Many SEO Tools are useless, most are no better than a waste of time. Search Engine Optimization ultimately cannot be automated. The best SEO tools are those that help you to help yourself or show you how, preferably with screen shots and/or video, how to optimally accomplish your SEO tasks.
Certainly don't waste your time with SEO tools to calculate keyword density and the like.
Best SEO Tools
WebCEO. All purpose SEO tool. Preferred by many professional search engine optimizers for volume SEO exercises. WebCEO have a free version but it is rather limited. WebCEO has an SEO course that is certified. Free to qualify if you are a WebCEO Pro owner.
LinkSurveys. Important link management tool for analysing your competitor's inbound links and finding potential sites to link to you. Cost is only $49. This I bought on the strength of a personal recommendation from link building expert Eric Ward when he advised our company on link building, and while a raw interface, it does the job of finding and sorting those links really fast compared to other similar link management products.
Search Engine College. If you want to consider a career in SEO, or to do a better job as an in-house SEO, there are few better than Kalena Jordan's Search Engine College. Kalena is a highly respected SEO industry expert (and one of my mentors). Try one of their SEO Lessons for free..
ClickTracks. Used by many higher end webmasters for traffic analysis. Comprehensive but expensive for small sites @ $995..
PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Advertising
Google Adwords eBook. Generate instant, targetted traffic to your website/s. Like turning on a tap, but rather more complicated. It is easy to blow the budget if not set up correctly, but a properly set-up and managed Adwords project runs on auto-pilot. Best option is to have your Pay-Per-Click (PPC) account managed by a Google certified Adwords Professional, or read the best book
on Adwords by the leading authority on Adwords, Perry Marshall.
No website yet? Here are the best website design software tools for small business websites.
SiteBuildIt! (SBI!). SBI! is the undisputed best choice for those who don't have HTML skills etc., but want a website that really works and makes money. You can still create a top website design with SBI! The SBI! offering is so comprehensive, right from tools to research your own profitable online niche and keyword research, to hosting your website. Nothing is left to chance. SBI! also offers a money-back guarantee..
Directory Submission Tools
A good option with directory submissions is to outsource this tedious, yet important task.
DirectoryMaximizer. Professional directory submission service. This company has been specializing in submitting websites to directories for several years, and do it cheaply and correctly.