Tools are basically things that we use to make things easier. In SEO, we also have tools that make work a lot easier. There are just too many SEO tools available today. However, there are only very few that really stand out. As 2011 is about to end, let’s take a look at the top SEO tools this year.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

This SEO tool is highly recommended and the best thing about it is that it’s free. There are many similar tools available but this is surely better most of the m. Basically, the software makes SEO a lot easier by presenting SEO-relevant information of a website in simple and easy to use tabs. Just unleash the Screaming Frog SEO Spider and it will come back with loads of important information that you need to work on like errors, meta data, redirects, etc. This data will allow you to have a faster and more accurate analysis of your website enabling you to remedy major and minor problems.

Recorded Future

This tool is classified as a “Temporal Analytics Engine” that crawls thousands of online data sources using the gathered information to predict multiple futures. It is presented to the user in a simple and accessible interface. Sources include authority sites, relevant blogs, related organizations, social media platforms, etc. The main idea is to provide global intelligence for your particular industry. This will help you predict and take advantage of trends.

SEOMoz

SEOMoz is one of the oldest SEO tools. It has been around since the early 1980′s in one form or another but was only called SEOMoz sometime in 2004. If you haven’t heard of this tool then you probably live under a rock or you’re just a SEO newbie.

SEOMoz remains to be one of the most popular tools available because it is simply the best at what it does which is to provide a set of programs and software that enables the user to save a considerable amount of time on linking. A highlight of this popular tool is Open Site Explorer which allows the user to identify up to 10,000 links and prioritize them based on domain strength.

Another highlight is its rank tracker that can store keyword data from SERPs in very simple to use configurations. This is perfect for closely monitoring rankings for instant remedies to maintain high rankings. SEOMoz is a little costly compared to other SEO tools but it is definitely worth the money considering the benefits.