Resources

Search engine optimization is hard work, but fortunately there are resources and tools out there to make specific areas of our work just a bit easier. Listed here are some must-have staples in every SEO’s toolkit. Bookmark this page!

Keyword Research Tools

AdWords Keyword Tool - Traditionally used for managing AdWords campaigns, the Keyword Tool can also be used to graphically display search volumes for certain keywords and keyphrases.

Keyword Discovery (KD) - Essentially the same as WT, except that KD tracks and counts visitors differently. The overall data provided will be very similar from a broader perspective.

WordTracker (WT) - "Wordtracker helps website owners and search engine marketers identify keywords and phrases that are relevant… and most likely to be used as queries by search engine visitors."

Webmaster Resources

Markup Validation Service - Created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), this tool is used to check for valid document markup such as HTML, XHTML, SVG, and more.

Google Webmaster Tools - Formerly known as Sitemaps, Webmaster Tools shows how Google crawls and indexes your site and any problems it encounters. There’s also data on internal/external links, top search queries, and SERP positioning.

Yahoo Site Explorer - Essentially Yahoo’s version of Webmaster Tools.

Analytics and ROI Tools

Google Analytics - A web analytics resource with very detailed information regarding visitors, traffic sources, and content usage.

IndexTools - Recently acquired by Yahoo (April 2008), IndexTools is a web analytics platform that currently surpasses Analytics in terms of being integrated with paid advertising campaigns.

StatCounter - Its mission is "to help [its] members easily understand their visitors, so [that] they can make good decisions to become more successful online."

Miscellaneous Tools

SEOQuake - An extension for Firefox or Internet Explorer that displays anything from cache dates, PageRank, the number of indexed pages from Google/Yahoo/Microsoft, and Alexa rank.