11 free SEO tools for creators
SEO can be confusing and time-consuming, but it's not necessary to be. We've compiled a list of 11 SEO tools that can help you optimize your site and attract an increase in traffic.
SEO can be difficult and complicated, especially when you're not familiar with it. Keywords, both short and long-tail anchor text, the txt file, as well as backlinking and link-building . . . It's enough to make your brain turn.
What's good? There are a lot of simple-to-use, inexpensive and often free tools available that will do the majority of SEO-related heavy lifting (and algorithms analyzing) for you.
We've rounded up 11 simple SEO tools to help improve your site's performance and draw increased attention for your online products. Plus, as an added benefit, every tool on the list is free.
But first, what exactly is SEO?
What is SEO? (And why should you use SEO tools?)
SEO tools make it easy for anyone with a website to optimize their content for SEO engines.
Optimized content shows up higher in search results for relevant terms and keywords. The more you optimize your content, the easier it is for new people to find it through searches.
In addition, with organic searches accounting for the majority of all internet traffic making sure you're able to grab one of the highest spots on the results page matters and is especially important considering that the first five results from the Google search are responsible for 67.6 percent of all clicks .
What exactly does SEO appear like when it is in use?
If I'm a busy parent who's struggling to maintain the family budget If I'm a busy mom, I'll probably search a phrase like "budgeting for busy moms".
If I visit your site, I'll find your website, find out that your expertise is what I'm seeking or perhaps enroll in your course.
The snippet of text that is featured for the search "budgeting with busy parents" is this post by Simplified Motherhood, a website dedicated to providing educational content- including online courses and digital downloads -- which helps busy mothers to stay on top of their schedules.
SEO tools will help you reach that highly sought-after top spot in the search results -regardless of whether you have a dedicated digital marketing team (or any team at all). They can level give small and solopreneurs to compete with big companies with bigger budgets.
This is why: SEO is more affordable than cost-per-click (CPC) advertisements and more efficient. A Databox study found that 70% of marketers believe they believe that SEO is better than PPC ads for generating sales.
And just a few simple SEO tweaks can make a big impact on the amount of organic traffic that you get and also sales. This is why over 64 percent of marketers actively invest time in SEO.
(If there isn't the right website for optimization, you can create one with . Join for a free 14-day trial to begin selling digital items from your own site.)
Before we get into our most effective SEO tools for entrepreneurs, let's look through the most popular types of SEO tools.
Different types of SEO instruments
A few SEO tools are like Swiss knives in the army -- they have several options and can help with many SEO tasks. However, others are specifically focused on a particular part that makes up the SEO puzzle.
Below are a few of the most popular kinds of SEO tools.
Keyword research Tools: These tools help you find popular terms and phrases that people type into Google and other search engines.
They will also inform you of the keyword difficulty -- how difficult it is to get your content to be ranked for a specific keyword -- and daily keyword volume -- the many times a keyword is frequented in a given monthfor you to identify your best search terms .
Rank-tracking tools: Rank-tracking tools tell you how well your website performs for keywords that you are targeting, so you can adjust your website's content in line with this.
Link-building tools: Link-building is the process of gaining backlinks -- hyperlinks to your website on websites -- in order to boost your site's reputation in search engines, and it's a crucial piece of a successful SEO strategy.
Links-building tools will help you locate backlink opportunities and find out which websites have links to yours.
Technical SEO tools Technical SEO tools go into the nitty-gritty of SEO. The front end of your website Technical SEO makes sure that your website pages are structured for people as well as crawlers, which are the search engine robots responsible for indexing updated and new content.
Tools to analyze: SEO reporting and analytics tools let you know the performance of your site across a variety of metrics such as the amount of traffic, conversions, and time spent on site, and many other.
Without further delay now, let's dive into our top SEO tips for entrepreneurs.
11 . The best SEO tools that are free for information entrepreneurs.
1. Ahrefs' free SEO tools
Although the priced plans start at just $99/month , Ahrefs offers a variety of free SEO tools. These are the most well-known ones:
Webmaster tools : Ahrefs' webmaster tools are completely free for all websites owners. They are technically "free restricted access to Ahrefs' Site Explorer & Site Audit " however, they provide a number of very helpful options, like:
An SEO audit as well as a backlink evaluation of your website
Analysis of competitors' sites' SEO
Effective SEO metrics that include organic traffic as well as keyword ranking
Keyword generator : You can enter up to 10 words or phrases. Ahrefs will show you 100 relevant keywords for your word or phrase and the difficulty of the first 10.
Search engine optimization test : Find out how your site is ranked for any given keyword.
Backlink checker : You can enter any domain, and view its rank on the domain (the strength of a target site's backlink profile) and the amount of backlinks are there, as well as the number of websites that hyperlink to it.
If you like Ahrefs free tools, and want to get even more specific with your data it is possible to try for a seven-day free trial of their entire platform for $7.
If you decide to sign up for the paid account, I recommend checking out their SEO toolbar that is a cost-free Firefox as well as Chrome extension that provides instant SEO metrics for any webpage you visit.
2. Moz's SEO tools are free.
Like Ahrefs, Moz has a solid paid platform, but it also provides numerous free applications . Here are some of the top:
Domain SEO Analysis Tool : Enter an URL and look up SEO-related metrics like:
Domain Authority, Moz's version of "Domain Ranking"
Top pages based on "Page Authority" Moz's algorithm of link metrics
Clicks per click estimates for the most popular keywords
Recently, new links were added to the domain
MozBar : A Chrome extension that displays the SEO statistics in real-time while you browse any webpage or search results pages (SERP).
Keyword Explorer : Enter the keyword you want to search for and gain access to:
Monthly search volume
Data for keyword research that is exportable as CSV and Excel spreadsheets
Long-tail keywords -- keywords with higher relevance and lower search volume
Key difficulty scores
Search engine results analysis with information about each result that appears on the first page of search results
Keyword suggestions for countries
When you sign up for an unpaid Moz login, users are restricted to 10 queries for keyword analysis per month. If you want full access to Moz's toolsand services, such as Keyword and Site Explorers, Keyword and site Explorers, Moz Pro plans begin at $149 per month and you're able to test a free trial for 30 days prior to committing to a paid subscription.
3. Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is Google's search engine for keywords.
This tool can help you figure out which keywords people are using to search for your product in the market. You can see an annual search volume as well as a predicted search volume. It can also help you discover keyword ideas to help you reach your audience.
The service is free to anyone who has the Google account. (That is said, it could sometimes be tricky to access -- if you run through a problem, this guide from Ahrefs provides some helpful troubleshooting tips.)
4. Google Search Console (GSC)
GSC is another tool available for free provided by the search engine masters at Google. GSC has reports and tools to help you evaluate your website's performance as well as traffic especially in terms of the way it appears and how often it pops on Google searches.
The most important features of GSC include:
Confirming that Google is able to crawl and locate your website.
Resolving issues with indexing and the re-indexing of any new or modified content.
Viewing Google search traffic data for your site, which includes how often your site appears in Google results, what search queries show your site, and how frequently users click through to your site through those searches.
Alerts sent out whenever Google encounters indexing, spam, or other issues with your site.
Displaying which websites link to your website (a.k.a. backlinks).
GSC can have a steep learning curve but there are many resources for you to navigate GSC, such as these training videos that are free by Google.
P.S. If your target audience makes use of Bing to search, Bing Webmaster Tools is the (free) Bing equivalent of GSC.
5. Google Analytics (GA)
Google Analytics gives you all of the information you need to know how your customers engage with your site. In order to use it for SEO include a google Analytics tracking code to your website and connect it to GSC.
GA provides free reports on SEO parameters like
Organic traffic (on both desktops and phones)
Organic conversions
Top page of landing pages
Pages that are the top exits (the the last page that visitors are able to visit prior to leaving your website)
Rate of bounce
Time on site
Pages per visit
And a ton of . . .
One downside to GA is that, like GSC it's robustness can lead to a steeper learning process. But, as mentioned it is possible to find amazing training tools available like Google Analytics Academy as well as this guide by Ahrefs on using GA to boost SEO.
6. Google's mobile-friendly testing tool
Mobile-friendly testing by Google's Google Labs is our final free software from Google in our selection. Although it's technically part of GSC, it's important enough -- and easy enough to use -- that it deserves its own place in the list.
Enter the URL of your site in the URL field, and Google will tell you if your website is designed for mobile. The site also displays the way the site will look like on a mobile device.
What is the reason this tool is so important?
Mobile optimization is an essential element in your website's user experience as well as SEO.
The mobile-friendly traffic accounts around half all web traffic worldwide Visitors have five times more likely to abandon your website in the event that your website is not mobile-friendly.
Furthermore, Google announced in the year 2018 that they're boosting the positions of mobile-optimized websites on their mobile-friendly search results, so optimizing your site's mobile accessibility can aid your search engine optimization as well.
Like all of the instruments in GSC Mobile-friendly tester is completely free.
7. Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Screaming Frog's SEO Spider is a web crawler. This means it analyzes and audits the technical as well as on-page SEO problems. SEO Spider is "trusted by hundreds of SEOs and other agencies across the globe to conduct technical SEO audits of websites".
An online crawler such as SEO Spider can help you locate broken links, identify the existence of duplicate pages on your website and also analyze your website's descriptions and metadata to be sure that your SEO performs exactly the way it should, both in the front and in the back.
The trial version of SEO Spider lets you crawl as many as 500 URLs which, unless your website has more than 500 pages, will be enough. If you're a plethora of content or run several websites, the paid version will set you back PS149.00 per year.
8. GTmetrix
GTmetrix analyzes the loading speed of your website pages. If it discovers your site's loading time is lower than it should be, GTmetrix tells you what's slowing your site down and offers actionable recommendations for making your site load more quickly.
Like mobile optimization, load time as well as page speed have a significant impact on the user experience of your site's visitors.
26.9 Percent of customers will wait less than four seconds for the page to load- and 45.4 percent of users stated that they are less likely to buy items if page loading speeds were slower than expected.
Load time plays a role on the SEO aspect, as well. According to SEO experts at Moz , "Google has confirmed that site speed (and as a result the speed of pages) is one of the indicators utilized by their algorithm in order to rank websites."
The free version of GTmetrix allows users to monitor 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 offers a comparable but less powerful -- option.
9. Yoast SEO
If you own your own WordPress blog and you're looking for an SEO software for you. It's an WordPress plugin that helps to optimize the content you publish from your WordPress site editor.
Input the phrase or keyword you'd like your site or blog post to be ranked for, then Yoast examines your blog or website content and determines if you're using keywords in the right amount (or excessively) and at the appropriate places like the headers.
Yoast can also let you preview how your page or article will appear in the Google results page.
At the backend, Yoast generates and applies schema.org structures as well as structured data which "helps [search engines] determine what each part of your site means as well as who it belongs to, and how everything connects".
The trial version of Yoast offers nearly every feature that is available in the premium version. It costs $89 per year for only one WordPress site.
10. SimilarWeb
SimilarWeb is an online competitor research tool. It allows you to search your competitors' websites and view their statistics related to traffic, including:
Top of the page
Total visits
Sources of traffic
Top referring sites
Pages per visit
Average visit duration
Rate of bounce
SimilarWeb provides a no-cost option, which is limited to 5 results for each metric. If you are a fan of the software, it is possible to move to "Enterprise" down the road, but the free version will give you lots of data that you can use.
11. SERPsim
Billing itself as "the most exact SERP design tool," SERPsim is a search results preview generator with both mobile and desktop view.
The tool is free and will allow you to check your the meta description -- an HTML attribute that offers an uncomplicated description of your website -- to determine how they will appear on a Google SERP.
You can import your existing metadata or paste in text. It's a great method to ensure that your metadata won't be removed from search results because it's excessively long.
Make sure that your information products using these SEO tools that are simple to use
SEO is a great way to drive more visitors to your website as well as put your products and information in front of more potential customers. But search engine optimization isn't an easy and time-consuming process to handle on your own.
There are tools that can help in almost all aspects of SEO -- and all of them offer a free version.
In case you're wondering, here's 11 of the most effective free SEO tools for infopreneurs:
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for Free include keyword generator, keywords, rank checker, as well as a backlink checker.
Moz's completely free SEO tools, which include the Domain SEO Analysis Tool, Mozbar Chrome extension, and Keyword Planner.
Google's free tools, including Keyword Planner for keyword research, Google Search Console and Google Analytics for in-depth data and reports, as well as the Mobile-friendly test.
"Screaming" Frog SEO Spider to audit your site for technical and on-page SEO issues.
GTmetrix is a great tool to make sure that your load time is as fast as can be.
Yoast SEO, a WordPress plugin which lets you enhance your content when you publish it.
SimilarWeb to conduct competitive analysis which shows you how your site stands up to the competition'.
SERPsim is a quick overview of your name and meta description in search results.
All in all, whether you choose to use any one of these SEO instruments or combine the two, having them included within your toolbox for marketing can help in reaching more people and selling more products.