As many of you will be aware, I like to build tools. Well I like to come up with the concept for the tool and get one of my guys to build it for me, but it’s near enough the same thing.
We have many tools inhouse that we have built over the years, some which we build and never use, some which we build and realise that they need rebuilding, some that never quite get finished and constantly evolve, and some that are just awesome that I use all the time. Some of my tools are freely available to use such as the Keyword Density, GeoTargeting and the Playground, but I do have a tendancy to keep the best for myself 
. There are of course the many other SEO tool sets out there that people become to rely on and can’t do their job without.
I believe that a SEO tool will never tell a person how to do good SEO, but will provide them with key data from different aspects, whether it’s on page or off page, that can help formulate the right strategy for the site at that time. The tools will also save a fair bit of man hours doing the automated checking of the information. Obviously the search engines are constantly evolving and what works now may not work in the future so there needs to be a fair bit of monitoring to be done on the data collected.
I’m interested to hear what your thoughts are on SEO Tools, and if you have a favourite SEO tools that you couldn’t live (or work) without.
21 Comments
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- 2
One key tool for me is a web browser
- 3
I find Firefox to be useful with key extnesions loaded such as NoDoFollow, Live PageRank and Extended Status Bar – lots of info at a glance. Playground is great!
- 4
2 for me
1. SEO for firefox but only the feature that lets you download the SERP you looking at into a CSV.
1. Yahoo site explorer
Still looking for a tool that would take a list of URL’s be that txt or csv, return the status for each one e.g.. 200, 403, 301 and then check if the page is indexed in Google. While it’s at it the number of links to each URL.
Would be great for when doing seo on shopping cart sites.
- 5
Searching for SEO tools seems to be a place people go when they are looking for some easy quick way to get optimized.
I think best practice is to plan well and pick your SEO Consultant well.
Plus we had to significantly lower our fees due to the downward economy, allowing business owners to get much more bang for their buck.
Albert Smegal
SEO Expert Since 1997
Boston MA
Worldwide Service
617.306.8029 - 6
@albert I kinda feel your spamming my site, the fact you search for SEO in google blog search kinda makes me feel Like you just trolling blogs to pimp your service, not the kind of thing I would expect a seo expert to do
- 7
Yer and dropping in the an address for a local search ‘citation’, not good.
Anyway I’m addicted to the MozTower’s visualization tool – anything that helps me explain SEO to clients. Dave, if you could knock up something that shows a quick link acquisition graph over time – I would be very happy.
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Tools: Lots of firefox add-ons, greasemonkey scripts, and many of the free tools from Google and Yahoo. I need to build my own or pay a bunch of money, clearly. I like build vs. buy.
- 9
I Couldn’t do my job without yahoo site explorer. I use that everyday, also Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. I also find seo spyglass useful.
- 10
Not being biased but I love the Bronco Playground tool, and I use it all the time to do quick checks of the onpage factors when I’m dealing with enquiries. Just being able to see things like the keyword density really easily or things like if the site is sharing a server with a host of others.
I think that tools like Advanced Web Rankings take a whole load of hassle out of doing things like rank checks, that clients love to see. It save us lots of time.
I also love the Quirk no follow link highlighter. I have it turned on all the time which makes using twitter a bit of a pain!
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@Gareth – what is MozTower visualization tool? Not heard of that one before. I love the web developer tool bar for firefox fro testing all the techie wee bits with websites. Glad no one has decided to state that they use Google toolbar and the green bar to do their SEO.
- 12
I like the keyword density tool you have but not entirely sure what the best density of the keyword should be. Is it 3%-5%? But I usually use the website grader. I think it gives a good overall view of your site.
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I would personally love a downloadable version of the Playground tool… I use it a ridiculous amount. Or a way to simply export some of the data it pulls.
- 14
SEOMoz tools are quite handy on a day to day basis
Majestic SEO also has a number of very useful tools.
LiveHTTPHeaders for Firefox
All the webmaster tools (YSE, GWT and Bing)
- 15
Completely on the right tack there David, I would add that it is also important not to over obsess with getting 100% scores for things as you can never get things perfect all the time and a close enough is good enough kind of result as long as you are aiming higher than your competitors.
A few main things I find is missing though are the increasing need to hit psychological triggers for humans rather than the search engines, sometimes even going against the flow to accomplish that goal.
It’s also about ROI, so if the tools allow you to automate some of the donkey work then that is a good ROI on your time and effort and in turn in general. - 16
well..I just do have a tendancy to keep the best for myself ..:)
- 17
I believe that a SEO tool will never tell a person how to do good SEO, but will provide them with key data from different aspects, whether it’s on page or off page, that can help formulate the right strategy for the site at that time. The tools will also save a fair bit of man hours doing the automated checking of the information. Obviously the search engines are constantly evolving and what works now may not work in the future so there needs to be a fair bit of monitoring to be done on the data collected.
- 18
thanks dude! this tools is made to guide us how to be better SEO… seo is not a miracle, you must strive for it!
- 19
I have to agree with Martyn – I also use website grader. I think it gives a good list of action items to start on with a new project, and also gives feedback on the changes you make over time.
- 20
For firefox plug-in, I use NoDoFollow plug-in.
- 21
I agree to Rocky. SEO tools make us aware of the status of the websites that we optimize and our competitors too.
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