In last weeks blog we discussed some of the terms necessary to conduct a thorough SEO (Organic Search) campaign. As we noted, there are a number of components to successful SEO. Fortunately, there are also some very powerful SEO tools that can help in your efforts. Some of these tools are completely free. Others have free versions and more robust paid platforms. If SEO is part of your marketing, whether as an in-house effort or if you are outsourcing to a Digital Agency, you should be utilizing some of these platforms.
Google Search Console
Another free site from Google that helps you monitor, maintain and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google Search results. Console helps you understand and improve how Google sees your site. While this tool only provides information regarding Google Search that is still over 70% of all searches.
Google My Business
This service is a left-over from Google’s ill-fated social media attempt, Google+. Every business should have a well-maintained Google My Business(GMB) account. Not only does GMB help you rank higher it provides valuable contact information about your business to people who search you. GMB is integrated with Google Maps as well as reviews on Google and other sites. This service is also free.
Google Analytics
(GA) is the platform most discussed on this blog, and for good reason. This highly versatile program provides outstanding feedback on your website. Beyond topline usage metrics GA shows how people engage with your website. What pages do people enter your site by, where do they leave, what is their path to conversion? Probably the first tool one should use in an SEO analysis. By the way, did we mention it is free?
Spyfu
As the name might suggest a website whose purpose is to provide intel on competitive websites. Spyfu will tell you both the paid and organic keywords your competitors use. They also provide cost-per-click and search volume statistics and uses data to estimate competitors advertising spend. The idea is that by understanding what the competition is doing you can improve your own search.
Moz
One of the biggest factors in your map rankings is citations. Citations are mentions of your name, address and phone numbers on different sites. Often those sites are directories, such as Yelp, Bing Local, Facebook Business etc. Moz Local is a great way to review those listings. The Moz paid service will make sure those listings appear across dozens of directories and that all listings are consistent. The paid version will also help you find the right keywords for your business, find harmful technical issues and track your rankings. A very popular tool among SEO’s
Screaming Frog
Another SEO tool with lots of bells and whistles. What sets it apart is the free SEO Spider tool that you can use to quickly conduct a technical SEO audit of your website. After downloading the tool, all you need to do to get started is type in your website’s domain name and click the box to Crawl All Subdomains. In just a couple of minutes, you will see a detailed audit of all of your webpages. From meta tags to error status codes, you can spot problems without taking the time to manually audit each and every one of your website’s pages.
SEMRush
A software as a service (SaaS) company based in Boston that sells online visibility and marketing analytics software subscriptions. The software provides intelligence data including website traffic information, keywords projected AdWords spend, site audit, topic research, lead generation, and other SEO-related data. SEMrush is an SEO tool that does your keyword research, tracks the keyword strategy used by your competition, runs an SEO audit of your blog, looks for backlinking opportunities and lots more.
Ahrefs
Understanding and effectively using backlinks is critical for SEO, and Ahrefs gives you a full suite of backlink tools. Use Ahrefs first to analyze your own site and make sure your backlinks are from legitimate websites. If you find that many of your backlinks are from spammy sites, then Google may penalize your website and it’s going to be difficult to obtain high rankings until you remove or disavow those backlinks. Next, use Ahrefs to analyze your competitors to see where they are getting their backlinks. This is invaluable information you can use to steer your SEO strategy.
These are but a few of the many software services and platforms one can use to help with an SEO strategy. Many of them overlap with one another. In some cases, the SEO tools are free. In others you can use a free version, but will be limited in your ability to pull data and use all of the capabilities. Research the available software before you purchase. Determine what you need to advance your SEO and choose accordingly. Some SEO tools are better for keyword research, others help with backlinks. Still others will help with citations. Because SEO is a multi-disciplinary task the right services reduce the workload of SEO and make the process more streamlined. SEO is a major component of many companies marketing strategy. The proper tools can make it easier to accomplish your goals.
