SEO tools are an important part of any online
entrepreneur’s resource arsenal. Luckily, the internet abounds with
dozens upon dozens of SEO tools, covering a wide range of functions.
The word SEO tool is a term that includes any piece of software or service which can:
- help you improve your website’s visibility
- build a credible online brand
- garner strategic and competitive intelligence
- research keywords and links
- track social media performance
- create better content and
- grow your website
Below there is a list of 10 of the most popular SEO tools out there,
with explanations of how they can assist in your online business.
1. Google Analytics
Currently, Google Analytics is the Internet’s top rated web analytics
and reporting service. For online marketers, it is an invaluable tool
that can be used to obtain detailed statistics about a website’s traffic
and its sources. This essentially helps publishers understand how
visitors are interacting with their website.
Google Analytics can identify where visitors come from, how long they
stay on a page, and what country they access the website from. Thanks
to its integration with Google AdWords, it can also track conversions;
and it’s e-commerce reports can track sales activity.
Blogs and websites may share Google Analytics data with potential
advertisers to show how their website is performing and what kind of
audience it reaches.
Basic functionality is free, while
the premium version
can be accessed for an annual fee. Google Analytics Premium offers the
chance to work directly with Google and obtain “enterprise-level data.”
2. MozBar
If you are interested in link building, then this is one of the most convenient browser extensions you can get.
MozBar
lists important SEO metrics for each web page you visit, including
domain authority, page authority, on-site HTML elements, and number of
backlinks. It also allows you to highlight the types of links you’re
interested in (dofollow, nofollow, internal, and external), as well as
determine the website’s location, based on its IP address.
All of these features are available with the free version of MozBar.
For $99 per month, you can create a standard Moz PRO account, which
unlocks access to additional MozBar analytics features, but also to the
entire Moz toolkit, including a mentions tool, a rank tracking tool,
on-page keyword optimization, a keyword difficulty and SERP analysis
tool, and more.
3. Copyscape
CopyScape
is an online plagiarism checker and duplicate content detection service
that can be quite helpful if your content is being distributed across
the web.
Content owners and publishers can use this service to check whether
their content has been stolen and republished elsewhere on the web, or
whether old content is being repackaged and presented to them as
something unique and original. Copyscape functions by matching original
content with pages on the internet that contain similar text.
Copyscape also offers two premium services. Starting from $4.95 per
month, the Copysentry service monitors your pages and automatically
checks for copies once a week, while Copyscape Premium can perform
comprehensive plagiarism checkups for only 5c per search.
4. SEER’s SEO Toolbox
A free,
all-in-one toolbox
based on SEER’s own in-house tools and designed to satisfy most SEO
needs, SEER Toolbox targets online marketers who lack the technical
know-how of seasoned programmers. Consequently, it works with
spreadsheets, not programming code, boasting that if you can use the SUM
() function, then you’ve got all the knowledge you need to excel (pun
intended).
