SEO tools are used by virtually everyone who promotes a web site. They can save a good deal of time and make one’s efforts much more effective. However, there are limits as to what they can do, and they should never be regarded a way to totally automate the SEO (search engine optimization) process.
The different kinds of SEO tools
Anyone investing in or using SEO tools should remember that they are best used simply as tools to aid in SEO and not a way to avoid the work that good SEO requires. Those looking to promote a site can either choose what is called white hat or black hat SEO techniques. With white hat techniques, methods that are considered legitimate in the eyes of the search engines (they add value to the internet) are used, while more shady methods are used in black hat SEO.
Those using black hat methods can use SEO tools to automate much of the process. However, these techniques, while easier initially, can lead to a site being permanently dropped from the search engine results if discovered. On the other hand, while white hat methods cannot be totally automated, they are far safer over time. Therefore, SEO tools should simply be looked at as assistants to help one in building better web sites and promoting them. Any tool that promises thousands of links quickly and easily is most certainly black hat or giving links that are mostly useless. Good, long-term SEO requires work that cannot be totally automated.
Good SEO tools
SEO tools that are worth investing in do not promise the world. What they do is take out some of the guesswork and automate the tedious parts of SEO work that can be done by machine. They will aid webmasters by making their time more productive and giving them the information they need. 
Keyword research
Good SEO stars with finding the right keywords before even starting on a site. To find these keywords, some type of software needs to be used. Anyone with a Google account can use their free keyword tool that works fairly well for most purposes. For more advanced users, the leading keyword research tool is Market Samurai. It will give far more in-depth analysis of keywords to find the ones that will be easiest to rank in. Furthermore, it offers other tools for finding the right niches as well as tracking a site’s progress. It also offers assistance in analyzing the competition so that one can reverse engineer top websites for higher rankings.
There are a number of other tools to aid in examining the competition and finding niches such as those at http://www.seocompany.ca/tool/seo-tools.html. It offers free tools that do such things as track rankings and show various data about different sites right in the search results.
On-page SEO
When building a website, it is also a good idea to use tools to check on-page SEO. Parts of the page such as the titles, descriptions, links, keyword density, errors and anything else that can affect rankings should be checked to flush out any errors . Fortunately, a web search can find a number of free online tools that will do this. One of these is http://www.seoworkers.com/tools/analyzer.html. It will analyze a page for SEO value on various points to include keyword density, the length of the description tag and various other factors that can affect a page’s ranking. Furthermore, it will suggest ways to improve the page for better ranking.
Google’s Webmaster Tools offers great ways to find errors on sites and gives other useful traffic information that can help a webmaster get better rankings.
For those using WordPress, ClickBump offers some great themes and tools for maximum SEO. As every post and page is being built, suggestions will automatically be offered on various aspects of on-page SEO to improve rankings. One of the most useful features is the LSI tool. LSI relates to finding words and phrases related to a keyword phrase that pages which rank high in the search engines share. The ClickBump plug-in for WordPress will automatically find these words.
There are other tools to find LSI keywords out there. It is a good idea to include LSI tools to make the kind of properly themed content that search engines rank the highest.
Off-page SEO tools
With off-page SEO, things are a lot more methods and tools to use. The major white hat methods of SEO (when not abused) include:
- Article marketing
- Blog commenting
- Social bookmarking
- Getting links from relevant websites
For article marketing, it is mostly just writing and submitting to directories manually. Tools like Article Marketing Robot can mass submit to many directories but keep in mind many of these links to not stick or are of minimal value.
For blog commenting, Google Alerts can be used to find good blogs. There are tools that automate the whole process with spam comments, but these are black hat.
While there are various tools for social bookmarking, Synnd is by far the most effective, although it requires a monthly subscription.
One of the single greatest resources for SEO tools is SEOBOOK. They offer a large resource of fee and paid tools as well as other SEO resources.
Getting links from relevant websites, while delivering some of the best links, leaves little room for automation. However, tools like Market Samurai can be used to find good sites to approach for linking.
The list of SEO tools continues to grow, but they often offer the same basic services. Look for those that will aid in the process of building quality links and the kind of content that visitors and search engines like best.
