The document discusses 18 free SEO tools for keyword research, onsite optimization, and link building. Some of the top tools mentioned include Google AdWords and Analytics for keyword and site analytics, SEOBook for comprehensive keyword data, SEMRush for competitive analysis, Majestic and Open Site Explorer for backlink analysis, and MozBar for link prospecting. Many other tools provide paid features with trial versions for more extensive metrics and functionality.

1. Top 35 Free SEO Tools for 2013
Keyword Research
tool #1 – Google AdWords
Even though Google AdWords is meant to be a resource for pay-per-click ads, you can still
search for words that can be used to help your site rank organically. Simply type in a keyword or
a URL of your own website or a competitor‟s site, and Google will give you 100 related
keywords and phrases to choose from. You can export all of these words into a CSV file. Or if
the results include too many keywords or phrases that are not related to your query, choose the
ones you do like, and select the “more like this” option to get additional words to choose from.
tool #2 – WordTrackers (Keyword tool)
Unlike Google AdWords, this search tool gives you only ten results for free. While Wordtracker
is an excellent resource for long tail keywords, you have to pay to take full advantage of the
service. Here is an example of the results Wordtracker provided for the phrase “business
networking groups”:
You can sign up for a free seven day trial, which will give you 100 results for each query. After
that, the service costs $69 a month and delivers up to 2,000 keywords per search. You can also
measure the level of competition for any keyword in Wordtracker‟s database and check KEI or
the Keyword Effectiveness Index to hone in on words with high traffic and low competition.
tool #3 – KeywordDiscovery.com
As with Wordtracker, you‟ll have to sign up for a free trial account to use Keyword Discovery‟s
service. The free version allows you to do 50 searches per day, but you only get 10 results each
time. Those results include trends, but you can‟t check domains. When you click on “analyze,”
Keyword Discovery gives you the percentage of searches that generated a click on one of the
search results. if you subscribe for their basic plan at $69.95 a month, you get full access to all
the keyword databases. You can do 1,500 searches per day. Up to 1,000 results will be displayed,
including three domain research results.
tool #4 – SEOBook.com
Unlike Wordtracker & KeywordDiscovery, SEOBook.com provides a free account that lasts
indefinitely. (I‟ve been using it for over 2 years.) Their keyword results are powered by
Wordtracker.com but this tool also delivers results from Google, Yahoo, Bing, Google Trends,
Quintura, Compete, Keyword Discovery & Wordstream.

2. Of course, as with the other tools above, you get much more functionality if you sign up for
SEOBook‟s paid membership. This service is the most expensive by far at $300/month. But it
includes over 100 training modules covering keyword research, pay per click marketing, site
optimization; member only training videos; and much more. There‟s no contract, and you can
cancel at any time.
tool #5 – SEMRush.com
As a free keyword research tool, SEMRush is pretty robust. As a registered user, you will get
more opportunities than unregistered, but you are limited to 10 results per request, 10 queries per
day. The good news is that those results include ad volume, CPC (cost per click), competition of
advertisers for that term, number of search results for that query on Google, and the volume of
searches over the last 12 months.
You can also see a list of websites that delivered results for a particular search term. When you
click on one of those sites, you‟ll be able to see that site‟s related keywords – giving you some
new keyword possibilities to consider. Another useful feature, especially if you write pay-per-
click ads, is the ability to see which websites bought ads for the search term. You can even click
on the Ad icon to see the copy with the search term in it: In the interest of full disclosure,
SEMRush allowed me to use their professional account for free for the last few weeks so that I
could do a full test-drive of their capabilities. As someone who has been getting along with ten
results at a time from Wordtracker or Keyword Discovery, and 100 more keywords from Google,
I have to tell you that SEMRush has spoiled me.
OnSite Optimization & Analysis
tool #6 – Google Analytics
if you carry out any SEO activities at all, you simply must have a web analytics program in order
to measure the impact of your campaigns. Google Analytics is by far the most commonly used
option, and it‟s easy to see why. The program is free to use and provides a wealth of data,
including advanced event and goal tracking features that allow you to conclusively measure the
ROI of your SEO campaigns.
tool #7 - SEOTools for Excel *Super Cool, Useful, Free SEO tool
Although Microsoft‟s Excel program may seem outdated, it can be turned into a productivity
powerhouse with the addition of the free SEOTools for Excel add-inSeoTools is an Excel add-in
that adds a bunch of useful functions for working with SEO and other web metrics directly in
Excel. See all functions included in SeoTools. Go to the Download page!

3. tool #8 – SEOQuake
SEOQuake is one of many different SEO extensions (available for both the Firefox and Chrome
browsers) that return information about individual web pages, as well as about the listings within
individual SERPs. Use this tool to check things like web page PageRank, Alexa traffic rank, site
age, number of backlinks, and more crucial pieces of information to uncover when conducting
competitive research.
Try SEOQuake toolbar for Mozilla FireFox – Try beta SEOQuake for Opera
Try SEOQuake toolbar for Google Chrome – Try beta SEOQuake for Safari
tool #9 – WooRank
WooRank is the most popular Website Review and SEO Tool. Run a free Review. Then create a
Project to track and optimize your website. With this free Website review you get: Unlimited
Instant Website Reviews, 129 Personalized Practical Tasks, SERP, Backlinks & KPI
Monitoring.
Create an account and Start your Website Review >
tool #10 - Microsoft’s SEO Toolkit
Microsoft‟s SEO Toolkit is Bing‟s answer to all of the free Google SEO tools. Although this
tool offers several benefits, it really excels in measuring how fast your website is. Speed is
important, and this easily downloaded tool provides an excellent resource for making sure that
your site is performing the way it should. This tool also analyzes websites based on Bing‟s
search engine algorithm, useful when you want your onsite SEO to go beyond just what Google
is looking for.
tool #11 – SEO Doctor
If you need a quick overview of your site‟s overall SEO set-up, SEO Doctor might be just what
you‟re looking for. It‟s a Firefox extension that analyzes a website and shows you exactly where
improvements need to be made, based on current algorithm requirements.
Link Building
Tool #12 – Majestic SEO

4. Majestic SEO is a website browser that allows you to see which sites are linking to your
competitors‟ pages, allowing you to both determine how difficult it will be to beat them in the
SERPs and identify new opportunities to build links back to your own site. The program offers a
free report for any site you control (which can be especially useful in ensuring link sources are
still linking back to your website), though to access the full spectrum of data this site provides,
you‟ll need to upgrade to the paid version.
Tool #13 – Open Site Explorer
The SEOMoz Open Site Explorer offers similar features as MajesticSEO, although you‟re able to
access slightly more information with this program‟s free version. Enter your competitors‟
websites into the tool and pay special attention to their Inbound Links, Linking Domains and
Anchor Text – all of which may help inform your own link building strategy. For even more
access, including data on social shares across Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, consider
upgrading to the paid version of the tool.
Tool #14 – Raven Tools
Raven Tools‟ SEO Tools feature isn‟t cheap (plans start at $99/month), but the data this program
gives you access to is well worth the expense. Specifically, take a look at the company‟s Link
Manager program, which allows you to research potential link partners, automatically grab
webmaster contact information and send standard link request messages – all from within the
same, easy-to-navigate window.
Tool #15 – Ahrefs
Chuck Price, writing for Search Engine Journal, calls Ahrefs, “the best link building tool you‟ve
never heard of” – and a quick glance at the programs features and functionality demonstrates
why. The program‟s Backlink Analysis features provides an unprecedented amount of
information about a site‟s inbound links, including each link‟s ALR rating (a measure of the
estimated number of visitors following each link per month). This tool allows you to quickly
prioritize link prospects and ensure the partners you‟re contacting will result in the biggest gains
for your site.
Tool #16 – Link Research Tools
Link Research Tool‟s Competitive Landscape Analyzer doesn‟t just identify potential sites you
could contact for links, it goes much, much further. For example, the tool‟s unique programming
allows it to determine whether you should focus more on SEO or branding links, how your
existing link profile compares to your competitors‟ and why you may have lost rank within the
SERPs. With plans starting at $199/month, this intuitive tool isn‟t cheap, but can make a big
difference for more advanced webmasters who are operating in competitive niches.
Tool #17 – MozBar

5. The SEOMoz MozBar program is a free Firefox and Chrome extension that automatically
displays loads of valuable link prospecting information within your browser window. For
example, the toolbar highlights “no-follow” versus “follow” links, internal and external links,
and the presence of specific keywords, allowing you to see – at a glance – which links and
keywords your competitors are targeting.
Tool #18 – Ontolo
Like Raven Tools and Link Research Tools, Ontolo offers a comprehensive suite of link research
tools for a monthly fee, starting at $97/month. However, this innovative program offers a few
unique features that set it apart from these competitors, including automated link prospecting and
enhanced competitor link profiling that take much of the tedious “guess work” out of link
building. It‟s a great option if you‟re strapped for time and would rather analyze a presorted list
of link prospects than generate your own.
Tool #19 – Tout
Tout isn‟t a link building program at all – instead, it‟s an email management solution that helps
you to extract contact information from websites, automatically create new email messages and
copy in template message texts, all with the click of a single button. If you struggle with the
process of contacting every potential link partner you turn up with your prospecting efforts,
you‟ll find programs like Tout to be immensely helpful.
Tool #20 – WhoLinkstoMe
WhoLinkstoMe is a reporting service that provides analytics reports detailing all of a given site‟s
existing backlinks. The service offers various subscription levels (at various price points, of
course), but overall, the program‟s reports can be extremely useful in terms of better
understanding your site‟s existing backlink profile and identifying potential weak areas that
should be corrected.
Tool #21 – Wordtracker’s Link Builder
Wordtracker‟s Link Builder Tool is a relatively new entry into the link prospecting program
market, but it‟s already receiving accolades due to Wordtracker‟s long-standing reputation for
providing quality products. Where the Tool excels is its ability to identify link prospects quickly
and sort them into relevant categories, allowing you to pursue only the links that make the most
sense for your business. And at $69/month, it‟s a cheaper solution for this specific activity than
the programs offered by Raven Tools, Link Research Tools and other higher-end tools.
Web Analytics & Metrics

6. Web analytics is the process of gathering and analyzing your web content‟s data in order to glean
meaningful information about how your site is being utilized by your users. There are plenty of
Web analytics applications out there, and you probably already know the big guns such as
Google Analytics, Crazy Egg, and remote-site services such as Alexa and Compete. We go off
the trodden path and explore a few lesser-known Web analytics options. In this article, you‟ll
find 10 excellent and free tools and applications to help you gather and analyze data about
your web content.
Tool #21 – Google Analytics (google.com/analytics) – Free
A completely free service that generates detailed statistics about visitors to your website, Google
Analytics is the simplest and most robust web analytics offering. Currently used by over 50% of
the top 10,000 websites in the world, according to the site‟s usage statistics, you can find out
where your visitors are coming from, what they‟re doing while on your site and how often they
come back, among many other things. As you get more involved in the site‟s analytics, you can
receive more detailed reports, but it‟s that ease of use that makes it one of the most popular
services.
Tool #22 - Piwik
Piwik is an open-source Web analytics application developed using PHP and MySQL. It has a
“plugins” system that allows for utmost extensibility and customization. Install only the plugins
you need or go overboard and install them all – the choice is up to you. The plugins system, as
you can imagine, also opens up possibilities for you to create your own custom extensions. This
thing‟s lightweight – the download‟s only 1.9MB. Go to Live Demonstration of Piwik.
Tool #23 – FireStats
FireStats is a simple and straight-forward Web analytics application written in PHP/MySQL. It
supports numerous platforms and set-ups including C# sites, Django sites, Drupal, Joomla!,
WordPress, and several others. Are you a resourceful developer who needs moar cowbell?
FireStats has an excellent API that will assist you in creating your own custom apps or
publishing platform components (imagine: displaying the top 10 most downloaded files in your
WordPress site) based on your FireStats data.
Go to Live Demonstration of FireStats.
Tool #24 - Snoop
Snoop is a desktop-based application that runs on the Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista
platforms. It sits nicely on your system status bar/system tray, notifying you with audible sounds
whenever something happens. Another outstanding Snoop feature is the Name Tags option
which allows you to “tag” visitors for easier identification. So when Joe over at the accounting
department visits your site, you‟ll instantly know.
Tool #25 – Yahoo! Web Analytics

7. Yahoo! Web analytics is Yahoo!‟s alternative to the dominant Google Analytics. It‟s an
enterprise-level, robust web-based third-party solution which makes accessing data easy
especially for multiple-user groups. It‟s got all the things you‟d expect from a comprehensive
Web analytics tool such as pretty graphs, custom-designed (and printable) reports, and real-time
data tracking.
Tool #26 - BBClone
If you‟re looking for a simple, server-side web application that doesn‟t rely on third-party
services to monitor your data, check out BBClone – a PHP-based server application that gives
you a detailed overview of website traffic and visitor data. It supports language localization for
32 languages like English, Chinese, German, and Japanese. It easily integrates with popular
publishing platforms like Drupal, WordPress, and Textpattern. Since it‟s logfile-based, it doesn‟t
require you to use a server-side relational database.
Go to Live Demonstration of BBClone.
Tool #27 - Woopra
Woopra is a Web analytics application written in Java. It‟s split into two parts which includes a
desktop application for data analysis/exploration and a web service to monitor website statistics.
Woopra has a robust user interface, an intuitive management system that allows you to run it on
multiple sites and domains, and even a chat feature so that you can gather non-numerical
information by talking to your site users. Woopra is currently in beta and requires you to request
for a private beta registration.
Tool #28 - JAWStats
JAWStats is a server-based Web analytics application that runs with the popular AWStats (in
fact, if you‟re on a shared hosting plan – AWStats is probably already installed). JAWStats does
two things to extend AWStats – it improves performance by reducing server resource usage and
improves the user interface a little bit. With that said, you can‟t go wrong with just using
AWStats either if you‟re happy with it.
Tool #29 - 4Q
A large part of Web analytics deals with number-crunching and numerical data. Raw numbers
tells only part of the story and it‟s often helpful to perform analytics by way of interacting with
actual users. 4Q developer Avinash Kaushik puts it perfectly when he said: “Web analytics is
good at the „What‟. It is not good at the „Why‟”.4Q is a simple surveying application focused on
improving your traditional numerical Web analytics by supplementing it with actual user
feedback. Check out this YouTube video on how easy it is to set up 4Q.
Tool #30 - MochiBot
MochiBot is a free Web analytics/tracking tool especially designed for Flash assets. With
MochiBot, you can see who‟s sharing your Flash content, how many times people view your

8. content, as well as helping you track where your Flash content is to prevent piracy and content
theft. Installing MochiBot is a breeze; you simply copy a few lines of ActionScript code in the
.FLA files you want to monitor.
Tool #31 - Grape Web Statistics
Go to Live Demonstration of Grape Web Statistics.
Social Media resources
Tool #32 – SocialOomph
As social media continues to play a larger than ever role in search rankings, building and
establishing your profiles on these sites should be considered a primary SEO priority. Since
carrying out social networking marketing campaigns can be time consuming, consider adding an
automation tool like SocialOomph, which allows you to schedule tweets for future updates, set
up “following” rules, and more.
Tool #33 – Tweriod
In order to improve the effectiveness of the messages you send to your social networking
followers, you need to know when they‟re most active, and, therefore, when they‟ll be most
receptive to your offers or conversations. For this purpose, check out Tweriod, which will
compile data on your Twitter followers‟ online activities and provide you with recommendations
on the best times, by the hour, to engage with your community on this social site.
Tool #34 – Twiends
If your social networking following isn‟t as robust as you‟d like, take a look at services like
Twiends, which will allow you to quickly connect with potential new community members based
on your shared interests.
Tool #35 – Triberr
Similarly, the Triberr website enables you to multiply the reach of your social marketing efforts
through the formation of teams that automatically promote each other‟s content to their own
followers. Look for existing networks within your industry and request an invitation, or simply
start your own “tribe” to effectively expand your social networking reach.