I'd like to get your opinions on what the best tools for SEO research are. I used to use SEOQuake, but it seemed kinda glitchy to me. Are there any other good free tools or should I cough up some $$? Or should I just download SEOQuake again and raise my level of patience?
SEO Quake gives you some of the metrics of the website and for SEO research and learning there are some other good resources like seomoz.org or Google it.
I use - SERPTrends - SEOQuake - Google adwords keyword tool for keyword research - SERPanalytics for position tracking