Google Search Console – Top SEO Tool
Google Search Console is a collection of services you can use to figure out how the search engine views your website. This service provides you with a wide array of free SEO tools, covering many different aspects of optimization.
The many features this service offers makes it a near necessity if you are concerned about your Search Engine Results Page (SERP) rankings. There is a clear focus on Google results here, but don’t worry. If you can rank well on Google, the chances are high that you’ll also do OK in other search engines.
For ex., Google Search Console enables you to check out any crawling errors that have occurred on your website so you can correct them right away. It can also point out when your site is affected by malware, what keyword phrases people are using to find your site, the backlinks you’ve received, and more.
As far as actually using the service goes, Google Search Console is very simple to understand. It is also easy to add your website and get started, so there are no reasons to avoid it.
Key Features:
- Monitor how Google perceives your website.
- Keep track of what keywords visitors are using to reach you.
- Stay on top of any crawl, meta tag, or sitemap errors.
- Update your robots.txt file.
- Monitor your site’s backlinks.
- Get alerts if your site is infected with malware.
Price: Free!
Semrush – Marketing SEO Tools
Semrush is a keyword research tool that enables you to get data about how many people are looking for specific terms. On top of that, it also provides you with information on similar keywords, related ads, product listings, and a lot more.
If you’re the kind of person who loves doing keyword research, you need a tool like Semrush in your arsenal. With it, you’ll be able to figure out exactly what keywords will give you the best results for your efforts and check which terms your competitors are ranking for.
Along with being an excellent keyword tool, Semrush can also offer information about your competitors strategies. For example, it can tell you how much traffic they have getting, how much of that comes from paid ads, and what their backlinks.
This service even enables you to peek into your competitors text and media ads, which can save you big money when it comes to testing. However, keep in mind that all this data means the learning curve with this service can be a bit steep.
Key Features:
- Research the value of specific queries.
- Check out what keywords your competitors are ranking for and how much traffic they are getting.
- Find information about other websites backlinks.
- Look into your competitors’ text and media ads.
Price: You can get up to 10 results for free per day or sign up for a premium account. 14-day trial with Semrush
Moz Pro – SEO Software
Moz Pro is a suite of SEO tools created to help you tackle optimization using a data-driven approach. To give you a quick overview, Moz Pro is somewhat similar to SEMrush, in that it enables you to research both specific long-tail keywords and other domains. You can use this information to avoid keywords with little potential and to improve on what your competitors are doing.
When you look into a keyword using Moz Pro, it will show you a difficulty score that illustrates how challenging it will likely be to rank for that term. You also get an overview of how many people are searching for that phrase, and you can even create lists of keywords for easy comparison.
These are all features you’d expect from a reliable keyword research tool, but Moz Pro stands out thanks to a very intuitive interface.
As for what’s so unique about Moz Pro, the platform offers a Chrome extension you can use to get information on any domain you visit. It can provide suggestions about on-page optimization and alert you about crawling errors, much like Google Search Console.
Key Features:
- Research how competitive a keyword is, as well as its search volume.
- Get suggestions on related keywords.
- Investigate your competitors, including which keywords they’re targeting.
- Use a Chrome extension to look into other domains without going to the Moz website.
- Compare multiple keywords using custom lists.
- Get on-page optimization suggestions and error alerts.
Price: A 30-day free trial is available for the Pro plan, while regular pricing starts at $99 per month.
Google AdWords Keyword Planner
Google AdWords Keyword Planner is one of the most comprehensive keyword research tools you can use. With it, you can look up keywords and get traffic estimates about them. More importantly, it can help you figure out how competitive keywords are based on their AdWords price.
To avoid overwhelming you with information, this tool lets you filter keywords out based on Cost-per-Click (CPC) or search volume. This way, you can get reports based only on the estimates you want to aim for.
Overall, the Keyword Planner offers much of the same functionality we’ve seen from other SEO tools on this list. The difference is that this one is part of the Google ecosystem, and you can get amazingly detailed reports for free.
Key Features:
- Find out the search volume for any keyword you want.
- Determine a keyword’s competitiveness from its CPC.
- Get detailed reports for specific keywords.
Price: Free!
Ahrefs – SEO Keyword Tool
Ahrefs offers several data analysis and optimization tools. In fact, all of its tools are included in the same pricing plans. This means you don’t have to worry about missing out on critical features. Additionally, you’ll have access to the Ahrefs Academy, an online knowledge base offering a wide variety of learning opportunities.
One of the features you’ll have access to is a content research tool. With this, you can use keywords to find out what related content has performed the best on social media or in organic searches. The Ahrefs platform also includes a comprehensive dashboard, so you can keep track of all your projects.
You’ll also be able to find content related to your specific target keywords and filter the results to highlight websites that have not linked to you before. Since Ahrefs crawls over 5 billion web pages per day, you’re sure to gain valuable insights from its data.
Key Features:
- Analyze your competitors’ organic search rankings.
- Access a vast database of information.
- Gather valuable insights from a competitive analysis tool.
- Benefit from a Search Traffic index that boasts 489 million keywords originating from 155 countries.
Price: Ahrefs offers four pricing tiers starting at $99 per month and a seven-day trial for $7.
BuzzS
BuzzStream offers you a collection of tools to help with domain research, email marketing, and project management. It’s a very all-in-one type of platform, and the sheer number of options it provides can be intimidating. With that in mind, let’s focus on how it can help you tackle your SEO needs.
When it comes to research, BuzzStream can help you collate lists of results for the keywords you look into. Then it provides you with information about each of those websites, including overall rankings, related social media accounts, domain age and authority, and more.
In practice, you can use these features to help you do a thorough SEO audit, researching who your competitors are and the content they’re publishing. Moreover, it can even help you create lists of their authors and what each one is up to, so you can keep an even closer eye on their strategies.
Key Features:
- Research your competitors based on any keywords you want to target.
- Collect data about domain age and authority for specific websites.
- Find out what your competitors’ rankings are in the SERPs.
- Locate the social media accounts for your competition’s sites.
- Create lists of authors who write for competing websites and follow what they’re doing.
Price: BuzzStream plans start at $24 per month.
Screaming Frog – Keyword Tracking Tool
Screaming Frog offers an SEO Spider Tool, a sophisticated crawler that can accomplish a host of optimization tasks. This includes finding and fixing broken links and redirects.
If you operate an online store, Screaming Frog has some especially helpful options. For example, you can use the crawler to extract data from HTML pages on your site using CSS Path. This means you can use XPath or regex to gather data about prices, SKUs, and more.
You can even use this tool to generate XML sitemaps and connect them up to Google Analytics. What’s more, Screaming Frog has a pretty robust free version, so you can try out the main functionality before you decide to leap in.
Key Features:
- Analyze titles and metadata.
- Crawl your site to find and fix broken links.
- Discover and resolve duplicate content and pages.
Price: You can access the free version with limited features and URLs, or get the full version for £149 per year (about $191).
Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is often touted as the number-one WordPress SEO plugin. Its features cover the full spectrum when it comes to SEO. You can conduct readability checks, for example, and set canonical URLs to avoid confusing Google with duplicate content.
Other functionality on offer includes keyword optimization and the ability to preview pages in Google, Facebook, and Twitter. With the upgraded version of the plugin, you will also get some content assistance, since Yoast will offer you internal linking suggestions as you write pages and posts.
Yoast SEO has a robust knowledge database to help you get started. Plus, with the premium version, you’ll have access to one year of 24/7 help from an expert support team.
Key Features:
- Optimize your content for specific keywords.
- Provide search engines with the metadata they need to understand your content.
- Avoid duplicate content.
- Handle critical SEO tasks automatically, such as creating a sitemap and optimizing permalinks.
Price: You can download a limited free version or get the premium version for $89 per year.
SpyFu: Free SEO Tools
While SpyFu has an amazing premium version, many of our experts raved about its free features. If you’re just starting out, you can easily grow into the paid features as you start succeeding. You can easily view the number of times a keyword gets searched each month while easily determining the ranking difficulty for that keyword. You can also do some research on your competitors to determine which keywords they use. Additionally, you can search your competitor’s, or your own, website to easily see how many organic keywords they have, how many monthly clicks they get, who their paid and organic competitors are, the campaigns they’re running with Google Ads, and more. It’s one of the most detailed SEO analysis tools on the market.
Majestic: Marketing SEO Tools
Majestic is one of the best marketing SEO tools according to experts. It has countless useful features like The Majestic Million which lets you see the ranking of the top million websites. Did your website make the cut? The Site Explorer feature allows you to easily see a general overview of your site and the number of backlinks you have. It also works as an SEO keyword tool to find the best keywords to target while also having features geared to site comparisons and tracking your rank.
SEO tool is Majestic, with its main feature allowing you to check the backlinks of a website that you specify. My favorite feature is the ability to add your own client’s site and a bunch of competitors, allowing you to easily compare a variety of SEO metrics such as trust flow, referring domain count, and external backlinks count. Not only does it help us understand the [client’s optimization] weaknesses, but it also provides a simple table that we share with our clients, so they too can understand the problems and how they stack up to their competitors. We also use Majestic to audit competitors’ backlinks, as we can sometimes find a handful of easy opportunities to tackle before moving onto other link-building tactics.”
