Analyse This – Most SEO Tools Are $h*t
Most seo tools are crap and a waste of your time. Even the new ones. Especially most of the PAID ones. There… I said it.
There’s a big trend in the seo community to sell tools to seo newbies, but these tools won’t help you rank better if you just aren’t willing to think creatively.
- Competitor Backlink tools – they can give you ideas where and how to get links but frankly, you don’t need the same links as your competitors, you just need, well, credible links from websites you could see linking to your site, or article and link directories
- Keyword density tools – keyword density is not something you should be focusing on at all if you are writing your articles after doing some basic keyword research
- Page relevance tools – whatever they might key off of, it’s probably not what Google is. It’s incredibly important to create a semantic and contextually relevant page but you just need a keyword tool (again, probably pretty innacurate at least when it comes to the numbers)
- Search engine webmaster tools – I use them for identifying if a search engine has any difficulty accessing particular content on a site, but that is about all
The tools I use are Majestic SEO (for historic link reports at the beginning of a project), SEM Rush for keyword research, Advanced Web Ranking for checking rankings on a few sites, Clicky for real time website stats, Google Analytics for quick traffic analysis. I also use a couple of different tools for spidering a site and checking syntax I will blog about later. Oh, and Google cache…. (thanks Sarah 
)
That’s about it. If there was a killer tool, I would probably be using it.
Of course, some seo folks entire jobs are analysing and auditing sites and they might disagree with me on this, but then my job is only to change rankings for clients in search engines – and after many years in this industry, I still prefer to use my brain and give my self time to analyse live search engine results pages.
Accessible, relevant content and links from trusted sites or brands (and low quality links still work you know) are what you need to get more visitors from Google. If every seo tool went out of business tomorrow, I wouldn’t care and you shouldn’t either. Analysis paralysis is pretty common, too, so watch out.
You can listen to me or not, but I wouldn’t spend too much time or too much money on seo tools – I’d learn how to blog, learn how to make a page relevant, think about why a REAL site SHOULD link to you, work out a way to get lower quality links without too much work and without buying links (which is against Google’s TOS) if you can.
What I am going to do after this post? I have a new client. I am going to contact 50 PR 6-8 websites and give them a time tested, win-win scenario if they link to the client site (and I don’t mean “hey linking to this site will improve YOUR ranks”). In fact Google uses this exact same promotional exercise.
While those links are helping the client site rank better, I might waste some time playing with some seo tools….. Of course, feel free to disagree with me in the comments I might even publish some and drop a link to your favourite seo tools lol 
Written by Shaun Anderson
Nice one Shaun..
I remember a client in California wanting “prettier reports” like his last seo company
The other SEO used WPGold….
I have done OK by getting lots of PR1 links and am happy with my rankings and my few customers
These days I use all Google Tools and a few Chrome extensions
David
Each business is a single business. I don’t use keyword research tools, such as SEM Rush and Google Keyword Tool, because you don’t have the ideal volume for making your SEO analysis based on your reality.
You will not know how to define what is the best word to your case. Sometimes this is a shot in the foot. To do keyword research, it is best to invest a small amount in AdWords and extract your data reality. The competition changes a lot, mainly by factors offline.
And here among us: the SEM Rush’s investment is enough to work with AdWords (try the “See search terms” report) at least will bring you truthful information to your reality, traffic and conversions. Can compare!
I have no problem with a site like seomoz, which has some decent tools. But you are 99% correct when you say that most paid tools are a big waste and do nothing but take your valuable time away. You can get hundreds of PR0 links with them, or you could just go do some manual link building with much larger sites and do very well.
Exactly. Using tools to look at stats and stuff can be a delightful break from real linkbuilding work
Hello Shaun,
It’s the first time I come into your website. I’m a French SEO Manager and when I first read your post I thought you were idiot.
I use some SEO tools also, but that’s right, i don’t use as much tools as others : i only use once a day one free php tool to check rankings and Google Analytics. That’s all and that’s perfect. I do rank well on some competitive keywords with my websites.
Have a nice day !
Em… thanks lol
Shaun,
“Analysis paralysis” is a condition that I think I too often fall victim to. Perhaps I need to join APA (Analysis Paralysis Anonymous).
Great post. Steve
Fantastic, as always. I’m 2 months new to all this stuff, having to do some SEO DIY (not being able to afford a professional!) and I’m just beginning to get to the phase where i’m becoming alot more relaxed about it all, and alot less obsessed with single concepts.
Thankfully, I never developed a Stats obsession. I’ve been using the online tool, Linkdiagnosis just to check who is linking back to me and to try and figure out which links are having what impact. And i’ve been using the dreaded google toolbar merely to figure out whether google has listed a page for PR yet (yeah, I know, but it’s just curiosity!). But at the moment, that’s pretty much it. The rest is linkbuilding, and trying to get noticed on the blog/article circuit – easier said than done, as I am completely new to all of this & not only in a competitive niche, but a niche where it’s hard to get backlinks!
But, luckily I have an ace in the hole, a resource that continually guides me down the SEO straight and narrow…. Hobo-web blog! Great post as always, and a timely reminder for myself not to delve too deeply into stats.
Speaking of linkbuilding, I would put this on your last blog post, but the comments are locked; I actually discovered my Bing profile have given me a dofollow link – no anchor text, but hey….just thought i’d mention it, soon as I asked you about benefits to making a profile before!
Great article Shaun, and good to see the fog has cleared from Think Visibility!
I think I may have been a bit of a stats junkie of-late.
I use SEOMOZ quite a lot to analyse sites and whilst I agree with you that ultimately you just need YOUR OWN credible links from relevant websites, I find the competitor backlink tools pretty useful as an initial “idiot check” for any glaringly obvious omissions.
I don’t use SEO Tools either. I just want to ask you what do you think about the SeoMoz tools.
Maybe these tools are in the 5% of the tools that are not “Just crap linkbait toys that waste time”. Just maybe:D
I’m really pleased to hear you say that.
I’ve spent (wasted) many hours trying out various SEO analysis tools only to find out they are either unfathomably complicated, only supply a fragment of the SEO information I want, or in most cases are just plain innaccurate.
I came to the conclusion that nothing can beat old fashioned human cognitive reasoning, and the software simply isn’t smart enough yet – and to use the good old example of spellchecker. It’s smart, but there are too many factors for it to be reliable.
So it’s good to hear I’m not alone!
I use Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics and Google Keyword Tool, but I will now check out the other tools you’re mentioned…
Use your brain lol – too true
Hi Shaun
Tools can be useful for identifying what you need to do ‘cos not every client is in an industry laden with PR6 competitors.
The key is to see what your competition has and beat that. So if they are only PR2 then your job is a whole lot easier.
Nice touch re the ten posts BTW.
Thanks for your musings too.
Best
Andrew
I mentioned PR, but I don’t really look at PR (much). If I can get a link on a well known site, or an “online entity” I will take it regardless of just about anything.
Hi
I’m glad you said this. When I see big promises from paid SEO tools I often wonder if I’m missing out on something. I’ve been saved from wasting my money up till now by the fact that I’m determined to make my part-time online efforts self-financing.
At the moment I’m starting to concentrate on guest blogging for getting links. This has the benefit of focus, since my job becomes all about producing excellent content and nothing much else!
Concentrate on getting links and you’ll be ok
I agree that most SEO tools are a waste of time and money. The only ones I use on a regular basis are those at SEOMoz.
I have just discovered Advanced Web Ranking and I’m trialling it at the moment. So far it seems to be giving fairly accurate rankings, unlike other ranking tools I’ve tried which usually seem to be a couple of places out. I also like the ability to export data to CSV and run scheduled updates and reports. Despite these good points, I’m still undecided whether to buy a full licence at the end of the trial. I’ve got to figure out if it will give me a decent return on my investment.
I really like AWR suite of tools and for doing something like checking rankings, they are worth the money. I’m glad you find the seomoz tools useful – it’s proof that if you use tools creatively, you’ll probably find value in them.
As I said my job is to change rankings. I can do that usually without looking at tools.
“I am going to contact 50 PR 6-8 websites” just wondering how you came up with that list, and what tool you used to check their PR
? Not trying to prove you wrong or anything, it’s just that I think sometimes starters do need tools to help them develop their own SEO strategies that they can later implement (almost) barehanded (imho).
Why do you need tools?
1. Make a page relevant, by using co-occuring terms in a semantic fashion (ie using w3c standard code)
2. Get links from brands or online entities.
Forget about tools and think about how you are going to get folk to link to you. That usually means building some sort of value into your destination pages.
Hah! I’m trying to work out if that’s a resumption or finishing of the entente cordiale between SEO’s!
You didn’t even mention anything about SEOMoz. I thought their tools were great and they are charging so much for using them.
This wasn’t an attack on SEOmoz either (though I don’t think much about their LDA tool at all) or it would have been in the title. Again, Rand has been a bit of an inspiration to me as a seo blogger. I’m writing this for my subscribers – I haven’t got my seo gang hat on
He he, roflmao. When I said this in my own rather longwinded way, as you kindly pointed out
.. back in May (here http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/advanced-seo-tools/#comment-20562) I got short shrift from SEObook’s Aaron Wall: “[Mark,] you claim that almost everything is overpriced because *you are ignorant* of the field.” in his comment.
Nice to see you breaking ranks on this Shaun. There’s something rather addictive about the SEO community cat fights. BTW I hope that’s not your real motive
Mark
Twitter: @webalyst
P.S. Well done in the footy ;-P (phewww!)
I didn’t mention any seo tool or seo site by name as that’s not my intention to flame anybody, I’m just saying what I think about most seo tools are of minimal use. I find use in collating information to give to others if you have a large team (perhaps) but for me, I could live without them. Then again, I was doing this BEFORE all the seo tools.
Well well Aaron, what a change of tune. See my comment (when/if it gets shown!). Did I catch you on a bad day in May?
Love Mark
That’s not the Aaron you want lol. Also, I’m never going to diss Aaron Wall, as I think he does make some great free seo tools for beginners – like SEO for Firefox. Lets not forget the contribution he’s made to this industry. I’ll go as far as to say he is an inspiration to me. I just don’t use, well, anybody’s tools that much.
I like your take – BUT I personally both enjoy and (feel I) get value out of a variety of tools. I noticed that Eric Ward has been developing Link Insight for Adgooroo – haven’t tried so no comment at all but they seem to have some really solid foundations. Another tool that looks good is brightedge – social metrics etc included.
I suppose it comes down to choice (and perhaps an element of hobby fusing with work) but a worthwhile debate.
NOte I said ‘most’ seo tools and not all
Good article!
Thanks for reaffirming that SEO is really a skill and not something that can be downloaded for a couple hundred dollars.
Personally, I use google for their analytics and yahoo to check for backlinks.
In reality, most of my clients have their content together before I SEO the site. I run the content through Microsoft IIS7 to check the content they’re putting up, and then base my SEO on their content. It makes sense to me, but I’m always open to suggestions for a better mousetrap.
Bill
SMART Website Development
Once again I’m finding myself on the lucky end of the stick. First of all, I managed to piece together enough information on my own to get results on both my and my wife’sweb sites. This was all before I stumbled across your blog. More than anything else, I’ve been somewhat “comforted” by what I’ve read here and in the free materials you give away.
As a result, I didn’t feel that I needed to go out and buy links or worry because I couldn’t afford to pay for all of the “must-have” SEO tools. Now after only a couple of months, the sites I’ve been working on are ranking on Google’s page 1 in the local and natural results.
I’m a firm believer in the datum that “All great successes are built on attention to the fundamentals.”
Quality content and links. It really isn’t any more complicated than that.
Thanks again Shaun.
I don’t buy links either.
I think the choice of what tools to use and whether to use them at all largely depends on your approach to SEO, the techniques you use, well your ‘SEO style’ if you want. There may be people out there who can hammer nails with their bare hands and do it very effectively this way. Does that make a hammer useless?
I understand your intention to hit a higher CTR with a provocative title, but it looks like something along the lines of ‘Most SEO tools are useless for ME’ would have been more appropriate.
Just my 2 cents.
Forgive me
It’s interesting reading this – many of the everyday tools you mention are ones I use – and there’s me looking for the all-in-one tool that would do it all for me (like all the paid ones) yet the tools I’m using are probably the right thing to be concentrating on…. and they’ve worked for me so far!
Really nice and a bold post Shaun. I have to agree with most of the things you said here. When Google is trying to improve their complex algorithms on how to determine the relevance of a page, we still use some keyword density tool.
And as for the competitor backlink tool, it’s sometimes nice to see where your competitor is getting their backlinks from. But if you just get the same backlink as your competitor, they’ll just have the same backlink but a backlink that is older than yours on the same page. So you might just drop a link to another page on the same domain.
Oh and do let us know how that time tested, win-win deal ends up for your client’s site
If I want to look at a competitors backlinks, I usually use Majestic as I said. OSE is prettier, but both do much the same thing (when I last checked anyway).
There is also Yahoo Site Explorer which is free until 2012.
I agree that most tools do suck big time, the main tools im using at the moment are:
Raven SEO Tools – great for tracking keywords, analytics data and link building campaigns
Majestic SEO – One of the best tools for doing competitor link analysis
Random Firefox Plugins – Just to get a quick overview of a websites metrics
Other than that (with the exception of some SEOmoz tools) I cant think of any other paid tools that are really worth using.
I don’t have much use for fancy charts. The type of clients I deal with would hit me with them lol
NP, I think it’s important to remind people (especially the starters) every now and then that there’s no magic SEO tool out there that will get them top rankings with a push of a button, and I believe to some extend that’s what you were trying to say. But going to the other extreme and saying tools are useless, well, I don’t know about that. Just reminds me of the ‘SEO is dead’ kind of posts.
And here I thought I stayed away from such crap “seo is dead” posts. Again, I’ll just say, you don’t need many tools to do this job.
SEOmoz tools are brilliant in the right hands – custom crawl and the new campaign views are excellent. Xenu is good too for the same purpose, finding and optimising title tags, descriptions, de-duplicating etc… I recommend SEOmoz for anyone who spends a lot of time analysing sites, that said Google Analytics can be used for a similar function if you know what your doing.
Xenu is good I should have mentioned that. It was my hope folk would come out in support of various tools but I wanted to make it clear you don’t NEED them IMO
On a second thought, I think you picked the right title. If you had chosen the one I suggested this post wouldn’t have got much attention, maybe I wouldn’t be commenting on it right now. Sometimes controversy does help to get the point across and stir some discussion. So, thanks for the post, Shaun
Indeed Ian
haha, most clients love easy to read information on how SEO is working for them
A lot of my clients want to see themselves in the top positions for keywords, or see increased sales coming from their websites. We are a small company. I don’t have the time or inclination to point out to them we generated 0.4325 % improvement on indexation of pages etc etc
Hi.
Can you talk more about the Google cache or point to some material? How do you use it in your work?
Thanks in advance,
Leo.
You can use the Google cache to quickly see how Google is interacting with your page, and if there are any problems.
Excellent post.
Please can you email me that list of 50 PR5/6 websites?
Heh heh but that’s my ‘competitive advantage’ – that’s the sort of lists you pay cash for
Actually, I have never been a fan of telling folks exactly where to get links – usually, it kills the link value, or it causes grief to the webmasters of the sites in question. So I don’t do it.
Hi ChrisBT, thanks for the tip! Just went and filled out the rest of my Bing profile
I like SEOMoz’s tools. Linkscape and Open Site Explorer are great for showing you things like your competitor’s anchor text #s. I think the sadly now dying Yahoo Site Explorer is/was awesome too. You can get a pretty good sense of how your competitors are ranking and make strategic decisions from there. When YSE dies I won’t be too upset because SEOMoz has OSE and Linkscape (a very smart decision on their part to develop these tools, esp. when Yahoo’s future has looked grim for oh, ever).
It would be hard for me to imagine starting a website without using Linkscape and OSE to analyze the competition first. I also think Market Samurai is a GREAT rank checking tool. I think I paid a one-time fee of $97 for it.
Any thoughts on the new beta web app from SEOMoz?
I haven’t really had a lot of luck “stealing” a lot of links from my competitors. When a competitor goes out of business those tools are useful though – I was able to quickly compile a list of sites that we could contact with our information.
The LDA Tool? I won’t be using it, but no surprise there
Hey Shaun,
Our Father and Mother taught us this, “If it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it.” I subscribed to your website a few months ago. I downloaded the books, printed them out, read them, and began to apply your methods. It’s working for me. My website is experiencing what I heard is called the “Google Dance”. However, I am confident that when the dust clears, the site will be ranked on the 1st page of Google and the other major search engines for several keyword phrases. Tool wise, I use some of the free tools that Google offers. I did buy the Micro Niche Finder when I first started out, but for me it’s producing great content and building links.
Thanks and God bless
Cool glad your finding our stuff of use. It’s what I do and it works – just add ‘time’
Thank god you put us on the “use” list! I knew we sponsored Thinkvisibility for a good reason
I guess it helps having so much raw data that nobody else has. Most other tools (but not all) tend to be variants of Yahoo scrapers or basically scrapers and meta compilers of multiple otherwise free data sources.
I agree with other posters that the Mozzers should be the “use” list too, along with others not mentioned.
What would interest me is knowing the killer app we could do with our data that has not been tried? we know that usability of the data could always be better – but we always want to know what we need to do next?
Hi Dixon very nice to meet you at the weekend
As I have pointed out, I’m not trying to diss all seo tools – just most lol.
You got a straight link there too!
Most tools don’t really usefully pick out exactly what Google is keying off of, as we discussed. A lot of new folk to this industry might think you need to pay for expensive tools to get anywhere improving the rankings of your site. I personally think that time is better off spent actually DOING SOMETHING like making your page more relevant, or getting quality links to your pages.
If my job was to analyse pages and sites, yes, tools might form a large part of my day. Automation is sweet! But in reality that is only a small part of my responsibility. My clients have no interest in this – they just want results. Over the last few years especially I have approached seo with a “more action, less analysing” attitude and it’s worked well for me.
PS – I don’t tender for work either. So I don’t need fancy presentations or graphs for external purposes.
Hey, maybe I should create my own seo tools and just keep quite and punt those
There are tons of great seo tools out there, but you are correct in that only a small handful are actually worth the $$.
Pick your personal fav’s and utilize them; thats about it.
Most tools do the same damn thing, and over 75% are free.
I have used Majestic SEO – it is very comprehensive but their database is out of date – it keeps on showing links to pages on my site which no longer exist
Shocking link drop for majestic seo!
I think that’s good that Majestic has a really indepth historical record of links.
It wasn’t me. Honest guvner!
Let me just check that IP Dixon and get back to you :p
Agreed.
SEO TOOLS + NO SEO BRAIN = rubbish
SEO BRAIN + NO SEO TOOLS = just fine
SEO BRAIN + SPARING USE OF SOME SEO TOOLS = just right
it was kind of my point at thinkvis really – you can spend 80% of your time agonising over linkbuilding, looking at competitor backlink tools, researching on linkbait and at the end of all that you still wont have any links. you need to just get on with it
having said that i gotta recognise my own tendancy for analysis paralysis. there’s something comforting about endlessly digging around and ordering your findings. every now and then you have to stop yourself and just crack on.
great stuff as always Shaun, always thought provoking and no BS
Hey Jaamit enjoyed your thinkvis presentation
I do intend to do a roundup…..!
Quick heads up – was checking link profile on a site and found some link spam in the footer comments of that article.
Cheers,
Rob
@robcouk
Yeah I don’t really let folk use keywords in the name anymore these days. It was good back in the day getting comments. It will probably get nuked when I increase the comment count for rewarding regular comments probably. I know him anyway so not really bothered.
“SEO tools” hanging about on various forums using big words and trying to look clever should be thoroughly disregarded IMO
as for SEO analysis tools, Firebug, Linkscape / Majestic & experience.
I recommend SEOmoz pro tools – I agree with Ian – they are brilliant in the right hands.
Has anyone used Keyword Eye – it’s a visual keyword suggestion tool (and free!): http:www.keywordeye.co.uk
@Shaun No, they have a new web app for PRO users in beta. But I am guessing based on the content of this post you are not a PRO user …
I think they may eventually make it open to non-PRO members, once they work out the bugs (again, it’s a beta).
The tools are useful and fun to play with. But I agree with you in general, at the end of the day, you know you’ve got to go and get the links. Google won’t give you a pile of money for nothing …
I am not a pro user in any sense of the words lol
Ah well, my usual tactic is using OSE first, and since i can’t see further than the first 50 links, i get to the depths of the backlinks with the Yahoo Site Explorer. When all else fails, i just use LinkDiagnosis.
Although i didn’t know about majestic. Gonna check it out!
Thx for the advice Shaun. I’m also a newbie when it comes to SEO and marketing and to be honest I use a lot of tools but they don’t seem to work at all. They don’t improve my rankings significantly. So I’m gonna take your advice and discard them all and try your ideas. THe first tool is my favorite, you know the one that shows your backlinks AND your competitors’ backlinks which is awesome. You know what you’re up against right from the start and that gives you an advantage over your competition
The amount of apparently amazing SEO tools littered about the place is amazing, with the creators apparently spending thousands to develop them, usually with me sat there in the end thinking “why?”.
I’ve also seen another piece of software ( i’ve heard it’s a popular one for some reason ) with the creators of that saying they where “tired of paying for links” so created this software….. I’m new to the game, and have been doing it a few months, am doing well in what i’m working with and have not yet handed over one penny towards achieving my results, so i’m a bit baffled as to why anyone with a brain falls for these, in my opinion, ‘scams’.
Hi Mark
1.) I didn’t check for your reply and just read it. Didn’t think there was much in it though. Would love to invoice you for my time
2.) even you acknowledge your ignorance of SEO publicly, so its no surprise that you can’t find value in many of the tools.
3.) however, if you look at our business model you will notice that our emphasis (especially when compared against most tool sites) is mainly on training and news and our community.
4.) even when I interviewed Rand I highlighted how I thought a lot of tools were garbage & asked him what some keys for differentiation were. I also have stated (numerous times) that I didn’t use tools that much and that I had felt that SEO is moving from analysis toward taking action & creative marketing.
but
the key to my response was #2 there … if you are ignorant about something (and state so publicly) then when you state everything lacks value then you are essentially re-affirming your own ignorance rather than stating something unique or valuable.
When Shaun mentions a lot of tools being bunk he is stating his opinion with years of experience and understanding behind it. When you do so Mark it is done with ignorance behind it. Even if your conclusions in some areas are similar, it still matters how you came about the solution…and if it is just a blanket statement that everything is garbage that is much different from saying here is what I use regularly.
And you mentioning you got into SEO to help people rather than to make money … well me too. The difference is, once you are really well known you either use basic economic principals to filter excessive demand, or you work 21 hours a day and let your health slide because the market has an unlimited demand for you at the *free* pricepoint.
Totally agree. I actually really like the SEOmoz tools, but other than that, the only ones I use are free ones like google keyword.
As stated in the post, the key is creating great content, not links – those come naturally. I like to remind myself that when I enter a room I do not first announce everyone I know and who knows me – instead I try to create new links with people by being interesting, by listening, and by creating value for others. Let them judge me for who I am by what I say rather than who I know.
I ‘m using Majestic SEO and Advanced Web Ranking as well. Majestic is pretty cool. For keyword research i use the German Keyword-Datenbank.de.
But there is a new tool from Germany and its not only for German sites. The SEO Diver is a very nice tool for backlink analysis and link partner research. Also the keyword research tool is cool.
You can use it for US, UK, Italy, France and Spain. http://www.seodiver.com/