Repost from Protent.com (links not verified)
I’m just about to reach the 5 year mark working in the online marketing industry, and one thing that I’ve always found remarkable is how open and sharing people in this line of work tend to be. Whether it’s strategies, tactics, updates, techniques or tools – folks in this space do a lot of sharing, and often the depth and breadth is outstanding.
I find this to be true online and offline – I read a lot of industry blog posts and attend many workshops and conferences and people are typically quite passionate about what they do; and that passion frequently translates into contributions to the rest of us in the online marketing community.
Nowadays, as an SEO Strategist on Team Portent, the bulk of my day-to-day professional work involves a lot of, well, SEO-related diagnosis and recommendations. And just like you wouldn’t send a carpenter or a plumber out to do a job without a proper set of tools, we online marketers need tools that help us to be more productive than we would be otherwise. During my day-to-day work, I use a combination of Portent’s stellar internal toolset and a host of other tools as well.
Some time ago I started keeping a list of tools on an Excel spreadsheet because it’s just too hard to keep everything in my head (I named the file my “forget-me-not” list of tools). I read a lot of industry blogs every day and if someone mentions some tool and it seems like something I can use now or in the future, I log it on my spreadsheet for future investigation or use.
So now I have this giant list of tools that I want to share with you. But first, a shameless plug:
Cut the Talk – It’s Time to Rock
You probably already know about many or most of these tools, but I’d bet that you’ll find at least one cool tool here you’ve never used before – and that will make it worth your time to scan the list or bookmarking this page for future reference.
I’ve broken this down to logical-to-me categories, but you may prefer a different organizational scheme. Also, it’s true that many of these tools “fit” into more than one category and can be used for multiple tasks, so there is that to keep in mind. I’ll also mention that you may find my extremely short descriptions inadequate (please be kind, I typically would enter the tool to my spreadsheet with some hastily-typed or copy/paste from the site to cue me as to what the tool could be used for). But setting all that aside, what’s important is that someone, hopefully you, will find this list useful.
Last notes: I’ve been keeping this list just for my own personal benefit, and I’m not being compensated in any way by any tool or resource you see on this list. My descriptions are purposely very short making it easy for you to scan this list. So without further ado, here’s my insanely large list of tools. Want to download the spreadsheet? No problem, do that at the bottom of this post.
Categories (click to jump to that specific list of tools)
Miscellaneous Tools & Toolsets
Competition Research
Sure, you don’t want to “take your eye off the ball” with respect to your site and overall digital marketing strategy – but you don’t want to be caught sleeping either while your competitors pass you by (excuse the mixed metaphors). You can learn a lot from what your competitors are doing well or even doing poorly when it comes to online marketing. I recommend you do periodic research on your competition and keep your finger on the pulse of your industry at large.
AdWords Keyword Planner
Use Competitor URLs in Keyword Planner tool, review suggested keyword groups and keywords.
Ahrefs
Batch Analysis: very fast overview of backlinks & social metrics for any list of URLs you enter.
Fresh Web Explorer
Where are your competitors being mentioned? Are there feeds that highlight their content frequently? FWE is a good tool to build up your outreach list.
Market Samurai
Top 10 SERP comparison module outputs a color-coded grid of various key ranking metrics.
Mozbar
Browser toolbar – provides wealth of metrics & data on web pages and SERP listings.
MozCheck
Bulk URL checker to grab Moz stats on multiple URLs via SERPs scrape/download.
Open Link Profiler
“The freshest backlinks, for free”.
Open Site Explorer
Get most linked-to URLs for popular content research – many, many more uses.
Reverse Internet
Serious competitive intelligence including finding all GA accounts!
SEMrush
Use the domain vs. domain tool to see what keywords competitors rank for with associated metrics. View Competitor keywords, ad copy, organic or paid.
SEOmoz
“On-page report card” – grade a page for a Keyword.
SERPIQ
Analyze competition and discover keywords.
Similar Sites
Easily find similar websites.
Similar Web
Via Avinash at Mozcon – use to get a *&%$load of data on your site and other’s sites.
Site Alerts
Instant insights on any website: can also get email subscription to alerts.
Web Me Up
Backlink profile checker, not free.
Woorank
Get a quick overview of site metrics.
Content Strategy
Content Gems
Quickly find and share the most valuable content in one easy-to-use platform (paid tool).
Content Strategy Generator Tool (updated)
This very cool tool from Richard Baxter and the Builtvisible team helps you plan your content strategy intelligently, using keyword research and estimating your audience size. Their description of the tool is “Easily consolidate trending news from across the web, and find inspiration for your research topics quickly and easily”.
Contently
Content “story” creation service via Mike King.
Copyscape
Copyscape serves both as a plagiarism checker and a duplicate-content checker. Great to use if your content has been distributed across the web.
Enigma
Navigate the world of public data.
FAQ Fox
Find questions your target demographic is talking about online.
Fresh Web Explorer
FWE allows you to check on or keep track of a set of terms over time, and helps you get a sense for what type of content gets a lot of mentions, shares, and links. Many more uses, features keep getting added.
Google Public Data
Drawing on vast public databases, Google public data offers a great starting point for content research, infographics, and more.
Headline Analyzer
Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer.
Similar Page Checker
Use this tool to check for duplicate content issues. The Similar Page Checker will give you a score of how closely the HTML of two pages resemble each other.
Speechpad
Transcription service.
Trend Hunter
Paid tool.
Triberr
A community of bloggers and influencers come together to read and share great content.
Wiki Mind Map
Create mind map out of Wikipedia topics & articles.
Content & Headline Idea Generator
Enter a subject (or topic or keywords) and get all kinds of titles and ideas.
Conversion Rate Optimization
ClickTale
Heatmaps.
Formisimo
Form Analytics.
Inspectlet
Heatmaps, screencapture.
iPerceptions
Get visitor feedback.
Kampyle
Get visitor feedback.
Kiss Metrics
CRO, A/B testing, analytics.
Mouseflow
Live click tracking.
Optimizely
A/B testing.
Survey Monkey
Get visitor feedback.
Visual Website Optimizer
A/B & MV testing.
Design
Canva
“Amazingly simple graphic design for blogs, presentations, Facebook covers, flyers and so much more”.
HTML Color Picker
Use the online image color picker right to select a color and get the html Color Code of this pixel.
International SEO
Flang
Hreflang testing tool.
Hfreflang Generator
Hreflang tag generator from Aleyda Solis.
HREFLANG Sitemap Tool
Create HREFLANG Sitemap.
Impersonal Me
Search de-personalized, via Portent SEO Kaitlin McMichael.
International Geo-Surfing
Search international, get SERPs.
Lexipedia
Displays a handy little chart with every definition of a word and synonyms. It’s a lexicon-builder’s dream.
Search From
Simulate using Google Search from different location or device or perform a search with custom search settings – useful for searching Google as if you were somewhere else and for SEO & SEA testing.
Search Latte
Build Google searches in any combination of Google supported top level domain, country and language.
Word Reference
Online translator.
Keyword Research
AdWords Keyword Tools
Generate keywords from a seed keywords or enter a list to obtain search volume and other data points.
Google Analytics
Look at the keywords that drive traffic – especially historical data before the onset of (not provided). Matched Search Queries – the keywords a searcher typed before clicking on an AdWords ad.
Google Correlate
Find searches that correlate with real-world data.
Google Search
Look at related searches at bottom.
Google Suggest
Don’t hit enter when you start searching. Thanks to Wil Reynolds.
Google Trends
Get idea of up or down trend & also look at hot trends for new ideas.
Google Webmaster Tools queries
Look for striking distance keywords. Export for further analysis in Excel or other tools.
Keyword Eye
Free section requires signup.
Keyword Spy
Organic & paid info. Recently added killer backlink analysis.
Keyword Tool
Like Ubersuggest: get 750 google keyword suggestions for free.
Lexipedia
Create “wonder wheels” of related terms – hover for definitions.
Local Keyword Tool
Local SEO keyword research tool – enter Zip & KEYWORD, get list of KEYWORD plus local cities.
Market Samurai
Research a list of keywords you enter or enter a seed keyword to generate related keywords; huge amount of associated metrics is available.
Merge Words
Concatenation tool.
Meta Glossary
Get definitions and related terms for keyword research.
Moz Keyword Difficulty Tool
Keyword difficulty tool.
Moz On-page Grader
Grade a page for a keyword.
SEMrush
Enter site: get keyword list export, organic or paid
SEO Chat
Keyword suggestion tool.
SEO Chat Keyword Suggest Tool
Like Ubersuggest, you can generate lists of related keywords using a root term. Need to play with this, check it out.
Social mention
Download top keywords; use wordle/compose to create word cloud to visualize. Hat tip to Ben Lloyd.
Sonar Solo
Visualize social trends.
Spyfu
Organic & paid info.
Suggester
Suggester is another free tool like Ubersuggest where you can input a seed term and generate variations – download to CSV is desired.
Tag Crowd
Make your own tag cloud from any text.
Topsy
Enter keyword, look at trends & spikes.
Trend Hunter
Trend Hunter.
Ubersuggest
Generate list of keywords from seed; enter into AdWords tool for volume etc.
Wordle
Create word clouds.
Wordstream
Generate keywords – paid tool.
Wordstream Free Keyword Tools
In addition to its paid offerings, Wordstream offers a suite of free keyword tools offering access to thousands of keyword suggestions.
Wordtracker
Generate keywords – paid tool.
Yahoo Glimmer
“An RDF Search Engine”.
Yelp Trends
Yelp Trends tool.
YouTube AutoSuggest
Just like Google Autocomplete.
Link Building Earning
Author Crawler
You’ll end up with a report allowing you to sort your backlinks by the social standing of the authors of those links.
Advanced Search Operator Auto Generator
Incredible: enter a keyword, it outputs links to Google SERPS of your keyword plus various advanced search operators.
Banana Tag
Email Tracking service, via Ross Hudgens.
Bookmarklet – Domain Hunter Plus
Checks for broken links on a page. Browser plugin.
Broken Link Check
Checks a site for broken links.
Broken Link Finder
Garrett French’s tool – Citation Labs.
Broken Link Index
Scrapes the web for broken links based on keyword input!
Bulk Doman Authority Checker
Check DA of up to 200 domains at once.
Buzzstream tools
Various tools & uses.
Domain Hunter Plus
This magic extension for Chrome not only helps you find important broken links, but also tells you if the links point to an available domain.
Easel.ly
Free tools for creating and sharing inforgraphics. The templates allow anyone to create a professional-looking graphic.
Email Format
Find email address via domain name entry.
Free Email Verifier
Verify email addresses.
Fresh Web Explorer
Find recent mentions where you aren’t being linked-to.
HARO
Help a reporter out.
Image Raider
Automated reverse image search! Search who’s using your image, request a link from them.
Infogr.am
A great free Infographics resource that allows you to easily create graphics and data visualizations.
Keyword Typo Generator
Create domain misspellings (add TLD) add to bulk backlink checker like Majestic or Ahrefs, find links that point to you then go and ’em.
Link Search Tool
Enter keyword, generates clickable advanced search operators!
LinkRisk
Mine our database and identify opportunity for content placement whether as a link builder, an affiliate or a website owner.
Linkstant
Discover new links immediately, even as they’re being placed (via Mike King).
MailTester.com
Need to send an email to an untested address, but you don’t want to spam them? Check it first with this mail tester to verify.
Majestic SEO
See competitor’s link profile.
MyBlogGuest
Community of guest bloggers.
Open Site Explorer
Look at competitor’s links for good opportunities.
Outdated Content Finder
Find outdated content, build fresh, and ask for links.
PyScape
Grab OSE data via API with this tool.
Scrapebox
Scrape, check, ping, post!
Search From
View all your tweets on one page.
Tagul
Word cloud tool – use to see influencer names.
Twitter Archiver
Via Richard Baxter, Mozcon 2013: twitter archiving Google spreadsheet.
Vsnap
Send email with a 1 min video (via Mike King).
Local SEO
Best Darn Local SEO Client Questionnaire
It really is.
Census.gov Tools
US Census tools for audience demographics.
Generate local AdWords and Keyword Lists Tool
Your Local SEO not-so-secret weapon.
Moz Local
“In one easy step, Moz Local ensures your business listings are correct, consistent, and visible across the web so search engines and new customers can find you.”
Google Gadgets Driving Directions Widget For Your Webpage
Google Gadgets driving directions widget for your webpage.
Google Map Maker
Among other things, Google Map Maker allows you to contribute to public map information, which may be shared and incorporated into Google Maps.
Google Places for Business Category Tool
Google Places for Business Category Tool.
Google+ My Business Page Finder
Michael Cottam’s Google+ My Business Page Finder.
Whitespark Offline Conversion Tracker
Offline Conversion Tracker
OSHA Standard Industrial Category Tool
OSHA Standard Industrial Category Tool.
Plagiarism Checker
Plagiarism Checker
Schema Creator
Create HTML with schema.org microdata.
USPS ZIP Code Tool
You’ll need a specific address, so be ready for that.
Online Reputation Management
Complaint Search
Search all complaint websites at once.
PPC
Note: although I’ve been AdWords certified for years and have run some small campaigns, I don’t necessarily consider myself a “PPC guy” or expert (we have those here, though) – so my list of PPC tools is not particularly extensive, to put it nicely. Feel free to send me your non-commercial suggestions to add here via Twitter (@dportney) – thanks!
Unbounce
Landing Page Creator.
Rank Checking
The relative importance of checking rankings is debatable. In fact, it was at @SEMpdx SearchFest industry conference where I heard my first full-blown rant from @ConradSaam about the uselessness of checking rank (he recommended focusing on traffic and conversions) – that was 4 years ago and before the Google Hummingbird algorithm update and before Google started rewriting queries based on perceived user intent. I’ve used and still use rank checkers, but the effectiveness of SEO strategies based on keyword ranking really seems to be dying if not already dead. That said, here’s some tools I’ve used:
Rank Checker for Firefox
This light and easy desktop tool checks rankings with the click of a button. Quick, easy and free.
Advanced Web Ranking
Actually, AWR does much, much more than just rank tracking and is definitely worth checking out (this is a paid tool).
Authority Labs
I haven’t used AL in awhile, but have used their service and it’s generally very good – I’m sure they’ve made improvements since (this is a paid tool).
Site Analysis
I love doing site analysis. Whether it’s a relatively quick SEO Triage, a comprehensive SEO Audit, or even a full-blown SEO Strategy Playbook, conducting a thorough site analysis and providing recommendations is one of my favorite tasks in SEO-land. Here are some tools that I use and that will make your analyses faster, easier, and more comprehensive.
Aardvark bookmarklet
Mouse over page elements to see HTML data like div classes & IDs.
Backlink Over Optimization Analyzer
Anchor Text Over Optimization Tool.
Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing users will thank you.
Builtwith.com
Get an overview of site metrics.
Check All the Links on a Website
“Find Broken Links, Redirects & Site Crawl Tool.”
Compression / gzip test tool
A simple online web page compression / deflate / gzip test tool.
CSS Sprites
Create CSS Sprites Online.
Developer Toolbar for Firefox
Many use cases – a Swiss Army Knife of tools.
Fiddler2
Website Debugger.
Foxyseo toolbar
Get various site metrics.
Frobee Robots.txt Checker
Many robots.txt files contain hidden errors not easily visible to humans. Run your file through this tool and you never know what you’ll discover.
Google Page Speed Insights
Tools, data, and insights to improve your page speed.
Google Penalty Checker
Google Penalty Checker tool.
Google Plus 1 Checker
Google Plus One Checker in Bulk!
Gtmetrix
Pagespeed & Yslow grade, great report!
Gzip Check
Check if Gzip is enabled.
HTML Markup Validator
W3C HTML markup validator.
HTTP compression and conditional GET test tool
Some web servers enable HTTP compression and conditional GET to reduce bandwidth usage with browsers that support these technologies. Use this tool to test whether a webpage supports HTTP compression and conditional GET.
HTTP Compression Check
Check if compression is on.
IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit
IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit.
Image & Link Analyzer
Check All Links or Images on a Page.
META SEO Inspector
Inspect Meta Data via Chrome Plugin.
Mobile Test Me
Check how a site looks on various mobile devices.
Moonsy
Various tools – check dmoz, backlinks, DA etc.
Neil Patels Website Analyzer
Get various stats on your site and where you might make improvements.
On-Page Optimization Tool
Check the Important SEO Content on Your Webpage.
Page Speed Tool
Check the Speed of your site and your competitors.
Pingdom
Pingdom offers an entire suite of speed tools to help analyze page load, DNS issues, and connectivity.
Qualys SSL Labs
Enter domain to test SSL Certs and get a report.
Rex Swain’s HTTP Viewer
See URL HTTP status.
Robots.txt Checke
Use robots best practices and discover hidden errors in your robots.txt files that may cause search engine crawling problems.
Screenshots dot com
Better than way back machine – easy way to quickly see past versions of sites.
SearchMetrics
SEO, Social, Rankings, keyword and backlinks report tool
SEO Crawler
Crawler – cloud based, allows export – max 250 URLs – plus other tools.
SEO Quake
Get key metrics & data quickly – use plugin or toolbar.
Similar Web
Via Avinash at Mozcon – use to get a sh*tload of data on your and other’s sites
SPDYCheck.org
Check if a website properly supports the SPDY protocol, the super-fast HTTP replacement, and troubleshoot any problems with the configuration.
Sprite Me
Create CSS Sprites out of background image using bookmarklet
Sprite Pad
Create CSS Sprites – drag and drop interface
Spy On Web
You Can Disclose Websites With The Same Google AdSense Code, Google Analytics Code, IP Address etc.
SSL Server Test
Analysis of the configuration of any SSL web server on the public Internet
URI Valet
A great tool for digging into server headers, canonical information, analyzing redirect problems and more.
Wayback Machine
Want to see the history of your website or your competitor’s site? The Wayback Machine allows you to step back in time and track important changes.
Web Page Test
Page Speed Tool via Ian
Woorank
Get a quick overview of site metrics
Social Media
Circle Count
Google Plus Analytics
Facebook Debugger
Debug your OG tags
Facebook Power Editor
Facebook Power Editor Download page
Find People On Plus
The ultimate Google+ directory that’s great for research, outreach, and link building. Sort by keywords, profession, country, and more.
Follwerwonk
Find influencers; competitive research.
Hashtagify
Search and find the best twitter hash tags.
Hootsuite
Create tabs to listen on a particular topic or hashtag
Know Your Meme
Internet Meme Database
Knowem.com
Check for if your brand is available across multiple social sites
Meme Generator
Easy way to generate those images with text at top and bottom like “what if I told you…”
Pinterest Rich Pin Validator
Test structured markup and get approval in same process (per Cyrus’ Moz post)
SharedCount
Want to know how any piece of content was shared socially across the major services? This is the tool to use.
SharedCount API
Harnessing the combined statistics of Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and more, the SharedCount API puts a ton of social data at your fingertips.
Social Authority API
How much reach and social authority do your followers have? How about the people you’re trying to connect with? The free Social Authority API will tell you.
Social Crawlytics
ID competitors most shared content
Social Sites Image Size Template
Complete data on all image sizes for major social media sites
Sonar Solo
Visualize social trends
Twitter Land
Social media analytics
Twitter Validation Tool
First submit domain (per Cyrus’ Moz post) – then check URL
Twitteronomy
Analytics and more for Twitter via Matt McGee glowing recommendation.
Structured Markup
Good Relations
Good relations snippet generator
Google Data Highlighter
Use to grab HTML Markup
Google Plus Schema Creator
Google Plus Schema Creator
Google Structured Data Testing Tool
If you use Schema.org microformats or any other type of structured data, this tool will verify your markup.
Schema Creator
Everyone loves using Schema.org, but the microformats are difficult to write by hand. This generator from the folks at Raven simplifies the task.
Miscellaneous Tools & Toolsets
Ontolo – Extract Unique Hostnames
Extract unique hostnames
Ontolo – Remove Dupe Hostnames
Remove duplicate hostnames
Scraper Tool (Desktop)
Desktop scraper / data harvester
Seer Toolbox
SEER opened up its internal toolbox for everyone in the world to use. These are the same tools used in-house at SEER, and they rock.
SEO Automatic
Lots of great tools here
Small SEO Tools
All kinds of tools to choose from, pretty cool!
Virante SEO Tools
Virante offers a number of high quality SEO tools to the public. These are often the same tools developed for the Virante team, opened up for public use.
A/B Test Calculator
Creates a bell curve.
Aleyda Solis’ Tools List
Aleyda Solis’ Tools List.
CloudFlare
How do they make CloudFlare free? It works both as a CDN and a security service to provide your website with speed and safety.
Convert Word Documents to Clean HTML
Despite the rise of Google Docs, Word still dominates much of the world. Copying and pasting has always been a hurdle, but this tool makes it easy.
Dingus Markdown to Markup
Convert HTML markup to markdown – via Matthew Henry at Portent.
Evernote
Keep stuff in the cloud, notes, screenshots, etc.
Free download tool
We help to download files from many popular sites.
Google Local Search Weather
Like MozCast – Daily Ranking Changes for Google Places for Business.
Google Page Speed Service
Singed up several times, never heard back.
Google Play URL Builder
Link tagging for Google Play Apps.
Google Scraper Report
Report if a site has scraped you and is outranking you too.
Google URL Removal Tool
Remove outdated content from the search results, public tool.
Internet Marketing Ninjas SEO Tools
The Ninjas are some of the best SEOs and online marketers out there, and they’ve put some of their best tools online for free.
IP Address Range Tool
Creates regex for IP address range.
ITTT (If This Then That)
If this then that – general usage.
List of Tools
List of tools on OnlineSales.co.uk
MozCast
Look at SERPs volatility.
Nerdy Data
Search code online!
Newsle
News story notification service, free.
Page2RSS
Turn any URL into an RSS feed – use with IFTTT.
Pixabay
Free images!
Ranks.nl
Great toolset here.
Remove Duplicate Items
Ontolo offers a suite of link building software and a few helpful productivity tools for link builders. The remove duplicates tool solves a common problem.
Scraper for Chrome
If you’ve never scraped a webpage, you’re missing out. Scraper for Chrome puts the power of simple web scraping in your hands without the need for code.
Secure Referer Quick Check
This web page shows your secure (i.e. HTTPS) referrer.
SEO Automatic
Bulk status code response checker.
SEO automatic toolbar
Browser toolbar – various uses.
SEO Book Toolbar
Browser toolbar for SEO.
SERP Snippet Optimization Tool
Preview SERP snippet live while writing it.
SERPS.com
Look at SERPs volatility.
Sitemap Generators
Google offers a slew of free, top-notch sitemap generators. Most of these live on your server and generate new sitemaps automatically.
Talk Walker Alerts
Like Google Alerts.
Text Expander
Expand text like MS Word autocomplete.
User Agent String dot com
Shows your user agent string.
What’s My Info
Get your complete browser information.
Yahoo Pipes
A great mashup tool that combines different feeds into content and other magical creations. Used for link building and whatever you can dream of.
Caption Tube
Free and easy resource used to create captions for YouTube. Helps with usability and offers viewers a readable transcript.
Screencast-O-Matic
One-click screen capture recording on Windows or Mac computers with no install for FREE!
Video Embed Generator
Create custom embed code for video to include a link: via Phil Nottingham.
Wistia
Video hosting.
LongURL
Expand a shortened URL.
Conclusion
You can greatly improve your efficiency and productivity by using these tools – that certainly has been my experience. I’m confident that you’ll find at least one tool on this list that will be beneficial to you. If you want to download an Excel spreadsheet containing all of these tools you, grab that here. I’m also confident you’ll know of a tool or two that is not listed here that you think should be, so feel free to share those with all of us in the comments below.