14 Essential Resources for New SEOs

If you are new to search engine optimization or just trying to find some more helpful resources, take a look at this list of the 14 tools that every SEO should be familiar with.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is an important tracking program offered for free by Google. It allows you to determine where your visitors came from, how long they stayed on your site, and what they did while they were on your site. You can also track return on investment and conversions so that you can not only increase your presence on the web, but increase the money that you are making too!

Google Webmaster Tools

Like Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools has many features and uses.

Some of the main features include checking for crawl errors and broken links (keep your fingers crossed that there aren’t any).  You can also submit a sitemap which tells search engines how to crawl your site. Another important feature is checking your site for duplicate content, Google hates duplicate content.

Xenu Link Sleuth

Xenu Link Sleuth is another tool which is great for finding the dreaded duplicate content and broken links on your site. Google Webmaster Tools only provides you with the top 1,000 pages of errors, while Xenu can crawl through thousands of pages on your site, and quickly.

Unfortunately, Xenu only runs on Window PCs, so if you have a Mac, take a look at Screaming Frog.  Where would we be without, Tilman, who made this tool!

A1 Sitemap Generator

You should submit a sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools, but before you do so you’ll need to create one. This is where A1 Sitemap Generator comes in handy. With this tool you can scan your website and create a sitemap.

The sitemaps can be XML (what Google recommends), RSS, TXT, ASP.net or HTML. Use A1 Sitemap Generator to ensure that all of your pages are crawled and index.

Google AdWords Keyword Tool

Picking keywords is one of the most important aspects of SEO. Without the correct keywords your optimization efforts may be futile.

It doesn’t make sense to optimize a keyword that is extremely competitive if you have a start-up site and it doesn’t make sense to market a keyword that doesn’t have any search volume either. The Google AdWords Keyword Tool will provide you with competition and volume information for a keyword so you can determine what keywords to add to your campaign and it also gives suggestions for keyword ideas.

SEMRush

SEMRush is another tool for keyword research which provides organic keywords for a certain domain and a list of online competitors. This tool will also show some useful stats on each keyword such as volume and competition, just like Google AdWords.

After determining some of your competitors, researching what keywords they are ranking for can be very useful. Don’t be afraid of stealing keywords from competitors!

SpyFu

A final keyword research tool that shows trends in both paid and organic search is SpyFu. SpyFu is geared more toward competitor research for paid searches, but also provides some great information on organic keywords and organic competitors.

Use SpyFu to create a list of keywords that your competitors are targeting and steal them.

Open Site Explorer

Link building is such an important aspect of SEO these days, so finding the perfect tool to track your links is imperative. Open Site Explorer is the perfect tool to do just that! It will show you a list of inbound links along with the anchor text that is used and allows you to compare the link profiles of your site to 4 other sites at once.

You’ll be able to identify what links your competitors have obtained, the anchor text their targeting, and work on getting those same links for your site. Open Site Explorer also displays metrics on page authority, domain authority, linking root domains, total links, Facebook shares, Facebook likes, Tweets, and Google+1s.

Filezilla

Once you have used all of the optimization tools above, you’ll have to make updates to your website. FileZilla allows you to edit files remotely, drag and drop to transfer files, and includes a site manager to store your log-in information.

It does all of this with a user-friendly interface which displays both local and remote folders. Remember to make backups!

Raven

If using all of these tools separately seems daunting, Raven Tools integrates multiple resources into one easy-to-use interface. Resources that are incorporated in this one powerful tool include SEMRush, SEOmoz, Google AdWords tools, Open Site Explorer, Google Analytics, and more.

Raven also encompasses social media tools. It will feel like a breath of fresh air to have many of your tools in one central location.

Social

Fiverr

Fiverr is a handy site where everything costs just $5! Normally, $5 doesn’t get you very far, a coffee at Starbucks maybe.

So save your Starbucks money and ramp up your social media marketing using Fiverr. People will list social services such as “I will provide 100 tweets for $5” or “I will provide 50 Google+ votes for a blog post for $5.” With Google putting more emphasis on social signals every day, you will need these tweets and votes to help your site rank. And for only $5, you can’t beat that.

Blogs/Forums

SEOmoz

SEOmoz will keep you up to date with the industry because the staff at SEOmoz frequently makes updates to their blog with helpful tips and advice for search engine optimization.

SEOmoz also provides many tools to assist with optimization such as keyword analysis, link analysis, on-page analysis, rank tracking, crawl tests, and more! SEOmoz is a popular resource among the internet marketing community.  Again, thanks to Rand for always keeping us true to the times!

Digital Point

Digital Point is a forum where you can get help with any internet marketing questions you might have. Just post your question and your internet marketing community will assist you with any issues you might be experiencing.

Warrior Forum

A second notable forum is the Warrior Forum.

Along with getting answers to your marketing questions, you can interact with other members of the internet marketing community and stay involved and up-to-date!