The name of the game is search engine optimization and there are 20 winners and a million losers. It is a massive game that is conducted each and every minute by the top search engines. The fun is the referee of the game tries to modify the format each minute, to make the game useful for the spectators, in this case the folks who search. This is a high stakes game with billions of dollars at stake and the rules change daily. The playing field changes daily and the folks who compete constantly change. Wow what a fun filled game this is. This game has consistently shown that the folks with the right tools win consistently and the ones who dont but with good ideas win at random and like shooting stars fade out real quick.

Search engine optimization is a tough game to play and there are penalties for foul play and this could mean thousands of missed opportunities for your business. The folks out there keep the secret strategies to themselves as they can profit a lot out of it. But a few folks who intend to make money or simply for the fun of helping others achieve the glory of being in the top 20, have developed very good nifty tools. This article is about these tools and the techniques behind them. Google ToolBar is the first and foremost tool that every website owner should have. This tool has much functionality like popup blocker etc. The feature that helps SEO is the page rank bar and the add-on features it provide. The Back links checker is capable of displaying all known back links for your webpage that is known to Google. The similar page feature is very helpful to know your competitors.

Lets look at the top 4 categories of tools needed for SEO:

1. Keyword Tools: the keyword density is the number of keywords present as a percentage of the total words in that page. The keyword density could really depend on what you are targeting and usually a trial and error. This tool provides the details about the density without counting them yourself each time. The other keyword tools are keyword suggestion and research tools that give the right keywords to employ for your optimization, keyword optimizers, keyword typos tool.

2. Page Rank tools: This is a broad category with many tools under this umbrella. The page rank checker is a simple tool to check your rank and also some versions provide the rank of the competition as well. There are some additional nifty tools like the Google dance tool and the future page rank checker.

3. Meta Tag related tools: Meta tags are needed to describe the webpage for the search engines and other bots. The tools under this umbrella are Meta Tag generators, Meta Tag analyzers, Meta Tag replicator.

4. Link Analyzers: This contains the back links checker, the broken link finders, sitemap generators, Link popularity checkers, Link suggestion tools, Internal link density checkers, I also found a good one - link relevancy checker. These tools are very very important for your page rank if not for your search results.

Most of these tools with basic features can be found for free and there are some good tools that need special licensing and most of them provide a good way to reach the top 20 and be part of the winners and not be in the millions of folks who loose for each and every keyword. There are many keywords you can target and be part of the top 20. The first step is choosing a less competitive keyword and get to the top 20. Well before you put that SEO cap to get down and dirty, please go through the suggested tools in this article. There are a few good tools that have a demo period for you test out whether it is suitable for you. One such product is the SEO Elite.