11 SEO tools free for creators
SEO is a confusing process and time-consuming, but it doesn't have to be. We've compiled a list of 11 SEO tools that can help you optimize your site and attract more traffic.
SEO can be complicated and confusing, particularly when you're not familiar with it. Keywords, both short and long-tail anchor text and TXT files, link building and backlinking . . . This is enough to cause your brain turn.
The best part? There are plenty of easy-to-use, affordable -- often even free tools available which can take care of a great deal of the SEO heavy lifting (and algorithm analyzing) on your behalf.
We've rounded up 11 simple SEO tools to help optimize your website and get the attention of more people to your digital products. As an additional bonus, every tool on the list is free.
But first, what exactly is SEO?
What is SEO? (And why you should make use of them?)
SEO tools allow for any website owner to improve their site's content to the search engines.
Optimized content shows up higher on search results that include appropriate keywords and phrases. The more you optimize your content, the more easy it will be for users to discover it on searches.
And with organic search responsible of five-thirds of all online traffic , grabbing the first spot on the search results page is crucial -- especially in light of the fact that the top five results from any Google search account for 67.6% of all clicks .
What does SEO look like in action?
If I'm a busy parent trying to manage the budget of my family, I might Google the phrase "budgeting for busy moms".
And if I click on your website, I'll be able to see your content, see your expertise is what I'm seeking or perhaps enroll in your course.
The snippet of text that is featured for the term "budgeting with busy parents" shows this post from Simplified Motherhood, a website focused on providing content -which includes online classes and digital downloads which helps busy mothers stay organized.
SEO tools can help you reach that highly sought-after top spot within the search results- even if you don't have a dedicated digital marketing team (or even a team). They can level the playing field for entrepreneurs and solopreneurs to compete with big companies that have larger budgets.
Here's why: SEO is more affordable in comparison to cost per click (CPC) marketing and more efficient. The Databox study revealed that 70% of marketers say they believe that SEO is superior to PPC ads for generating sales.
A few SEO modifications can create an enormous impact on organic traffic and sales. This is why nearly 64 percent of marketing professionals actively invest time in SEO.
(If you do not have the right website for optimization then you could create one using . Sign up to get a 14-day free trial , and start selling digital items from your own site.)
Before diving into our list of best SEO tools designed for entrepreneurs, let's go over the most common kinds of SEO tools.
The types of SEO-related tools
A few SEO tools are akin to Swiss knifes -- they have several options and can help with a wide variety of SEO tasks, while others are concentrated on one particular piece that makes up SEO. SEO puzzle.
Here are some of the most common kinds of SEO instruments.
Keyword research instruments: These tools help to identify the most popular keywords and phrases that people type into search engines.
They also tell you the keyword difficulty -- how hard it is to get your content to rank on a particular keyword -- and daily keyword volume -- the many times a keyword is searched in a month -- to figure out your best search terms .
Rank-tracking tools: Rank-tracking tools tell the user how your site is ranked for the keywords you want to rank and allow you to adjust your content accordingly.
Tools for building links: Link-building involves earning backlinks, which are links to your website on websites -- in order to increase your website's credibility with search engines. it's an essential element of an effective SEO strategy.
Links-building tools will help you identify backlink opportunities and find the websites that have links to your site.
Technical SEO tools: Technical SEO tools get deep into the intricacies of SEO. The backend of your site, technical SEO ensures that your web pages are structured for people as well as crawlers, the crawlers that are responsible for indexing updated and new content.
Analytics tools: SEO reporting and analytics tools will show you how well your site is doing with regard to a range of indicators, including the amount of traffic, conversions, and visits to the website, and more.
Without further delay now, let's dive to our best SEO tools for information entrepreneurs.
11 . The best SEO-related tools available for free to infopreneurs
1. Ahrefs' free SEO tools
Though their premium plans start at $99/month , Ahrefs offers a range of SEO tools for free. These are the most popular ones:
Webmaster Tools : Ahrefs' webmaster tools are completely free for all websites owners, and technically are "free restricted access to Ahrefs' Site Explorer & Site Audit " However, they offer some very useful tools, such as:
An SEO audit as well as a backlink analysis of your site
Competitive analysis of other websites" SEO
Relevant SEO metrics for the business, such as organic traffic as well as keyword rankings
Keyword generator : Enter up to 10 words or phrases, and Ahrefs will give you 100 relevant keywords for your word or phrase, including the keyword difficultness of the first 10.
Search engine optimization Checker for Keyword rank : See how your website ranks on any particular keyword.
Backlink checker : Enter any domain and see its domain ranking (the strength of a target site's backlink profile) and how many backlinks it has, plus the number of websites that connect to the site.
If you like Ahrefs free tools, and are looking to become deeper into the information it is possible to try for a seven-day free trial of their entire platform for $7.
If you opt to a paid account I suggest you check the SEO Toolbar , a free Firefox and Chrome extension that displays instant SEO metrics for any website you browse.
2. Moz's free SEO tools
Similar to Ahrefs, Moz has a strong paid-for platform that offers numerous free applications . Below are a few of the top:
Keyword SEO Analysis Tool : Enter an URL and look up the SEO metrics of that domain, such as:
Domain Authority, Moz's version of "Domain Ranking"
Pages that rank top based on "Page Authority," Moz's algorithm to determine link metrics
The estimated number of clicks on key phrases
New links have been added to the domain
MozBar : A Chrome extension that provides immediate SEO metrics when you visit any webpage or search results pages (SERP).
Keyword Explorer : Enter an appropriate keyword to gain access to:
Monthly search volume
Keyword research data that can be exported into CSV as well as Excel spreadsheets
Keywords with long tails -- words which are of greater relevance but with smaller search volumes
Keyword difficulty scores
Search engine results analysis with information for each result appearing on the first page of search results
Keyword suggestions by country
If you have the free Moz account, you're limited to 10 keywords analysis queries each month. If you want full access to Moz's tools, including Keyword and Site Explorers, Keyword and Site Explorers, Moz Pro plans begin at $149 per month and you're able to try a 30-day free trial prior to committing to a paid plan.
3. Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner can be described as Google's keyword research tool.
This tool will help you figure the keywords that people are using to search for your product in the market. It lets you see the the monthly volume of searches and predicted search volume. It can also help you discover keyword ideas to help you reach the right audience.
It's free for anyone with a Google account. (That however, it may sometimes be tricky to access in the event that you get in trouble, this guide from Ahrefs provides some helpful troubleshooting tips.)
4. Google Search Console (GSC)
GSC is a different tool that's free by the search experts of Google. GSC offers tools and reports that help you measure the performance and traffic of your site particularly by determining the way it appears and how often it pops prominently in Google the search engine results.
Some of the principal aspects of GSC are:
Confirming you are sure that Google is able to crawl and locate your site.
Repairing indexing problems, and asking for re-indexing of new or updated information.
Accessing Google search traffic data for your site, including how frequently your site is featured in Google results, what search results show your website, and the frequency with which users visit your website through those searches.
Receiving alerts when Google discovers issues with indexing, spam or any other issue with your site.
Showing you which sites link to your website (a.k.a. backlinks).
GSC has a long learning curve but there are various resources available to help you navigate this platform. For instance, these training videos that are free on Google.
P.S. If your target audience utilizes 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 need to understand how customers engage with your site. For SEO purposes, add google Analytics tracking code on your website and connect the site to GSC.
GA gives free reportage on SEO parameters like
Organic traffic (on desktop and mobile)
Organic conversions
Top landing pages
Pages that are the top exits (the final page people visit before leaving your website)
Rate of bounce
Time on site
Pages per visit
And a ton more . . .
One downside to GA is that, like GSC the robustness of GA leads to a steeper learning process. However it is possible to find amazing training tools available including Google Analytics Academy as well as this article of Ahrefs on the use of GA to improve SEO.
6. Google's mobile-friendly tester
The mobile friendly tester from Google is our last free tool from Google in our selection. While it's technically component of GSC however, it's crucial enough as well as simple to use that it deserves an own space.
When you enter the URL for your site, and Google tells you whether your site is optimized for mobile. The site also displays a preview of what your site looks like when viewed on mobile devices.
What makes this tool so valuable?
Mobile optimization is a key factor in your site's user experience and SEO.
The mobile-friendly traffic accounts approximately half the web traffic in the world And users who are mobile-friendly visitors nearly five times as likely to abandon your website if it isn't mobile-friendly.
Plus, Google announced in 2018 that they're increasing the ranking of sites optimized for mobile on their mobile-friendly search results Optimizing your website's mobile usability can help your search engine optimization, too.
Like all of the tools in GSC The mobile-friendly tester is completely free.
7. Screaming Frog SEO Spider
The Screaming Frog's SEO Spider is a website crawler. This means it examines and reviews the technical as well as on-page SEO problems. SEO Spider is "trusted by hundreds of SEOs and agencies worldwide to conduct technical SEO site audits".
An online crawler such as SEO Spider can help you identify broken links, find duplicate content on your website and also analyze your website's titles and metadata to ensure that your SEO works exactly how it should at the front end and the back.
The trial version of SEO Spider lets you crawl up to 500 URLs and, in the event that your website contains greater than 500 page, is plenty. If you have a ton of material or operate multiple sites, the paid version costs PS149.00 per year.
8. GTmetrix
GTmetrix examines the speed of loading of your website pages. If it discovers that your website is slow than it should be, GTmetrix tells you what's slowing your site down and provides actionable suggestions for making your site load more quickly.
Similar to mobile optimization, loading time and speed of your website are crucial to your users' experience.
26.9 percent of online customers have to wait for less than four seconds for a page to load -- and 45.4% of visitors stated that they are less likely to purchase things if loading times were less than what they expected.
It is a factor on the SEO aspect, as well. According to the SEO experts of Moz , "Google has stated that speed of site (and as a result, page speed) is among the signals utilized by their algorithm to determine the rank of pages."
The free version of GTmetrix lets users monitor just one website per day and upgrading to GTmetrix PRO costs $10 per month. If you'd rather stick with an unpaid tool and Google's PageSpeed Insights tool offers a comparable, but not as robust choice.
9. Yoast SEO
If you have an WordPress blog Yoast is the SEO tool for you. It's a WordPress plugin that helps you optimize your content right from the WordPress page editor.
Enter the phrase or keyword you want your webpage or blog post to rank in search results, and then Yoast checks your content and informs you if you're using the keyword enough (or too often), and in the correct places, such as headers.
Yoast also lets you look at how your webpage or post will look when you visit a Google search results page.
In the back end, Yoast generates and applies schema.org structures and organized data which "helps the search engines to discover what each element of your website means, who it belongs to, and how everything connects".
Yoast's free version Yoast includes nearly every feature that is available in the premium version. It costs $89 per year for only one WordPress website.
10. SimilarWeb
SimilarWeb is an online competitor analysis tool. You can search for your competitors' websites and view their statistics related to traffic which include:
Top pages
Visits total
Sources of traffic
The top referring websites
Pages per visit
Average visit duration
Bounce rate
SimilarWeb offers a free choice, but it is limited to 5 results for each measurement. If you are a fan of the software, it is possible to upgrade to "Enterprise" down the route, but the no-cost version will give you lots of high-level information to use.
11. SERPsim
It claims to be "the most exact SERP snippet generator," SERPsim is a search results preview generator with desktop and mobile views.
The tool is free and allows you to check your Meta description -- an HTML attribute that offers a brief summary of your website -- to determine how they will appear on a Google SERP.
You are able to import your current metadata, or copy and paste it into text. This is a fantastic method to ensure that your metadata isn't removed from search results for being too long.
Make sure that your info products with these simple SEO tools
SEO is an excellent method to increase visitors to your site as well as bring your product information front of more potential customers. However, it isn't an easy and time-consuming process to handle on your own.
There are tools available to help in almost all aspects of SEO (and all have a no-cost version.
To recap, here are 11 of the best free SEO tools for infopreneurs:
Ahrefs' free webmaster tools include keyword generator, keywords, rank checker, and backlink checker.
Moz's no-cost SEO tools include their Domain SEO Analysis Tool, Mozbar Chrome extension, as well as Keyword Planner.
Google's tools for free, such as Keyword Planner for keyword research, Google Search Console and Google Analytics for more in-depth analysis as well as reporting, and the mobile-friendly tester.
"Screaming" Frog SEO Spider to check your website to identify SEO technical and on-page issues.
GTmetrix to make sure your load times are as fast as can be.
Yoast SEO, an WordPress plugin that lets you improve your content every time you post it.
SimilarWeb to conduct competitive analysis which shows you how your site stacks up against your competitors'.
SERPsim is a quick preview of your title and meta description within the results of a search.
Overall, whether you choose to use one of these SEO tools or a combination of them, having them in your marketing toolbox is a step toward reaching many more customers and selling more products.