SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is the practice of optimizing a website or web pages to improve their ranking and visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). The ultimate goal of SEO is to provide search engines with the best possible understanding of the website content so that search engines can deliver the most relevant and useful results to the users. By improving a website's search engine rankings, SEO can help to increase the visibility, credibility, and trustworthiness of the website and ultimately lead to higher traffic and conversions. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tools are software applications designed to help website owners, marketers, and digital agencies improve the visibility of their websites on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
Types of SEO Tools
Some common types of SEO tools include:
Keyword research tools: These tools help you identify keywords related to your niche, as well as their search volume, competition, and other relevant metrics.
Technical SEO tools: These tools help you identify and fix technical issues on your website, such as broken links, crawl errors, and duplicate content, which can negatively impact your search engine rankings.
Backlink analysis tools: These tools help you monitor your website's backlink profile, identify new backlinks, and track your competitors' backlink strategies.
Website analytics tools: These tools provide data on website traffic, user behavior, and other metrics that can help you identify opportunities for improvement.
Rank tracking tools: These tools help you monitor your website's search engine rankings for specific keywords over time, so you can track your progress and identify areas for improvement.
Content optimization tools: These tools help you optimize your website's content for search engines, including on-page optimization and content creation.
There are both free and paid versions of these tools available, and the choice of which to use will depend on your budget and specific SEO needs. First, we will cover some popular tools from each type and then discuss 5 SEO platforms and their FREE subscriptions. Most of the tools listed below have free trial periods and offer basic features even after the trial period is finished.
Keyword Research tools
Keyword research tools are software applications that help website owners and SEO professionals identify the most relevant and valuable keywords for their content and marketing campaigns. These tools help to identify what phrases and terms people use to search for specific topics and how often they are searched.
If you are writing content then you want it to materialize rather than keep it to yourself. For this to happen you will need to research the keywords that your consumers are looking for and educate your audience on the same. Keywords come in different forms and types like seed keywords, short-tail keywords, long-tail keywords, LSI keywords, and so on. Each has its own significance. Digital marketers use a few keyword planning tools like seoreviewtools.com, answerthepublic.com, lsigraph.com, and others.
Here are some popular keyword research tools:
Google Keyword Planner: It is a free tool provided by Google that helps to find new keywords and get search volume data. It is a part of Google Ads and can be used for both paid and organic searches.
LongTailPro: It allows users to get a list of related long-tail keywords that can be used in content or ad campaigns. It also provides various metrics, such as search volume, keyword competitiveness, potential profitability, competitor analysis, and rank tracking.
Ahrefs: It is a comprehensive SEO tool that includes a keyword research feature, which provides information on the search volume, keyword difficulty, and click data. It also helps to identify related keywords and provides suggestions for long-tail keywords.
Moz Keyword Explorer: It is a keyword research tool provided by Moz, which helps to identify high-volume keywords and long-tail keyword phrases. It also provides keyword metrics such as difficulty, opportunity, and potential.
Ubersuggest: It is a free keyword research tool provided by Neil Patel that helps to find new keyword ideas, analyze keyword trends, and get data on search volume, CPC, and competition. It also provides suggestions for related keywords and long-tail keywords.
Technical SEO tools
Technical SEO tools are software applications designed to help website owners, developers, and SEO professionals optimize their website's technical performance and visibility in search engines. These tools analyze a website's technical infrastructure and provide recommendations for improving various technical aspects, such as site speed, mobile responsiveness, crawlability, and indexability.
For your website to rank on Google you need to submit your website to the Google search console. The search console tracks the interaction of search bots with your website while the user interaction is tracked using google analytics which is a website analytic tool.
The search console helps in optimizing Google crawls, indexing, fixing indexing errors, monitoring the backlinks, and also monitoring AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) or Smartphone crawlers. It can also be used to bring more relevant traffic to your website.
As you may already know, to rank higher on Google you need backlinks that decide your domain authority and page authority scores. To check your DA and PA you may use free tools like DA PA Checker. There are also free tools for checking these scores in bulk like websiteseochecker.com.
Here are some popular technical SEO tools:
Google Search Console: It is a free tool offered by Google that helps website owners monitor and maintain their website's presence in Google search results. It provides insights into search performance, crawl errors, sitemaps, and more.
SEOToolLab: It is an all-in-one marketing tool that includes features for technical SEO analysis, keyword research, competitor analysis, and more. SEOToolLab can provide a comprehensive health check of the website, including performance, security, and other technical aspects, which can affect search engine rankings.
Ahrefs: It is a comprehensive SEO tool that includes features for technical site audits, backlink analysis, keyword research, and more. Its site audit feature can help identify and prioritize technical SEO issues.
Moz Pro: It is an SEO software that includes features for keyword research, site audits, rank tracking, and more. Its site audit feature can help identify technical issues that may be hindering a website's SEO performance.
Screaming Frog: It is a desktop-based website crawler that can help identify technical SEO issues, such as broken links, duplicate content, and missing meta tags. It provides detailed reports and recommendations for fixing these issues.
Backlink analysis tools
Backlink analysis tools are software applications that help website owners and SEO professionals to understand their website's backlink profile and identify opportunities for building more high-quality links. These tools can also help to identify toxic links that may harm a website's search engine rankings.
It is important to acquire backlinks to your website or blog for it to rank higher in search results. Now if the quality of backlinks acquired is relevant and are from high authority domains, then the value of your natural link profile increases as otherwise. A very high positive or negative link velocity is also considered harmful, which is when your website gains or loses too many backlinks over a short period of time. Also, too many reciprocal or two-way links are considered to impose a penalty. To know if your backlinks have imposed a penalty on your website you can check using Panguin Tool. Here are some popular backlink analysis tools:
Ahrefs: It is a comprehensive SEO tool that includes a backlink analysis feature, which helps to identify backlinks, referring domains, and link attributes. It also provides data on anchor text distribution, link growth, and more.
SEMrush: It is an all-in-one marketing tool that includes a backlink analysis feature, which helps to identify backlinks, referring domains, and link attributes. It also provides data on anchor text distribution, link growth, and more. This tool is discussed in detail in the next sections.
Moz Link Explorer: It is a backlink analysis tool provided by Moz, which helps to identify backlinks, referring domains, and link attributes. It also provides data on the domain authority and page authority of linking websites.
Majestic: It is a backlink analysis tool that provides a range of data on backlinks, referring domains, and anchor text. It also provides data on the trust flow and citation flow of linking websites.
Google Search Console: It is a free tool provided by Google that provides data on backlinks to a website. It can help to identify the linking websites, anchor text, and more. It also provides data on any manual actions or penalties that may have been applied to a website's backlink profile.
Website analytics tools
Website analytics tools are software applications that help website owners and digital marketers track and analyze website traffic and user behavior. These tools provide valuable insights into how users interact with a website, which can help to improve user experience, optimize marketing campaigns, and increase conversions.
Google keeps track of which website you visit, where you are coming from, and how long you stay on the content you are visiting. Now, this is true for your visitors as well. If this data can be collected over a period of time, one can analyze which content is trending and which needs some workaround. Also, the channels that support the traffic to your content could also be visualized. This is exactly what Google Analytics has been doing.
Here are some popular website analytics tools:
Google Analytics: It is a free tool provided by Google that helps to track website traffic and user behavior. It provides data on the number of website visitors, pageviews, bounce rates, and more. It also provides data on user demographics, acquisition channels, and behavior flow.
Adobe Analytics: It is a paid tool that provides data on website traffic and user behavior. It provides advanced segmentation and attribution modeling, which can help to understand user behavior and optimize marketing campaigns.
Piwik PRO: It is a privacy-focused analytics tool that provides data on website traffic and user behavior. It offers advanced data privacy features, including on-premises and cloud-based options, which can help to comply with data privacy regulations.
Matomo: It is an open-source analytics tool that provides data on website traffic and user behavior. It offers advanced segmentation, custom reporting, and marketing campaign tracking features.
Kissmetrics: It is a tool that provides data on website traffic and user behavior. It offers advanced customer behavior tracking and analysis, which can help to optimize the user experience and increase conversions.
These tools provide valuable data that can help to optimize website performance, user experience, and marketing campaigns. Choosing the right tool depends on the needs and goals of the website owner or digital marketer.
Rank tracking tools
Rank-tracking tools are software applications that help website owners and digital marketers track their website's search engine rankings for specific keywords and phrases. These tools provide valuable data on how a website's search engine rankings change over time, which can help to optimize SEO strategies and improve search engine visibility.
If you own a website or a blog then you would want it to rank higher for a given set of keywords, for which you would need to check the position of your site in comparison to the position of your competitor's website if needed. By using a SERP checker you can know the position of the given website for the set of keywords you researched and also improve the ranking using the right length of the title, page URL, and meta description with Google SERP Tools.
Here are some popular rank-tracking tools:
Ahrefs: It is a comprehensive SEO tool that includes a rank tracking feature, which helps to track website rankings for specific keywords and phrases. It also provides data on keyword difficulty and competitor analysis.
Nightwatch: It is an all-in-one marketing tool that includes a rank tracking feature, which helps to track website rankings for specific keywords and phrases. It also provides data on keyword difficulty, search volume, and competitor analysis.
SERPWatcher: It is a rank tracking tool provided by Mangools, which helps to track website rankings for specific keywords and phrases. It also provides data on keyword difficulty and search volume.
Moz Pro: It is a comprehensive SEO tool that includes a rank tracking feature, which helps to track website rankings for specific keywords and phrases. It also provides data on keyword difficulty and search volume.
AccuRanker: It is a rank-tracking tool that provides data on website rankings for specific keywords and phrases. It also offers advanced features such as real-time rank updates, local and mobile tracking, and competitor analysis.
These tools provide valuable data on a website's search engine rankings, which can help to optimize SEO strategies and improve search engine visibility. Choosing the right tool depends on the needs and goals of the website owner or digital marketer.
Content optimization tools
Content-optimizing tools are software applications that help website owners and digital marketers to improve the quality and relevance of their website content. These tools provide insights and recommendations for optimizing on-page elements such as keywords, title tags, meta descriptions, and more.
Content checking for plagiarism
Once you have your blogging site in place it's time to publish some good content. How do you check if your content has copyright issues or not? This can be tested using copywriting tools like Grammarly and plagiarism checker. With the advent of AI, these tools have been backed up by these text processing techniques, where you can expect to deliver good content with the help of these tools. You may find both free and paid versions of these tools, it is always advisable to go for the free versions initially.
Here are some popular content-optimizing tools:
Yoast SEO: It is a plugin for WordPress that helps to optimize on-page elements for search engines. It provides insights and recommendations for optimizing keywords, title tags, meta descriptions, and more.
INKforall: It is a content optimization platform that uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to help writers and content creators improve their content's relevance, quality, and performance.
Clearscope: It is an AI-powered content optimization tool that provides insights and recommendations for optimizing content based on search intent and relevancy. It helps to identify topics and keywords that should be included in the content for better search engine visibility.
Surfer SEO: It is a content optimization tool that provides insights and recommendations for optimizing on-page elements and content based on competitor analysis and search intent. It helps to identify content gaps, keyword opportunities, and more.
Grammarly: It is a writing assistant that provides insights and recommendations for improving the readability and clarity of content. It helps to identify spelling and grammatical errors, as well as style and tone improvements.
These tools provide valuable insights and recommendations for optimizing website content and improving search engine visibility. Choosing the right tool depends on the needs and goals of the website owner or digital marketer.
5 Free SEO Tools & Platforms
As it is evident search engine optimization is a very much required technique in the world of digital marketing if you are aiming at organic traffic.
We usually require analytics and research tools for optimizing our content, but more often these tools and services are subscription-based, and if you are aware that paid versions of most of the tools are not quite friendly on the pocket.
You would require free tools to avoid running out of budget and below are 5 such FREE all-in-one SEO Platforms that include all the above types of SEO tools that are popular and most often used by amateur and professional digital marketers.
SEMrush: As most of you may know this tool is subscription-based, and there are a few features that are available for all users. This article is going to focus on the free features alone. When you signup for the tool you will be provided with a 7-day trial during which you can set up a project and check the analytics with your competitor site. This feature is available even after the trial period ends and you have an analytics tool setup for your website which will let you know how the site is performing based on backlinks and other details. You can also compare these site specifics with your competitor's site which will help you strategize your content. You can also perform position tracking and organic traffic analytics.
Semrush is a popular all-in-one digital marketing suite for search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, content marketing, social media, and market research. It provides businesses and individuals with a comprehensive set of tools to monitor and improve their online presence and performance.
Regarding its importance for SEO, Semrush offers a wide range of features that can help users improve their website's visibility and ranking on search engines, such as keyword research, competitor analysis, site audit, backlink analysis, and more. It also provides detailed insights into organic search results, including keyword rankings, organic traffic, and top pages.
Additionally, Semrush provides data-driven recommendations and actionable insights on various aspects of SEO, such as on-page optimization, technical SEO, local SEO, and mobile optimization. This can help users to identify opportunities for improvement and optimize their website to attract more organic traffic and improve their search engine rankings.
Overall, Semrush can be an extremely valuable tool for SEO, as it provides a wealth of information and insights that can help users make informed decisions and take effective actions to improve their online performance.
Serpstat is a cloud-based search engine optimization (SEO) and digital marketing platform that provides tools for keyword research, competitor analysis, backlink analysis, site auditing, and other SEO tasks. It is designed to help businesses and individuals optimize their online presence by improving their search engine rankings and driving more traffic to their websites. Serpstat offers a variety of features and tools, including:
Keyword research: Serpstat's keyword research tools help users identify relevant and high-volume keywords to target in their content and marketing campaigns.
Competitor analysis: The platform allows users to analyze their competitors' SEO strategies, including their backlinks, top-performing content, and search rankings.
Site audit: Serpstat's site audit feature analyzes a website's SEO health and identifies issues that may be impacting its search engine rankings.
Backlink analysis: Users can use Serpstat to analyze their own backlink profile as well as their competitors' backlinks to identify opportunities for link building.
Rank tracking: Serpstat allows users to track their search engine rankings for specific keywords and monitor their progress over time.
Serpstat is used by SEO professionals, digital marketers, content creators, and website owners to improve their online visibility and drive more traffic to their websites. Seobility is an all-in-one SEO tool and website crawler that helps website owners and digital marketers optimize their websites for search engines. It provides a range of features and tools to analyze and improve a website's search engine optimization, including:
Site Audit: Seobility analyzes a website and checks for any technical issues that may be hindering its performance in search engines. It identifies errors such as broken links, missing meta descriptions, duplicate content, and other issues that can negatively impact search engine rankings.
Keyword Ranking: Seobility allows users to track their keyword rankings in search engines, providing information on a website's position in search engine results pages (SERPs) for specific keywords.
Backlink Analysis: Seobility provides users with insights into their website's backlink profile, including data on backlink sources, anchor text, and link quality.
Competitor Analysis: Seobility allows users to analyze the SEO performance of their competitors, including their backlink profile, top-performing keywords, and content strategies.
Content Optimization: Seobility provides users with recommendations on how to optimize their website's content for search engines, including suggestions for improving title tags, meta descriptions, and keyword usage.
Seobility is used by website owners, SEO professionals, and digital marketers to improve their website's search engine optimization and increase their visibility in search engine results pages. Its user-friendly interface and affordable pricing make it a popular choice for small businesses and individuals looking to improve their website's SEO performance.
SEO PowerSuite is a comprehensive SEO software that provides a range of tools for optimizing websites and improving their search engine rankings. The software includes four main tools:
Rank Tracker: This tool allows users to track their search engine rankings for specific keywords and provides insights into their competitors' rankings. It also includes a keyword research module to help users identify the most relevant and high-volume keywords to target.
WebSite Auditor: This tool crawls a website and checks for technical issues, such as broken links, missing meta descriptions, and duplicate content. It also provides suggestions for improving a website's on-page SEO factors.
SEO SpyGlass: This tool allows users to analyze their website's backlink profile, as well as their competitors' backlinks, to identify opportunities for link building and improve their website's link profile.
LinkAssistant: This tool helps users find relevant websites and pages to link to, and allows them to track their link-building progress.
SEO PowerSuite is used by SEO professionals, digital marketers, and website owners to improve their website's search engine optimization and drive more traffic to their websites. Its comprehensive set of tools and features, including advanced reporting and analysis capabilities, make it a popular choice for businesses of all sizes. SEO PowerSuite is available as both a desktop software and a cloud-based solution.
Mangools is an all-in-one SEO toolset that provides a range of features and tools to improve a website's search engine rankings. The toolset includes five main tools:
KWFinder: This tool allows users to find relevant and high-volume keywords for their website and provides data on keyword difficulty, search volume, and cost per click (CPC).
SERPChecker: This tool provides insights into the top 100 search engine results for a specific keyword and allows users to analyze their competitors' search engine rankings.
SERPWatcher: This tool allows users to track their website's search engine rankings for specific keywords and provides daily updates on their search engine performance.
LinkMiner: This tool allows users to analyze their website's backlink profile and identify opportunities for link building.
SiteProfiler: This tool provides users with a comprehensive analysis of their website's SEO factors, including domain authority, page authority, and social media metrics.
Mangools is widely used by SEO professionals, digital marketers, and website owners to improve their website's search engine optimization and drive more traffic to their websites. Its user-friendly interface, powerful features, and affordable pricing make it a popular choice for businesses of all sizes. Mangools offers a 10-day free trial, as well as various pricing plans depending on the number of tools and features needed.
There are many other useful tools for SEO but this article is focused on the most used ones, when you are out with your new blogging site. I have used these tools since I started my website and they have been a constant companion since then. I hope this post helps someone who is starting a new blogging site.
You can find detailed review of these tools on my channel Digi Marketer Online
