Seo Tool Wish List?, If someone was creating an SEO tool for you, what would you want? Options

[phaithful]

I've recently been doing quite a bit more SEO than I had in the past. As we all know there are plenty of SEO tools out there, but with each tool, I always feel like I want something more from each of them ...

I always end up saying to myself, "This tool is great, but I wish it could ....". I was wondering what your "I wish it could ..." is?

For me, a lot of times, I wish I had a tool that wouldn't choke on a site larger than 10,000 pages.

[dazzlindonna]

My fave tools were always the ones that gave me a quick glance at competition (and there really aren't any left that I'm aware of - or at least not free).

Remember one of the old mcdar tools? You'd put in a keyword phrase and your url, and it would give you a table of the top 10 sites that ranked for that phrase, with your url on top. Next to each site was a bevy of info - # backlinks, age of site, PR, etc. Nowadays, I'd want better information listed in that table, but the concept remains the same. Show me what the competition looks like at a glance. Give me a way to dig further if I want to, but the very first look should be an overall picture of what I'd be up against when competing for that phrase. I can get lots of info from lots of tools, but that's one tool that has gone missing over the years.

[phaithful]

I agree... side by side competitive intelligence tools for SEO are extremely lacking. I would definitely love to see a tool like that again.

Actually, although many tools can be used as a "one off" for competitive intelligence, I would love to see a tool that would identify the entire niche and provide the bevy of data on that niche as a whole and the sites that make up the niche. (similar to HitWise... but without the insane cost )

[glyn]

There are some advanced analytics reports, which look like bubble running all over a graph. It was beta in GA for a while. Quite soothing, if nothing else.

Tools for SEO tend to be best not shared with everyone, because if they are it's only a matter of time before they become a) useless banned or c) made obsolete by something as completely inane like an H1 tag.

[phaithful]

Tools for SEO tend to be best not shared with everyone ...

That's a sad truth. I seriously think the more interesting things about the SEO / SEM industry aren't being looked at or discovered because there's too much "hording" of information and tools going on.

[A.N.Onym]

I like using the SEO for Firefox extension to see competitors basic stats (links, social activity, domain age, etc).

As for really useful tools, they:
- require way too much work to remain free
- use lots of resources, so they just have to be hidden or paid
- are used secretly under the blanket, at night

Typically, I could use a tool that'd let me see which topic around a related keyword is popular and/or linkable (i.e., gets more links, than others). To think of it, I could probably create a spec for the tool, but I don't have the budget

Other than that, I tend not to rely on tools, though I probably should automate some of my SEO/market research work.

This post has been edited by A.N.Onym: Mar 24 2009, 05:56 AM

[Angela Charles]

The one tool I really miss is SEO Digger. Being able to type in competitors URLs to find out which keywords they were performing on that might be appropriate for our clients was very helpful. The new version has been altered so much it really has lost its usefulness.