Essential Tools That Everyone In the SEO Industry Should Be Using

How To Spot A Great SEO Toolkit In The Wild

SEO covers a large span of techniques and methods, so it can be difficult to trawl through and find the one that’s best suited to your needs. There are six main features that you should be aware of, to help you narrow it down, and the toolkits below can provide the resources that you need.

Keyword Research

Keywords are focal to your SEO efforts, and you need to know what words your target market are using. Armed with these keywords, you can make yourself more visible and accessible online to the search engines, without wasting time and money on keywords and phrases which aren’t generating traffic. All quality SEO services and tools should recognise this, and provide keyword generators and ranking tools, to help you zero in on the online browser who is exploring your niche.

Our Favourites:
Moz, Raven Tools, Web CEO Online and SEMrush.

Competitive Analysis

Competition is great for innovation, so find an SEO tool which will help you to study your competition to develop your own strategies. Tools which feature this can compare your keywords, traffic, links, and search engine rankings, to other businesses in your niche market. This will help you to produce an extremely successful campaign, with guidance taken from your competitors successes and failures.

Our Favourites:
Moz, Raven Tools, Web CEO Online.

Link Building

When other websites link back to yours, it is a demonstration of your authority in that market. For example, a local news website might link back to a larger news source like Huffington Post, which shows Huffington Post as being reputable among news sources. If you can find an SEO toolkit which will provide high-quality backlinks, with link analysis and tracking, this will generate traffic to your website and improve your stance with Google as a trusted web page. Link building has suffered a dodgy reputation in the past, but it is still an effective strategy- to be safe, we’ve included our favourite link removing tools, for those who may have received penalties from Google’s latest algorithm shift.

Our Favourites:
Moz, Raven Tools, SEMrush, UpCity and Cognitive SEO.

Tracking and Reporting

Understanding your resulting data is just as important as your initial strategy, as it will affect how you structure your future efforts. The best SEO tools will offer reporting on link performance, your conversion rate, and the efficacy of your keyword. These reports can provide thorough and precise data for you to use when you’re making important adjustments to your sites content to optimise it further, such as pinpointing poorly functioning areas, or deviations which could be risking you a penalty.

Our Favourites:
Cognitive SEO, Advances Web Ranking and Moz.

Help and Support

SEO tools can be difficult to master, and the topic itself is always changing, so a valuable SEO tool will include an attentive and knowledgeable customer service team, and resources for you to refer back to. SEO toolkits with active community forums, blogs, and accessible customer support are hugely helpful, and can help you to find your way through.

Want to learn more about the toolkits?

Moz

Moz features a few times on the list, and have held their own in the SEO world with their range of SEO and research tools. Trusted by many SEO consultants and online marketing specialists, Moz has proven itself as invaluable to any SEO team.

The company began their operations in 2004 and has grown to be one of the most used SEO applications on the internet. In January 2016 the company secured a $10 million investment in Series C funding from the Foundry Group. This means that we can expect major additions to be made for the Moz Pro and Moz Local in the near future.

Raven Tools

Raven Tools cuts down the reporting process, whether you’re managing a couple of your own projects, or a dozen, and keeps it all in one place to be accessed easily.

Web CEO Online

Web CEO Online's platform is perfect for the self-made SEO strategist, right up to large digital marketing agencies, and is a trusted SEO tool for many. The software is user-friendly and comprehensive, with great keyword ranking and analysis tools.

SEMrush

SEMRush is Perfect for keeping an eye on the competition, and advanced keyword research, SEMrush gives you a fantastic scope of your sites performance, and how it stacks up to other businesses in your market.

Advanced Web Ranking

Advanced Web Ranking is perfect for smaller agencies, and has features to help you access all your SEO tools and strategies. AWR readily designs custom reports for your rankings, as well as offering great customer service and regular updates.

UpCity

If you’re looking for your first springboard into SEO, then you need to check out UpCity. They break it down into comprehensive checklists, so you don’t miss any steps, and can make the process simpler and more cohesive.

Cognitive SEO

CognitiveSEO, while still not quite rivalling Raven Tools, still offers a great user experience and effective data presentation, with ease of access.

Market Samurai

Market Samurai is fantastic for keyword research, and for building a link profile. While this tool is more thorough, if you can get to the core of it you’ll be able to optimise your site into a dynamic presence.

SECockpit

Widely renowned for having the fairest traffic estimate tool, and great resources for keyword and optimisation, SECockpit is completely cloud-based, and doesn’t require installations.