10 Basic SEO Techniques Every Webmaster Should Know
Now, it’s easier than ever to have websites up and running. You can just setup a blog at blogger.com for free. Or you can spend some $20 to buy a domain name, get a cheap web hosting and install free ready-made scripts like WordPress, phpbb, oscommerce, joomla, etc. Some web hosting sites even made the script installations as easy as one-click-install.
Many aspiring webmasters create new sites without even knowing HTML, let alone search engine techniques. They get AdSense account and paste on AdSense code, waiting with high hope for the quick money to pour in. But day by day, the earning is really just enough to cover the hosting fee, or even less than that. So, they start to get frustated.
Most quit after some time. Some worse, they “fall into the dark side”, employing black hat techniques or hiring less-than-honorable search engine optimizer firms.
The rest stay on, determined to learn, and improve. Soon, they found out something about called search engine optimisation.
Here I will try to describe some basic search engine optimization (SEO) techniques in a simple, easy-to-understand way.
Optimizing a website for search engine means you design a website so that search engines (like Google, Yahoo, MSN) can easily find the pages and include them in the search result. Thus, it will increase the number of visitors coming to your site. Objective of search engine optimization is to have your pages displayed highest possible in the search engine result for your choice of search phrases.
These are 10 basic search engine optimization methods I think every webmaster ought to know. See if the tools you use to create your webpages (Dreamweaver, Frontpage, etc…) allow you to do these. If not, it is time to learn some basic HTML.
1) Page title
Title is important. Place important keywords on your page title, and try to have different one for each page. I’ve seen sites with same title for every pages. While it gives stronger branding for the site name, that’s something I can do without rather than sacrificing my sub-pages traffic.
Limit your page title to 80 characters the most. Shorter page title means higher importance on each word.
Tag:
<html>
<head>
<title>CheatAd ! – Click-frauds on Google AdSense and such</title>
</head>
<body>
…
</body>
</html>
2) Keyword and description meta-tags
These two popular meta-tags used to be most useful search engine optimization techniques, until they are abused by the search engine spammers. Even then, they are still holding some importance today, specially the description meta-tags.
Meta description tag is used by some search engine in displaying the result page, and by other search engines to determine the relevance of your page.
Limit your page description to 200 characters the most. Put a descriptive, gramatically correct, meaningful sentence for best result.
<html>
<head>
<title>This is the page title</title>
<meta name=”description” content=”This site shows problem of click-frauds with Google AdSense and other PPC network like Yahoo Publisher Network, Chitika.”>
</head>
<body>
…
</body>
</html>
Some proclaim that keyword tag is dead. Apparently not so. Yahoo webmaster guidelines lists using keyword tag as a way to help improving search engine ranking.
Use a “keyword” meta-tag to list key words for the document. Use a distinct list of keywords that relate to the specific page on your site instead of using one broad set of keywords for every page.
Even then, if you have to make a choice between creating good keyword tag and developing useful content – our next point – , go with the latter. Limit the keyword to 300 characters.
<html>
<head>
<title>This is the page title</title>
<meta name=”description” content=”This site shows problem of click-frauds with Google AdSense and other PPC network like Yahoo Publisher Network, Chitika.”>
<meta name=”keyword” content=”click-fraud, pay-per-click, clickbot, cheat, click network, click-ring, Google AdSense, Yahoo Publisher Network, Chitika, make money online”>
</head>
<body>
…
</body>
</html>
3) Body text
Next to a good title, this is the next most important on-page optimization you can do to bring more visitors to your website.
Most important thing you must remember here is this: you should write for your users first, search engine second. Write in natural, easy to understand language. The reason here is that if you write just for search engine, even if you can rank high up, the visitors will close your page as soon as they find out that your site contain just junks.
Besides, search engines now increasingly use some kind of artificial intelligence to analyze websites before indexing. You don’t want to caught off-handed using some useless texts.
First write some useful contents just as you would write offline magazine articles. Then, only after that, you can do some small tweaking to empasize certain parts, and make some changes to the word choices.
Generally, it is thought that keyword density plays some importance to seach engines. Keyword density refers to number of appearance of your keywords relative to overall page. No agreement on the optimum number though. Some believes the keywords should be around 3% compared to the overall page. Some believes the number should be higher, aroung 8-10%. Whatever it is, just try to include some of these keywords on your page, and make sure the page is still read well naturally. If it is not, take them out.
Then there are HTML tags you can use to emphasize importance of certain words. The most commons are bold, italics, and headers.
<h1>header 1</h1>
<h2>header 2</h2>
<h3>header 3</h3>
<b>bold</b> or <strong>strong</strong>
<i>italics</i> or <em>emphasis</em>
And, of course, you should use text instead of graphics or flash. Search engines can’t read what is written on your beautifully crafted picture. If you want them be indexed and found by search engines, use text.
If you must use some images, use your keywords on the file name, and always use the ALT tag.
<img src=”cheat-adsense.jpg” alt=”Cheat AdSense”>
Major search engines have developed some ability to read text in flash files, but to play it safe, avoid flash banners, buttons or page contents. Flash is great for embedded movies, not for any other use.
4) Regular content
SEO or not, this is important. Regularly updated content will draw visitors and search engine alike. But don’t put content just for the sake of it. Contents copied from other site, for instance, not only doesn’t help in search engine ranking, but can even get you penalized.
Write original, useful contents that make your visitors want to come back and recommend to their friends. You will get repeat visitors that way, regardless of search engine traffic. Good contents will also get link from other webmasters, and this will greatly help in your search engine ranking (read next point).
Blogs are very easy to set-up and is a good avenue to create new contents to your site. Major blogging software, like WordPress, supports RSS by default. By using RSS reader software, your visitors can then choose to be to be notified about new contents on your site.
Creating contents regularly rather than pump in many articles at one go has many benefits. Firstly, your visitors know that everytime they go to your site, they will see new content instead of the same old ones. This will make them want to visit more often. Same thing to search engine crawlers. If everytime the crawler couldn’t find new content, it provides little incentive for them to come back regularly. Thus, your new pages will not get indexed as fast as you want it to be.
Additionally, if you pump in a lot of contents at once, the search engines may think that you are trying to spam. This can result in being penalized.
5) Link and get linked
Link popularity is a way most search engines determine the importance of your site. When a website link to your site, search engines takes it as a vote for your website. In the past few years, this has greatly helped search engines getting the most relevant result for users.
Recently, with a lot of sites using links to cheat into search engines ranking, major search engines, specially Google have increasingly use and develop new technologies to determine the importance of the links.
So, not all links are treated as equal. Links from big reputable sites, for example Microsoft or Reuters are definitely worth more than link from CheatAd.com.
Relevancy of the sites also plays a part. Relevant website will give more value to the linked site. Then there is age in play. Older sites are deemed to be more trustworthy than new sites. Consequently, links from older sites are treated as more valuable too.
Directory submission is the oldest way to build your link reputation. There are free Dmoz, free or paid Yahoo Directory, and thousands other directories. Just search for “directory submission” and you have enough work to do for a whole year. Just do directory submission moderately, probably around 20 directories per week, and you can watch your search engine traffic climbing up slowly.
If you have a blog, you can submit it to blog directories as well. Just search for “blog submission”.
Exchanging link with another webmaster is another way. Termed as “link-exchange”, basically you link to the partner site. In exchange, the partner will put hyperlink in his/her site pointing to yours. As many abuse this technique, Google has degraded the value of link-exchange to virtually non-existant. You might even get penalized if your link partner is considered a “bad website” for Google.
While Google has diminished the value of reciprocal link, Yahoo and MSN are still holding on, though with less value. Even then, it still valuable enough to work on. Just be careful to have only reputable link partners.
To check whether the link partner is bad, just search for “site:www.domainname.com” in Google (replace domainname.com with the partner’s website) and see if the pages are indexed.
The most “in” link-building technique now is via article submission. You can write or buy an original article, and include a link to your website on the resource box (a small section after the article, where you introduce yourself and your website).
This is what I mean:
Article here
…
..
.
About the author
Fernando Hal is a contributing writer for CheatAd.com, a blog about click-fraud on pay-per-click advertisements.
You can then submit this article to a myriad of article submission sites, e.g. GoArticles.com for other webmasters to put it on their website.
The wonder of article submission is that not only it helps search engine ranking, but also brings in interested visitors who like your articles. This is very targeted traffic, compared with directory submission or link-exchange.
Other link building methods are visiting relevant blogs and leave comments there, as well as joining forums/discussion boards and leaving hyperlink to your site on the signature.
If you intend to purchase link from other sites, consider getting links from many smaller sites rather than few major sites. The paid link might be considered as spam by Google.
On the other hand, don’t be stingy in linking to others. Be choosy on who you want to link, but don’t hold back if you find a good site that can be useful for your visitors.
6) Usability
Always remember, your most important audience is the visitors. Give them a good experience, and they will come back. Framed pages, for example, is irritating. It breaks navigation’s “Back” button, and is confusing. Pop-up windows, javascript hyperlink, and fixed text size are just a few design mistakes notoriously committed by many new web designers/ webmasters.
For a start, read Jacob Nielson’s articles on web usability and web design mistake
.
Build the website for your visitors. Make easier navigation. Look at Google, MySpace, eBay, and Amazon. There is one striking similarity among them. All four of them have drop simple interface. Many will describe them as “ugly”. But these are few of the most successful sites online.
Fact to be told, web visitors don’t need pretty interface. They need a usable website. Beside helping your visitors, good navigation system will help search engines to find and index your sites.
Or look from other point of view. Your website may be well optimized for search engine, but if your site is not visitor-friendly, the visitors will leave as soon as they come. Like the way this article says it:
In other words, time and money was spent to “optimise” these sites in a way that brought them traffic, and then drove it away!
7) Use Tools
There are many tools to help you rank better in the search engines. By that, I mean tools that can help you to analyze your website so you can make changes accordingly. By all means, stay away from all automated tools that promise to help your ranking, e.g. automated search engine submission software or automated link-exchange software. Your website can get penalized by search engines due to the intrusive nature of many of these automated tools.
Here are few tools that you can use with peace of mind:
- Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics/)
Google Analytics is powerful site statistic service that tells you almost everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site.
Currently Google Analytics is offered by invitation only. I have an extra invitation that I’d like to give away. If you are interested, just leave your comments or trackbacks for this post. I’ll give the invitation to the most useful comments/trackbacks.
- Sitemap generator
A sitemap is a file/page where you can list down URL of all pages from your website. A correctly done sitemap can help search engine crawlers find and index your pages.
xml-sitemaps.com provides free service to generate sitemap in three different formats: xml, html, and text format. You can then upload these sitemaps to your site and follow the search engine submission procedure accordingly (see next items). Note that the free service from xml-sitemaps.com has a limitation of 500 pages per website.
You may also try http://www.sitemapspal.com/. It has higher limit, but can only create sitemap in xml format.
- Google Sitemaps (http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemap/)
Google Sitemaps is an easy way to tell Google about all the pages on your site, which pages are most important to you, and when those pages change, for a smarter crawl and fresher search results.
After you have the sitemap ready, you can then submit to Google Sitemap. Google Sitemap takes in xml-formatted sitemap. Go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemap/ follow the instruction there. If you already have a Google account (e.g. Gmail), you can use it straight away. Otherwise you’ll need to register an account.
But Google Sitemaps is much more than just for sitemap submission. It can also answers questions you might have about how Google sees your site. For example, you can learn about errors and statistics.
- Yahoo Site Explorer (http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/)
Site Explorer allows you to explore all the web pages indexed by Yahoo Search. You can view the most popular pages from your sites or competitors’ sites, dive into a comprehensive site map, and find pages that link to that site or any page.
- Yahoo Feed Submit (http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request)
Yahoo does not have the service equivalent to Google Sitemaps, but if you are looking for a place to submit your sitemap to Yahoo, you can do it at http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request. It takes in RSS, Atom, and text format. You can submit the urllist.txt created by xml-sitemaps.com above.
Be patient
Google imposes a period of time called sandbox, which cap your ranking from going top until a certain period of “probation” is passed. This range from few weeks to more than a year for competitive topics / niche.
Many webmasters agree that Yahoo also has a certain kind of “sandbox”, although there is no specific name for it.
So, if your site is not yet ranked well, be patient. Remember that search engine optimization is not magic. Search engine companies closely guard their mechanism for fear that the information will be used to trick the search engine. All these SEO talks that we have are based on observation of many experienced webmasters. Nothing is fixed here. The search engines may change their algorithm – and thus, your ranking – anytime.
Refrain from overdoing anything, including techniques above or any other technique. Search engines’ main interest is to provide quality result for their audience, the web searchers. When you do too much, it raises suspicion that your content might be not worthy enough to build up naturally.
Know your limit and ability. If you are new on search engine optimization, don’t go for a very competitive keyword like gambling, lawyer, or the infamous mesopotamia.
Moderation, thus, is the key.
9) Stay away from black hat optimization techniques
Black hat search engine optimization techniques promise quick way to improve your site ranking and bring visitors to your site. These includes page cloaking, hidden text, link-farm, comment-spamming, and duplicate pages.
You may not understand all these terms, but if you anyone telling you they can improve your search ranking overnight, these are most likely black hat techniques.
They work by tricking search engines to think that your pages hold more value than what they really are. As the search engines competes to provide the most useful search result to the visitors, they shun these techniques.
Nowadays, major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN have advanced detection technology to sniff out these black hat techniques. When they fail, your competitors are all too happy to point it out to the search engines.
Search engines will then take action accordingly, like penalising your site ranking or even take them down altogether.
If you are interested to find out, read this blog: SEO Black Hat. Don’t be deceived by the name. It is a great site covering both white-hat and black-hat SEO techniques.
10) Keep on learning
These techniques are just the basic to get you started. There are many resources on the Internet to learn search engine optimization.
Here are some places to get you going:
- Wikipedia
- Google Webmaster Help Center
- Yahoo! Webmaster Resources
- Webmaster World
- Digital Point Forums
Feel free to Comment or ask questions
Top 30 Powerful Google Products You Need To Know
e=”text-align: left;”>Google is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, web based household name that is widely known. I even advice folks to “Google it,” when in doubt. Google has become more than just a tech company, Google has become a verb. Even thou Bing is gaining a respectable amount of search market share, Google still remains king. To be quite honest, I have never heard anybody say “Bing it.” As disturbing as that sounds, I don’t think it will ever catch on.
We all know that majority or Google’s profits come from advertising revenue. It’s the most visited website in the world and it happens to be a search engine. Google can automatically show you ads based on keywords you are searching for. They make so much money from search alone, that jealousy floods my brain every time I hear about their quarterly earnings. Sure they have other money harvesting business, but always remember that search is how it all started.
From all the money Google makes, they are able to create incredible software and tools for our productive use. We get some of the best services/tools from Google without dishing out any cash. They even encourage their workers to develop a new mindset, skills, and relationships. Employees get to spend one day a week, every week, working on personal projects of their desire. I think that this is incredible and a great way to enable innovation within the company.
At this point and time Google is fighting many battles; mobile, location, deals, search, and social just to name a few. Google is a massive force that is hard to overcome. The company employs some of the most intelligent people in America, and has money to throw around on acquisitions. Aside from their personal business, we wanted to give you just a little taste of how incredible the company is. The real reason you are here, is to check out the useful resource available for your use. We decided to combine some of the most important tools Goolge has to offer, and the outcome was this list!
Note: All of the images are linked to the specified service.
1. Google Webmaster Tools:
Google Webmaster Tools provides you with detailed reports about your pages’ visibility on Google search results. To get started, simply add and verify your site and you’ll start to see information right away. Improve your site’s visibility in Google search results. It’s free.
Main Features:
- Get Google’s view of your site and diagnose problems
- Discover your link and query traffic
- Share information about your site
Url: www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
2. Google Analytics:
Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features now let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way. With Google Analytics, you’re more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.
Main Features:
- Sharing and Communicating
- Advertising ROI
- Visualizing Data
- Customized Reporting
- Cross Channel and Multimedia Tracking
- Google Integration and Reliability
Url: http://www.google.com/analytics/
3. Google Website Optimizer:
Website Optimizer, Google’s free website testing and optimization tool, allows you to increase the value of your existing websites and traffic without spending a cent. Using Website Optimizer to test and optimize site content and design, you can quickly and easily increase revenue and ROI whether you’re new to marketing or an expert.
Main Features:
- Free web application
- A/B Split & Multivariable Testing
- Designed For Marketers, By Marketers
- Intuitive Reporting
- AdWords Integration
- Experiment Pruning
Url: www.google.com/websiteoptimizer
4. Google Zeitgeist:
Google Zeitgeist is a snapshot in time of what people are searching for on Google all over the world. It’s an interesting way to people-watch, and since Google is the most-used search engine on the Web, it’s a great way to get some behind the scenes (kind of) data and statistics on what people are searching for. The whole layout is very flexible and easy to use!
Main Features:
- Top Global Events
- Fastest Rising Queries
- Search by Region
5. Google Trends:
Google trends allows you to see how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages.
6. Google Insights for Search:
Very similar to Google trends, Google Insights for Search, allows you to compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties.
Main Features:
- Categories
- Seasonality
- Geographic distribution
- Properties
Url: www.google.com/insights/search
7. Google Traffic Estimator:
Google’s Traffic Estimator tool is a good way to get an idea of how much a new campaign is likely to spend once it is launched. The competition for certain keywords is fierce, and if it’s in high demand, be ready to dish out some cash.
Url: https://adwords.google.com/select/TrafficEstimatorSandbox
8. Google Keyword Tool:
Enter one keyword or phrase per line to see what related word searches your ad will show on. You can see how many times it’s searched for daily, monthly, or yearly. Plus you can see what countries the keyword is common in. So if you have an article related to World Cup while it’s going on, you are bound to get some traffic if you know your SEO.
Url: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
9. Google Ad Planner:
Official Ad Planner Help Center where you can find tips and tutorials on using Ad Planner and other answers to frequently asked questions.
Main Features:
- Define your audience with multiple criteria, including keywords they’re likely to search for and sites they’re likely to visit.
- Use ranking methods to find larger sites, more targeted sites, or a balance of the two.
- Set filters to show only sites in specific categories, sites with ads, ad formats, and more.
- Add sites to a media plan and compare them via an interactive bubble chart.
Url: https://www.google.com/adplanner/
10. Google bookmarking:
Access your Bookmarks on any computer, and use Lists to share them with friends. If you love saving things you find on the web, then this is a great tool for you. You can organize the content you find easily and refer back to in anytime!
Main Features:
- Save time with quick links to your favorite websites
- Get your bookmarks on any computer
- Keep your bookmarks organized
11. Google readers:
Read them in one place with Google Reader, where keeping up with your favorite websites is as easy as checking your email.
12. Google alerts:
Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. Enter the topic you wish to monitor, then click preview to see the type of results you’ll receive.
Main Features:
- monitoring a developing news story
- keeping current on a competitor or industry
- getting the latest on a celebrity or event
- keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams
13. Google news:
Aggregated headlines and a search engine of many of the world’s news sources. Very straight forward interface that can be personalized to your liking.
14. Google buzz:
Start conversations about the things you find interesting. Share updates, photos, videos and more with your friends.
Main features:
- Share publicly or privately
- Inbox integration
- Photo friendly
- Connect sites you already use
- See updates in real time
- Just the good stuff
Url: www.google.com/buzz
15. Google profile:
Decide what the world sees when it searches for you. Display the information you care about and make it easy for visitors to get to know you.
Main Features:
- Showcase the real you.
- Display your favorite photos.
- Share your personal Information.
Url: https://profiles.google.com
16. Google places:
Google Places for Business to get your business found on local search results on both Google Search and Google Maps.
Features for Places:
- Rate and review the places you know
- Share your ratings with friends
- Get new recommendations on your smart phone
Features for Businesses:
- Discover insights about your business
- Help your business stand out
- Get found on Google for free
17. Google +1 button:
The +1 buttonis shorthand for “this is pretty cool” or “you should check this out.” Click +1 to publicly give something your stamp of approval. This is basically Google’s answer to Facebook’s Like button. The next time your friends and contacts search on Google, they could see your +1. You’ll help them find the best stuff on the web – and you might just start up another conversation!
18. Google Correlate:
Google Correlate finds search patterns which correspond with real-world trends. Many search terms vary in popularity over time. To find terms that vary in a similar way to your own time series, enter your desired data using the search box.
Main features:
- Find searches that correlate with real-world data
- Compare time series
- Compare US states
Url: http://correlate.googlelabs.com
19. Google website speed check:
Page Speed Online analyzes the content of a web page, then generates suggestions to make that page faster. Reducing page load times can reduce bounce rates and increase conversion rates. We got an overall score of 82/100!
Url: http://pagespeed.googlelabs.com/
20. Google url shorter:
Google URL Shortener at goo.gl is used by Google products to create short URLs that can be easily shared, tweeted, or emailed to friends. This is Google’s answer to bit.ly, we use this quite frequently on Inspirationfeed!
Url: http://goo.gl
21. Feed Burner:
FeedBurner is provides media distribution and audience engagement services for blogs and RSS feed. Feeds are a way for websites large and small to distribute their content well beyond just visitors using browsers. Feeds permit subscription to regular updates, delivered automatically via a web portal, news reader, or in some cases good old email.
Url: http://feedburner.google.com
22. Blogger
Just like the introduction suggests, Blogger is a platform where you can create a blog free of charge. This is a competitive service that goes against other bloggin platforms like WordPress, Tumbr, and LiveJournal.
Main Features:
- Up to the minute stats
- Make money with Adsense
- Custom Themes
- Free to use
- Create as many blogs as you wish
Url: http://www.blogger.com/home
23. Google Voice
Google Voice enhances the existing capabilities of your phone, regardless of which phone or carrier you have – for free. This tool gives you lots of cool calling features. For example, if someone call your goolg phone number you can have it ring all of your phones. You can also block an unwanted callers easily! The platform keeps getting new cool features.
Main Features:
- Use a single number that rings you anywhere
- Get transcribed messages delivered to your inbox
- Free calls & text messages to the U.S. & Canada
- Super low rates everywhere else
Url: https://www.google.com/voice
24. Youtube
Youtube is the largest worldwide video-sharing community. YouTube allows billions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small. Still surprises me that people don’t know that Google owns Youtube. Some people make a living from this tool, if you have creativity and the talent you could join the bunch!
25. Goolge Earth
Explore Google Earth from anywhere. Whether you’re on your computer, mobile phone, tablet or browsing the web — there is a version of Google Earth for you. You can explore so much with Goolge and use it as a valuable resource. It get’s updated very frequently with new features and 3d rendered models of buildings. Soon everything will be finished and you will be able to view the whole world like you are there. Keep in mind some of the coolest things to check in Goolge Earth is Ocean, Mars, moon, Hubble Telecsope, and Ancient Rome.
Main Features:
- Fly to any place around the world.
- See 3D buildings, imagery, and terrain.
- Find cities, places, and local businesses.
Url: http://www.google.com/earth
26. Gmail
I don’t even know where to start with this one. If you are a tech savvy individual you probably know all the benefits of Gmail. Gmail is built on the idea that email can be more intuitive, efficient, and useful. It used to have an ugly design that was unfriendly, however with the recently updated interface Gmail looks good and works good.
Main features:
- Get over 7625.434340 megabytes of free storage
- Keep unwanted messages out of your inbox
- Get Gmail on your mobile phone
Url: mail.google.com
27. Google Docs
Google Docs is a free alternative to Microsoft Office. Google Docs offers Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Drawings, and Forms. I personally think this is a great solution for students. Forget about carrying your USB everywhere, just save your documents and access them in class. As long as your school has internet, which in 2011 they definitely should, you will be able to keep all your work in the cloud.
Main Features:
- Upload your files from your desktop:
- Access anywhere on the world
- Share your work
- Real-time collaboration
28. Google Finance
Google Finance portfolios offer you a fast and easy way to create and maintain your portfolio of stocks and mutual funds. The interface might be confusing at first, but you will adapt within a few minutes. Whether you are a bear or a bull, Google Finance is a great option of keeping up to date with the latest happenings in the stock market.
Main Features:
- An easy way to add to, delete from and manage the list of companies and funds you’re most interested in
- Quick snapshots of your investments—how many shares you purchased and at what price
- Quick access to detailed financial info (including balance sheets, news and management information) about the companies and funds you’re tracking
Url: http://www.google.com/finance
29. Google Maps
Forget about MapQuest, don’t really know if people still use that, Google Maps is a great alternative and will give you directions to anywhere you wan to go. When searching for directions you can get the time it takes to get there by walking, biking, public transit, or driving! Did I mention you can use street view and see your actual house? As scary as that sounds, it’s possible with Google Maps.
Main Features:
- Create your own maps to share the places that matter to you
- Star and save places to quickly find them again later
- Rate places you know to discover new ones you’ll love
30. Picnik
Picnik makes your photos fabulous with easy to use yet powerful editing tools. Tweak to your heart’s content, then get creative with oodles of effects, fonts, shapes, and frames. Is it a Photoshop killer? I don’t think so, however it’s free alternative that you must check out!
Main Features:
- Fix your photos in just one click
- Use advanced controls to fine-tune your results
- Crop, resize, and rotate in real-time
- Tons of special effects, from artsy to fun
- Astoundingly fast, right in your browser
- Awesome fonts and top-quality type tool
- Basketfuls of shapes from hand-picked designers
- Works on Mac, Windows, and Linux
- No download required, nothing to install