The Best Free SEO Tools to Use Right Now
Why Do You Need SEO Tools?
The first thing you need to know about SEO is the importance of using SEO tools.
Instead, most people learn about keywords first. This is a great place to start working on your search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM), but there is so much more involved.
You could be covering your website with keywords, but if you aren’t using analytics, data, SEM tools, or working on all the other aspects of SEO--you won’t get anywhere. You need to be considering your content strategy, keyword research, domain authority, local SEO, page speed, image quality, and customer reviews, just to name a few.
Thankfully, there are plenty of useful and powerful SEO tools to help you grow each of these areas and successfully rank in SEO to generate traffic and grow your business.
Many SEO tools can be an expensive investment, but you can have a powerful and effective SEO strategy using only free tools and resources.
Here are 11 of the best free SEO tools.
1. Google Analytics
You cannot even begin to work on SEO or any aspect of an online business without data. That’s why Google Analytics is the first thing you need to use when you create a business website.
Google Analytics is a free service that tracks and analyzes your website traffic. This is how you see how many people are visiting your website, what pages they’re clicking on, how they are finding your site, and so much more.
2. Google Business Listing
When you do a Google search for a specific business, the first thing that will show up is a Google listing. For example, this is what shows when we search for our business name, Perfectly Optimized.
It shows all of your business information, which makes it easy for a customer to visit your website or contact you. In order to optimize your Google Business Listing to bring customers to you, you need to complete your Google My Business profile.
Your business profile is especially important if your business has a physical location, because you need it to rank in local SEO. This SEO tool is so important because it allows Google to put your business in front of your market and make it extremely easy for them to contact you.
3. Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free SEM tool that helps you analyze and troubleshoot Google results for your website and keywords. It’s similar to Google Analytics, but specifically measures your performance in search engines.
Using this tool helps you see if some of your pages aren’t ranking as well as you hoped or if users are seeing your website in Google, but not actually visiting. This is how you can decide what changes need to be made in order to grow your business.
When you set Google search console up the right way and learn how to understand the data, your SEO strategy will be dramatically improved.
4. Google Pagespeed Insights
Many businesses don’t think about their page speed because it doesn’t seem like it affects them. However, it’s an important part of the algorithm that Google uses to rank your website.
If your website isn’t as fast as the ones who are already in top ten, then you won’t rank on the first page--even if your keywords are flawless.
You can check your page speed on Google Pagespeed Insights in a few minutes without having to register. You’ll see your overall website score, as well as your lab data, opportunities, and diagnostics.
5. GTMetrix.com
GTMetrix is another SEO tool that evaluates your page speed. It’s unique because it uses Google page speed and Yahoo YSpeed to give you actionable steps and recommendations to improve the speed of your website.
All you need to do is input your URL on the front page, and you’ll receive a detailed performance report. If you find that your page speed needs improvement, the GTMetrix resource page is a great place to learn all about page speed.
Stock Images
Using the right images and using them correctly can positively impact your website’s user experience and your SEO rankings. However, it’s important to know that loading your website up with tons of images can also do the opposite and seriously damage your Google rankings.
First of all, using images that are too large will slow down your page speed. Beyond that, you also need to help search engines understand your images, since Google can’t do that automatically (yet). You can do this by using images that support your content and by describing your images in the alt text.
On the other hand, using images for search engine marketing is a necessity. You need strong images within your posts and especially as your featured image to attract readers. Thankfully, you don’t need to learn to be a professional photographer in order to market successfully. That’s why stock image websites are on our list of SEM tools.
There are plenty of places where you can pay for photography, but these three websites give you thousands of stock images for free:
All three of these websites also have an app, which could be especially helpful for social media marketing.
7. Mobile Friendly Test
The mobile friendly test is another free SEO tool from Google. If you haven’t thought about what your website looks like on a mobile device, you need to start. More than 94% of people with smartphones search for information on their phones.
The mobile friendly test is extremely easy to use and doesn’t require any registration or connecting your website. You won’t get a report quite as detailed as GTMetrix, but you will be able to see how easy your website is to use on mobile.
8. Answer the Public
Keywords are important for SEO, but it’s even more important for Google to recognize your website’s focus. You may have extremely helpful content with great keywords, but you will have a difficult time attaining high SEO rankings if all of your topics are random and unrelated.
In order for Google to identify you as an authority and place your website on the top of search results, you need a content strategy. Thankfully, Answer the Public makes it easy for you.
Answer the Public is a keyword tool. You enter a keyword and this tool will give you a visual search cloud of content ideas based on questions people are already asking.
When you use Answer the public in combination with other keyword tools like Google Adsense and Ubersuggest, you can be fully equipped to create a powerful content strategy to reach your readers and rank in SEO.
9. UberSuggest
UberSuggest is a free SEO tool from Neil Patel that gives you specific data on keywords and on your website. You can instantly search for a keyword and see how difficult it is to rank in certain keywords and get related keyword ideas.
You don’t have to connect your website to use this tool for keyword research. If you do connect it, you can track how your pages are ranking in searches. This is important if you have pages that are losing their SEO ranking.
You can also type in your URL and receive a site audit, which shows you your backlinks, SEO health, organic traffic, critical errors, warnings, and recommendations.
If you want an SEO tool that isn’t going to get into the nitty gritty technical information, this is it.
10. Moz
Moz.com actually has three free SEO tools, like keyword explorer, link explorer, and MozBar for on-page metrics. You will have to create an account and you can only research ten keywords per month on the free program.
However, Moz is the only SEO tool that gives you an in-depth analysis about the links on your website and helps you with link building.
For local marketing, their SEM tools will show you how your location appears on search engines, help you find the right categories, and give a free location audit.
11. Whitespark Google Review Generator
When your Google business listing appears on someone’s search results, you want them to be impressed. It’s important to have all your business information available, but what your customers will instantly judge you with is customer reviews.
Unfortunately, even customers who had a great experience of your business will not leave a review without being asked. In order to encourage your customers to leave more reviews for your business, there’s Whitespark Google Review Generator.
This is a free SEM tool that you can use to generate a link to send to your customers. When they click the link, it will send them straight to a rate and review section. You’ll probably find that many of your customers are happy to leave you a good review when you make it easy for them.
SEO Tools and Your SEO Strategy
These SEM tools can equip you with the right data and information you need to be on top of your SEO game. However, you also need to actually run your business!
When you need help from SEO experts, contact Perfectly Optimized. We can create and implement a powerful and effective SEO strategy for you while you focus on what you do best.