SEO TOOLS

Found this on SEO BOOK thought it might be a good follow up to my previous list:

Web Analytics Tools

Overview: These free and paid tools allow you to track what keywords are sending you traffic, what keywords are profitable, and what keywords lose money. As soon as you start tracking results your campaigns get more efficient because you start focusing on the results.
Tracking where you already rank does not alert you to potential areas of opportunity that you have not yet focused on, but if you track conversions you know what those keywords are worth, and it is easier to rank for keywords related to words you already rank well for than it is to rank for a whole new basket of keywords.
At the bottom of this page is a free video about using web analytics tools.

Free Analytics Tools

These tend to be limited in feature set and give themselves sitewide links on your site, or require you to trust giving a major search engine like Google virtually all your marketing data.

• Google Analytics - powerful full featured analytics tool. Even allows you to track your ROI by keyword for each AdWords ad position. Google AdWords also has internal split testing and conversion tracking software.
• Google Website Optimizer - allows you to A/B split test landing pages and track how well Google AdWords traffic converts.
• Microsoft adCenter Analytics - not publicly launched yet, but accepting invite requests.
• Piwik - open source web analytics program
• Site Meter - starts off as free, but charges for advanced features
• Stat Counter - starts off as free, but charges for advanced features and bandwith usage.
• Webalizer - default log analyzer on many servers.
• Analog - default log analyzer on many servers.
• Awstats - another popular default log analyzer on many servers.

Cheap Paid Analytics Tools

• Clicky - cheap web based tool similar to Google Analytics. A few less features, but you are not giving all your data to Google either. Also offers a cheap white label analytics package convenient for SEO firms looking to add another revenue stream to their businesses.
• Mint - affordable downloadable analytics program that you set up on your own server. Unlike most other paid analytics programs in Mint does not track conversions.

Affordable Business Analytics Tools

• ClickTracks - Downloadable software and hosted options. Starting at $99 a month.
• Indextools - Starts at $50 a month.
• Weblog Expert - Downloadable log analyzer. Starts at $75.

Expensive / Premium Tools

• Omniture
• VisualSciences / WebSideStory
• WebTrends

Background Information on Web Analytics

If you need more background on analytics try the free 44 minute video by Avinash Kaushik.

Related Categories

• ppc tools - tools to help you track and refine your PPC campaigns
• competitive research tools - these tools will show you keywords sending traffic to competing websites

Know Any Other Tools Worth Suggesting?

email me seobook@gmail.com

Gain a Competitive Advantage Today

Want more great SEO insights? Read our SEO blog to keep up with the latest search engine news, and subscribe to our SEO training program to get cutting edge tips we do not share with the general public.
SEO Tools > Search Engine Ranking Checkers

Keyword Research & Suggestion Tools

Overview: These are free and paid tools which will help you find which keywords to target and how competitive they are. Here is a video offering an introduction to keyword research

At the bottom of this page are a link to a free keyword research PDF and a few more free background videos about understanding keyword research and using keyword research tools.

Traditional Keyword Suggestion Tools

• SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool - tool shows top keyword phrases from Wordtracker.
• Wordtracker Free Keywords - free keyword suggestions from Wordtracker. Wordtracker also has a more advanced paid version, and sells top keyword reports.
• Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool - recommends keywords based on a keyword you enter or a URL you have the tool analyze
• Google Suggest Tool - shows frequently search for phrases starting with the words and letters in your query. grab the source code
• Keyword Discovery - free keyword tool from Trellian. Trellian also has a more advanced paid version of Keyword Discovery.
• Microsoft Keyword Forecast - shows predicted Microsoft search impression count and historical trends.
• Wordze - nice for generating decently large keyword lists quickly and inserting them into paid search campaigns.
• Yahoo! Search Marketing - Yahoo! has a keyword research tool inside their platform. It is really bad marketing of them to only have the new tool accessible inside their platform, while neglecting their old keyword tool.

Keyword Valuation Tools

• Google Traffic Estimator - shows the estimated bids prices and ad clicks for the top ranked AdWords ad. Allows you to check for [exact match], "phrase match", or broad match.

Keyword Extensions

SEOBook Competitive & Keyword Research Tool
	Gadgets powered by Google

• SEO Book Keyword & Competitive Research Gadget - use almost any and every useful keyword tool from our free gadget that you can put on your site or on iGoogle.

More Abstract Keyword Sources

• adCenter Labs tools - Microsoft offers a wide array of keyword tools like demographic prediction and content categorization tools.
• eBay Marketplace Research - this paid tool allows you to see what items are selling on eBay and for how much
• Dependency-based Word Similarity - shows words which are often found in the same documents in a corpus of news articles.
• Google Sets - creates a set of keywords based on a keyword you enter
• Google Related Keywords - highlights words that Google considers as being related to a keyword, as displayed when you search Google for ~keyword
• Keyword Density Analysis Tool - finds common words and phrases on your site. grab the source code
• Page Comparison Tool - tool compares the page titles, meta information, and most common two and three word phrases between different pages. grab the source code
• Quintura - visual search service which shows related modifiers clustered around your search
• Thesaurus.com - find related keywords using a traditional thesaurus
• Yahoo Mindset - let Yahoo show you how they can change results for commercial and informational queries
• Yahoo Term Extraction - delivers a list of most important keywords contained inside a piece of text. grab the source code

Trend Related Keywords

• Amazon.com - offers category based best sellers, new releases, & movers & shakers
• eBay Pulse - keywords that are currently hot on eBay, organized by category.
• Google Hot Trends - shows keywords that are recently hot . Also archives older hot keywords, and Google Trends shows seasonal search trends for most popular keywords.
• Microsoft Keyword Forecast - shows predicted Microsoft search impression count and historical trends.
• Yahoo! Buzz Index - search trends and stories about what keywords are hot right now
• SEOMoz popular searches - combines and archives results from many of the tools in this section and a few others

Bulk Keyword Editing Tools

• Keyword List Generator - allows you to quickly create large lists of keyword phrases using keywords and modifiers grab the source code!
• Keyword List Cleaner - allows you to quickly create a functional keyword list from most any publicly available keyword source try it now or grab the source code!
• Keyword Misspelling Generator - allows you to generate various misspellings of a keyword or phrase to match common typing errors. Useful for creating keyword lists around your most important keywords to bid on.
• Microsoft Ad Intelligence Excel plug in - a suite of highly useful and easy to recommend keyword tools that interface with Microsoft Excel.

Keyword Modifiers

• Keyword Modifiers - Spreadsheet showing common keyword modifiers organized by categories such as price, location, and other common variables.
• keyword tools review post - a couple year old blog post offering a free comparison of different keyword research tools, also showing how keyword modifiers work in a real world example

Background Information on Keywords

50 minute Keyword research video by me...a bit long, but hopefully you find it useful :)

• Dan Thies video on keyword strategy
• Dan Thies video on using my keyword permutation generator tool
• emarketingperformance.com keyword research [PDF]

Related Categories

• Analytics Tools - track what keywords you are ranking for and how well they are performing
• Competitive Research Tools - compare your marketing strategies and progress to competitors
• PPC Tools - tools to build your pay per click marketing campaigns
• Rank Checkers - track your rankings

Know Any Other Tools Worth Suggesting?

email me seobook@gmail.com

Gain a Competitive Advantage Today

Want more great SEO insights? Read our SEO blog to keep up with the latest search engine news, and subscribe to our SEO training program to get cutting edge tips we do not share with the general public.
SEO Tools > Keyword Tools

SEO Tools > Competitive Research Tools

Free Internet Marketing & Search Engine Marketing Competitive Research Tools

Overview: These are free and paid tools which will help you determine how large a competitor's traffic stream is, and which search terms are sending them the most traffic. Watch this video for a brief introduction to using the following tools.

Competitive research tools can help you find a baseline for what to do, but some companies that focus on the competition too much instead of adding value to their offerings actually end up destroying their own profit margins.

SEO for Firefox

SEO for Firefox - Import useful marketing data (like link details, site age, site size) right into Google and Yahoo search results.

General Competitive Research Tools

• Alexa - shows traffic trends for competing websites. Alexa has a heavy webmaster bias that is nowhere near as noticeable at Compete or Quantcast.
• Compete.com - shows you traffic trends for competing websites. Allows you to compare sites head to head. Also offers a paid search analytics tool which is both exceptionally useful and affordably priced.
• Quantcast - shows site traffic and demographic trends and details. Also allows you to download a list of their top 1,000,000 websites.
• Google Trends for Websites - free tool from Google showing traffic estimates, visitor country location, top 10 related websites, and top 10 related keywords. Only returns data for fairly high traffic websites though.
• Archive.org - see how old a website is and what it looked like in the past
• DomainTools - see Whois data and how many times a domain has changed hands
• Xinu - lists some SEO related data plus more general web related data points like Alexa ranking and Del.icio.us bookmarks.

Paid Competitive Research Tools

• Compete.com Search Analytics - low cost competitive tool showing keywords that send competing sites the most traffic.
• HitWise - similar to Compete.com Search Analytics, but costs about $10,000 and up.
• KeyCompete - shows keywords that competitors are buying
• KeywordSpy - similar to KeyCompete, but with more data - including cached ad copy and affiliate data
• SEMPhonic - tracks keyword rankings and provides competitive reporting
• SpyFu - shows terms that competitors are buying or ranking for in the organic search results.
• Trellian Competitive Intelligence - shows keywords that competitors rank for and keywords that send them significant traffic.

SEO Related General Competitive Research Tools

• IndexRank - scores how well your site is getting indexed in Google compared with related sites.
• SearchRascal - shows the top 10 rankings in Google and other major search engines, and tracks how the rankings have changed over the past day, week, or month. RankPulse offers a similar service, but for a smaller set of keywords.
• SEODigger - free tool which shows you keywords that a site ranks for out of a database of 44,000,000 keywords
• SEOMoz Page Strength Tool - estimates how strong a page is based on inbound links, age, PageRank, etc. Grabs some of the similar datapoints that SEO for Firefox grabs.
• Top 10 analysis tool - shows how your site's age and backlinks compare to the top 10 ranked sites
• URLTrends - shows a sample of keywords that a site ranks for using a database somewhat smaller than SEODigger

Research the Competition's Keyword Strategy

View our keyword research tools section, or use some of the following free tools to get a view of their keyword strategy.

• Keyword Density Analysis Tool - finds common words and phrases on your site, or competing websites. grab the source code
• Page Comparison Tool - tool compares the page titles, meta information, and most common two and three word phrases between different pages. grab the source code
• Spider Test Tool - shows the page size, source code, meta tags, page title, textual copy of the page, keyword breakdown by density (including 2 and 3 word phrases), number of words, number of unique words, and outbound links on a page. grab the source code

Research the Competition's Link Strategy

View our link analysis section, or use some of the following free tools to get a view of their link strategy.

• SEO Book Competitive Research & Keyword Research Gadget - use almost every useful competitive research tool from our free gadget. You can place this gadget on your site or on iGoogle.
• Back Link Analyzer - free Windows based downloadable software allowing you to deeply explore through a competitor's backlinks.
• Link Harvester - web based tool that allows you to dig deeply through a competitor's backlinks grab the source code!
• Link Popularity Comparison Tool - allows you to quickly and easily compare your link popularity scores to other websites. grab the source code
• Myriad Search - allows you to search all 4 major search engines at the same time. grab the source code!
• Competition Finder - tool looks at how many competing pages there are in Google's index that have your desired keywords in their page title and anchor text. learn more about Competition Finder or download it here
• SEO Link Analysis Script - extend Yahoo! Site Explorer and Google Webmaster Central using this free script from Joost De Valk. It verifies the link is still on the page, adds PageRank scores, displays anchor text, and highlights if the link uses nofollow.
• Search Engine Saturation Tool - helps you compare how many pages you have in the search indexes compared against competing sites. grab the source code

From the Search Engines

• Google AdWords Keyword Research Tool - allows you to plug in a URL and shows you what keywords Google thinks the page should be advertising for
• Google Traffic Estimator - estimates the number of Google AdWords ad clicks and bid prices for the top ad position.
• Google AdWords - if you bid broad match on competing brands you can track your ad impressions to see how much traffic they get.
• Google AdSense - if your competitor is running AdSense ads on their site you can run a site targeted ad to see how much traffic they are getting.
• Yahoo Mindset - let Yahoo show you how they can change results for commercial and informational queries
• Yahoo Term Extraction - delivers a list of most important keywords contained inside a piece of text. grab the source code
• MSN AdCenter Labs - offers many keyword tools, including a content classification tool and demographic prediction tools

Competitive Research & Keyword Research Extensions

SEOBook Competitive & Keyword Research Tool
	Gadgets powered by Google

• Browser extensions which make it easy for you to access cool free SEO tools from anywhere on the web.
• SEO Book Gadgets - add free link analysis, competitive research, and keyword research tools to any web page or iGoogle.
• Google Toolbar Buttons - Allows you to add quick links to SEO tools and RSS feeds to the Google toolbar. They only works with the new beta Internet Explorer version of the Google Toolbar.
• Firefox Bookmarks - Links to various useful free SEO tools that you can add to your Firefox bookmarks toolbar.

Know Any Other Tools Worth Suggesting?

email me seobook@gmail.com

Gain a Competitive Advantage Today

Want more great SEO insights? Read our SEO blog to keep up with the latest search engine news, and subscribe to our SEO training program to get cutting edge tips we do not share with the general public.
SEO Tools > Competitive Research Tools

SEO Tools > Link Analysis Tools

Free Link Reputation & Analysis Tools

Overview: Analyze your link profile compared to competing websites, and find pages which would be great sources to get links from. Many modern major search engines consider links to be signs of trust or votes for websites. Great in content links also can send a large stream of targeted high value traffic.
At the bottom of this page I inserted a few free videos to help you better understand link building.

Competitive Research Tools With Link Information

• SEO for Firefox - Import useful marketing data (including link counts, with links to source data) right into Google and Yahoo search results.
• Xinu - free competitive analysis tool which pulls in site age, social bookmarking data, and link data. grab the source

Google Gadgets, Toolbar Buttons, and Browser Bookmarks

Quick links and browser extensions which make it easy for you to access cool free SEO tools from anywhere on the web.

SEOBook Link & Research Tool
	Gadgets powered by Google

• iGoogle Link Analysis Gadget - Allows you to query the search engines for a wide variety of link search types. It is as easy as copying and pasting a piece of code.
• Google Toolbar Buttons - Allows you to add quick links to SEO tools and RSS feeds to the Google toolbar. They only works with the new beta Internet Explorer version of the Google Toolbar.
• Firefox Bookmarks - Links to various useful free SEO tools that you can add to your Firefox bookmarks toolbar.

Our Free Link Analysis Tools

Back Link Analyzer

Back Link Analyzer - free Windows based downloadable software.

• downloadable software
• does link anchor text analysis
• fairly quick
• works with Yahoo! API

Link Harvester

Link Harvester - allows you to deeply query the Yahoo! database and gives a good amount of link details.

• web based
• really fast
• makes sorting out duplicate links from the same site easy, which allows you to quickly and deeply query the Yahoo! backlink database.
• does not give anchor text
• gives breakdowns of .edu links and number of C block IP addresses, etc.
• open source: grab the source code!

Hub Finder

Hub Finder - finds topically related pages by looking at link co-citation. post about tool

• web based
• really fast
• makes finding hub pages easy
• open source: grab the source code!

Other Link Analysis Tools We Offer

• Web Directories Reviewed - editorial post about what directories are the most valuable from an SEO perspective.
• Reciprocal Link Checker - script to help you automate finding out if your reciprocal link partners are still linking back at your site. grab the source code
• Link Suggest Tool - list of words and phrases like add URL, directory, ezine, etc. where you may be able to add links or buy ads. grab the source code
• Link Popularity Comparison Tool - allows you to quickly and easily compare your link popularity scores to other websites. grab the source code
• Internal PageRank flow Calculator - allows you to see how your internal link structure flows PageRank throughout your site. grab the source code

Link Research From the Search Engines

• Yahoo! Site Explorer - allows you to see what pages you have indexed as well as the backlinks to those pages
• Google Webmaster Central - allows you to sign up for Google Sitemaps, shows some crawling errors, broken links, and a fairly comprehensive view of your backlinks. You can also add anchor text checking to Google Webmaster Central by using this free Greasemonkey script.

Other Free Link Analysis Tools

• Xenu Link Sleuth - Downloadable software which makes it fast and easy to find broken links on your site.
• Top 10 analysis tool - shows how your site's age and backlinks compare to the top 10 ranked sites
• NeatO Tool - shows backlinks and anchor text used in the backlinks
• Backlink Watch - shows backlinks and anchor text used in the backlinks

Background Information on Link Building

These three videos are all short (7 to 15 minutes each), sweet, and done by me. :)
How to Use Web Directories to Build Link Authority

How Public Relations Relates to Link Building & SEO


How to Build a Self-reinforcing Authority that Keeps Building Free Links

Know Any Other Tools Worth Suggesting?

email me seobook@gmail.com

Gain a Competitive Advantage Today

Want more great SEO insights? Read our SEO blog to keep up with the latest search engine news, and subscribe to our SEO training program to get cutting edge tips we do not share with the general public.
SEO Tools > Link Analysis Tools

SEO Tools > Search Engine Ranking Checkers

Free (and Paid) Search Engine Rank Checkers

Overview: These free and paid tools allow you to track where your websites rank in the search results for important keywords, and track those trends versus competing sites and/or against your own marketing efforts to better understand the effectiveness of your marketing.

Free Ranking Checkers

Free Rank Checkers

• Rank Checker - our free and fast Firefox extension which you can use to track your rankings over time.
• SEO Book basic Google rank checker - see where your site ranks on Google.com or international versions of Google.
• Digital Point's Keyword Ranking Tool - tracks your rankings in Yahoo! and MSN. Makes it easy to look at historical records of rankings to help you evaluate algorithmic changes and effective SEO techniques you are using. Requires a Google API key to track Google search results.

Google Rank Checker Tools

These tools do not use the Google API, especially because Google rendered their API virtually useless unless you have one of their old keys.

• Free Monitor from Google - downloadable tool from CleverStats which monitors website rankings
• ParaMeter - scrape Google PageRank values in bulk with this downloadable software. Useful for viewing the PageRank profile of a competing site.
• Mapelli.info - calculates the % of your site stuck in the Google supplemental index.

Meta Search Engines

• Myriad Search - shows the search results from all 4 major search engines (grab the source code)
• Zippy.co.uk - similar to above, but with more features

Install a Rank Checker on Your Own Site

• This zip file can be unzipped and installed on any web server which is PHP enabled. It includes a basic rank checker, an advanced rank cheker, a multi-keyword rank checker, a multi-domain rank checker, and a few other goodies.

Paid Rank Checking Tools

Tracking where you already rank does not alert you to potential areas of opportunity that you have not yet focused on, but it is easier to rank for keywords related to words you already rank well for than it is to rank for a whole new basket of keywords.

• Accurate Monitor for Search Engines - downloadable software from €99. Also has a lifetime license plan.
• Advanced Web Ranking - downloadable software from $99 per year.
• Agent Web Ranking - downloadable software from $150 per year.
• Rank Tracker - downloadable software for a one time $89 lifetime licence
• SEOMoz rank checker - allows 5 free lookups a day. Additional usage requires buying a premium membership. The source code to an earlier version is available.

From the Engines

• Google Webmaster Central - allows you to sign up for Google Sitemaps, shows some crawling errors, and a more complete view of your backlinks. Also shows keywords you rank well for and keywords that send you the most traffic.

Related Categories

• analytics tools - shows keywords that you already rank well for that drive traffic to your site
• keyword research tools - research new keywords to rank for
• competitive research tools - these tools will show you keywords sending traffic to competing websites

Know Any Other Tools Worth Suggesting?

email me seobook@gmail.com

Gain a Competitive Advantage Today

Want more great SEO insights? Read our SEO blog to keep up with the latest search engine news, and subscribe to our SEO training program to get cutting edge tips we do not share with the general public.
SEO Tools > Search Engine Ranking Checkers