What are the "must have" SEO software tool?

[diamondrajoor]

like most people, I use wordtracker and web position. I am intersted to know what other software programs are considered must haves in order to be on top of your SEO efforts.

[shakir]

Google Analytice, Webmaster, Rank checker from Seologs .com...... Also can use backlinkwatch

[Webnauts]

like most people, I use wordtracker and web position. I am intersted to know what other software programs are considered must haves in order to be on top of your SEO efforts.
Maybe the software tool SheerSEO - SEO software, web promotion software, SEO tools, SEO tracking, Mac seo software (http://www.sheerseo.com)

[EdAmado]

I like using SEO Elite 4... But I had said that already... Where are my posts? =/

[jayparker90]

I think google analytics gives the best information on which search engine is viewing your website
and in firefox there is a addon called ghostery which will let you know
how many users are viewing your website, they all make some tools now in SEO

[articlemaster9]

I use analytics, webmaster tools and backlink chekcer .. I also use firefo addon search status which is very helpful and give quick stats..

[acwebguru]

I think rank checker is the must have SEO tool that save us from checking the ranking position of numerous keywords in different search engines manually. I just love it.

[flooringspot]

creating your own tools is the best tool

[Nigel@xposure]

I've just started using Advanced Web Ranking on the Mac. Been using it a month now, and it's working well. It checks keyword rankings in loads of websites and also checks your competitors.

Certainly makes compiling reports or clients easier.

[andrew-bkk]

creating your own tools is the best tool

Good comment, this.

Never overlook the Google webmaster videos. And never undervalue the importance of good old-fashioned common sense.

[innominds]

There are many SEO software tools such as IBP, SEO Elite, WebCEO etc.
All these tools minimize your repeated work but don't completely replace your hard work.

[bosyork]

kpmrs . com - it is a seo tool to check your website rankings for particular keywords.
It also gives you the backlink info , alexa , google page rank and many other analytics.

[Doc]

kpmrs . com - it is a seo tool to check your website rankings for particular keywords.
It also gives you the backlink info , alexa , google page rank and many other analytics.

I tried kpmrs, and wasn't impressed with it. I think most of the tools mentioned earlier in this thread provide more information than kpmrs.

[jacob281]

Use search status tool for page rank ,Alexa rank,back links etc.

[Doc]

Use search status tool for page rank ,Alexa rank,back links etc.

If you're talking about the Quirk SearchStatus Firefox add-on, I use that too, when I'm just looking for quick info. There are others that give more detailed info, but I find it very handy, when I'm just looking for basic info.

[hawash]

I mostly use seo quake

[weegillis]

This question ought to have included, "and why?" so that responders would need to qualify their suggestions, just a wee bit.

hawash: What are your reasons for choosing and using SEO QUAKE? What do you like about it, what do you not like? Can you give us some pro's and con's to go with your suggestion? I'm sure the OP would appreciate your insight into the product if you care to enlighten us by sharing.

[Doc]

Good point, weegillis. I'll expand on mine a little, too.

I use Quirk SearchStatus, a FireFox add-on (you can check it out here: SearchStatus | Firefox SEO Toolbar Extension (http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/)). These are the standard drop-down tools:

Highlight NoFollow Links
Link Report
Metatags
Show in Archive.org
Show Whois (selectable for who-is, who.is, DomainTools or DNStuff)
Show Robots.txt
Show Sitemap.xml
Show keyword density
Highlight keyword
Show indexed pages (G, Y, M or all)
Show backward links (page, page external only, domain or domain external only)


It also will display PageRank, Alexa, Compete and mozRank, any or all of them.

It's not the end-all, be-all, but it's quick and handy, and will at least show you enough to let you know if you want to dig deeper, with a better tool.

[buybusinesssoftware]

The top of my list would the free programs. I would need to master those first before spending money on a program, because that's the most sensible method for me, given my budget.

[ArthurMasons999]

There are many SEO software tools such as IBP, SEO Elite, WebCEO etc.
All these tools minimize your repeated work but don't completely replace your hard work.
I second that, there is no universal tool for all stats to check

[sheena]

I also used SEOpen, firefox adds-on, adwords and seobook for keyword research tools, web ceo and advanced web ranking for seo software

[genewell]

I use IBP (Internet Business Promoter). Love it. Clients love it. I particularly likes its detailed comparison of the target site against the top ten. Generally I'll run this program on the page I'm trying to optimize and go through an iterative process until I get as many checkmarks as possible. Works extremely well for on-page. There's also a link tool that you have to buy separately. Not the cheapest program on the market, but effective and worth it.

[reubin]

SEO tool :IBP, SEO Elite, WebCEO ,which is better for backlink. seo is hard work, the are are a lot of repeated work.SEO tools minimize the repeated work,It's great.

[genewell]

They're all pretty good at the on-page stuff. They leave a lot to be desired for linking campaigns.

[gavjof]

Bah, I was about to post a detailed list of tools I currently use but need to make it up to 10 posts in order to post links. I really must contribute more instead of just being a passive reader...

I'd say the best tools for me at present are all of the webmaster tools available from Google/Yahoo/Bing.

[povidiu]

The fist tool is Google Toolbar (PR activated). This is the most important one.

[Doc]

The fist tool is Google Toolbar (PR activated). This is the most important one.


That is the one that would head my list of "most useless". :rolleyes:

[povidiu]

@Doc (http://www.webproworld.com/members/107830.html) ... quite disapointed of your answer, but when you need to know the PR of a website you rely on the 3rd party websites to find out instead to going directly to the source... not very professional.

[Doc]

@Doc (http://www.webproworld.com/members/107830.html) ... quite disapointed of your answer, but when you need to know the PR of a website you rely on the 3rd party websites to find out instead to going directly to the source... not very professional.

If I thought that the information provided there on PR was any kind of reliable, up-to-date information, my opinion would probably be the same as yours, povidiu. But since the PR indicated there is typically up to three months out of date, I don't put much stock in it.

To be fair, I don't put much stock in PR at all. While not insignificant, I think it has become the be-all, end-all for many people, and I see it as more of a buzzword than a goal. SERP position is much more important than PR, IMO, and the two don't necessarily go hand-in-hand.

[povidiu]

@Doc (http://www.webproworld.com/members/107830.html), now i understand your point of view very well.

[Doc]

@Doc (http://www.webproworld.com/members/107830.html), now i understand your point of view very well.

I probably could have been a bit less curt in my initial response. ;)

[nichita2008]

Internet Business Promoter is a good SEO software. Another important tool is SpyGlass SEO.

[sheena]

I do not use SEO software but Firefox add-ons like SEOpen

[JoshBerman80]

I like working with IBP, it's really good for new pages and new projects. Really gives you an advantage!
:)

[povidiu]

Can you tell us more about SpyGlass?

[reubin]

SpyGlass SEO is links building tool.

[povidiu]

I understand but it submit to directory automatically? Or what?

[innominds]

I do not use SEO software but Firefox add-ons like SEOpen

These days Firefox has got so many plugins and add-ons so even newbies find it easy to use.

[povidiu]

I think that due to this addons i hate Firefox now, it's becaming too havy, slow, blocking, acc, I think I will switch to another browser.

[weegillis]

Why hate Firefox? Just dump the addon. You can always uninstall/re-install everything to clear the registry and data caches.

[gavjof]

Lots of tools for lots of different aspects of SEO/SEM.

Visitor Tracking

Google Analytics
https://www.google.com/analytics/

Because its reports are said to be more accurate than the usual stats packages such as webalizer & awstats. Can be configured to send custom reports regularly by email allowing you to quickly view areas that are most important to you.

Keyword Tools

Google Keyword Tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Nichebot
NicheBOT X - My Member Account Center (http://www.nichebot.com/members/member.php)

The Google tool is a great tool but my colleague uses Nichebot more as it's data is more detailed. It's a pain to use (clunky interface) but quite useful.

Submission Tools

Webmaster Tools

1. https://www.google.com/webmasters/
2. Webmaster Center - Bing (http://www.bing.com/webmaster/)
3. https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

For confirming that you are the admin of said site, and then submitting sitemaps, checking crawler errors, etc. Much better than relying on the baic submit URLs.

You can also view backlinks from here too. :)

Reporting

WebCEO
SEO Software by Web CEO :: Search Engine Optimization Software / Complete SEO Toolkit for Website Optimization, Promotion and Maintenance (http://www.webceo.com/)
Great at producing detailed reports for Ranking Analysis, competitor rankings, etc. Don't use too many of the other tools as much now.

SEOQuake (FireFox Addon)
SeoQuake - seo toolbar, plugin, seo extension for Mozilla Firefox (http://www.seoquake.com/)
Neat tool that pulls in loads of info on backlinks/pr/etc into the browser while surfing.



I would not say these are all must-haves, but they are the main ones I use at present. I'm always on the look out for better apps that will make my job more streamlined ;)

[innominds]

Hey gavjof! You have listed "must have" SEO tools. Good recommendation.

[Tig]

I'm actually looking for good SEO tools myself. SEO has gone from 2% of our business three years ago to almost 40% of our business this year, so I've been looking for a good way to both track what we are doing and help promote our clients. I need SEO tools that can handle 30+ domains.

I would say Google tools is the "standard" free tool that everyone should be using by default; analytics, adwords keyword research, webmaster tools, all of it. Bing's Webmaster Center (Webmaster Center - Bing (http://www.bing.com/webmaster/)) and Yahoo Site Explorer (https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/) are also good for their respective web sites, but going to all those different places for multiple web sites is very time-consuming and creates the need for manual reporting.

I've been using online tools to track keyword placement in Google, Yahoo and Bing, mostly:
Authority Labs (Website Ranking Reports | AuthorityLabs (http://www.authoritylabs.com)) and Mike's Marketing Tools (Mike's Internet Marketing Tools, Software, Products, Books, eBooks, Coaching, Services (http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com)).
However, neither is very accurate, and I end up doing manaual keyword research which is also time consuming.

I'm to the point that I need to find a tool that is accurate and will help take away some of the time-consuming reporting tasks I have.

It looks to me like the following 3 tools are the most popular on this thread:

SEO Elite, IBusiness Promoter, and SEO Spyglass.

SEO Spyglass (SEO SpyGlass Software - Instantly Find Out How Your Competitors Got To 'Top Ten' In Google, Yahoo! and Bing Search Engines (http://www.link-assistant.com/seo-spyglass)) seems to be dedicated to watching and learning from competitors, which can be useful.

SEO Elite (www.seoelite.com) and IBusiness Promoter (SEO software: IBP is the powerful SEO tool with proven results (http://www.ibusinesspromoter.com)) seem to be comparable, with different pricing structures. While SEO elite charges $47/month, IBusiness Promoter is $499 one time (for the business package).

I'd really like to hear from the people that use these two programs. Would you tell me what you like/dislike about the one you use? Does anyone have both? Did I miss a good program? If I did, I'd love to hear what it is and why you like it.

Thanks in advance!
Ty

[WordNerd]

Seo Elite is back to $167.00 1 time payment.

It has a lot of options in it to make seo easier.

Another tool I find very useful is a firefox
plugin is KeywordSpy.

It sits in your status bar and when ever you
do a search you can see backlink numbers,
edu, gov, age, alexa rankings and much
more.

You can also choose to see adword
landing pages with out having to
click on the advertiser ad/s.

What I like is being able to look up
keywords from my status bar & find
a ton of info.

The best part for me is finding
misspelled keywords for high traffic
keywords.

This result in cheaper ppc cost &
competition.

The plugin only work with firefox
but you get a lifetime free trial.

It does much more & I have
enjoyed the plugin.

I actually unistalled the maker of
Seo Elite free plugin.

That one was called
PPC Web Spy.

[sweetfranky]

I use SEO tools for firefox and link diagnosis. Also, SEO quake and google toolbar...

[ContentSpooling]

SEO for firefox. It's a good tool to use.

[tradingwhiz]

Market Samurai served me well and is still the only SEO tool i ever really use

[StonePilot]

Seems there should be a thread with different categories of software listed out as options (maybe there is) ... from code checkers to page checkers to rankcheckers.

[Gennie32]

I have paid version of iwebtool. It has very good features and helps a lot on SEO progress.

[Little Sister]

I think google analytics gives the best information on which search engine is viewing your website
and in firefox there is a addon called ghostery which will let you know
how many users are viewing your website, they all make some tools now in SEO

This is a nice tool but the information is dependent on whether users are browsing with firefox too.

[CoolDiamond]

I like using seospyglass to analyses my competitors' backlinks.

[ShaneHunter]

I like IBP (Internet Business Promoter) that software is pricey, but it rocks...

[chrisdee]

Seo spyglass is great for checking competitor's backlinks
Scrapebox for finding high pr forums
Sick submitter for submitting profiles

[techmeaux]

I'd recommend calling, on the phone, seop com, or seologic com, or any other seo, who actually shows up not only on page one, but the top 30 for an "seo" search. Obviously, they know something.

Another thing I gathered while researching clickability coms offering, was that high end services are not the same as successful spammers, which is what 99% of SEO software is, useless junk, by guys who can't rank you, nor care too, they are making money on mass hype and ignorance.

Much research and often investment goes into getting ranked in let's say porn, on-line casinos, and other high dollar indutsries, and the principal applies to self-directed IRA's hotel asset management or southwestern style jewelry, the background markets average investment and technical acuman at applying it, is what you will be dealing with when ranking. Then you have changing trends and algorithms. Thank God for PPC, then even the 100 word site can have a visitor, LOL.

Check reviews, type the seo software or seo company, and follow the word with "fraud", scam or complaint, and if Google fills in the word for you, then the 1 in 100 conversion rate of being so bad 200 people finally piped up and said something, you know they must have something going in the ineptitude department, sold as internet brilliance.

If from the previously mentioned market saturation and reach intel, you see that your competing against the motleyfool for example, than maybe you SEO to a point, then strategize on PPC and other SEM. This is important, ifI'm competing with TDAmeritrade on something that they themselves are paying 10 and 20 dollars a click for, you have to word map around the linear obvious stuff, to a larger amount of less "populaar" terminologies, at a 1:1000 ratio. I think the book Search Patterns touches on it. Even if 90% comes from page one, and descends accordingly, those back pages still carry a huge amount of potential trickle down traffic, that also, I'd guess, are researching a little more deeply. Nothing sadder than visiting the top 5 Google returns, to find the guy at number 127, is really the genius at his expertise, not at SEO. Unfortunately, much page 1 stuff, is simply not the best for various industries. Think of it, what if you really, really had the cure for cancer, how long is it going to take you to get on serp 1? What?, are all those greedy hospitals, making money on servicing death (and the insurance) of the poor patient (victim), going to just slide over and go, oh yeah, take a wack out of my paycheck! We don't care if you have the cure for cancer, we're so demented by our own pride, greed and delusion, who cares! We don't! LOL - See what I mean? the reality of what people are, is much different than what is presented, and the same with a search engines slot fillers. Many of them are great SEO, but just junk.

My initiaive? Always click page 7 FIRST! LOL, and the I'm feeling lucky button, should also have a random button, which randomly sends a visitor to ANY one of the top 1000 returns.

It also reminds me of stuff I shared with Google before Cutts and others where there. You know why Google runs patent searches? Put 2 and 2 together, they are just another souless, maybe even more soulless business of all time, CuttThroats, J/K.. LOL J/K

Well anyways, I told a few, hey, you need a search Gypsy program, a program that rather than Google almost useless hindsight, can predict what people will search over minutes, hours, days, months, and with King Gypsy, years! It will be a concept that even Autonomy in Verity days could use, and believe it or not, Google is using paranormal aid, subliminal technology application, and other "questionable" sciences for predictive application, and they even mess with contact of supernatural entities to aid in this. Hence, Microsoft VisualBasic upside down says, IB Satan, the I the Visua"L", the B "Basic", Dell logo, with the pitchfork E says Devil. The first Microsoft .NET logos say S8N patterns in the graphic, Microsoft has the Zoso sign in it, and the Windows Logo is the multi-colored Satanic Swastika, Windows 7 was originally slated to be named Vienna, the Hitler seed pod, and Google, is El Gog backwards. (and the list goes on and on) Funny too, Visual Basic Microsoft code was called Thunder, as in god of... So, supernatural entified enhancement and inspiration has never been beyond the thinking of any of these guys. It's not really crazy, it's just the way it is, the mechanism for total information, profiling, and global control, real-time, or if we can pull it off, before it happens, LOL - You'll never see that on Matt Cutt's blog LOL, LOL (Al, I say to them, who use money as some sign of the validity of a success is, you cannot take it with you, you can't even take a single hair on your head with you, so you might as well spend as much as you can, because retirement, and seizing these multi-level ponzi schemes in mid stride, are illusions which never will be pulled off. Spend it now while it's still got value)

And in the meantime, as a lead-in, search the "CMS Magic Quadrant", it covers some clouds, promo Saas, and CMS systems that make Wordpress look like Notepad. The point being, many of those intel services are unbelieveably expensive, and applied by many top enterprises, many at ascales employing 50 IT's and 100 programmers, AND a CMS and promo service, but in their are some European companies, and smaller American companies who are real SEO and promo, not the hype "linkassistant" garbage. You won't pay 199 dollars for some of that stuff, and none of the good Intel at Compete com is that cheap. Netcraft and compete's bottom line reports are 700-1000 dollars, and are purchased, by various organzations. What would be a funny, and it is true, is that many of those so called SEO softwares, employ real SEO services for their own SEO - (and they aren't saying a word) LOL

[staines]

I quite liked IBP after a while you do grow out of it but as a noob I found very useful

[LloydBurrell]

I also used SEOpen, firefox adds-on, adwords and seobook for keyword research tools, web ceo and advanced web ranking for seo software

I also use such tool, but I've noticed they slow down the browser. That's why I suggest to stick to a couple of toolbars for off-page SEO analysis (like SEO toolbar and Google toolbar) and leave the rest for circumstantial use.

[LD]

With the last post made in early 2011, this thread is now closed.