Many people may not think of Firefox as an SEO tool, but in actuality, it’s a great one. It works well for SEO for many reasons. Among them are that it’s free, secure, works on Mac, Windows, and Linux with the same features and functionality and has a large developer network creating extension that are generally independent.

After you make the decision to use Firefox though, it can be overwhelming deciding which plugins you should use. To that end, here is a list of the 7 highly useful plugins and what you can use them for:

1. SEOQuake – This tool helps analyze search results and various parameters that may influence SEO such as Google PR (Google PageRank of current page), Google Index (Number of indexed pages. Google version), Google link (Number of links, pointed to the current page. Google version (Except links from concerned domain) as well as similar parameters for many other search engines (Yahoo, MNS, Yandex, Rambler, Baidu) and some other miscellaneous parameters.

2. SEOpen: Provides some basic tools to help with search engine optimization, including Google backlinks, yahoo backlinks, PageRank check, http header viewer, and more. All features are available by right-clicking on an open area of a web page, or by using the included toolbar. (Note: Not yet compatible with Firefox 3.0)

3. SEO Link Analysis: Adds display of PageRank, linktext and nofollow links to external links in Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo! Site Explorer and Microsoft Webmaster Portal.

4. Mahalo Share: Share and recommend Web pages across many different services; recommend a link once and have it automatically posted to any of Twitter, del.icio.us, MySpace, Ma.gnolia, Jaiku, your Tumblr blog, Facebook, Pownce, StumbleUpon, Mahalo, Faves, or Google Bookmarks.

5. SearchStatus: Display the Google PageRank, Alexa rank and Compete ranking anywhere in your browser, along with fast keyword density analyser, keyword/nofollow highlighting, backward/related links, Alexa info and more.

6. RankQuest SEO Toolbar: RankQuest SEO(Search Engine Optimization) Toolbar provides you quick access to more than 30 intuitive SEO tools. Alexa Rank and Page Rank provided by Alexa and Google respectively ensure the popularity of the site. Once you download and install the SEO Toolbar you are only one or two clicks away from carrying out most of your day to day SEO operations.

7. About This Site: One-click access to web site metadata – traffic, related and linked pages, and more – added to the Tools menu and context menu.

We use this keyword ranking tool (Download Rank Checker) at least a couple of times a day to check keyword rankings quickly.  In addition, we use the .CSV export to show the rankings to clients and potential clients.  The rankings are tracked for the Top 200 rankings in Google, Yahoo!, and MSN.

Additional features include the ability to set a preset list that will let you re-check at a later date as well as the history of the keyword preset lists.  Once a preset list is setup, you can schedule the Firefox extension to run at a set time…be sure to set you search interval to between 4-7 seconds so you are being ‘friendly’ to search engines.

Google Webmaster Tools now makes the process of tracking down the causes of “Not found” errors a piece of cake. Before, you could only watch the number of 404’s increase and decrease in Google Webmaster Tools, now you can actually use GWT to take action and turn these external links into new inbound links.  Here is a quick overview of where to look for this information in GWT:

Watch Video Here

You can get more information at Google Webmaster Blog Post.   We are glad to see the constant improvements by Google on the webmaster tools and we avidly monitor and manage the information in the Google Webmaster Tool interface.

If you want to take advantage of this new feature to not only reduce 404’s but increase links, here is a sample email you could send to those sites with 404 links to your site to increase both your link count and your anchor text relevance:

(Person),

This is (clients name) from (client) and we noticed through our Google Webmaster Tools that you have a link to our site. First off, I would like to say thank you for linking to (client website) as we believe it is a valuable resources for your website visitors. However, we did find that there is an issue with the link that is pointing to our site. The issue is that the page you linking to no longer exists on our site and we would really appreciate it if you could update this link to an active page. To help you find the page that is linking to our site we have included a screen shot below that contains this information. Right below this information is the link to the new page we would like you to point this link to with the anchor text. We would like you to replace the broken link with this new information.

Broken Link:
(Put bad link here)

New Link:
(Put new link here with optional description if page allows it)

Please let me know if you have any questions and I can help you work through those.

Thank you ,
(Clients Name)

While SEO basics state that your dynamic URLs should be search engine friendly, Google’s latest announcement states that they prefer you not use rewrites to change your dynamic URLs to static-looking URLS.

This change comes from Google due to the fact that they can better understand the purpose of a page based on its URL structure now. John Mu of the Google team had this to say: “One of the reasons for that is that we can use the information provided through the parameters to better understand what your site is doing with those parameters. For instance,the URL http://www.mysite.com/search.php?q=keyword can give us information about what is happening, it could even allow us to recognize that this is a search form and perhaps let us attempt other keywords that might lead us to content that we haven’t seen for your site. On the other hand, a URL like http://www.mysite.com/search/keyword does not give us any information at all about what the “file name” is used for.”

The question now is do you need to undo all of the dynamic URL rewrites you already have. While there is not a punishment for switching your URL formats it may take a bit of time. So, essentially changing your URL rewrites really depends on how many rewrites you have and how well those pages currently rank. One suggestion is to start with your lower performing URLs and see the effects of switching them.

Otherwise you may find that you lose ranking popularity and lots of time making a switch. And what’s most important is making sure your site doesn’t suffer in search engine optimization.

Google is the top used search engine, which means it’s also an important asset for search engine optimization professionals to use. Fortunately, Google doesn’t leave SEO experts in the dark. Here are some of the most useful SEO tools that Google offers that will help you in your SEO endeavors.

1.    Matt Cutts Blog. Cutts writes about Google of course, but he also includes posts about SEO including the Google algorithm for search.
2.    The Google Blog. This more general blog talks about “insights from Googlers into our products, technology, and the Google culture.” This is a great read for staying on top of what Google and the people using the search engine like and find helpful.
3.    Google Ad Planner. This free media-planning tool can help refine your online advertising, potentially saving you money in the short and long term.
4.    Google Dance Tool. This tool allows you to ping three Google data centers to see if Google is updating their search algorithm. It’s a great way to stay up-to-date with the changes that are being made.
5.    Google Search Appliance. This is integrated hardware and software that allows businesses to have the productivity-enhancing power of Google search within their own sites.

These five tools are just the tip of the iceberg as well. If you are involved in SEO in any sense of the word jump into Google’s site and have a look around. You just may be surprised to find out how much is there that can help you.

The Google Sitemap Protocol allows a webmaster to tell Google about URLS on a website that are available for crawling. A Sitemap is an file that lists all of the available URLs for a site. It also provides web site owners the ability to put additional information about each URL: the time and date it was last updated, how often the content of the web page changes, and how important the web page is in relation to other URLs that belong to the site. In short, the Google Sitemap Protocol provides an easy way for search engines, primarily Google, to crawl the site more intelligently.

The Google Sitemap Protocol is particularly beneficial in situations when it is difficult for users to access all areas of a website through the browseable interface. For example, a site with a large “archive” or “database” of resources that aren’t well linked to each other (if at all), only accessible via a search form.

The webmaster can generate a sitemap using the Google Sitemap Protocol containing all accessible URLs on the site and submit it to search engines. For dynamically created sites or web sites using Flash or AJAX, the Google Sitemap Protocol may be the only way to get the website fully indexed.

Note that the Google Sitemap Protocol is only a supplement to other search engine submission processes and does not in any way replace the existing crawl-based mechanisms that search engines already use to discover URLs. By submitting a sitemap using Google Sitemap Protocol to a search engine a webmaster is only helping that engine’s crawlers to do a better job of crawling their site(s).

Using the Google Sitemap Protocol does not guarantee that your web site pages will be included in search engine indexes nor does it influence the way that your web site pages are ranked by a search engine.

After a sitemap is submitted via Google account, Google provides current crawler problem reports after a simple verification procedure to ensure only the web site owner gets access to the stats area.

There are several free online Google Sitemap Protocol Tools that will generate a Google Sitemap for your web site:
GSiteCrawler (Windows)
Tipue (Windows)
Sorrowmans Sitemap Protocol Tools (Windows)
Site Map Pro $ (Windows)
AllWebMenus $ (Windows)
GWebCrawler & Sitemap Creator $ (Windows)
CoffeeCup Sitemapper $ (Windows)
Gsitemap (Windows)
PHP XML Sitemap Generator $ (Windows)
MediaCET Diadematus (Windows)
Odin Assemble $ (Windows)
Rage Google Sitemap Protocol Automator $ (OSX)
Map-IT Sitemapper $ (Windows, Mac)
GoogleSitemapsWin (Windows)
Devintelligence Sitemap Protocol Generator (Windows)
G-Mapper (Windows)
IntelliMapper (Windows)
GY SiteMapper (Windows)
Site Magellen(Windows)
A1 Sitemap Generator $ (Windows)

These Google Sitemap Protocol tools will help you generate your Google Sitemap.

Market Vertical Partners has released a new suite of Search Engine Optimization tools designed to help web site owners and search engine optimization specialists review a web site SEO status quickly.

The new SEO tools include:

Keyword Density Cloud -Visual depiction of keyword density and count.
Search Engine Ranking - See if your web site is in the top 100 on major search engines.
Link Popularity Check – Shows inbound web site link count for Google, Yahoo, & MSN.
Indexed Pages - Shows website pages indexed by Google, Yahoo and MSN.
Google PR Check your web site Google Page Rank.

Google Analytics is one of the best tools that can be used to track and monitor the traffic performance of your site.  Owning a website on the internet is not the end of your marketing. It is necessary that you keep track of the performance of the site in search engines so that rankings can be increased.

Google Analytics is a powerful tool that gives you a better understanding on why web visitors visit your site. This is because Google Analytics provides information on which keywords are most effectively used in the website. On finding out which these keywords are, it is possible for the webmaster to enhance the number of visits to the site.

With the help of Google Analytics, it is possible to gain information on the way visitors visit the site and interact with it. This is because the webmaster will know which of the SEO campaigns help to deliver the best return on investment to the site, with the help of Google Analytics. And if you have installed software to find out internet marketing results of your website, Google Analytics helps in the tracking of results of internet marketing campaigns.

One of the tools used by Google Analytics is Google Adwords. With this service, it is possible to get high search engine rankings to your site. This is because google Adwords takes note of the major keywords in the website, and guarantees that your website appears in all search engine results.

There are other benefits that Google Analytics offers like:

1)Unlike other expensive visitor tracking services, it is free. This helps put Google Analytics at the top of the list.

2)Google Analytics helps find out where visitors tend to leave the check out and sign up process in the site. With this information, amendments can be made to modify the sign up process and make it more user friendly.

3)Google Analytics helps you find the pages and links in the website that visitors click on the most. With this information, you can improve the pages and position them and their links appropriately.

4)Google Analytics has a wonderful feature where you can also find out which site your website visitor had logged on before visiting your site.

5)You are offered visitor segmentation where you know how many new and returning website users there are to your website. You are also provided geographical information of the visitor and the referral source used by them.

6)Google Analytics offers not only search engine marketing media, but also helps in the tracking of other non-search engine marketing media.

7)On the overall, with the help of Google Analytics, it is possible to gain more customers if the results it provides are used wisely.

8)Google Analytics is a very easy and convenient service to use that is rather straightforward to use. There is no need in wasting time waiting for results.

9)If you own many websites, there is no need of logging in multiple times. With a single login, it is possible to keep a track on multiple websites.

So it can be seen that Google Analytics is a service that all webmasters should not forsake, but use to enhance the performance of the site on the internet.