The following SEO tools are worth looking into if you want to mind your own search engine optimization or you simply want to learn more about SEO, search marketing or acquire competitive intelligence.
Free tools
If you are a complete SEO noob, or even if you have just never downloaded this before, I highly recommend that everyone downloads Google's seo starter guide. Although it does not tell you everything, it does tell you a lot. Download the PDF
There are tons of free SEO tools, of course, but I do not recommend many or most of them because they help nothing. I do like the SEO toolbar from Aron Wall's website, SEObook.com. It's a Firefox extension, so you'll have to be using that browser, but the toolbar offers a lot of info, even if you could actually find most of that yourself. I use it because it offers so much in such a compact space.
Check it out, download it for free.
Not so free:
SEO Guide: Of course, Google does not tell you everything you really need to know about SEO: They tell you what they want you to do. And you do get what you pay for, here as anywhere else. To supplement, Axandra.com presents an unparallelled book that describes everything you need to get started with SEO. It costs money but you get what you pay for. Learn more about them, and buy their book.
Tracking Software: The more I use it, the more I like software from SEO Powersuite, aka Link-Assistant.com. It's non-nonsense, very detailed and clear , offering solid advice even fro expereinced SEOs, and it makes some really pretty reports, too.
Here is a whole list of links from which you can take your choice, or choose all:
Download a free trial version of the entire SEO Powersuite or just go ahead and buy it.
Or you can try out individual products. All of these trials are free but the product is excellent and you will want to buy anything that sounds useful.
- I really like Rank Tracker. It's very easy to use and keeps excellent track of ranking in any and all major search engines, including Google.ca and Google in all other countries. And (!) it generates really neat, clean reports. Download a trial or
buy it.
- SEO Spyglass offers you a window into the world of any competitor, telling you where they get traffic, how much from paid versus search, and much more. I have yet to use it myself to a great extent but I will report on it once I use it. Try it for free or buy it.
- Link-Assistant is also a part of the SEO PowerSuite. It helps you find competitive links. Download a trial or buy it.
- Website Auditor is also a premium product that does a really detailed, accurate examination of what is wrong with your site in terms of SEO, along with an accurate, clear report of how to fix what is wrong. I recommend this and anything else from the Powersuite. Check out a free trial version of Website Auditor or buy it.
Backlinks:
Aside from using software like Link-Assistant, you should try to get backlinks from all of the important directories on the web. The most important are:
- Dmoz, the web's original directory and still the most trusted.
- Best of the web (botw.org), also very old and very well trusted, although it is now paid.
- Yahoo's directory, also paid.