Useful Tools

Sitemap Generators

For a more complete indexing of your website, and a faster indexing of updates, use an XML Sitemap Generator to inform Google, Yahoo, and MSN whenever you and or update an important page.

http://code.google.com/sm_thirdparty.html

Google Webmaster Tools

In Google's own words: "Our suite of webmaster tools provides you with a free and easy way to make your site more Google-friendly. They can show you Google's view of your site, help you diagnose problems, and let you share info with us to help improve your site's visibility."

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/about.html

Meta Tag Checker

ToolURL's free Meta Tag Checker displays the title, keyword, and description of any webpage without you having to wade through the source code.

http://www.toolURL.com/meta-tag.php

Meta Tag Generator

Aaron Wall's free Meta Tag Generator helps you produce the coding for the title, description, and keyword meta tags.

http://www.search-marketing.info/meta-tags/make-meta.htm

Reverse Keyword Lookup

In theory, you can use this tool to check any URL (even an opponent's URL) to see which keywords drive traffic to that webpage from the organic (i.e., free) section of Google's search results. However, the lookup feature only reports findings for keywords that it has examined in the past. So, the tool will be more useful if you add keywords now and then check back in the future.

http://www.URLtrends.com/reversekeywordlookup.php

WC3 Markup Validation Service

Search engines prefer that HTML coding conform to W3C recommendations. This free tool can validate the coding of any webpage.

http://validator.w3.org/checklink

Good Keywords Software

This free, downloadable software is a time-saver. It extracts and combines data from the Overture Keyword Selector Tool, search engines (including Google and Yahoo), and Alexa. Other features include: a keyword phrase builder, a misspelled word generator, a keyword density analyzer, as well as popularity meters.

http://goodkeywords.com

Myriad Search

Myriad offers a convenient, one-stop way to check the ranking of websites for any search query at Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.

http://www.myriadsearch.com

Dynamic Site Mapping

If your website uses form variables to produce dynamically generated content, those results pages are likely invisible to search engines. Dynamic Site Mapping solves this by recognizing the most commonly generated pages and then makes them "spiderable" by creating a search-engine friendly map.

http://bruceclay.com/web_dsm.htm

LinkMaps

LinkMaps will query major search engines to create a list of external webpages that link to your website and then will submit that list in a file so that search engines will more fully index the webpages that link to you This increases your visible link popularity, which should lead to increases in your search engine rankings.

http://www.bruceclay.com/web_linkmaps.htm

SEOToolSet

Remember the old saying that, "No one ever got fired for buying IBM." There was a general sense that while IBM equipment was necessarily leading edge at all things, at least you could be comfortable that all of its equipment was at least very good. Well, among Search Engine Optimization practitioners, the same could be said for The  SEOToolSet by Bruce Clay. Many of the tools offered at BruceClay.com are available elsewhere, in other forms, and sometimes with spiffier features or an easier interface. But the tools in the  SEOToolSet are at least very good, well integrated, and convenient, except for the learning curve. (SEOToolSet training is available for an additional fee.)

Bruce Clay's SEOToolSet includes: a competition ranking report, a server page status checker, a keyword selection tool, a keyword density analyzer, search engine submission recommendations, a search engine ranking monitor, a domain ranking report, a ranking report by page name, a ranking report by keyword, and a link analysis tool.

http://www.bruceclay.com/seo/tools.htm#review