All of them solve problems - and that's why tools should exist in the
first place. Below, you'll find 20+ tools that answer serious issues in
smart, powerful ways.
#1 - Generating XML Sitemap Files
The Problem: XML Sitemap files can be challenging to build, particularly as
sites scale over a few hundred or few thousand URLs. SEOs need tools to
build these, as they can substantively add to a site's indexation and
potential to earn search traffic.
Tools to Solve It: GSiteCrawler, Google Sitemap Generator
GSiteCrawler: Downloadable software to create XML Sitemaps
Download a few files from Google Code and Install on Your Webserver
Looks like Google Webmaster Tools, doesn't it? :-)
Both GSiteCrawler & Google Sitemap Generator require a bit of technical
know-how, but even non-programmers (like me) can stumble their way through
and build efficient and effective XML Sitemaps.
#2 - Tracking the Virality of Blog/Feed Content
The Problem: Even experienced bloggers have trouble predicting which posts
will "go wide" and which will fall flat. To improve your track record, you
need historical data to help show you where and how your posts are
performing in the wild world of social media. What's needed is a cloud based
tracking tool that can synch up with the Twitters, Facebooks, Diggs, Reddits,
Stumbleupons & Delicious' of the web to provide these metrics in an
easy-to-use, historical view.
Tools to Solve It: PostRank Analytics
PostRank's nightly emails keep me wracking my brains for better blog post
ideas
PostRank sends me nightly reports on how the SEOmoz blog performs across the
web - numbers from Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Facebook and more.
By using this, I can get a rough sense of how posts perform in the social
media marketplace and, over time, hopefully train me to author more
interesting content.
#3 - Comparing the Relative Traffic Levels of Multiple Sites
The Problem: We all want to know not only how we're doing with web traffic,
but how it compares to the competition. Free services like Compete.com and
Alexa have well-documented accuracy problems and paid services like Hitwise,
Comscore & Nielsen cost an arm and a leg (and even then, don't perform
particularly well with sites in the sub-million visits/month range).
Tools to Solve It: Quantcast, Google Trends for Websites
If a site has been "Quantified," no other competitive traffic tool on the
web will be as accurate
Since both sites are "Quantified," I can be sure the data quality is
excellent
I've complained previously about the inaccuracies of Alexa (as have many
others). It's really for entertainment purposes only. Compete.com is better,
but still suffers from lots of inaccuracy, data gaps, directionally wrong
estimates and a general feeling of unreliability in the marketplace.
Quantcast, on the other hand, is excellent for comparing sites that have
entered their "Quantified" program. This involves putting Quantcast's
tracking code onto each page of the site; you're basically peeking into
their analytics.
Sadly, Quantcast isn't on every site (and their guesstimates appear no
better than Compete when they don't have direct data). Fortunately, one
organization has stepped up with a surprisingly good alternative - Google.
Google Trends for Websites allows you to plug in domains and see traffic
levels. Much like AdWords Keyword Tool, the numbers themselves seem to run
high, but the comparison often looks much better. Google Trends has become
the only traffic estimator I trust - still only as far as I could throw a
Google Mini, but better than nothing.
#4 - Seeing Pages the Way Search Engine Do
The Problem: Every engineering & development team builds web pages in unique
ways. This is great for making the Internet an innovative place, but it can
make for nightmares when optimizing for search engines. As professional SEOs,
we need to be able to see pages, whether in development environments or live
on the web the same way the engines do.
Tools to Solve It: SEO-Browser, Google Cached Snapshot, New Mozbar
_
A longtime favorite site of mine, SEO Browser lets you surf like an engine
_
Poor Google; that's all they see when they crawl our pretty site
SEO-Browser is a great way to get a quick sense of what the engines can see
as they crawl your site's pages and links. The world of engines may seem a
bit drab, but it can also save your hide in the event that you've put out
code or pages that engines can't properly parse.
_
I wonder if Googlebot ever gets tired of blue, purple and gray...
Google's own cached snapshot of a page (available via a search query, as a
bookmarklet, or in the mozbar's dropdown) is the ultimate research tool to
know what the engine "sees." The only trouble is that it works in the past
only (and only on pages that allow caching). To get a preview, SEO Browser
or our friend below can be useful.
The mozbar lets you dress up like Google whenever the occassion is right
One of Will Critchlow's feature requests in the new mozbar was the ability
to switch user agents, turn off javascript and images and, in essence,
become the bot in your browser. Luckily, he also forced us to place a gray
overlay in the right-hand corner that alerts you to the settings you've
changed and gives you an easy, one-click "return to normal." Browsing like a
bot = solved!
#5 - Identifying Crawl Errors
The Problem: Discovering problems on a site like 302 redirects (that should
be 301s), pages that are blocked by robots.txt (here's why that's a bad
idea), missing title tags, duplicate/similar content, 40x and 50x errors,
etc. is a task no human can efficiently perform. We need the help of robots
- automated crawlers who can dig through a site, find the issues and notify
us.
Tools to Solve It: GSiteCrawler, Xenu, GGWMT
Mmmm... Parallel Threads
She canna hold on much longer cap'n!
We've already covered GSiteCrawler in this post, but for those unaware, it
can be a great diagnostic tool as well as a Sitemap builder. Xenu is much
the same, though somewhat more intuitive for this purpose. Tom's written
very elegantly about it in the past, so I won't rehash much, other than to
say - it shows errors & potential issues Google Webmaster Tools doesn't, and
that can be a lifesaver.
Doh! I think we messed up some stuff when KW Difficulty relaunched :(
Google Webmaster Tools is extremely popular, well known and well used. And
yet... lots of us still have crawl errors we haven't addressed (just look at
the 500+ problems on SEOmoz.org in the screenshot above). Exporting to
Excel, sorting, and sending to engineering with fixes for each type of issue
can save a lot of heartache and earn back a lot of lost traffic and link
juice.
#6 - Determine if Links to Your Site Have Been Lost
The Problem: Sites don't always do a great job maintaining their pages and
links (according to our data, 75% of the web disappears in 6 months). Many
times, these vanishing pages and links are of great interest to SEOs, who
want to know whether their link acquisition and campaigning efforts are
being maintained. But how do you confirm if the links to your site that were
built last month are still around today?
Tools to Solve It: Virante's Link Atrophy Diagnosis
Does that mean Stuntdubl & SEOmoz are "going steady?"
This tool comes courtesy of the great team over at Virante, and it's a
pretty terrific application of an SEO need and Linkscape data through the
SEOmoz API. The tool will check the links reported from Linkscape/Open Site
Explorer and determine which, if any, have been lost. Many times it's just
links off the front page of blogs or news sites as archives fall to the
back, but sometimes it can help you ID a link partner or source that's no
longer pointing your way in order to facilitate a quick, painless
reclamation. The best part is there's no registration or installation
required - it's entirely plug and play.
#7 - Find 404 Errors on a Site (without GG WM Tools) and Create 301s
The Problem: Google's Webmaster Tools are great for spotting 404s, but the
data can be, at times, unwieldly (as when thousands of pages are 404ing, but
only a few of them really matter) and it's only available if you can get
access to the Webmaster Tools account (which can stymie plenty of SEOs in
the marketing department or from external consultancies). We need a tool to
help spot those important, highly linked-to 404s and turn them into 301s.