Utilize search engine optimization tools to make your website life easier. You’ll find free versions of various tools and paid versions, and features will vary as well.
Some of the most common SEO tools are:
Link Analysis Tools
If you know the number of back links the competition has and their origin, you’ll have the advantage of knowing where you stand when you’re trying to out-rank them on specific keywords.
The information you collect helps you verify if you can rank well for your keywords. If your main competitors are well established then you want to look at other keywords.
Additionally you may find valuable backlinks that your competitors are using and work to obtain some of those same backlinks to your website.
I highly recommend Traffic Travis. They do provide a free version that you would need to register for but well worth it.
Keyword Research Tools
Targeted keywords are essential. There are different ways to find keywords and there are also free versions you can do it with.
Google AdWords keyword tool is free and very popular. WordTracker also has a free keyword tool and a paid version.
Depending on the information you want to obtain about keywords, there are two paid versions I recommend.
Micro Niche Finder provides a multitude of information on keywords, including the strength of competition for keywords.
Market Samurai provides a lot of information as well on keywords in a different format.
Search Engine Spider Simulators
With a search engine spider simulator you can see how the search engines actually see your website. Some content such as flash, JavaScript and images may not be seen by search engines.
Simulators will also show the hyperlinks the spiders will follow when it visits your page.
Most of these tools are free and can be found searching on the internet.
Web Page Analyzer Tools
A web page analyzer provides information about your website that you need to correct.
Some of those items would be broken links, meta tag errors, HTML/XHTML errors, and the load time on your website.
Some of these tools also provide additional information, one that I use is SiteReportCard.com.
Link Building Tools
Link building is an important part of off-site SEO. You can find tools that will definitely make this task easier.
One service that I recommend is SEO Book. You’ll find effective free tools with SEO Book.
XML Sitemap Generators
To assist search engines in finding your site faster and with more accuracy you should submit an XML Sitemap. There are generating tools available online that will create one for your website free.
If you use WordPress as your platform, you will not have to create the XML sitemap. WordPress has plugins you can use which are simple to install.
There are definitely a lot of search engine optimization tools that will make your tasks much simpler and easier.
