We all have tools that we use to become more productive and get more things done everyday. SEO is no different. All SEO professionals have a set of tools that they use to get more done every single day. I thought I’d use this post to share a few of my tools that I use for my clients and my own sites:

• Web Position: Web Position is one of the oldest and most trusted search engine optimization tools in the market. This excellent software suite allows you to check your site’s rankings for multiple keywords across multiple engines. In addition, the page critic feature allows you to find out areas that you can improve upon. Many agencies use Web Position to create fancy reports for their clients. I personally use it to get things done faster.
• Google Adwords Tools: Google is the mother of all sites when it comes to providing solid tools for traffic estimation and keyword research. I have been using Google tools for quite some time, and I can’t imagine working without them.
• SEO-Book Keyword Tool: the mother of all free keyword tools was created by Aaron Walls and the folks at SEO-Book. You simply can’t go wrong with this free tool as it grabs data from multiple sources to give you the best results possible.
• SEO Digger: as the name suggests, this is one of the best tools out there for finding the keywords that other sites are using to get ranked on search engines. There is a premium service available, but I have personally not used it.
• WordTracker: this is the mother of all keyword tools. Every SEO professional that I know has a subscription to this service. You can also use the free service if you prefer, but there is nothing like a paid subscription to WordTracker.
• SpyFu: SpyFu is simply the best keyword competitive intelligence tools in the market. There are many other tools that claim to provide you with competitive intelligence that can help you gain an edge over your competitors, but this tool is the one for me.

There are many other tools that I use but are not necessarily for keyword research or spying on my competitors. At the end of the day, you should use as many tools as you can handle to gather information on your market and your competitors. If you can’t afford all the tools above, I’d go with WordTracker and Google Adwords tools (free). Anything less than that and you are not doing your SEO any justice.