Forms of Shadows

SEO ‘Tools of the Trade’.

Before you start optimizing your site for search engines, there are some tools that you should arm yourself with. These tools can become your best friends when it comes to SEO, especially when you’re just starting out. The first and most important step in any search engine position campaign is recognizing which keywords you should optimize your site for, and there are several pieces of software that are useful for this, including Wordtracker, Optilink, Zeus, Agent Web Ranking, and Digital Point tools plus some great newcomers that I found by asking around.

WordTracker's keyword research service is the only one on the Internet that provides a comprehensive database of the most popular keywords in a particular industry. It can help you recognize associated keywords that you may have never thought of. One of the differences between WordTracker and other tools is that it can spot subtle differences, for example singular and plural keywords, or often-misspelled ones, and tell you which versions are more popular.

Optilink has become very popular in a short period of time because of the power it gives you over search engines. Every site that links to you boosts your ranking, especially if its content is relevant to yours. Optilink helps you to come up with strategies to improve your link structure and get a better ranking. Here are some of the things it does:

1. Analyzes the link structures of your top-ranking competitors.
2. Tells you why your competitors rank well, so you can try to copy what they’re doing.
3. Tells you what kind of rankings you can expect if you adopt similar linking strategies.
4. Helps to monitor sites you’ve exchanged links with, to ensure that they’re still linking to you.

Zeus has an excellent way of increasing the link popularity of your site -- by exchanging with other sites that are related to yours, giving you a head start on your SEO. Zeus does the work for you, identifying sites that it thinks you should try to exchange links with. If you look for the sites yourself you’ll often find it’s not worth the time, but an SEO tool like Zeus lets you do it instantly. Once you’ve got links, you can manage and maintain them automatically.

Agent Web Ranking helps you to check your sites rankings – this is good to see how your SEO efforts are working. Many people just optimize and submit, thinking the work is done, but they’re wrong. You need to continuously check your site's rankings, and Agent Web Ranking is a reliable and quick tool for doing this.

The only real problem you might have with any of this software is that search engines can change the way they display their results, breaking the tools until their authors update them. This means that most position reporting software gets outdated very quickly. It’s not that much of an issue, though, as most software is provided on a subscription basis with updates included, rather than bought only once.


If you really want to stay ahead in the SEO industry, you should try as many different tools as you can.

Digital Point tools are some of the best tools for SEO and many other needs a new Webmaster will need to rank well and get traffic. This is a list will is available on the Digital Point site and I suggest reading the threads within the Digital Point forum to get some hints from other webmasters and network. Keeping abreast of what is happening in the online community can often tip you off the big changes that are coming and will effect your website.
Google AdSense ChartsGenerate all sorts of nifty charts with your AdSense CSV data export (requires a Google AdSense account of course).
Google AdSense SandboxThis tool will show you what Google AdSense ads will be displayed for any webpage on the Internet.
Back Link Tracking ToolTrack backlink fluctuations to your web pages historically.
Coop Ad NetworkFree network of site owners to share advertising space.
DNS Zone TransferHandy little utility to quickly pull your DNS zone files from your name servers.
FileMaker Pro Web DiggerThis utility allows you to dig into your web-based FileMaker Pro databases to check their security.
FileMaker Database Server ProbeThis utility allows you to check your FileMaker database server to see what platform it's running as well as what database files are being served.
Keyword Ranking MonitorTrack historical search engine result placement data for any keyword/URL combo you choose.
Keyword Suggestion ToolQuickly see which phrases are searched upon the most (for determining the best phrases to target for your website).
PageRank Toolbar For MacA widget to show PageRank for the site you are on.
Add Search Functionality To Your WebsiteAn easy way that you can add search functionality to any website.
Free Web CounterFree tool that gives any website a free hit counter for their site.
Website To CountryFind the physical country that any website is in.
Geo VisitorsShow the physical location of the visitors to your website/blog.
Yahoo! Web Rank ToolThis tool will show you what any website's Yahoo! Web Rank is (without needing the Yahoo toolbar).
Above this list I mentioned networking within the Digital Point forum and I asked about tools within a thread. These are some of the tools that where brought to my attention:
Shoe money calls this a “lightweight serps tool”
www.shoemoney.com/serps.php I call it a great tool that has no disturbing ads and is very useful!
Awall19 added this site; it has many tools to choose from
http://tools.seobook.com/
Kenni added these tools
http://www.iwebtool.com/search_engine_optimization
Just a little networking can go along way! Thanks for the tools everyone...and I hope this help you the reader!
By paying attention to what tools others are using and learning how they work, you will have the edge in the SEO market. So get out there, and download these SEO tools of the trade and get out there!