your title tag is a high-value ranking factor and your meta description contributes to CTR. Do your competitor’s meta descriptions sound dry and formulaic? If so, this is a great opportunity for you to use your meta description to stand out with a personality-rich description that highlights your page benefits and makes a click-inspiring connection. 

4. Pretty data charts make it easy to present competitor metadata to stakeholders: If you are the person tasked with proposing a new meta tag structure/style guide, then you may want to present some competitor analysis to your stakeholders at one point or another. The SEO Multi-Page Information tool is a great resource for this type of data collection and presentation; just run the tool and take a screenshot of your competitor information charts. (If you’re using Chrome, I really like the Full Page Screen Capture Chrome extension.) Using the SEO Multi-Page Information tool and screen captures is much easier and quicker than going to View Source on six separate websites and collecting the information into charts by hand.

5. Make sure your clients aren’t abusing the meta keywords tag: While Google and Bing do not consider the meta keywords tag a ranking factor, that doesn’t mean that they don’t consider it. The search engines do cache it with the page, and our research shows that they will refer to it in some cases. It is also publicly known that Bing is actually using the meta keywords tag to identify spammers and devalue websites that abuse the tag. Knowing this, the SEO Multi-Page Information tool can be used as a client metadata diagnostics tool; just plug in a few of your client’s web pages and the SEO Multi-Page Information tool will show you at-a-glance if there’s any keyword stuffing or other spammy abuse happening. [Updated: See Editor’s Note below]

Explore More Free SEO Tools

The SEO Multi-Page Information tool is a free on-page optimization tool that you can use for competitor research, or to scope out your own on-page meta data and H1 tags. If you find it useful, please bookmark this blog post and run the tool as many times as you want, with as many unique websites as you want. There is no limit; you can enter competitor websites all day long as long as you enter them six at a time. You can also find this tool embedded within the Content Optimization step of our (also free) online SEO tutorial.

If you would like to see more free SEO tools, then keep an eye on our Free SEO Tool Tuesday blog series. Or, if you want to play with all 10 of the free tools now, then you can access our free SEO tools from our SEO tutorial. All 10 free tools are embedded throughout the online guide, and they’re all free, all the time. (Seriously. They’re free.)

[Editor’s note: Item number 5 in the “5 Ways to Use This Data” section was added two days after publication in response to a blog comment that got us thinking. Thank you to reader kwojcie for reminding us that the SEO Multi-Page Information tool lends itself to a worthwhile conversation about when and how to use the meta keywords tag appropriately. — CA]