Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools are extremely important for any SEO campaign to be successful. Good SEO tools make ranking on the first page of Google and other search engines for desired keywords a lot easier.
There are many free and paid SEO tools and software available online with each claiming to be the “Best SEO tool” so it is difficult to tell which is actually the best. This post will help you choose the top SEO tools for keyword research, building high-quality backlinks, analyzing competitors websites, content optimization and more.
Best Free SEO Tools
1. Google Analytics
Google Analytics is hands down the best free web analytics tool, Google Analytics provides insights to many types of data ranging from customer acquisition to behavior and sales and so much more.
You cannot call yourself an SEO expert if you do not have a good understanding of Google Analytics and use it frequently, it is a must have SEO tool.
You can easily connect your Google Search Console account, Google Adsense and Google Adwords accounts to Google Analytics to get better insights on their data.
2. Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is one of the best free keyword tools. It is owned by Google and provides insights to keywords, keyword traffic, competition and suggested bids i.e Cost per click (CPC).
3. Google Search Console
Google Search Console formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools is a free full suite of tools from Google which every SEO must know how to use excellently and daily. Popularly called GSC, it has tools for indexing, checking site errors, viewing site traffic statistics, backlinks and much more.
4. Keyword Everywhere
Keyword Everywhere is a Google Chrome extension which shows you search volume, competition and CPC data for keywords in Google Search Console and supported SEO tools like Ubersuggest. It gets its data directly from the Google Keyword Planner.
5. Screaming Frog
Screaming Frog is a very good SEO software which scans and analyzes websites, shows you your website SEO data, redirects, broken links, response codes and other data. It is a desktop app and has to be downloaded and installed before use.
6. Ubersuggest.io
Ubersuggest is a free tool which provides Google autocomplete search suggestions for inputted keywords. Keywords in ubersuggest can be expanded to view long tail keywords, it works with the Keyword Everywhere Google Chrome extension.
7. Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is the undisputed king of WordPress SEO plugins, it offers very useful features to help even SEO beginners do SEO with ease. It scores article SEO based on keyword density, title length, content length, alt tags, meta descriptions, internal links, external links and more and shows a green light only when SEO is done right, otherwise it shows red light for bad SEO and orange light for fairly good SEO. It is a must have SEO tool for WordPress users.
Best Paid SEO Tools
Paid SEO Tools are more professional than free tools, they offer better SEO management and tracking tools and many other features. Here are the best paid SEO tools from my experience and user reviews.
1. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is one of the biggest and most popular link analysis and link building tools, Ahrefs is a must use for anyone doing SEO.
2. BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is one of the best content tools online, it offers many features to make your content marketing campaign a huge success.
3. Majestic SEO Tool
Majestic SEO Tool is a popular link analysis tool and helps users know whether prospective sites they want to link to will give them authority links or spammy links.
4. Moz Pro
Moz Pro is a group of SEO tools for keyword research, rank checking and backlink research. It provides a complete set of tools for SEO work. It also comes with a Chrome and Firefox extension called MozBar which shows you the Page Authority and Domain Authority of any website you visit.
5. Long Tail Pro
Long Tail Pro is a cool SEO software used to find long tail keywords and offers CPC and search volume filtering to make your work easier.
6. SimilarWeb
SimilarWeb is an all round SEO tool, SimilarWeb offers keyword research tools, competition analysis, similar websites and more.
7. QuickSprout Website Analyzer
QuickSprout Website Analyzer is a tool which when connected to Google analytics analyzes SEO data, social mentions, pagespeed and provides recommendations for improvement.
8. SEMrush
SEMrush is one of the best SEO tools all round, it provides excellent keyword research using seed keywords and competitor websites.
List of SEO Tools
Here is a list of SEO Tools available online with the exception of the tools mentioned above however this list is not exhaustive, we might miss some and many new tools spring up daily.
Keyword Research Tools
Alexa Internet: Is an SEO tool which offers keyword research, competition analysis, backlink analysis and more.
Google Correlate: Is a free keyword research tool from Google which helps users find more related keywords to the one you search for..
Google Trends: This is a very good keyword finder which shows trending searches daily, weekly and monthly in selected locations. It also provides related keyword suggestions.
KeywordTool.io: Is another good keyword research tool which provides limited keywords for free users, users have to upgrade to a paid subscription to view keyword search volume and other data.
SEOBook Tools: Founded by Aaron Wall who one of the best SEO experts worldwide, it offers a full suite of free SEO tools and software for keyword research and technical SEO.
SEO PowerSuite: This is a full set of SEO tools for link research, keyword research and site audit.
SERPStat: Is one of the most popular keyword tools and provides trustworthy keyword results.
Wordstream: Offers tools made for Google Adwords but can also be used for SEO keyword research.
WordTracker: is a popular SEO tool which offers features which many other keyword tools don’t. You can continue expanding keywords to find more long tail keywords from the seed keyword.
Backlink Building and Analysis Tools
AuthoritySpy: This is a backlink building tool used to find top websites and influencers in a niche.
Buzzstream: Is a bulk email outreach link building tool which helps organize link outreach campaigns
Check My Links: Is a Google Chrome web browser extension used to find broken links on websites and is used for broken link building.
Citation Labs’ Broken Link Finder: This is an SEO software which searches the internet for broken links based on inputted keywords
Citation Labs’ Link Prospector: This tool is used to search the web for linking opportunities.
DIBZ: This tool is used to find link opportunities based on the type of backlinks you need.
Domain Hunter Plus: Is a free tool used for finding broken link building opportunities.
Free Broken Link Checker: Is a free SEO tool used for broken link building.
GroupHigh: Paid SEO tool used to find blogs in your niche, it shows their Domain Authority and last post date to enable users choose easily.
GuestPost Tracker: Is a paid SEO tool which has a listing of over 1000 websites which accept guest posts and helps you track guest post submissions.
Help a Reporter Out (HARO): Is a free tool which connects users to journalists who can grant you a link in their publication in exchange for excellent information they like.
Inky Bee: Is a paid SEO link building tool for link outreach, you can use it to find blogs in your niche sorted by Domain Authority and Page Authority.
JustReachOut: Is a tool which helps bloggers find journalists to reach out to in order to earn a link on their platform.
Linkbird: Is a backlink building and analysis tool which also sends you email alerts when you get new backlinks. it also has keyword research tools.
Ninja Outreach: Is a blogger outreach software used to find influential bloggers and reach out to them
Open Site Explorer: Is a comprehensive backlink analyzing tool, it shows data on the most powerful links to your website and the pages you are linked to the most with many other features as well.
Other Link Building SEO Tools are LinkMiner, Linkody, Linkstant, Muck Rack, Ontolo, Outreachr, Pitchbox, Quick URL Opener, etc.
Technical SEO Tools
All in One SEO Pack: Is a wordpress plugin widely used for technical SEO. It is similar to Yoast SEO and features auto generated description tags, bad bot blocker and canonical tag support.
Bing Webmaster Tools: Is Bing’s console where you can manage your site visibility in the Bing search engine. You can submit a sitemap, target a country and more.
Google Mobile-Friendly Test Tool: Use this tool to check if your website is mobile friendly. Google doesn’t like non mobile friendly websites so it’s a must to be mobile friendly.
Google PageSpeed Insights: Website loading speed is a very important Google ranking factor so your website must be optimized to load very fast, the optimum load time is less than 3 seconds. To check if your website meets Google’s speed requirements on mobile and desktop, use the Google pagespeed insights tool, it will also give you suggestions on how to improve your site speed.
GTmetrix: Is a popular free SEO tool used for checking site speed and offers recommendations to improve speed.
Microdata Generator: This is a free SEO software which makes schema markup creation easy.
Pingdom Speed Tool: This is a very helpful free tool for checking website and webpage loading speed, it scores your website performance and suggests improvements to boost website speed.
Raven Tools: Is a technical SEO tool which is offers one of the best site audit tools and tells you what you need to fix.
Rel Nofollow Checkbox: Is a WordPress plugin which helps you set all links to nofollow.
SEOSiteCheckup: Is an SEO tool which analyses and shows you your website SEO structure, it reports SEO errors and shows you how to fix it.
Simple Htaccess Redirects & Rewrite Generator: This is a good tool for setting up redirects correctly and stress free.
Siteliner: Is a good technical SEO tool used to find internal duplicate content and broken links.
Woorank: This is a website analysis SEO tool which checks your site health and tells you what to fix.
SEO Content Optimization Tools
LSIGraph: Is a good tool used to generate latent semantic indexed keywords from a seed keyword.
MarketMuse: Compares your content with similar content across the web and notifies you of possible content improvement.
SmallSEOtools: Is useful for checking for duplicate content in articles you want to publish.
Grammarly: Helps you find grammatical errors in your content.
Scribe by Copyblogger: Is a content marketing tool which rates the user friendliness of content and search engines.
How to Use SEO Tools Effectively
Using SEO tools can be dizzying if you are just starting out and don’t really understand SEO, here are some tips to help you use these tools effectively and rank higher on search engines.
- Understand SEO: Before jumping to use any SEO tool, try to understand what SEO is and how to go about it. I suggest reading SEO web articles from the likes of backlinko.com, neilpatel.com. moz.com, searchengineland.com and more. You should also read good books on SEO such as Art of SEO, SEOBook by Aaron Wall and others you can find online.
- Use Free Tools first: Before shelling out large sums of money for monthly SEO Tool subscriptions, use the available free tools to see if they can provide what you need, if they cant provide your SEO needs then you can use a good paid tool like the ones mentioned earlier in the post.
- Ask for Help: If you do not understand something or get stuck, find an SEO expert you know or find SEO forums and groups to get help. This way you can find solutions to your problems very easily.
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