Top 10 Must Have SEO Tools for Bloggers

This is a guest post by Alice McLean.

Before we start listing the top ten SEO tools any blogger must use, here are three reasons why you need them:

• Considering only the latest Panda update Google made, we can expect Search engine optimization to be even more challenging in the future.
• If you use the right SEO tools for your blog, it’s like you have 10, 30, or even more people working on your side.
• These tools will save you lots of time and effort when researching keywords and optimizing your website.

As a blogger, you need some intelligent software to help you conquer the daily SEO challenges you are faced with. Much of your success depends on how well you organize and streamline your digital workflow. So be clever about choosing the SEO tools that can make your job easier, more efficient and even enjoyable.

Here are the tools:

• AdWords Keyword Tool

  There’s no need to say that any successful post must begin with a keyword research. And since Google is the world’s most popular search engine, and most of your organic traffic will come from their searches, the best place to start the keyword research would be the Google Keyword Tool. It’s not that this is ‘the king’ among all keyword tools, but it is definitely an important SEO weapon that shouldn’t be underestimated.

• “The Google Trinity”

  Aside from the Keyword Tool there are other three Google services that are of major importance for SEO, and these include:

  • Google Analytics, for tracking and analyzing the traffic coming to your blog.
  • Webmaster Tools, to get all the latest techniques and advices when it comes to optimizing your blog for Google.
  • Google Trends, to get a head-up to what’s latest on the Web that might apply to your niche.

• Ubersuggest

  Many SEO experts suggest bloggers to also use the Ubersuggest tool, because it can inspire their creativity and help them think of new keyword combinations and phrases when creating their blog posts, that will really stand out in the search results. Because of this feature the software may be even more powerful than Google’s Keyword Tool within AdWords.

• Clicky Web Analytics

  Google Analytics is a great platform, but if you need a more flexible solution that will help you get your blog to the next level you should definitely check Clicky Web Analytics. Thanks to the powerful API, for roughly $60 per year, you’ll be able to set you own analytics and monitoring options and get a lot more information out of your daily traffic.

• WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast

  WordPress is the CMS most bloggers prefer. If you are one of them, the SEO plugin made for this platform by Yoast is the tool you most definitely should have, since it will help you handle every back-end SEO need to easier fine-tune your blog for peak performance.

• Xenu’s Link Sleuth

  You can’t allow broken links on your website if you aim to get higher in the search result pages. Xenu’s Link Sleuth is free software that can help you locate the broken links for images, Java applets, HTML files, CSS style sheets and ensure your blog is well optimized when this element is considered.

• Moz

  If you’ve been blogging for a while now, you won’t be surprised Moz (ex SEOmoz) is in this list. These guys have been here from the very beginning to share their knowledge and experience about SEO and how to best employ it. You’ll have to pay to use their PRO tool featuring Open Site Explorer, FollowerWonk and On-Page Analysis, but it’s going to worth till the last penny.

• SEO Book Toolbar

  The SEO Book Toolbar is another must have tool bloggers should use when trying to get those high rankings in the SERPs. The toolbar displays essential data on the ranking metrics like page rank, backlinks, unique pageviews, etc.

• SEO Book Rank Checker

  As a result of the interconnected digital world we live in we are constantly overloaded with all sorts of information and finding exactly what we want becomes more complicated. In such situations, the simple single-purpose tools like SEO Book Rank Checker have proven much more useful. This tool allows you to easily see how your blog ranks for specific keywords and phrases as well as export that data if necessary.

• Triberr

  SEO is becoming more and more about content with each passing day – content that is quality and interesting, that users enjoy reading, find useful and want to share with others in their network and social circles. Social media today is where all the real magic happens. To create their own interaction networks, and make their posts available to a wider audience of followers and fellow niche bloggers for a more natural distribution of their posts, bloggers are now using the Triberr SEO tool to help them grow their reach.

All these tools are no doubt useful, but they are just web applications to make your job easier. To hit the top of the search result pages you’ll have to mostly rely on your creativity in writing and delivering your content (there are writing tools that can help you also). Your success in blogging depends mostly on you, but having software you can trust working by your side never hurts.

About the author
Alice McLean is a writer at bestessays.com with background in history, sociology and internet marketing. Now she is writing her first book on internet marketing.