The Best SEO Tools in 2016

For Keyword Research is Ahrefs still okay since Google basically cut out access to KW Planner unless you spend money? Does this affect API usage by third partis?

I don't know if you refer to this, but Ahrefs no longer has a free trial as well. Now you have to pay $7 to use it for 7 days.
 
Yaa... Ahrefs used to be a very good free tool.
GSA? It's look complicated, anyway, I plan to test drive it this weekend.
 
Other tools I use.

linkresearchtools - various uses

Cyberduck - FTP client

Brackets/Sublime - IDE

Bright Local - Citation

Moz OSE

SEOreviewtools - various
 
Let me share my list of must-have tools:
  • Majestic
  • Moz OSE
  • Google Analytics
  • Google Search Console
  • Netpeak Spider
  • Hootsuite
 
So this topic is very timely for me. I'm getting back into the game after several years of taking a hiatus. Figures it was my wife who wanted me to "touch up her site". lol. Anyways, I've had an opportunity to dump 30+ tools I relied on back in the day (2012-2015). This list isn't really blackhat. I think "blackhat" has lost it's luster and let's be honest, the real blackhat secret sauce shit doesn't really get talked about in public as much as these script kiddies come on here looking for the newest download or crack for what they "think" is blackhat. Automation has never really been blackhat. But, it's amazing who is NOT still around (wish backlink miner was bought out by someone..that was a great tool) and it's amazing who is STILL around and is actually still useful (desktop based tools):

Keyword Research: Ultimate Niche Finder, SERPAttacks Pro (still pretty good..a little light)

All in one Platforms: GSA, Money Robot (fantastic dev team), NoHandsSeo(another great dev- glad he kept with the software), Scrapebox

Content Production: Still evaluating what's good and what's not. Always though Instant Article Wizard took the idea half way..may have to look at going the full monty with that original idea

Citation Submitters/Validators: A bunch of web based ones now. Haven't eval'd them yet.

Rank Tracking: Eezee Rank Tracker (another fantastic dev who deserves any blackhat/white hats money). Desktop based and it "just works"

Over the past 11 years or so I've worked with a ton of dev teams..some you definitely know, some not. I've reversed engineered them, hacked/cracked them, help dev's fix stuff, etc. Along the way i've seen submitters go from web based http devtree submissions, socket submissions, to headless browsers doing much of the work. There's been an obvious stagnation in blackhat tools development over the past several years. Kind of sad really considering where we came from (at least the old timers). Not that I think having complete web based/subscription based tools is a bad thing..i still like getting my hands dirty with my own tools hosted on a rack someplace.

Gone are the xrumer/doorway/senuke days where you could literally plaster the first page of the serps and just get a ton of traction based on completely set/forget tools. Miss those day ;)

edit:: just going through and deleting more tools , and you know what i'm finding a huge lack of? Account creators (email) or stand alone web 2.0 properties. If there's an area that a dev wants to come in and knock it out of the ballpark - there you go.
 
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So this topic is very timely for me. I'm getting back into the game after several years of taking a hiatus. Figures it was my wife who wanted me to "touch up her site". lol. Anyways, I've had an opportunity to dump 30+ tools I relied on back in the day (2012-2015). This list isn't really blackhat. I think "blackhat" has lost it's luster and let's be honest, the real blackhat secret sauce shit doesn't really get talked about in public as much as these script kiddies come on here looking for the newest download or crack for what they "think" is blackhat. Automation has never really been blackhat. But, it's amazing who is NOT still around (wish backlink miner was bought out by someone..that was a great tool) and it's amazing who is STILL around and is actually still useful (desktop based tools):

Keyword Research: Ultimate Niche Finder, SERPAttacks Pro (still pretty good..a little light)

All in one Platforms: GSA, Money Robot (fantastic dev team), NoHandsSeo(another great dev- glad he kept with the software), Scrapebox

Content Production: Still evaluating what's good and what's not. Always though Instant Article Wizard took the idea half way..may have to look at going the full monty with that original idea

Citation Submitters/Validators: A bunch of web based ones now. Haven't eval'd them yet.

Rank Tracking: Eezee Rank Tracker (another fantastic dev who deserves any blackhat/white hats money). Desktop based and it "just works"

Over the past 11 years or so I've worked with a ton of dev teams..some you definitely know, some not. I've reversed engineered them, hacked/cracked them, help dev's fix stuff, etc. Along the way i've seen submitters go from web based http devtree submissions, socket submissions, to headless browsers doing much of the work. There's been an obvious stagnation in blackhat tools development over the past several years. Kind of sad really considering where we came from (at least the old timers). Not that I think having complete web based/subscription based tools is a bad thing..i still like getting my hands dirty with my own tools hosted on a rack someplace.

Gone are the xrumer/doorway/senuke days where you could literally plaster the first page of the serps and just get a ton of traction based on completely set/forget tools. Miss those day ;)

edit:: just going through and deleting more tools , and you know what i'm finding a huge lack of? Account creators (email) or stand alone web 2.0 properties. If there's an area that a dev wants to come in and knock it out of the ballpark - there you go.
Talk me a little more about the Eezee Rank Tracker
 
Tracking Keywords - Serplab

Competition analysis - SEMRush

Backlink checker - majestic


Out of these I love SEMRush... not so good for finding links (doesn't even fine 1/5 of what majestic imo) but awesome to see small keywords competitors rank for
 
That's my own list of tools that I use everyday. There are pros and cons to each of those.
For search analytics:
  • Serpstat
  • SimilarWeb
Backlinks:
  • Majestic
SEO Audit:
  • Netpeak Spider
  • Screaming Frog
Rank Tracking:
  • Serpstat
  • AWR
 
now its big list and confused too. Maybe in the first page we could have updated all the tools. it would be handy
 
I regularly use the cheapest paid option of both ahrefs and SEMrush and find these to be pretty useful. Only recently started using Scrapbox/GSA so have yet to get to their full potential yet. Don't really use a whole lot other than these currently!

openlinkprofiler.org is also helpful tool for your competitor analysis.
 
Must have:

Ahrefs
Majestic
Screaming Frog - website analysis
Zennoposter - 1 tier
GSA SER (and other tools from Sven) - lower tiers
Scrapebox
Captcha Breaker or Captcha Sniper
Services: copywriters, proxy lists, mail providers, captcha, hosting accounts (for money sites not the cheapest ones)

Useful:

The Best Spinner
Fiverr services
Paid themes and plugins for WP.
Mastering different CMSes than Wordpress.
Raventools
Netpeak Checker
 
If you guys want something that's
a) an all-in-one SEO & Social Tool (has rank tracking, keyword research, audit, link research, social, etc)
b) cheap (no monthly subscription, pay-per-report)
then you can try Mondovo. It's a new tool and quite cheap.
 
google search "group buy seo tools" you can thank me later.

group buys allow you pay a min monthly fee from 25-$50 a month to access some of the best seo online tools ( like 20-30 tools) to spy and overtake your competition. Beats paying $50-$100 a month individually for one piece of seo tool online.
 
Alright, so here are some tools from the top of my head that am using now:

Tiered Link Building:
- fiverr (paid)
- blackhatlinks.com (paid)
- linksmanagement.com (paid)

Competitor Analysis:
- Ahrefs (free trial for 14 days)
- SEOprofiler ($1 trial for 30 days)
- SERPed.net (paid)

Rank Tracking:
- proranktracker.com (free version)

Hosting:

- internetovizija.com (the best VPS I know)

On Site SEO:

- Internet Business Promoter (paid) - yep I still use this old tool :D

Anyway, that's just from the top of my head, am sure there is more. I'll post later if anything comes up.


Really it's very useful tool ( proranktracker.com ), Thanks for sharing :-)
 
keyword analysis is becoming harder since last summer Goo update. Keyword planner is now only partially useful and the same happens to Semrush. still looking for a valid solution
 
Hi there,
here are mine :

Keyword checker competition :
kwfinder.com (free version only 5 searches/day)
keywordrevealer.com (with an interesting keyword brainstorming tool)

Ranking keywords :

serplab.co.uk
 
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