Compiling a list of the top SEO tools of 2011 is a challenge. New and emerging SEO trends were seen at rapid rates—causing many popular tools and techniques to become obsolete. Couple this with the advent of Google+, the algorithm updates Google rolled out and the impact social media made, and this gave SEO tools—both free and paid—a run for their money.
Here are the top 5 SEO tools of 2011. And don’t forget to vote for your top SEO tool of the year on our poll below.
SEOmoz
SEOmoz is the best tool to let you research on your site and your competitor’s sites. It offers keyword competition analysis, website crawling and optimization recommendations to help boost your traffic. SEOmoz also has their own server farm where they crawl the web to check on various websites and provide you with up-to-date information. And, they offer a free 30-day trial. Check out more about SEOmoz and how it can boost your business.
Google Webmaster Tools
If you want to understand impressions and conversions on your site, there really is no better tool than this. Google Webmaster Tools deciphers search queries that bring traffic to your site and the amount of external links to your site. +1 Metrics allows you to see how many people have actually +1’d your site and how your search impact is changing accordingly. And the biggest perk? It’s free.
SEOquake
With more than 2,000,000 downloads, SEOquake was one of the most used SEO tools in 2011. SEOquake is embedded in your browser and provides information about different SEO parameters in your results pages. PageRank, AlexaRank, number of indexed pages and more are displayed below each URL, and you can determine keyword density on any page you want. And just like Google Webmaster Tools, it’s free.
WordTracker
Arguably better than Google Adwords (although it’s not free) is WordTracker. It generates thousands of related keywords and get information about them—including daily searches, competition and Adwords value. What makes WordTracker stand out above other search competitors is the ability to find related keywords by scanning and analyzing your top 100 competitors in Google.
SEnuke
SEnuke is probably the most comprehensive link building tool available. It posts blog comments, creates forum profiles, submits articles to directories, submits press releases and then makes sure that everything gets indexed by pinging. The beauty of SEnuke is that it works automatically—you just need to create the marketing campaign and all the other work is scheduled and done. It even solves capcha codes.