Top 10 Free SEO Tools for Webmasters

If you run a website or are undertaking SEO on it then here is my summary of the best free webmaster and SEO tools that I have used extensively that has saved me a lot of time and also improved my sites and own personal performance !

There are many free webmaster and SEO tools on the market but I have found that the majority don’t actually help me that much and the ones listed below could well charge £100 for each installation but they offer these for free. So let’s begin….

1: Xenu link sleuth- I have found this to be invaluable in searching for broken links resulting in 404/ not found pages from my own site and external sites I am linking to that either no longer exist or have moved their page structure around. This has been vital to not only my visitors’ on site experience but possibly for search engine optimisation because if my sites are linking to a ton of “not found” pages it could impact my rankings and would certainly upset my visitors if they couldn’t find what they were looking for.

Other uses for Xenu I have used it for is to check for duplicate titles on my pages (or very similar titles) so I can ensure I have unique content, to find  large images so I can optimise page load times, see how many internal links I have linking internally for each page and how many outbound links are on each page. Xenu is really easy to use and it the one tool I run almost on a daily basis to check my site. You can download Xenu link software for free here.

2: IE: tester – We have all done it – designed and developed a new website using our favourite browser and uploaded it for all to see and then notice our conversions have plummeted to low levels which we can not understand. What we forgot to do is to check it works in all versions of internet explorer as version 6 and 7 behave in slightly different ways when it comes to padding and some other CSS issues.

I tend to use IE7 as a default browser along side the latest version of Firefox and if it works in those two I am probably 70% of the way there. Then I fire up IEtester and run the site (from my laptop) on IE6 and 5 to check that nothing funny has happened. This is a great piece of software you can download for free here.

3: Instant Eyedropper – There’s been many a time I have seen a colour on a website that I want to use – especially link colours and up until I discovered this tool it was a complete guessing game. The instant eyedropper is a free download that sits in the toolbar tray at the bottom of your screen and then it’s a case of clicking and dragging the icon over anything on your screen and it will tell you the colour code. The download is here.

4: Wordpress – I have to add Wordpress here because it’s just the easiest way to get a site up and running – so long as you are careful. Wordpress can generate a lot of duplicate content and there are some SEO attributes it doesn’t generate such as meta descriptions but that is a small price to pay for its ease of use. I tend to download the software “as is” and edit the standard default theme to my own requirements. I take out any links to categories and tags to begin with and ensure my home page has additional text to introduce the site. I also change the permalinks to /%postname%/ – other than that I use the core software. You can also generate your own hosted blog at wordpress.com and they are less likely to burn your blog like blogger sometimes can.

5: Adwords keyword tool – in the old days most SEOs relied on the old Yahoo/ Overture keyword tool which was very accurate because it actually showed real search volume but since that went there was a gapping whole. The Google Adwords tool is almost there but the estimations can be widely off in some cases. I search through the tool with the “exact match” turned on to see what variations are there. If I really want to know real volumes I will run a test Adwords campaign just to check the data is close enough before building a website. See and use the tool here.

6: SEO Book Keyword Tool – this does the same job as the Adwords tool above but uses wordtracker results. It uses US data so is not so useful for UK searches but can provide more keywords to help target new articles or content on a site. Aaron Wall who developed the tool also links out to many other analytical content that may help you further to understand the market place you are in. Test is out free here.

7: FileZilla ftp software – I used to use smart ftp for many years to upload content onto new sites but one day it just wouldn’t load and stopped working. I searched the internet for other ftp software packages until I found Filezilla – like most ftp packages it’s very easy to use although does lack a few handy features that smart ftp had. Never the less I use it each and every day on my websites so why not give a try here.

8: Statcounter/ getclicky webstats – OK the big daddy is Google Analytics but I haven’t put it in this list as you never know what Google may do with the data they are collecting about your site. Sure, if you use Adsense on a site they know a lot already but if you don’t then it may be worth keeping it all to yourself. Both statcounter and getclicky offer free web stats with the latter offering a paid option if you have many sites or generate more page impressions than the free service allows. Millions of website owners use these so why not check them out here and here.

9: Alexa for competitor analysis – Alexa can be easy to manipulate but did you know that they now offer the top keywords that people search for to get to sites? I have used this to look at keywords for markets I am looking to market to as well as competitor websites – you can also get competitive intelligence from majestic SEO and compete.com

10: SEO for Firefox – this is always loaded when I am in Firefox and provides a ton of information about anything you are searching for. The best part is looking for links to specific pages or to a whole site with a single click into Yahoo (of course with the recent deal between Microsoft and Yahoo we don’t know how long this element will last so use it whilst you can!) – although this sits at number 10 it should probably be #1 – thanks again to Aaron @ SEO book – you can get SEO for Firefox free here.

Posted in Marketing | 3 Comments »

3 Comments - have your say

1. bbriniotis Says:

   There are more than 10 free seo tools and you are able to build customized reports about your sites by using your logotype.

2. admin Says:

   yes I agree there are hundreds if not thousands of free seo type tools out on the market. Some track stuff that you don’t need and others are duplicates of the most common. Use whatever works for you – the above were my picks

3. David Morson Says:

   Really nice and helpful tools all, but what about technocrati, I have heard its also very useful but I don’t know what is its use, Can you help me please?

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