There are hundreds if not thousands of web tools on the market but this is a selection that we have found most useful ourselves and use on a regular basis. We hope they help you too!
Google Keyword Tool
Free. This is a fantastic tool if you are starting a new site or want to refresh your current offering. It enables you to test relevant keywords to see how popular they are (how often they are searched for on Google!) and how much competition there is already. Easy to use and often brings up surprising results
Hootsuite
Free but paid for packages depending on level of service that you require. Hootsuite is a real time saver because it allows you to post to all your social media accounts at once. For example, you can write one post and simultaneously add it to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. One of the biggest additional benefits is that you can write a number of posts and schedule them to be added at pre-determined times. This means you can create a batch in one go and set them to be un-leashed on to the world at the optimum time and frequency.
Tweetadder
Cost: Small fee. This is specifically designed to help with your Twitter account but if you are serious about building your Social Media presence, this will certainly help. You can search for suitable people to follow by keywords used in Tweets, users profiles and/or geographic location. A coupler of the best features are that it automatically follows anyone who follows you and sends them a thank you message (your wording) – this alone takes much of the time and hassle out of monitoring your account.
Hubspot
Hubspot offer a paid for All-in-One Marketing Software and this may well be of interest. I will be honest,and xconfess that we have not purchased this but have registered on the site. As a result, we regularly receive e-mails offering their latest e-book and can testify that these are excellent.
Woorank
Free trial but then $49 per month if selected. Woorank allows you to enter your URL and it then creates a comprehensive and very impressive report on the current health of your site. Even if you are not technical, it will give a feel of how well you are doing and if necessary give you a checklist to pass on to your website developer.
Open Site Explorer
Free. Another way to look at the state of your website. This is predominantly geared towards links but also shows Domain Authority, Page Authority, and number of inbound linking domains. In isolation these figures may not mean much but do come to life when you compare with other sites.
Alexa
Free. You can use Alexa to see how your site rates both in your own country and in the world. It may not be a terribly accurate measure as it bases its results on information obtained from internet browsers who have the Alexa toolbar installed. However, it is a great way of checking how you are doing against your competition. It also shows who is linking into your (and your competitors) site, which may be a good way of finding out where you can get more inbound links.
Browseo
Free. This is probably the most technical tool on the list but it is still worth a look. It allows you to enter your URL and to see your site through the eyes of a search engine. At a glance, you can check your title, description and a SERP preview (a prediction of how your site may appear in search engine results
Google Analytics
Free. Access via your Google account. If you do not have one yet, it is easy (and free to set up). Simply sign up by following the link in the top right hand corner of your local Google page. Google Analytics gives you masses of data including demographics (who visits, from where and how long they stay on the site). Once set up, you can see exactly which pages are the most popular and how users flow through your site.
Google Webmaster Tools
Free. Access by logging onto your Google account.
Shows the general health of your site including how many crawl errors Google have been detected (and the opportunity to put them right), search terms used by search traffic, how many sites link into yours; site optimization including sitemap, the chance to remove URLs, HTML improvements, content keywords and other resources.
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