You can find a million tools to do almost anything SEO on the net. Having said that, only a very low percentage of these tools actually work the way you expect them too. Let’s take a keyword rank checker. You would expect to get the latest SEO rankings with these tools, and that would be indeed the case if these tools actually worked. But you may want to be careful with these tools as some of them provide you with inaccurate and dated reports. That’s why I have researched for a while now to come up with a list of tools that actually do work. Most of them you probably know and use already, but just in case:

1. Google Keyword Tool: This tool which is tied with Google Adwords tells you about volume and competition for your keywords. You can then use these keywords with your adwords campaign. This tool is widely used in the SEO industry due to the fact that it is made by the best.
2. Microsoft Adcenter Labs: This is one of the best tools there is out there. Microsoft is playing catch up in the search industry, but they are trying to gain some momentum by providing tools such as this. This tool not only works for MSN ads, it also provides you with useful information such as Geographical reports and Intention reports.Very awesome tool if you ask me.
3. Digital Point Tools: Digital Point has a selection of very good SEO tools that you can use without any charge. Some of their tools will need you to sign up for an account, but overall their tools are very good. Worth trying out.
4. SEO Book Keyword Research Tool: Aaron Wall is one of the best SEOs there is out there, and he has dedicated a lot of time and money to bring you the best SEO tools available anywhere. In general, I like using Aaron’s tools as they aggregate information from multiple sources such as Google, MSN, and WordTracker. Having said that, the tools have crashed on me a couple of times, but the results have been fairly accurate. But more useful than the tool is his training book, SEOBook. You should definitely read it if you afford it.
5. SubmitExpress Keyword Tool: SubmitExpress is a little handy tool that shows side-by-side comparison between WordTracker and KeywordDiscovery results. Both these tools are great paid SEO tools, but if you don’t afford $400/$500 a year for these tools, then you can use the free results to get an estimate for the keywords that you are trying to target.

There are many other tools out there that may do the same job, but why waste time playing with so many different tools when you can use the above tools to actually do some search engine optimization. One thing about the Internet is that it’s a great tool for innovation and distraction. You can gain a lot from the Internet, but you can potentially lose a lot as well. Just go to remember that time is money!