Question: Which SEO tools have been most helpful to your business?
SEOMoz for Everything
“SEOMoz‘s suite of products has essentially provided us the value of our own personal SEO consultant. We use their tools track keyword rankings, rate on-page optimization, and track links to our site. They also regularly post great tips on their blog and have a Q and A section. By using their tools, we’ve increased our monthly search traffic 10x in the last year.”
– Bhavin Parikh | CEO, Magoosh Test Prep
Raving About Raven Tools
“I love Raven Tools. It is one of the key reasons why my company’s website ranks either first or second for most keywords related to our niche. Their research analysis and link-building tools allow me to find untapped niches and capitalize on them through effective organization for outreach.”
– Lawrence Watkins | Founder & CEO, Great Black Speakers
Install SEO for Chrome
“SEO for Chrome is the go-to tool that I use. It allows me to easily see Page Rank, backlinks, estimated traffic, and even conduct keyword research for a website, all through my Chrome browser. It’s very important to get backlinks for SEO; I use this Chrome app to determine where I will invest my time to develop links back to my site.”
– Jun Loayza | President, Ecommerce Rules
Scribe for Content
“Scribe is a great tool for SEO-ifying content. We run all of our blog posts through it to make sure that they’re not only educational, but will all be found in the search engines. Right now, we receive more than half of our traffic from relevant Google searches.”
– Laura Roeder | Founder, LKR Social Media
Can’t Go Wrong with Google
“SEO is all about content and links, but equally important are the keywords you choose to target. Don’t assume what your users are searching for. Instead, use Google’s free Keyword Tool to determine monthly search volume for keywords in your industry. Once armed with this data, create content and obtain links targeting these keywords and watch your SEO traffic soar.”
– Warren Jolly | Co-founder, Affiliate Marketing
Two Birds with One Stone
“YouTube has helped me rank high on certain Google keywords. Not only is it the second highest search engine ever, but it also helps my audience see me and my photography in a more personal setting.”
– Angela Pan | Owner/Photographer, Angela B Pan Photography
Join the Fight with Market Samurai
“Ever since I started doing SEO years ago, Market Samurai has been the backbone of my keyword research and analysis process. It is much easier to use than Google’s Keyword Tool and less expensive than other products on the market.”
– Sean Ogle | Founder, Location 180, LLC
Open Up Open Site Explorer
“Information is key in improving your SEO efforts; if you don’t know where your inbound links are coming from and what keywords are providing the biggest boost to your search efforts, you can’t work to improve them. Open Site Explorer lets us check which inbound links are giving us the best SEO benefits, perform competitive research, and check backlinks and anchor text almost effortlessly.”
– Lauren Fairbanks | Partner, Stunt & Gimmick’s
Go Real-Time on Rank Checker
“I’ve been using Rank Checker, the simple browser plugin for over three years now and haven’t had a need for much else. It’s free and you can download and set it up in a few minutes. You can create multiple website profiles that you want to track keyword SERPs for. It’s super simple and it gives you the most up-to-date results each time you run it. You can also schedule it to run automatically.”
– Matthew Ackerson | Founder, Saber Blast
Wordtracker Cuts Out Extra Work
“When it comes to researching which keywords are the most searched for, and how much competition they have, Wordtracker is the way to go. You can find out how many clicks you’d likely get if you got to the front page of Google, and whether it’s worth targeting this keyword or not.”
– Nathalie Lussier | Creator, The Website Checkup Tool
Add Platinum SEO to WordPress
“Many of my sites run on WordPress so I use WordPress plugins on them. The best one of these plugins for SEO is definitely Platinum SEO.”
– Ben Lang | Founder, Mapped In Israel
Site Strength Indicator Delivers Results
“Site Strength Indicator from SearchEngineNews has been incredibly helpful, as it provides a very detailed breakdown of the most important SEO factors and how your site rates for them”
– Nicolas Gremion | CEO, Free-eBooks.net
Forget SEO and Hit the Books
“The best SEO tool I’ve ever encountered is The Purple Cow, a book by Seth Godin. This book makes the case that investing your resources into developing an amazing and viral product is better than any marketing or SEO campaigns. Instead of gaming SEO, focus on building a product that goes viral.”
– Eric Bahn | Founder, Beat The GMAT
The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.