Search Engine Land Guide with the Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors – http://searchengineland.com/seotable…anking-factors

SEOmoz Beginners Guide to SEO – http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

SEOmoz 2011 Search Engine Ranking Factors – http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starters Guide – http://static.googleusercontent.com/…rter-guide.pdf

Google’s Webmaster Guidelines – http://www.google.com/support/webmas…y?answer=35769

Local Search Ranking Factors – http://www.davidmihm.com/local-searc…-factors.shtml

A snap shot of your site in the past:  http://web.archive.org/

inbound links : https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/mysites

keyword search:    http://www.spyfu.com/KeywordSmartSearch/

Check indexed pages

• Do a site: search
• How many pages are returned (this can be way off so don’t put too much stock in this)?
• Is the homepage showing up as the first result?
• If the homepage isn’t showing up as the first result, there could be issues, like a penalty or poor site architecture/internal linking, affecting the site.

Search for the brand and branded terms

• Is the homepage showing up at the top, or are correct pages showing up.
• If the proper pages aren’t showing up as the first result, there could be issues, like a penalty, in play.

Check Google’s cache for key pages

• Is the content showing up?
• Are navigation links present?
• Are there links that aren’t visible on the site?

Homepage content

• Does the homepage have at least one paragraph?

Landing pages

• Do these pages have at least a few paragraphs?
• Is it template text or is it completely unique?

Site contains real and substantial content

• Is there real content on the site or is the “content” simply a list of links.

Proper keyword targeting

• Is the intent right?
• Are there pages targeting head terms, mid-tail, and long-tail keywords?

Keyword cannibalization

• Do a site: search Google for important keyword phrases.
• Check for duplicate content/page titles in the SEOmoz Pro Campaign App.

Formatting

• Is the content formatted well and easy to read quickly?
• Are H tags used?
• Are images used?
• Is the text broken down into easy to read paragraphs?

Good Headlines on Blog Posts

• Good headlines go a long way. Make sure the headlines are well written and draw users in.

Amount of content v ads

• Since the implementation of Panda, the amount of ad-space on a page has become important to evaluate.
• Make sure there is significant unique content above the fold.
• If you have more ads than unique content, you are probably going to have a problem.

Read more ………    Technical Site Audit Checklist | SEOmoz.

Web tools to detect useful insights and trends
1. Google Analytics
2. Google Webmaster Tools
3. Google Trends
4. Google Insights
5. Google Adwords Keyword Tool & Search Terms Report
6. Microsoft Audience Intelligence Tool
7. Yahoo! Clues

via 7 web tools to detect useful insights and trends | Web SEO Analytics.

Web ranking and SEO software

Accurate Monitor for Search Engines is powerful web ranking software designed for search engine specialists and webmasters. It allows you to find out the position of your website in such major search engines as Google and Altavista for popular keywords and get more traffic to your site. Accurate Monitor offers advanced statistics, export, notes, plugins and an easy-to-use, convenient interface.

Free Monitor for Google is free SEO software designed both for SEO specialists and webmasters. It allows you to find out the rank of your website in Google Top for popular keywords, focus your promotion efforts more precisely then and get more traffic from Google. Google Monitor keeps statistics for several URLs and several lists of keywords. You can export data to CSV.

SEO Altimeter gathers all crucial web ranking info including Alexa Traffic Rank, Google PageRank, Link Popularity, Site Saturation and other vital SEO parameters. Time-saving, powerful, supports multiple URL check at once, keeps history and exports results into CSV – all you need to have another cup of coffee while SEO Altimeter works for you.

With Site Content Analyzer 3 you can discover the most relevant keywords, find out target phrases for your website, learn if your wbesite is optimized well comparing with your competitors, create branded keyword reports or export results to CSV for even more indepth analysis.

PaRaMeter stands for “PageRank Meter”. It allows you to check the Google PageRank website parameter with just one click. Of course, you can do it manually, but using PaRaMeter is faster, more convenient (especially with a bulk load of sites) and does not require Google Toolbar to be installed on your system.

Accurate Monitor for Search Engines (3.5 Mb)
AdWords Clever Wizard (1.7 Mb)
SEO Altimeter (2.2 Mb)
Site Content Analyzer 3 (3.1 Mb)
Free Monitor for Google (1.45 Mb)
BackLinks Master (1.26 Mb)
PaRaMeter (1.3 Mb)

Google Instant

Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type.

The most obvious change is that you get to the right content much faster than before because you don’t have to finish typing your full search term, or even press “search.” Another shift is that seeing results as you type helps you formulate a better search term by providing instant feedback. You can now adapt your search on the fly until the results match exactly what you want. In time, we may wonder how search ever worked in any other way.

Benefits

Faster Searches: By predicting your search and showing results before you finish typing, Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search.

Smarter Predictions: Even when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, predictions help guide your search. The top prediction is shown in grey text directly in the search box, so you can stop typing as soon as you see what you need.

Instant Results: Start typing and results appear right before your eyes. Until now, you had to type a full search term, hit return, and hope for the right results. Now results appear instantly as you type, helping you see where you’re headed, every step of the way.

via Google Instant.