SEO tools to simplify tasks
SEO tasks are time consuming, so you need tools to save time and simplify your tasks. Some tools are free and others cost money. Below are selective lists of tools for analytics, keyword research, competitive research, link analysis and search engine rank checking.
Analytics tools: Used to optimize site content and design, maximizing performance. For more information on web analytics, see Avinash Kaushik's blog, Occam's Razor.
Keyword research tools: Used to discover keywords to target and tells you how competitive they are. Keyword research can be difficult and time consuming. If you can't do this yourself, SEO Research Labs will provide a keyword research and analysis package for $99.95.
Competitive research tools: Used to determine how much traffic your competitors get and which search terms send them the most traffic.
- Alexa: Gives you traffic trends for competing websites
- Compete.com: Track and compare competitors with free site metrics for the top 1,000,000 web domains
- Google Search Insights: Compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, and time frames
- Xinu: Free competitive analysis tool that provides PageRank, backlinks, site age, social bookmarking and link data
Link analysis tools: Used to analyze your link profile compared to your competitors, identify and fix broken links and find new linking sources to give your site the authority needed for top rankings.
Tip: Download Firefox for SEO plug-ins that streamline many SEO tasks. The Online Marketing Blog has a list of Firefox SEO plug-ins and descriptions.
Search engine ranking checkers: Used to track your site rankings in the SERPs for important keywords, tracking that information against competing sites (or your own earlier rankings) to gauge SEO effectiveness. Note: search rankings are not the only measure of success.
