Essential SEO Tools
61SEO or search engine optimisation an be a complicated area. Having the right SEO tools can make the job of achieving better search rankings quicker and easier. But there's a lot of tools to choose from, here's my pick of the best SEO tools which will make your job easier without dictating the way you work too rigidly.
Advanced web ranking
Checking your search engine rankings for targeted keywords is the cornerstone of SEO reporting. Advanced web ranking let's you track your positions for thousands of keywords for your site and your competitors. There's loads of configuration options to help you run off reports in different formats.
Free trial of Advanced Web Ranking
Raven SEO tools
Raven SEO tools are a great way to manage your SEO campaign. The various tools let you research keywords, track rankings, research and monitor links and review your analytics.
Google analytics
Google's free web stats tool is the best analytics package around for SEO intelligence. Advanced reports on referring keywords and search engines give you a great degree of insight into your SEO performance.
Link diagnosis
A great free tool for link builders, link diagnosis using yahoo link data and pulls out a lot of extra information like pagerank and anchor text for each link.
Seobook toolbar
The SEObook toolbar for firefox puts stacks of extra functionality for analysing websites right in your browser for easy access. Highlight links which are 'nofollow', access pagerank and backlink data and run an x- ray on pages to highlight key elements like headings, meta descriptions and wordcount.
Adwords keyword tool
Use the free Adwords keyword tool, combined with Google insights, to discover the best keywords to optimise your website for. Paid alternatives like SEM rush and wordtracker offer advanced functionality but for most users the adwords tool will still be the only keyword research tool you'll need.
This was an article by Link building expert and freelance SEO John McElborough
