50 Websites Every SEO Should Know

My freelance website, PPC For Hire, recently received some love on Search Engine Journal for the Free SEO tools available on the site (you can read the full article here: 5 Free Search Engine Optimization Tools).

In honor of that mention, I have not only decided to blog about it, but pass along an even more comprehensive list that should be well known to anyone working in seo / web design for 2008.

I certainly hope you find them as useful as I do!

1. www.seomoz.org/blog - Great blog, great seo tools
2. www.searchengineland.com – Up-to-date search news
3. www.sphinn.com – social bookmarking for internet marketing
4. www.mixx.com – a friendly alternative to Digg
5. www.stumbleupon.com – One of the best social bookmarking sites
6. http://forums.digitalpoint.com - Webmasters forum
7. www.sitepoint.com – Another great webmasters forum
8. www.technorati.com - Promote your blog
9. www.mybloglog.com – A must have for blog communities
10. www.twitter.com – A great way to communicate with your audience
11. www.linkdiagnosis.com - A great link analysis tool
12. www.google.com/trends - See how trends in Google look
13. http://answers.yahoo.com - Great for providing traffic
14. www.sitemaps.org/protocol.php - Learn about sitemaps
15. www.ventio.se/seo-tools/google-position - Still in beta but good SE tool
16. www.wordtracker.com - Great keyword performance tool
17. www.seologic.com/webmaster-tools - Another source of good seo tools
18. www.backlinkwatch.com – Backlink analysis breakdown
19. www.avivadirectory.com/strongest-directories - Quality directories
20. www.internetmarketingninjas.com – Expert seo advise
21. www.wikia.com/wiki/Wikia - A wiki alternative
22. www.miniajax.com – Some great free Ajax scripts
23. www.sxc.hu/index.phtml - Free royalty free images
24. www.cssbeauty.com – CSS community
25. www.seounique.com/blog - Gotta give credit to the idea for the blog post!
26. www.siteyogi.com - Pulls data for both social media data and SEO.
27. www.webanalyticsdemystified.com - Simple analytics vendor discovery tool.
28. www.seoconsultants.com/tools/headers.asp - Checks server headers
29. www.soloseo.com - Need links? Try this link search tool
30. www.seodigger.com - Keyword research tool
31. www.bad-neighborhood.com - Bad neighborhood link checker
32. home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html - Check broken links
33. www.mapelli.info/tools/supplemental-index-ratio-calculator - Check your supplemental pages
34. www.touchgraph.com - Explore the connections between related websites
35. www.se-tools.com - Nice collection of tools
36. www.toolurl.com - Domain name search tool
37. www.google.com/analytics - Free analytics tool
38. siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com - Yahoo Site Explorer
39. www.keyworddiscovery.com - Keyword research tool
40. www.posttoaster.com - Social bookmarking service
41. www.socialposter.com - Social community bookmarking submitter (currently 71 social networks)
42. www.xml-sitemaps.com - XML sitemap generator
43. www.google.com/webmaster/tools - Google webmaster tools
44. adwords.google.com/select/TrafficEstimatorSandbox - Estimate traffic during keyword research
45. www.ready.mobi - Verify your site is mobile compatible
46. www.seobench.com - Analyze keyword density
47. www.wordtracker.com - Keyword research tool
48. www.seomoz.org/page-strength - Determine strength of your webpage
49. www.ppcforhire.com/semtools.html - Collection of free internet marketing tools
50. searchmarketingblogonline.blogspot.com - Had to put my own site, right?

THE Best SEO Link Analyzer Tool

Update: So it's been almost two years since I wrote this post and with the Bing Yahoo merger approved there is rumor of Yahoo's Site Explorer being done away with. There have definitely been a number of link analysis tools that I've used since 2008 and I have finally found one that I can say is the best I have used in all the years I've been SEOing. Check out Market Samurai (they have a free trial) and while, I don't usually recommend paid programs (there are far too many great free tools) I think this tool is worth every penny! From keyword research, to keyword ranking to competitive analysis to link building this tool covers it all.

Every SEO knows that links are the secret sauce that promotes a decent website into a SERP dominator. Now, I don't often say "this is the best" simply because there are countless link developing/analysis tools out there but .... honestly, this is quite possibly THE best link analyzer tool I have ever seen.

The Link Diagnosis tool uses Yahoo Site Explorer data and is currently in BETA testing. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a paid version in the near future.

Considering it is still in BETA there are still a few bugs being worked out. For instance, to take advantage of all the tools features, a firefox plugin needs to be downloaded. Occasionally, when I run a report it asks me to download the Firefox extension to get the full report even though I have already downloaded and installed it.

According to the programmer, there is a limit of 5000 calls to yahoo per day per user(IP)- that should roughly be around 50 reports per user per day with the current setup. In all likelihood, that is the source of the bug.

Despite that one small problem, this is a seriously must-have tool in any SEOs toolbox!