One of the many incredibly useful modules over at the Perl module database CPAN, is the WWW::Google::PageRank module. It gives a quick and easy way of checking PageRank for a number of pages without delving into the particulars of the header exchanges over at toolbarqueries.google.com.

In order to use the script below, first create a file named ‘pages.txt’, and enter the full URLs of the pages you want to check, separated by newline characters, and save it in the same directory as the script:

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The fundamentals:

1. A thorough understanding of (x)HTML - HTML is the language of the web. Without being able to understand a page’s source code you’ll have difficulty with everything else. It’s the only language that search engines really “understand”, so you need to be able to understand it too.

   If you’re learning from scratch get an O’Reilly book on it or preferably enrol in a course on it - it’s always faster to learn if you can ask questions.

2. Fair knowledge/understanding of Javascript and CSS. Javascript is a client-side (i.e. executed on a user’s browser) scripting language that can fundamentally affect how a web page is displayed, how it behaves, and how it is treated by a browser. Javascript is important because search engines by and large do not process it, so it makes a difference to how an average user and a search engine spider see a page. For this reason it can be used equally for optimization and abuse.Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) also affect a web page’s appearance, but only the style of certain HTML elements. It is not a scripting language - more of a description language. CSS is important because again, it changes how a user as opposed to a search engine sees a page.
3. Knowledge of a one or more server-side scripting languages. Core languages on the web include PHP, ASP, Perl, and Python. Understanding how a server-side language operates, how they interact with the server, and what they are capable of doing opens up a whole new world of possibilities for search marketers.Examples range from creating dynamic websites, offloading unnecessary on-page code (ASP’s ‘viewstate’ meta tag is a common offender), IP delivery, and much, much more. Learning a server-side language also offers a deeper understanding of how the web operates.

The tools:

4. Firefox browser with following extensions installed:

• Web Developer - most essential add-on by far; notable features for search marketers include:
  • disable javascript, meta redirects, css, images, cookies
  • display alt attributes
  • linearize page
  • display element information
  • outline frames, headings, links
• User Agent Switcher - combined with disable javascript, css & images from Web Developer, useful for emulating the Google/Yahoo/MSN bots
• CustomizeGoogle - anonymises search data sent to Google, numbers results, & gives dynamic links to other search engines on search results pages
• Flagfox (would be ShowIP but it keeps crashing my Firefox) - view the IP address & country location of the server where the website you’re visiting is located
• IETab - quickly switch between IE & Firefox without leaving the page you’re on
• LiveHTTPHeaders - view and save HTTP headers, with a nice ALT-L shortcut to put it on the sidebar as and when needed.
• My IP Viewer -view your own IP address
• RefControl - control over what referrer information is sent to the websites you visit
• SearchStatus - good for highlighting nofollow links on demand
• SEO for Firefox - Aaron Wall’s extension is sometimes useful for analysing SERPs - shows number of times URLs are bookmarked in del.icio.us, Pagerank, # of .edu links, etc
• Torbutton - use in conjunction with Vidalia bundle to surf through proxies on demand

5. Xenu link sleuth - good for quickly analysing on-site redirects 404 errors and orphan files.
6. FileZilla - the best open source FTP client available (possibly just the best FTP client period).
7. A decent IDE. I mostly use Activestate Komodo (open source version here) and Notepad ++. Automatic colour coding of HTML source code helps to find errors quickly and efficiently.
8. Lynx browser - a very simple, text-based browser that gives a quick impression of how a search engine may see a website.
9. Local server - if you’re using Windoze, WAMP server is a good LAMP alternative that easily sets up your Windows PC with an Apache web server, MySQL database and PHP scripting language.This enables you to test and develop SEO changes before implementing them on a live site.
10. Custom-built search tools. Using a combination of your HTML, Javascript and server-side scripting knowledge, you can create bespoke tools for repetitive tasks, you can build your own web spider to help you see your site from Google’s perspective, and quickly develop tools that solve a variety of problems that come up every day.
11. An ear to the ground - keeping track of changes in the search world is essential. Watch both white hat and black hat sites - black hat being the ‘dark side’ of SEO, it’s essential to understand how black hat SEO works, even if you disapprove of the techniques.
12. A constant eye on many useful websites - here are just a few:

• DNS Stuff
• Domain Tools
• Webmasterradio.fm
• SEOBook
• Matt Cutts
• Searchengineland
• Google Webmaster Central Blog

Oh, and decent copywriting skills are a bonus

Anything I’ve missed??