11 SEO tools free for creators
SEO is a confusing process and time-consuming, however it's not required to be. Here are 11 reliable SEO tools to help optimize your site's performance and draw an increase in website traffic.
SEO can be difficult and complicated, especially for those who are new to the field. Long-tail and short-tail keywords anchor text and the txt file, as well as link building and backlinking . . . it's enough to make your brain spin.
The best part? There are plenty of user-friendly, low-cost and often free tools available that can do a lot of SEO-related heavy lifting (and algorithms analyzing) for you.
The list below includes 11 basic SEO tools that can help you enhance your site and gain increased attention for your online merchandise. As an additional bonus all the tools on this list offers a free option.
Then, firstly, what is SEO?
What is SEO? (And why you should use SEO tools?)
SEO tools make it easy for anyone with a website to improve their site's content to search engines.
The content that has been optimized is more prominent in the search results for relevant terms and keywords. The more optimized your content, easier it is for new people to locate it via the search engine.
And with organic search responsible to five-thirds of the total internet traffic getting the first spot on the results page matters -- especially when you consider that the first five results from every Google search account for 67.6 percent of all clicks .
What would SEO appear like when it is in use?
If I'm a busy parent with a difficult time keeping the budget of my family I could search Google for the phrase "budgeting for moms who are busy".
And if I click on your website, I'll be able to see your blog, and see that you've got the knowledge I'm seeking Perhaps I'll even sign up for your course.
The snippet of text that is featured for the phrase "budgeting for busy moms" is this post taken from Simplified Motherhood, a website that focuses on offering contentwhich includes online classes and digital downloads to help busy moms stay organized.
SEO tools will help you reach that highly sought-after top spot on the results pageregardless of whether you have an in-house digital marketing department (or any team in all). These tools can even give solopreneurs and small businesses to compete with big companies who have bigger budgets.
This is why: SEO is much cheaper in comparison to cost per click (CPC) marketing and is more effective. An Databox survey found the fact that 70% of advertisers say that SEO is better than PPC ads in generating sales.
Just a couple of SEO adjustments can result in a big difference in terms of organic traffic and sales. That's why nearly 64 percent of marketers are actively investing time into SEO.
(If you don't have a website to optimize, you can create one using . Join for a free 14-day trial before you can begin selling digital goods from your own site.)
Before we get into our selection of the most effective SEO tools to help entrepreneurs, let's take a look over the top types of SEO tools.
Different types of SEO instruments
A few SEO tools are like Swiss knives in the army that come with several features and help with many SEO tasks -- while certain tools are specifically focused on a particular part of SEO. SEO puzzle.
Here are the most common kinds of SEO tools.
Keyword search Tools: These tools help you find popular terms and phrases that people type into search engines.
They also tell you the keyword difficulty -- how hard it is for content to rank on a particular term -- and the daily search volume -- how many times keywords are searched in a month -- to figure out the most suitable keyword .
Tools for tracking rank: Rank-tracking tools tell the user how your site performs for keywords that you are targeting which means you are able to modify your content accordingly.
Tools for building links: Link-building is the process of gaining backlinks -- links to your website on different websites, to boost your site's reputation on search engines. it's an essential element of a successful SEO strategy.
Link-building tools can help you identify backlink opportunities and find out which sites have links to yours.
Technical SEO tools: Technical SEO tools go deep into the intricacies of SEO. In the website's back end Technical SEO makes sure that your website pages are designed to be readable for humans as well as crawlers, the crawlers that are responsible for indexing updated and new content.
Tools to analyze: SEO reporting and analytics tools let you know the performance of your site in a wide range of measures that include visitors, conversions and the duration of time on the site and more.
Now, without further ado we'll dive right into our top SEO tools for information entrepreneurs.
11 . The best free SEO tools for infopreneurs
1. Ahrefs' free SEO tools
While the paid plans begin with $99/month , Ahrefs offers a number of SEO tools that are free. Here are some of the most well-known ones:
Webmaster tools: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools are completely free for all websites owners. They are technically "free limited access to Ahrefs' Site Explorer & Site Audit " However, they provide a number of very helpful options, like:
An SEO audit and backlink evaluation of your website
Analyzing the competitiveness of sites" SEO
Effective SEO metrics that include organic traffic and keyword ranking
Keyword generator : Enter up to 10 words or phrases. Ahrefs will show you 100 related keywords that include your word or phrase as well as the level of the initial 10.
Keyword rank checker : See how your website ranks for any given keyword.
Backlink tester : Enter any domain and see its rank on the domain (the importance of a website's backlink profile) and how many backlinks it has, plus the amount of sites that link to that site.
If you like Ahrefs toolkits for free and want to get even deeper into the information it is possible to try for a seven-day free trial of their full platform for $7.
If you opt to a paid account, I recommend checking for their SEO Toolbar which is a no-cost Firefox and Chrome extension that displays immediate SEO statistics for every webpage you visit.
2. Moz's SEO tools for free
As with Ahrefs, Moz has a solid paid platform, but it also has various free applications . Here are some of the top:
The Domain SEO Analysis Tool Use this tool to enter an URL and look up SEO metrics, including:
Domain Authority, Moz's version of "Domain Ranking"
Pages that rank top are based on "Page Authority," Moz's algorithm of link metrics
The estimated number of clicks on top keywords
New links have been added to the domain
MozBar : A Chrome extension that provides the SEO statistics in real-time while you browse any webpage or search engine results webpage (SERP).
Keyword Explorer Type in the keyword you want to search for and gain access to:
Monthly search volume
Data for keyword research that is exportable into CSV as well as Excel spreadsheets
Keywords Long-tail -- which are of greater relevance but with smaller search volumes
Keyword difficulty scores
SERP analysis, with data on each result on the initial page of results.
Keyword suggestions by country
With an unpaid Moz login, users are limited to 10 keywords analysis queries per month. If you want full access to Moz's services, which include Keyword and Site Explorers, Keyword and Site Explorers, Moz Pro plans begin at $149 per month and you're able to take a trial of 30 days before committing to a monthly package.
3. Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner can be described as Google's search engine for keywords.
This tool will help you figure out which keywords people are using to search for your product in the market. It lets you see the the monthly volume of searches and projected search volume. You can also discover keyword ideas that will help you connect with your audience.
It's free for anyone with an Google account. (That however, it may sometimes be tricky to access in the event that you get into trouble, this guide from Ahrefs provides some helpful solutions to troubleshooting.)
4. Google Search Console (GSC)
GSC is another free tool provided by the search engine masters at Google. GSC provides reports and tools that help you measure the performance and traffic of your site especially by determining the way it appears and how often it pops up in Google the search engine results.
Some of the principal aspects of GSC are:
Validating you are sure that Google is able to crawl and locate your site.
Fixing indexing problems and requesting indexing for new or revised content.
The ability to view Google searches data on your site, which includes how frequently your site is featured in Google results, what search results show your website, and how often searchers visit your website from those queries.
Receiving alerts whenever Google encounters indexing, spam and other problems on your site.
Displaying which websites have links to your website (a.k.a. backlinks).
GSC can have a steep process of learning, however you can find a variety of resources for you to navigate GSC, such as the free videos for training by Google.
P.S. In case your audience makes use of Bing for search results, Bing Webmaster Tools is the (free) Bing equivalent of GSC.
5. Google Analytics (GA)
Google Analytics gives you all of the information you require to understand how customers engage with your site. To use it for SEO, add an google Analytics tracking code to your website , and then connect your site with GSC.
GA offers free reporting on SEO measures like:
Organic traffic (on mobile and desktop)
Organic conversions
Top landing pages
Top exit pages (the last page that people go to before they leave your site)
Rate of bounce
Time on site
Pages per visit
And a ton of . . .
One downside to GA can be that like GSC, its robustness leads to a more steep learning curve. However, there are tons of excellent training materials available, such as Google Analytics Academy as well as this guide of Ahrefs regarding making use of GA for SEO.
6. Google's mobile-friendly testing tool
The mobile friendly tester from Google is our last free tool available from Google in our selection. And while it's technically a part of GSC but it's so important (and simple enough to utilize that it deserves its own place in the list.
Enter the URL of your site then Google will tell you if your website has been optimized to work on mobile devices. It also shows you an example of how the site will look like in a mobile phone.
What makes this tool so valuable?
Mobile optimization is a crucial factor in your site's user experience as well as SEO.
Mobile devices account approximately half the total traffic on websites worldwide And users have nearly five times as likely to quit your website if it isn't mobile-friendly.
Additionally, Google announced in the year 2018 that they're increasing the rankings for mobile-optimized sites in their mobile search results therefore optimizing your site's mobile usability can help in the optimization of your site's search engines, too.
Like all of the tools available in GSC Mobile-friendly tester is available for free.
7. Screaming Frog SEO Spider
The Screaming Frog's SEO Spider is a website crawler. That means it examines and reviews both technical and on-page SEO problems. SEO Spider is "trusted by thousands of SEOs as well as agencies around the world for technical SEO site audits".
Web crawlers such as SEO Spider can help you locate broken links, identify redundant content that is on your site, and analyze your page title and meta data to make sure that your SEO is working exactly as it should in the front and back.
SEO Spider's free version SEO Spider lets you crawl up to 500 URLs which, unless your website contains more than 500 pages, should be plenty. If you're dealing with a lot of material or operate several websites, the paid version costs PS149.00 annually.
8. GTmetrix
GTmetrix examines the speed of loading of your web pages. If it discovers that your site is slower than it ought to be, GTmetrix tells you what's slowing down your website and provides actionable suggestions to speed up loading times.
Like mobile optimization, load time and speed of your website play a big role in your visitors' user experience.
26.9 Percent of customers will wait less than 4 seconds to wait for a page to load -- and 45.4 percent of users reported that they were less likely to purchase items if page loading times were less than what they expected.
Load time plays a role in the SEO aspect, as well. According to the SEO experts of Moz , "Google has indicated site speed (and consequently, page speed) is among the factors that it uses to rank pages."
The free version of GTmetrix permits users to track only one URL per day and upgrading to GTmetrix PRO costs $10 per month. If you'd rather stick with a free tool, Google's PageSpeed Insights tool can be a good -- if less robust -- option.
9. Yoast SEO
If you own an WordPress blog Yoast is the SEO tool for you. It's an WordPress plugin that helps you optimize your content right in the WordPress page editor.
Input the keywords or phrases you want your webpage or blog post to rank in search results, and then Yoast analyzes the content you've created and tells you whether you're using keywords in the right amount (or excessively) and at the correct places like headers.
Yoast also lets you look at how your webpage or article will appear on the Google search results page.
At the backend, Yoast generates and applies schema.org structures as well as structured data that "helps the search engines to discover what each element of your website means as well as who it belongs to, and how everything connects".
The free version of Yoast offers nearly every feature of the Premium version. It costs $89 per year for one WordPress site.
10. SimilarWeb
SimilarWeb can be a competitive analysis tool. You can search for the sites of your rivals and view their statistics related to traffic such as:
Top of the page
Total visits
Sources of traffic
Top sites for referring to
Pages per visit
Average visit duration
Bounce rate
SimilarWeb offers a free option, which limits you to five results for each metrics. If you like the free software, it is possible to change to "Enterprise" down the route, but the no-cost version gives you plenty of top-level data to work with.
11. SERPsim
The company claims it is "the most accurate SERP snippet generator," SERPsim is a search results preview tool that has both mobile and desktop view.
This free tool lets you examine your title and the meta description -- an HTML attribute that offers an overview of your webpage -- to test how it will look in a search engine result page.
You can import your existing metadata, or copy and paste it into text. This is a fantastic option to ensure your metadata isn't removed from search results for being too lengthy.
Make sure that your info products with these SEO tools that are simple to use
SEO is a great option to boost visitors to your site and also put your products and information in the eyes of more customers. However, it isn't an easy and lengthy process to manage on your own.
Luckily, there are tools that can help with almost every aspect of SEO -- and many of them offer a free version.
In case you're wondering, here's eleven of the top SEO tools available for Infopreneurs for free:
Ahrefs webmaster tools for free, keyword generator, keyword rank checker and backlink checker.
Moz's completely free SEO tools, which include the Domain SEO Analysis Tool, Mozbar Chrome extension, as well as Keyword Planner.
Google's free tools, including Keyword Planner for keyword research, Google Search Console and Google Analytics to provide in-depth information and reporting, and the Mobile-friendly test.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider to check your website for technical and on-page SEO problems.
GTmetrix to ensure that your load time is as fast as can be.
Yoast SEO, an WordPress plugin which lets you enhance your content when you post it.
SimilarWeb to conduct competitive analysis which lets you know how your website stands up to the competition'.
Search Engine Results Simulator for a basic preview of your title and meta description that you can see in SERPsim's search results.
Overall, whether you choose to use any of these SEO tools or any combination of these, including them in your marketing toolbox is a step toward reaching greater numbers of people and making more sales.