SEO Tools

A lot of bright web developers and SEO experts have contributed SEO tools to the community. For the most part they are free. Of course not all are worth using and many provide the same functionality as others. This is continually updated list of those that I find useful and/or interesting. Some of these tools are equally useful for assessing your competitors as they are for assessing your own site.

If you have an SEO tool you'd like added, let me know.

Link Analysis Tools

Internal and external links are an important part for achieving the best rankings. It pays to understand the linking structure of a web site.

  • Strongest Sub-Pages: Find out which page on a web site has the most inbound links. It's often the home page, but there are some surprises out there.
  • Forward Link Titles - Get a list of outbound links for a web site along with a note about whether the link is reciprocated.
  • Hub Finder - A very good tool that presents a graphical view of how sites that rank for a particular keyword link between each other. Great for finding potential link partners.

Keyword Tools

SEO is all about ranking in search engines for important keywords. Unfortunately keyword research can be very time consuming. These tools aim to make the job easier.

  • Top Competitors: For any keyword, get a list of the top ranking sites for that keyword in Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Nothing you couldn't do easily yourself, but this saves a lot of clicks.
  • Keyword Ranking Checker - Tracking your progress in obtaining good rankings for different keywords can be tedious unless you use a tool like this one which, once set up, requires just one click to retrieve ranking updates.

On-Page SEO

The core of any SEO effort is ensuring that all the elements of a web page are properly assembled. There's nothing better than being able to read a web page's source code, but it can also help to do spot checks with page analyzers.

  • Keyword Density - I recommend that people not get hung up on keyword density, but this tool can help you spot areas of weakness as well as areas where your efforts might actually look like keyword stuffing.
  • Code to Text Ratio - Get the ratio of code to text for an web page. It is believed that pages with a high percentage of text will rank higher.
  • Indexed Pages - Get a count of how pages the major search engines have indexed. Ideally the numbers should be the same and if they're not, there may be coding issues with the web site.
  • Redirect Checker - Check an old URL that is no longer active to make sure the server is returning the right code -- usually a 301 permanent redirect.

Link Building

  • Backlink Builder - Links pointing to a web site can help that web site rank well in the search engines. Although obtaining quality links can be difficult and always takes time, this tool is a good place to start.
  • KeoTag - Similar to the below Query Combination Tool, but this one searches various social networks instead.
  • Link Search Tool - A variation of the Query Combination Tool described below except this one has a pre-determined list of queries to which it applies your selected keyword.
  • Query Combination Tool - Quickly construct search queries for the top search engines that will help you find relevant pages for you to submit link requests. Very flexible in that you can specify the keywords of interest AND combine these with text of your choosing.

Domain Tools

  • Domain Suggestion - Finding a domain name that hasn't already been taken can be frustrating. This tool can help in that endeavor by simplifying the search.
  • Domain Age - The older a domain is the more trust it is believed to have with search engines. This trust can translate in to higher rankings. This tool will show you the age of any domain.

Page Analysis Tools

  • Textalyzer - I don't think you should get hung-up on keyword density when writing content, but it's still a good idea to look at the keyword breakdown of any given page.

Miscellaneous

  • Google De-Personalized Search - This is a browser plug-in that turns off personalized search even when you're logged in. A time saver for sure!
  • Page Rank Export List History - Ever wonder when Google made their last update? This page keeps track of known updates and even speculates when the next ones will be.