I used to be an SEO Consultant in Hong Kong until I went in-house.
To do my job, I use a plethora of tools, from paid-to-free, and in this post I outline a bunch of the more popular tools that I use – and they are all free!
Website owners are continuously on the lookout for innovative and efficient strategies to drive organic traffic to their sites. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a cost-effective and long-term method of doing so. However, SEO may help you in other ways as well, such as giving you an edge over your competitors, establishing trust and credibility, improving user experience, and strengthening your relationship with your audience.
SEO is a long-term investment in your company. These are the top free SEO tools if you have the additional time to understand the ins and outs of SEO and want to take control:
Google Analytics
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It should come as no surprise that Google has some of the greatest SEO tools. After all, a large part of your site’s optimization work is to appeal to Google’s search engine. A sensible first step is to use their own tools and the information they supply. If you’re not already utilizing Google Analytics, now is the greatest time to get started.
Google Analytics can tell you almost anything you want to know about your site’s traffic since it monitors almost everything about it, however it no longer shows you the keywords that are driving it. You’ll need to utilize another tool, such as Keyword Hero, for this.
Google Search Console
This is another Google service, this one helps you to track and resolve numerous technical issues with your website. You may also keep track of vital SEO metrics like clicks, impressions, and average position. The Index Coverage Report, which shows you which pages on your site are not being indexed, is one of the most important features of Google Search Console – or mostly abbreviated to GSC.
Answer The Public
Having trouble with keywords? Enter a term into Answer the Public, and you’ll get a huge list of long-tail keyword ideas as well as frequently requested questions. You might be asking what makes this keyword tool stand out among the others. Answer the Public looks for questions from the public on forums, blogs, and social media. It then converts the questions into keyword recommendations for you to react with.
Exploding Topics
When it comes to SEO, keywords are frequently a big focus, which is why there are so many tools dedicated to identifying and proposing them. Exploding Topics differs from other keyword tools in that it suggests keywords that are just starting to trend, rather than popular phrases that are already being utilized. What makes you think this is a good thing? Because it allows you to use these keywords as they become more popular, but before there is a lot of competition for them.
ClickFlow
To attract attention, SEO efforts frequently rely on the production of new content. While this is clearly critical, you should also think about updating outdated information. ClickFlow assists you in doing so by displaying the pages on your site that are no longer doing effectively. Adding new material to these blogs and eliminating information that is no longer relevant will help you regain some traffic.
Screaming Frog
Finding the proper keywords is only part of SEO. Finding and correcting technical issues on your site is critical, but it may also be difficult. Screaming Frog makes an appearance.
A Google-like crawler will be used by Screaming Frog to crawl your site. It will then provide a report with a list of possible problems, such as javascript rendering difficulties, bloated HTML or HTML header mistakes, and crawl errors. Screaming Frog’s ability to inform you of duplicate content—something that Google penalizes websites for by decreasing their display ranking—is a particularly important feature.
Ahrefs’ Backlink Checker
On the subject of copying your competitor’s playbook, Ahrefs’ Backlink Checker displays the top 100 backlinks to any website or URL, as well as the overall number of backlinks, referring domain, Domain Rating, and URL rating (where applicable). This might be handy for looking for link-building chances on your competitor’s website.
Should You Handle Your Own SEO?
Small business owners frequently desire to do as much as possible themselves, either to save money or to be more involved in all aspects of their company. Both are true at times. They may feel compelled to execute their own SEO as a result of this. With so many resources for SEO knowledge readily available, it may appear to be a simple task, especially with free tools like the ones mentioned above.
I wrote a resource here that you might find useful if you are thinking of doing SEO yourself.
Offering your services, marketing your products or services, doing your accounting and bookkeeping, researching new areas of business potential, training and leading your employees, maintaining your business location, planning the future of your business, and more are all challenges of being a business owner. Maintaining your website is just another item on your to-do list.
While many of these tools are helpful, if you’re serious about SEO (and your business), you’ll eventually want to hire pros that know how to maximize your efforts and bring you the results you desire.