By: Kim Roach  | Source: seo-news.com

Search engine optimization is a complex process with many facets. Some of these include keyword research, on-page optimization, off-page optimization, acquiring inbound links, and tracking your rankings.

Fortunately, there are many tools that have been created to aid web masters in each of these tasks.

Below I have reviewed 7 of the top SEO tools so that you can quickly find out what your site needs to rise in the search engines.

First up is the "Cool SEO Tool". I’ll let you decide whether or not it lives up to its name.

Cool SEO Tool

This tool allows you to compare your site against the top 10 listed sites in Google for a particular keyword or phrase. You simply enter your keyword and the system will begin comparing 9 different metrics for the top 10 rankings. This allows you to quickly compare the Yahoo rank, MSN rank, Google pages indexed, altavista pages indexed, backlinks to page, backlinks to domain, allinanchor rank, age of url, and whether or not the phrase is on the page.

This tool can unveil extremely valuable information on how you can break into the top 10 search engine positions. Try it out at http://www.webuildpages.com/cool-seo-tool/.

XML-Sitemaps

Google wants to make sure that webmasters have a way of communicating information that is important about their sites. To accomodate this, they created Google Sitemaps in 2005. Using this tool, you can tell Google when you have created new pages and how often your pages are updated. To get your pages indexed as quickly as possible, it is in your best interest to create a sitemap for Google as well as for Yahoo.

Unfortunately, finding a sitemap generator that is easy to use can be a frustrating task. However, after a lot of digging, I think I’ve found one that you will like.

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