Search Engine Optimization, also known as SEO, is a digital marketing strategy used to increase website traffic. It’s an integral part of content marketing. When you search something in Google, the results you see are ranked by the search engine optimization on the page.
You can use various methods and tools to optimize your page and rake in more traffic. Many beginners make the mistake of thinking that SEO costs money. However, there are many free tools you can use to get your website optimized for people to find it on Google.
Here are some of the best free SEO tools for beginners:
Best Seo Tools For Beginners Cost
1. Semrush
Do you have tons of data to process? Semrush could be perfect for you as an all-in-one tool. It can track keyword rankings, organic traffic, and backlinks.
Their Keyword Magic tool, in particular, is terrific at uncovering phrases you may not have known you could even rank for.
Screenshot from Keyword Magic Tool, August 2021
To figure out how to do better yourself, you can also get information on your competitors’ data –comparing data helps to see what competitors are doing well and what potential pitfalls to avoid.
Follow the right footsteps, and you’ll be on the path to success.
Additionally, there’s the ability to do SEO site audits to ensure your website is running optimally. Optimizing your website’s SEO is a magnificent way to get you closer to that front page.
Cost: Their Pro plan starts at $119.95/month – other options are available.
2. Ahrefs
If you’re looking for a comprehensive SEO toolkit, Ahrefs is the way to go.
If you’re looking to improve your site’s SEO performance with backlinks, Ahrefs has a backlinks index that’s updated every 15 minutes, plus a web crawler that processes up to 8 billion pages a day.
Ahrefs also has an SEO analyzer tool to ensure your site is running optimally. The insights they give you on your domain are phenomenally detailed.
Screenshot from Ahrefs.com, August 2021
Ahrefs is also useful because of the other powerful tools in its suite.
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Some of these include:
- Site Explorer: This will help analyze you and your competitor’s backlinks.
- Content Explorer: Helps to take a topic and find its most shared content.
- Keywords Explorer: Assists you in finding relevant keyword ideas and traffic estimates.
There’s even more to it. If you’re not ready to pay real money quite yet, but are still keen on learning, the company offers free educational videos online that anyone can watch.
Ahrefs also has a blog with many useful how-to’s, plus tips and tricks.
Cost: Their Lite plan costs $99/month – they also offer a seven-day trial for $7.
3. Moz Pro
Moz Pro isn’t just an SEO tool. It’s a suite of SEO tools. An excellent solution for those who require a wide range of capabilities, you could potentially save a great deal.
By only needing to purchase one all-inclusive system, you’re avoiding spending money elsewhere.
Offering keyword suggestions, links, site audits, rank tracking, and on-page optimization, Moz Pro does just about it all. Their keyword research tool can help you determine what keywords and keyword combinations to use.
As well, its backlink analysis tool combines metrics in links, including anchor text. Backlinks are necessary for SEO, so this feature is critical.
Cost: Their Standard plan is $99/month.
4. Majestic
Need not just some, but a lot, of high-quality links? Majestic is here for you – they boast having the greatest link index database. Ever.
Screenshot from Majestic, August 2021
You’ll be able to see where your links are from, as well as the anchor text other sites use to link to you. Also, you can see the total weight each backlink has.
Lastly, it’s easy to compare links. Using the tool, you can compare up to five sites at a single time.
Cost: Their Lite plan starts at $49.99/month.
5. Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Here’s another helpful way to check on your links.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a web crawler able to perform fast searches of URLs. It can also check your site for broken pages.
You can check for missing title tags, duplicate meta tags, and tags of the wrong length. You can also see the number of links on each page, so you can know if you’re providing enough links in your content.
Cost: Their paid version is £149.00/year (can be bought in the U.S. at the exchange rate.)
6. Spyfu
If you need an impressive search analysis tool for SEO keyword research, Spyfu may be for you. You can search for any domain while using it and see every place the domain has shown up on Google.
There are a couple of valuable types of research Spyfu can complete including SEO, PPC, and keyword.
Spyfu also has a SERP checker and domain overviews.
Essentially, it’s a massive amount of possibility packed into one system.
Cost: Their plans start at $33/month.
7. Serpstat
Trying to grow your business? Serpstat is a digital growth tool made to assist you in optimizing your SEO and PPC. It can also assist with your marketing campaigns.
Screenshot from Serpstat, August 2021
Overall, Serpstat is an SEO tool that comes with many essential features.
Some of these can:
- Determine keyword value.
- Discover international data.
- Collect keywords for campaigns.
- Analyze keyword trends.
Ready to start organizing your next campaign? Try getting a little help from Serpstat.
Cost: Their starter Lite plan is $69/month.
8. CognitiveSEO
Here’s another suite of tools, not just one singularity on its own. CognitiveSEO has all the essentials you need to research, plan, and execute your SEO strategy.
You’ll be able to research keywords, audit your site for SEO no-go’s, analyze backlinks, and look at mobile rank tracking.
There are many more options, as well. You can increase your social visibility as well as prevent Google Penalties – or, if necessary, cognitiveSEO will help you recover from them.
Cost: Their Starter plan costs $129.99/month.
9. Advanced Web Ranking
A fantastic way to get comprehensive position tracking and rank monitoring, Advanced Web Ranking gives you daily local tracking results. By monitoring what is happening on your site, you can figure out what’s working and what’s not.
Easy on the eyes, their data layout is fully customizable. With easy link sharing and integration with third-party reporting, Advanced Web Ranking is great for those seeking a tool that’s simple yet powerful.
Cost: Their Starter plan costs $49/month.
10. ContentKing
Another site auditing tool that will show you any SEO issues popping up on your website, ContentKing has one extra advantage: it proactively crawls your site 24/7.
It will alert you immediately when new problems occur. A.K.A., no more having to remember to check your website for SEO errors constantly.
Because ContentKing is cloud-based, there’s no need to install any software or extensions.
It also provides valuable insights into how your site is doing and how to implement proposed tasks to improve SEO compatibility.
Cost: Their Basic plan is $139/month.
best seo tools for wordpress
1. All in One SEO for WordPress (AIOSEO)
All in One SEO for WordPress (AIOSEO) is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market. Used by over 3+ million users, it is the most comprehensive SEO toolkit that helps you improve search rankings without learning any complicated SEO jargon.
It comes with the easiest setup wizard that automatically helps you choose the best SEO settings for your business. AIOSEO shows you TruSEO on-page analysis with an actionable checklist to optimize your posts and pages.
The on-page SEO checklist includes a smart meta tag generator where you can use dynamic values (current year, month, day, custom fields, author info, and much more) in your SEO title and descriptions. This means you don’t need to update a post just to change SEO titles.
AIOSEO also comes with Rich snippet schema markup, smart XML sitemaps (with advanced controls), SEO health check, and other useful features to grow your search engine visibility.
There is a built-in social media integration to add Open Graph metadata as well. This means you can choose which image or thumbnail you want to show when your pages are shared on social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.
AIOSEO also comes with built-in WooCommerce SEO tools for eCommerce sites. This include features like dynamic optimizations, individual product page optimizations, product image SEO, and other handy features to bring more organic traffic to your online store.
For more SEO savvy users, it includes full control of RSS feeds, Robots.txt editor, local SEO, Google News sitemaps, video SEO, advanced redirect manager, 404 tracking, IndexNow integration, and more.
For business owners, it comes with SEO user roles, so you can manage access to important SEO features without handing over control of your website.
Update: Recently AIOSEO added a Link Assistant which is a game-changer for internal linking. It helps identify link opportunities and help you bulk-add internal links with just a few clicks.
Overall, All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is the most beginner-friendly and comprehensive WordPress SEO plugin on the market. It eliminates the need to install multiple plugins to do things on your website and works perfectly for all types of businesses, eCommerce, blogs, news, and other websites.
2. SEMRush
SEMRush is the best overall SEO tool on the market. Used by professional SEO experts, marketers, bloggers, and businesses of all sizes, it provides a comprehensive set of tools to grow your traffic.
You can use it to find organic keywords and search terms that you can easily rank for. It also allows you to do competitive research and see which keywords your competitors rank for, and how you can beat them.
SEMRush SEO Writing Assistant tool helps you improve your website content to beat the top 10 results for your focus keyword. It integrates with WordPress, and this will help you write more SEO friendly content.
To learn more, see our complete guide on how to do keyword research for your website.
We use SEMRush for our websites because of their competitive intelligence and SEO rank tracker features.
3. Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free tool offered by Google to help website owners monitor and maintain their site’s presence in Google search results.
It alerts you when Google is unable to crawl and index pages on your website. You also get helpful tips on how to fix those crawl errors.
Most importantly, it shows which keywords your website is ranking for, anchor texts, average position, impressions, and more. You can use this data to find keywords where you can easily rank higher by simply optimizing your content. You can also use this keyword data to come up with new blog post ideas.
For more details, see our comprehensive Google Search Console guide for beginners.
Tip: You can use MonsterInsights to track your keyword rankings inside WordPress admin area using Google Seach Console data.
MonsterInsights, another tool we’ll mention later, helps you bring the Search Console reports right inside your WordPress dashboard for easy access.
4. Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is a popular WordPress SEO plugin that allows you to optimize your WordPress website for search engines.
It lets you easily add SEO titles and descriptions to all posts and pages on your website. You can also use it to add Open Graph metadata and social media images to your articles.
Yoast SEO automatically generates an XML sitemap for all your website content which makes it easier for search engines to crawl your website. It also helps you easily import your SEO data if you have been using another SEO plugin.
For more details, see our complete guide on how to install and setup Yoast SEO plugin in WordPress.
5. Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner tool helps you generate your own keyword ideas from Google itself.
No one on the planet has more insights into what people are searching for than the search giant Google. This free tool is offered to Google’s advertisers for free and anyone can use it. Its main purpose is to show advertisers the keywords they can bid on for their advertising campaigns.
It also helps advertisers choose the right keywords by showing them an estimate of search volume, number of results, and difficulty level.
As a content marketer or blogger, you can use this data to find keywords with high search volume, high advertiser interest, and more importantly keywords where you can easily outrank all other sites.
Conclusion
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