Internet Marketing Tools & Resources

Often times I get asked about various Internet marketing tools, whether I  have used them or not or if I can recommend some tool to do a specific internet marketing activity, so I thought it would be a good idea to put together a page with some of the really good Internet marketing tools & resources, that I have used and can recommend. ( Well, not all of them I have used but most of them – but even the other ones come highly recommended by other Internet marketing gurus ).

So here’s a master list of Internet marketing tools & resources, classified by their purpose ( keyword research, analytics, competition analysis etc). Some tools mentioned here has been repeated in more than one section that is not a mistake it is more because those tools can qualify for different activities – for example a keyword research tool can also double up as a competition analysis tool. Also this list includes both SEO tools as well as Tools & Resources for Adwords / Paid search management.

Keyword Research Tools

  • Adwords Keyword Tool
    Probably the most common and well know keyword research tool.A free keyword suggestion tool used both for SEO & Paid Search. They have recently updated their interface, which I am not a big fan of, but still pretty easy to use and does the job. The numbers displayed are based on Adwords data, it is better to consider the keyword search volumes as ball park rather than absolute numbers.
    Have I used it ? YES.
  • SEO Book Keyword Research Tool
    Another popular keyword research tool from Aaron Wall, one of the noted SEO stalwarts.The keyword suggestion tool is actually a part of SEO Book’s entire toolset. This tool is powered by WordTracker, one of the oldest keyword research tools on the internet.
    Have I used it ? YES.
  • SEM Rush Keyword Tool
    You will love this if you are not just happy with the vanilla keywords that Google or other common tools throw at you and want to digg into what your competitor is doing. It can show you all the keywords that your competitor is using.This tool allows you to find keywords by competitors or to approach keyword research in the traditional way, starting with a head term and also shows all the sites that are ranking for the keyword.
    Have I used it ? YES, loved it. Highly recommended !
  • Spyfu Keyword Research Tool
    This tool is also very similar to SEMRush and provides similar intelligence on which keywords your competitors are using. While it is mainly being promoted as a paid search or adwords keywords research tool, it also provides enough insight on organic keywords as well as websites that are ranking for a particular keyword thereby helping you digg deeper into your industry and find more keywords.
    Have I used it ? YES, loved it. Highly recommended !
  • Wordtracker Keyword Research Tool
    This is one of the oldest keyword research tool and evaluates keywords on a unique parameter KEI ( Keyword Effectiveness Index) which is basically the ratio of the competition to search volume. Based on a solid mathematical analysis this tool generates some pretty good results and comes recommended by many SEO gurus like Danny Sullivan, Aaron Wall etc
    Have I used it ? YES
  • Keyword Country Research Tool
    They position it as a suite of tools that allows you to do a lot of stuff but besides the other the keyword research tool in the suite is pretty powerful. It is a web crawler based tool and not only allows you to find more keywords but also help you find popular misspells, sementically correct keywords and more.
    Have I used it ? NO.
  • Keyword Spy Tool
    This is again an intelligence tool that not only allows you to digg out various related keywords but also helps you to find your competitor’s keywords or identify competitors based on a specific keywords. There are also a host of other intelligence features that comes with this tool.
    Have I used it ? YES.
  • Bing Keyword Suggestion Tool
    The Bing keyword tool shows you keyword data based on organic searches conducted on the search engine. It works on the data for the previous 6 months and can also show data by language / region. You will however need to sign in, in order to use Bing Keyword Research tool.
    Have I used it ? YES.
  • YouTube Keyword Research Tool
    Mainly built for advertisers using YouTube Promoted video campaigns this tool can also some very effective keywords that you can use beyond just video optimization. Also, if you are trying to do some video optimization on YouTube this keyword suggestion tool can come handy. It could even suggest keywords based on a YouTube video URL but that feature has been disabled.
    Have I used it ? YES.
  • Keyword Ninja Long Tail Keyword Suggestion Tool
    This tool is specifically useful for digging out long tail keywords. It uses data from search suggestion provided by the top search engines like Google and Yahoo! and shows them all in one place. It could specifically be more useful to digg out low bid effective PPC keywords and also to find proper Negative keywords.
    Have I used it ? NO.
  • Google Analytics for Keyword Research
    Google Analytics, though primarily an analytics tool can be very effective in finding useful keywords. You will obviously need to do some work other than just looking into te “Keywords” section in it. I plan to do a detailed post on this separately later. Stay tuned.
    Have I used it ? YES.

Web Analytics Tool

  • Google Analytics Tool
    Probably the most common and well know keyword research tool.A free keyword suggestion tool used both for SEO & Paid Search. They have recently updated their interface, which I am not a big fan of, but still pretty easy to use and does the job. The numbers displayed are based on Adwords data, it is better to consider the keyword search volumes as ball park rather than absolute numbers.
    Have I used it ? YES.
  • Clicky Web Analytics Tool
    An extremely strong contender and actually has some features that even Google Analytics does not offer. For example, the search report not only tells your the keywords sending you traffic but also tells you your website ranking for the specific keywords. It also offers a bunch of premium features like Video analytics, twitter analytics, heatmaps, uptime monitoring etc.
    Have I used it ? YES.
  • ClickTale Web Analytics Tool
    If you are looking at a web analytics tool that can provide more than pageviews, referrer and similar everyday information ClickTale might be your solution. ClickTale is the leader in Heatmaps, Usability and Web Analytics.With ClickTale you can record the way a visitor uses your website. It also provides you with mouse move heatmap, click heatmap, form analytics as well as real time monitoring of visitors.
    Have I used it ? YES. Highly Recommended!
  • Crazy Egg Analytics Tool
    This is another heatmap tool that I love to use. Provides a lot of information including heatmap, scrollmaps, overlay reports as well as confetti reports. This is probably the cheapest way to use very high quality eye tracking technology to understand your user behavior and improve your website.
    Have I used it ? YES. Highly Recommended!

Competitor Analysis Tools for SEO and Adwords

  • SEM Rush Competitor Analysis Tool
    I Love this tool. It gives you a complete picture in respect to your competitor’s search traffic, comparison between their SEO traffic and Paid Search traffic as well as the traffic’s monetary valuation.It also shows you detailed data on your competitor’s keywords, ad copies, estimated position and estimated cpc on various keywords, their landing pages etc. Also on the SEO front it shows you all the keywords, where they are ranking, what is the competitive situation for a specific keywords and similar information. If you are into a seriously competitive industry, this tool can give you a huge advantage.
    Have I used it ? YES. Highly Recommended!
  • Spyfu Competitor Analysis Tool
    Spyfu is very similar to SEM Rush and provides a lot of competitive intelligence. In fact in their Kombat mode you can actually see the keyword overlaps between your site and the competitor and what are the new opportunities. They also keep track of ad copy changes which is a good feature. Spyfu is more effective as a Paid Search competitor analysis tool though it does show some orabic competition data also.
    Have I used it ? YES. Highly Recommended!
  • Raven Tools
    Raven describes itself as “All-in-one Internet marketing platform for SEO, Social Media, PPC and Content. Research, manage, monitor and report on every aspect of your campaign.” While they have too many tools to mention, the tools are broadly classified into four groups – SEO Software, Social Media Management, Content Marketing and PPC Management.The tools also have an extremely strong reporting module that allows you to create custom reports and even put your own branding ( if you are an agency/ consultant this can be of big help). The reporting module alone can save you at least 5-8 hours.
    Have I used it ? YES. Highly Recommended!

This post is not complete and I will be adding more tools to this very soon.