Best SEO Tools (as far as we are concerned):
SEO Top Tools
Below is a list compiled of the top SEO, and Internet marketing tools in no particular order. Using these tools effectively can have a huge impact on search ranking, and overall traffic. Many people use different tools for different things, and good for you. This is the list that we have decided to stick by and use on a consistent basis for all of our clients. Most of the sites listed are also great resources for SEO, and Internet marketing information. We strongly suggest checking them out and receiving updates on what they have to say. Some site may require a monthly membership, but I will personally guarantee that it will be worth every penny. SEOmoz is $80.00/mo. and the value is priceless. They offer many free tips, and high end SEO services for corporations like Microsoft. I believe they have a minimum requirement of $5,000/mo. to become a client. SEObook is operated by one of the best SEO’s reppin’ the search marketing scene, and he charges $100.00/mo. for premium membership.
Keyword Research:
Overall this can be agreed that this is the best keyword research and selection tool. Wordtracker has a premium membership that offers:
- the Keyword Universe which helps you get a broad range of keywords (like brainstorming)
- and the Keyword Researcher which helps you dig deep into the long tail of a specific keyword.
Site Analyzer:
Submit Express offer their meta tags analyzer, this is a free tool that will show you the major areas of your site that are important to on-site SEO. Aside from the tool, they have an active forum, and other useful information.
Analytics:
This is one of the most popular tools available to track all of your sites traffic. I have been satisfied by their software, and they recently integrated accounts with Google Adsense. The only downside is that the statistics are not real time.
Many people will either use this, Yahoo! Site Explorer, or many people use both. This is a great way to follow search queries that are currently sending traffic to your site from Google, understand how well your site is structured for robots, see if there are any 404 error pages in their index, remove certain pages from their index, create a robots.txt file, and finally…submit a sitemap. Using one Webmaster account you can all of the sites that you are currently working on, and easily monitor their progress.
Search Engine Rankings:
Great way to check your rankings, quickly and easily from anywhere in the world. They gather information from all top search engines, and even keep a record of your previous requests in order to track your progress. Here is what they say:
Search Engine Rankings offers instant, online reports of web site rankings in 8 top search engines and web directories, including Google, Yahoo! Search, MSN, AOL, AltaVista, AllTheWeb, Yahoo! Directory, and Open Directory (Dmoz) – FREE!
Competition Analysis:
This site is designed to give you a breakdown of the keywords that your competition is currently ranking for, and pursuing. It is split in half to see their organic, and paid search results, and even daily budget.
- SEOmoz’s Linkscape
An award winning tool, that will check the backlinks of your site, or even better, your competitors sites. This tool can be use one time for free during a 24 hour period. If you are a registered member, you may use this tool more often. It also saves your reports automatically in order to save time, when going back through another sites links, and shows you their top 50 links based upon their metrics.
A tool that seems similar to Spyfu, except this is for keyword research only. This site is free and will give you the ability to track and see all of the keywords that your competition is targeting, along with being able to see if you are doing a good job targeting your own keywords.
A popular way to see how much traffic your competition is getting. They offer a free service, along with a paid membership service that offers; Site profiles, which give you the ability to compare 5 sites to each other. Search Analytics, which offers you the ability to compare paid vs. non-paid traffic sources, and Referral Analytics, which shows traffic sources, and where visitors go throughout a competitors site (Google Analytics will show where visitors go on your own site, and is free).
Link Building:
This tool by Search Engine Genie, is a popular way to find sites, and directories that will allow you to place your link on their site. Submitting to 1,000 directories at a time is not recommended however, you can go through and pick some high quality sites that you want to be listed on. Here is what they say:
Even listings in many spammy directories can cost $10 – $25. Sometimes you can buy an ezine or newsletter ad for not much more and have it deliver far more value for your money. The more creative you are with your link building strategies the better you will do.
Forums:
Below is a few forums that I try to stay active in, that will help drive traffic, and will more importantly help you stay on top of the latest happenings.
Webmaster World, is probably the most popular forum for designers and SEO’s. There is always alot of activity going on, and there are great SEO’s that contribute such as Rae Hoffman.
For some reason this is my favorite forum, and is also an ad revenue sharing project. Don’t expect to get wealthy by simply adding threads.
Because search marketers can be closely associates with a "warrior" hence the name. I don’t understand, but it still provides great information. This is a forum designed only for internet marketers and they proclaim that it is the best forum since 1997!
The final forum that we contribute on. They have been in existence for about 10 years, and cover all Internet design, and marketing topics.
I hope that you have enjoyed this list that I have put together, and I feel very confident backing all of the tools, people, and sites mentioned. There are many great sites out there that I have failed to mention, and if you feel that you should be listed, or know of a great product I have overlooked feel free to contact me: Rick@websiteconsultants.org
PS: If you are going after hosting, do us a favor, support High Ranking SEO’s free tips by using the link below. Bluehost is absolutely fantastic and they are THE ONLY affiliate of High Ranking SEO. That says a lot.
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