Hello everyone I just wanted to share a few of the tools I use when optimizing my site.
1st.
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal Google adwords tool, I know that all the old timers have it in their favs, but for the newbs this tool will show you the monthly search volume for a specific keyword or term. It will tell you if the work necessary to rank well for a certain term will pay off in traffic.
2nd.
http://www.google.com/insights/search/# This is still in its beta it shows you the trends of a specific keyword or phrase over a period of time. Pretty interesting though it does not show the actual volume such as the one listed above.
3rd. Backlink Checkers: yahoo searches link: google webmaster tools and here is another I like>
http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/ all of them will give you diffrent numbers so do rely on any one specifically it is better to use them as a estimate of link building success.
4th.
http://website.grader.com/Default.aspx I found this to be a good tool for finding weaknesses in a beginning marketing campaign. This uses 50 or so diffrent critera to judge a websites marketing campaign. Not really good for free domains but gives you a good idea of your marketing campaign.
5th.
http://www.ranks.nl/tools/spider.html This tool will check the keyword density for one word phrases, two word, and three word. This tool helped me by letting compare certain keyword/phrases density to that of my competitors. Excellent tool.
6th. Following SEO blogs to learn new technique and make sure your SEO is on track. A couple that I enjoy are>
http://blog.v7n.com/, http://jameseo.com/< so so,
http://www.alistseo.com/,
http://www.seomoz.org/, and http://www.seo-guy.com/tutorial.html< free tutorial which outlines the basics a must for a beginner to seo.
Anyway if you guys can add please do so I also go over some topics in my website marketing blog in my sig. I hope you enjoy the tools and they help you as they have helped me