SEO tools, good or bad?

[OldWelshGuy]

My answer to this is good, and bad! Do I use SEO tools? of course I do, I would be a dummy if I didn't. What tools do I use and for what?

I use a lot of tools. Some of them are off the shelf, while the bulk are made for and only available to myself. They sit on a server with a nice HTACCESS file that only allows access by IP.

But, that said, I do own the top package of WebCEO... gasp.. Do I use it often? Yep lots. WHY? because it is bloody good at extracting data I need to evaluate SEO. Can it do SEO? NOPE! What it can do is to provide you with the information you need to work out a strategy. And it produces nice reports. I do not know what the page thing is like, as I have not run it. I DO know though that it will not SEO a site that is anywhere in a partially even competitive field.

Tools are great, they can automate things greatly. Linking reports, ranking reports etc.

So what private tools do I have? here is a sample list of some of them:-

TRUE competition for keywords.
Entre the list, or call a txt file and it will work out REAL competitiveness for each phrase.

Hubs and Authority site finder
This tool will find hub and authority sites for a given phrase (if used in semantic mode it will give it for a semantic group).

Cluster Identification
This tool will identify which sites are clustered for a given phrase. Works superbly well with the semantic tool above.

Keep in mind that this is a VIP area, so what is said in the room stays in the room. This is by no means a complete list of tools I have created (or paid to have created). The tools were put together piecemeal, so no one coder worked on the finished tool. They are mine, and are not available to anyone. Nor do I deliver the reports they create

How much have they cost me> £1000's how much have they made me? 100's of times more than they cost

So what is the single best SEO tool we have available? oUR BRAINS. Even if I was to give you some of these tools, whilst you would grab them and marvel at what they do. It is NOT the tools that do the job, it is the application of the knowledge they create. The best SEO tool is yourself. Learn, and UNDERSTAND Why things work.

Anchor text! Why does it work? I will start a new thread on this.

My problem is that I'm either too scatter brained or too unfocused to choose a direction and stick with it. At any given time, I have a dozen things on the go that likely take me 100% longer to see through fruition instead of just tackling one project at a time.

I think what would work for me is a schedule created by a big brain that says allrighty Ken, you put in 4 hours/day average on website building, here is what you should spend your time on:

- Hour 1: ?
- Hour 2: ?
- Hour 3: ?
- Hour 4: Do as you please.

I've never really seen anything that says this is what you must do (STEP 1), this is what you must do (STEP 2), so on and so forth.

I think if someone could just cut through the crap and simply tell it like it is from picking a domain through to site marketing in an easy to read manner, they'd be gazzilionaires.

[Cryxellis]

Why don't you focus on only one thing? Let us say you wanted to learn a lot of things about SEO, then start reading about it's basic read and read. As what oldweshguy said the great tool is yourself. Be patient soon you will learn from what you are reading. Then if you think it's not enough, try asking questions about the things you don't know, it's free.

[Cryxellis]

Why don't you focus on only one thing? Let us say you wanted to learn a lot of things about SEO, then start reading about it's basic read and read. As what oldwelshguy said the great tool is yourself. Be patient soon you will learn from what you are reading. Then if you think it's not enough, try asking questions about the things you don't know, it's free.

By the way oldwelshguy, thanks for the post I learned from it

[cooldude007]

It depends on the SEO tools itself.. Since some SEO tools are reliable and helpful. It cut your time and effort in your work.

Manual way is very exhausting but worthy....

[livetech]

I admit, I do use WebCEO a lot. Really it's only for submission of sites to the lesser known search engines, ranking and link checker, as the optimisation techniques for that piece of software are a little shonky and not sure if I agree with them, but for the rest of it, no complaints

[dannys12]

I use SEO Elite and it takes hours of effort out of my work. They can be useful indeed.