Content marketing is one of the most important components of a digital marketing strategy, but it can also be one of the most challenging.
In today’s world, great content can boost your website’s organic traffic and bring in new audiences—as long as it’s done right. If the content isn’t optimized for search engines and isn’t well-written, you won’t be able to reap the benefits that content marketing offers.
The good news is, there are plenty of tools out there that make it easier to create a successful content marketing strategy. These tools will help you research topics, optimize your writing, and even repurpose your existing content into new formats.
Here are our top picks for tools that make creating a successful content marketing strategy easier than ever before.
Digital Marketing Seo Tools
With the year always going so fast, it won’t be long before you’re reviewing the good and the bad over the previous 12 months. Like me, I’m sure that you want to review your yearly performance and realize that you made some serious progress.
Fortunately, even if you’ve slipped a bit, there’s always time to catch up and do things the right way.
You can get started by reading my step-by-step guide to SEO. Along with this, you can review my guides to off-page SEO and content marketing.
From there, it’s time to implement a few key digital marketing tools that can help boost your marketing strategy over the final four months of the year.
In this post, I’m going to share 10 free search engine optimization and digital marketing tools that every small business needs to consider, before the end of the year. Not only will these put you on a better path for the rest of the year, but they’ll position you for success once the new year begins.
Now, it’s time to get down to business. Here are the 10 tools that I want you to focus on.
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- Google Analytics
Why should you be using this free tool?
The answer is simple: because you need to understand everything about your target audience and the people visiting your website.
With Google Analytics installed, you can track data within a variety of categories:
Real-Time
Audience
Acquisition
Behavior
Conversions
For example, the Acquisition tab will provide you with access to all types of traffic data. I suggest that you take a look at your traffic-based on channels. You’ll see something like this:
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With this data, you’ll better understand where your traffic is coming from. You can then adjust your digital marketing strategy to take full advantage of your top channels.
In this example, the website is receiving a lot of direct traffic. While that’s great, it’d be nice to increase the diversity a bit, maybe by focusing more time on organic search and social networks.
Once you install Google Analytics, the tool does all of the work for you. Give it some time to collect enough data and then begin reviewing the results daily.
- Ubersuggest
Do your existing tools easily explain your SEO positioning?
Knowing where you’re at with your SEO doesn’t have to be confusing.
Ubersuggest, which has free and paid options, easily explains in plain English where your site is at compared to competitors, and what you need to grow traffic.
paper-flower-ubersuggest-example
For example, in the competing domains section, you can enter your URL to see your top competitors in the SERPs.
You can also click the “view all” in the Keywords Gap column to see what keywords each competitor is ranking on that you aren’t.
keyword-gap-example-ubersuggest
This works for any URL, so you aren’t limited to your own.
You can also run Keywords Gap analysis on competitors’ URLs to see where they are lacking.
This gives you a leg up to make sure you rank for these keywords before competitors do.
Make sure you take advantage of our free Chrome extension as well.
- Google PageSpeed Insights
Does page speed matter, when it comes to SEO and search engine rankings?
In the early days of search engine optimization, the answer was no. Today, however, this has all changed. Google has made it clear that site speed is used in web search ranking.
Use the Google PageSpeed Insights tool, to ensure that your website isn’t falling behind in this area.
After entering your URL, the results page spits out a variety of information:
Speed
User Experience
Things to Consider Fixing
The speed results look like this:
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You want your score to be as close to 100 as possible. If you find that it’s anything less than that, don’t hesitate to follow the guidelines under the “consider fixing” headline.
Pro tip: don’t forget to check the speed for both mobile and desktop devices. You want to score high for both of these.
- SimilarWeb
Do you want to see how your website is performing across a variety of metrics? Are you interested in getting an inside view of your competition?
SimilarWeb is not only a free tool for doing both these things, but it’s one of the easiest to use. And, the data is presented in an easy-to-read format.
A search for NeilPatel.com provides information on a variety of traffic-related data.
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There’s a lot of information to soak up, so don’t rush through the results page. Review each section in great detail, making note of any data relevant to your SEO campaign that you can use to improve your search engine optimization and marketing plan in the future.
For example, I urge you to go over the “search” data with a fine tooth comb. It’s here that you’ll learn how much of a site’s traffic comes from search, top keywords, keyword phrases, paid keywords and more.
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It’s not likely that you’ll use SimilarWeb on a daily basis. But, it’s definitely one of the best ways to keep an eye on the health of your website, while also tracking your top competitors.
- SEO SiteCheckup
Are you one of those people who think that search engine optimization is a complex, advanced process that can never be solved?
I know where you’re coming from. I used to be in the same position as you. But, through experience and the use of the right tools, things began to come together for me.
One tool that I suggest you use is SEO SiteCheckup. It provides a variety of features, including, but not limited to:
Analysis of SEO issues
SEO monitoring
Competition monitoring
Ability to create SEO reports
If you want to see what this tool is all about, get started by running your first free search. This is as simple as typing your URL into the search box on the home page. The results are listed for easy review:
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If you’re lucky, your website will receive a perfect score. This means that you’re doing everything right, from an SEO perspective.
Of course, this isn’t something that you should expect. There’s a good chance that you’ll need to address at least one issue within your SEO campaign, such as the “headings status.”
Pro tip: running a site check-up is only the first step. If it turns up any problems, click the “how to fix” button, for advice on resolving the problem.
With this digital marketing tool, you’ll always know where your site stands, from an SEO perspective. If you follow the advice as outlined, you can rid your site of lingering SEO campaign problems, with the hopes of pushing towards the top of the search engine rankings.
- Google Search Console
Are you using this free and powerful search engnine optimization tool?
I can’t tell you how many times I have asked people if they are using Google Search Console, just to be surprised by their answer: no!
Yet another free digital marketing tool by Google, this is one that will give you a clear idea of how your site is performing, and it’s a must for every small business.
The dashboard will give you a solid overview of your site’s health:
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This is a good jumping-off point, but you’ll want to dig deeper. The search traffic tab, for example, can give you to information regarding:
Search Analytics
Links to Your Site
Internal Links
Manual Actions
International Targeting
Mobile Usability
Search analytics is one of my favorites, as it allows you to “analyze your performance on Google Search.” You can search for data in many ways:
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Of course, Google Search Console is one of the best and most accurate ways of tracking links to your site. And. as you know, this is imperative to ranking high in the search engines. Be sure to track not only the number of links, but also how your data is linked and which pages have the most links.
With Google Search Console, the more you dig, the more you’ll find. And, remember this: your data is updated on the fly, so don’t be afraid to review your dashboard at least once a day.
- SpyFu
Have you ever heard the saying “keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”
This isn’t to suggest that your small business competitors are enemies, but instead to explain that it’s a good idea to know what they’re doing, in regards to search engine optimization and digital marketing.
While there is a lot that you can do on your own, you only have so much time for tracking and reviewing your top competitors, as a small business. This is why you want to rely on a tool, like SpyFu.
With this in your digital marketing toolbox, you can quickly see what your competitors are up to.
Head to the tool’s homepage and type in the URL of any website.
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From there, run your search and wait for the information to be displayed (it only takes a couple of seconds.)
If you wanted to learn more about my website, a search would turn up a report page that looks like this:
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But, that’s just the start. You can continue down the results page, collecting data related to:
Shared keywords
Top keywords
Ranking history
Inbound links
So, what if I know what the competition is doing?
There’s no doubt that you want to spend more time focused on the effectiveness of the SEO campaign of your small business and less time on the competition. But, that doesn’t mean that you should turn a blind eye.
With the help of SpyFu, you can do things, such as:
Uncover new keywords to attempt to rank for.
Determine if you or your competition are having more success for a particular keyword or keyword phrase.
Learn more about a competitor’s link profile, thus giving you the opportunity to secure the same links.
Start with a couple of your top competitors and then move on from there. Soon enough, you’ll know who your biggest threats are, when it comes to ranking your website.
- Cyfe
What method do you employ to track all of the data that’s related to your business?
Like many, you may not have an answer to this question. Instead, you move from one tool to the next, to pull data and review numbers.
If you’re tired of wasting time on this, you’ll want to learn more about Cyfe. As one of the most user-friendly business dashboard solutions, you can get up and running in no time at all. And, since it’s free of charge, you might as well give it a try.
Cyfe sells itself as a tool that brings together all of your business metrics in one place. You don’t have to separately log into each application to track your data. This is the old school way of doing things.
The main reason that I like Cyfe is the fact that it has one of the largest integration libraries of all of the business dashboard providers. It connects to a long list of social networks and applications, such as:
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube
Google Analytics
Stripe
Pinterest
Zendesk
Salesforce
Shopify
And, that’s just the start. Chances are good that if you’re pulling data from a source, it can be integrated into your Cyfe dashboard using their pre-configured widgets. And if they don’t have the widget you’re looking for, then it’s simple enough to build your own.
If you’re anything like me, you enjoy tracking and comparing data, as often as possible, but you don’t enjoy spending hours on this task. That’s why you should create a Cyfe dashboard, before the end of the year.
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cyfe_dashboard
- Social Mention
When it comes to search engine optimization and social networks, there are a few things that you need to know. It’s hard to quantify the exact impact of a sound social media marketing strategy on search engine rankings, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Even if your social media marketing strategy doesn’t directly impact your rankings, it will help enhance your brand. As a result, your social media marketing strategy will eventually pay off.
Social Mention provides “real-time social media search and analysis.” It’s one of the most basic tools on this list, but that doesn’t mean that it offers nothing of real value. Especially for helping to understand how to navigate your social media marketing strategy more effectively.
In addition to clicking on one of the many trends below the search box, you can also run a unique search for any keyword or keyword phrase.
After doing so, you’ll be presented with a list of recent social network mentions. This is accompanied by a data box that looks something like this:
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You’re given access to other information, as well, such as sources, top hashtags, and top keywords and keyword phrases.
You can use this tool in many ways. For example, you can use it to track brand mentions. As you come across these, you are presented with the opportunity to engage with your audience.
Or, maybe you’ll use Social Mention to keep tabs on your competition, knowing that you can learn more about them, with the idea of “one upping” them in the near future.
You can do a lot of digging around on social networks, without the help of high-powered tools. However, this can be a time consuming process that doesn’t produce any hard data for your SEO campaign.
If you want to track social network mentions, without wasting time, there aren’t many small business, social media marketing tools that offer higher quality or more in-depth data.
- Google Keyword Planner
Where do you turn for keyword ideas?
There are many answers to this question. But, the last thing that I want you to do is to guess. If you do, you could soon find yourself chasing after rankings for the wrong set of keywords.
To remove the guesswork and ensure that you’re always making good keyword decisions, it’s best to let Google Keyword Planner be your guide. Not only is the tool free, but it’s operated by Google. In other words, you know that the data will be as accurate as possible, making it an essential tool for your SEO campaign.
It all starts by inputting the appropriate data in this form:
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An example of this would be the phrase “content marketing.” Type this into the first box and click the ‘get ideas’ button.
In addition to search volume trends by month, pay close attention to:
The list of search terms
Average monthly searches
Competition
As you’ll see, there is more than the primary keyword that you searched for. There are other ideas, all of which could be implemented into your marketing plan.
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I suggest using Google Keyword Planner, before you launch your website. Along with this, you can rely on it as you create fresh content. It helps to ensure that you select high traffic, targeted keywords and keyword phrases for each blog post that you create.
- Moz Check My Listing
Are you confident that your target audience are able to find you online?
If you can’t answer “yes,” without hesitation, something is wrong. Fortunately, you can address this issue with the help of the Moz Check My Listing tool.
It’s designed to show you how your business is listed online. More specifically, you can check your listing on Google, Bing and a variety of other local search engines.
Getting started is as simple as plugging your information into this box:
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At that point, the results are generated and you can then decide what to do next. Here’s a sample results page for Petals & Stems Florist, in Dallas, Texas:
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Your current score is important, as it shows how close you are to 100%. But, the tool doesn’t stop there. As you scroll down the page, you’re presented with four tabs:
Complete
Incomplete
Inconsistent
Duplicates
In addition to reviewing the complete results, you want to pay attention to those that are incomplete. These are the results that need fixed immediately. Here’s what you’ll see:
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Best yet, there is a link to “update listing” or “create listing.” This makes it simple to quickly and efficiently take care of the problem.
As a small, local business, you’re faced with quite a bit of competition. If you can outdo your competitors, in regards to search engine optimization and digital marketing, you’ll have a much better chance of reaching the top of your industry. Let the Moz Check My Listing tool provide you with an added boost.
Conclusion
Nobody knows what the future of SEO holds. But, one thing is for sure: as a small business, it’s never a bad thing to move your website to the top of Google for your target keywords.
The best thing about these 10 tools is that you don’t have to pay a single dime to use any of them. Each one is powerful, full of features and free to use. There’s no reason to avoid any of them over the last few months of the year.
free seo tools
When creating content online, it’s important to have a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy alongside your content strategy. Doing so will ensure your posts are as optimized as possible. SEO tools can help you identify ways to improve the discoverability of your site.
SEO can seem daunting to novices, but there are several free SEO tools are are just as powerful as their paid counterparts.
Here’s a breakdown of 10 of the best free SEO tools and software.
Best free on-page optimization tools
Rank Math Plugin
Rank Math is a WordPress plugin that helps you optimize your website content. It lets you add meta titles, descriptions and structure your data more easily. Simply download and install this plugin to your WordPress website to begin using it.
Benefits
Rank Math gives your content an SEO score for each page. When you indicate what keyword you’re targeting, this plugin suggests ways to increase your ranking for that keyword. You can also identify and fix dead links on your site and redirect URLs to new pages.
Screenshot of the Rank Math WordPress plugin
Yoast SEO Plugin
The Yoast SEO plugin makes it easy to optimize your WordPress site and identify gaps in your content. If your site runs on WordPress, install and activate the Yoast plugin to begin.
Benefits
The Yoast plugin allows you to improve and modify your content in three ways: SEO, readability and social. With Yoast, you can set meta descriptions, titles, canonical URL, and label index/no-index pages and other backend settings on your site. This plugin will assign every post a readability score by measuring sentence and paragraph length and other criteria. And Yoast also has excellent features to help you improve the shareability of your posts on social media.
Screenshot of Yoast SEO WordPress plugin
Best free keyword research tools
Google Trends
As the name suggests, Google Trends helps you track the popularity of topics and trends in your industry over time. Use this tool to identify current trends and use that information to craft a timely and relevant content marketing strategy.
Benefits
Google Trends gives you a clear picture of how specific trends change over time and how people’s searching patterns around it change. To use Google Trends, start by typing in a keyword. You’ll see the interest in that topic over time, which regions show the most interest, and other keywords people are searching for related to that query. This tool works best when combined with other keywords to show comparisons of trends over time.
Screenshot of Google Trends dashboard for they keywork “football” and its trend ranking over time and by U.S. region
Ahrefs Keyword Generator
Ahrefs’ Keyword Generator is a lite version of Ahrefs full tool and will show you the top 100 related keyword ideas when searching a keyword or phrase. To use this free tool, enter up to 100 keywords or phrases in the search bar. You’ll see a list of the top 100 keywords related to your search as well as their search volume from when the data for that keyword was last updated, and keyword difficulties for the first 10 keywords on the list.
Benefits
This tool gives users a taste of what Ahrefs’ full tool can do and is perfect for people who want to explore some industry keywords. In addition to the keywords, you can also see the top 50 questions related to that keyword.
Screenshot of Ahrefs Keyword Generator and results for the keyword “social media”
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is a free SEO tool that helps users generate new keywords and content ideas. This tool will give you a high-level overview of the keyword you’re searching for. It’s a great tool to use when looking for new ways to fill your social media or content calendar because the tool also shows you related long-tail keywords and suggests content ideas based on the keyword.
Benefits
When you do your keyword search, you’ll see the monthly keyword search volume, how competitive it is to rank for, and the average cost per click. The tool will also provide you the average number of backlinks that a site should have to rank for that keyword.
Screenshot of Ubersuggest keyword tool for the keyword “yoga”
Best free SEO tools for analytics
Google Search Console
Google Search Console (GSC), previously known as Google Webmasters, helps you understand how Google crawls and indexes your site. To use the Google Search Console, create an account and add your website as a property within the account. Once you’ve added your domain, verify you’re the site owner before you can access all of its features.
Benefits
There are several features to highlight about Google Search Console, one of which is that it can help you diagnose technical errors on your website. It can also help you understand what keywords or content are ranking for your site.
Screenshot of Google Console dashboard
Bing Webmaster Tools
An often overlooked tool, Bing Webmaster also has a full suite of analytics to help you analyze your website and search analytics. Create your free Bing Webmaster Tools account, add your website and verify your ownership of the site. Then create or upload your sitemaps. Once complete, you’re able to start optimizing your site and its content using Bing Webmaster Tools’ features and suggestions.
Benefits
Bing Webmaster Tools can provide useful keyword research, reporting, and can crawl your website to identify issues. It’s a good way to get a virtual second opinion on your site or find any new information that Google Search Console didn’t reveal.
Screenshot of Bing Webmaster Tools dashboard
Google Analytics
To know if your SEO efforts are working, you need to analyze your site’s findability to see where your traffic is coming from. You may notice a spike in traffic after making post optimizations, but that traffic could be coming from another source like social media. Google Analytics provides you with in-depth details about your website visitors, as well as real-time activity.
With an existing Google account, sign into Google Analytics and connect with your website. To get the most helpful SEO information, pair it with your Google Console account. When you link the two tools, you’ll be able to see the keywords people are using to find your site, identify your click-through-rates on those keywords and more.
Benefits
Google Analytics lets you see how people interact with your website. Using Google Analytics, you’ll be able to see how many people are visiting your site, where your traffic is coming from, how long people are spending on the page and so much more.
Screenshot of Google Analytics
Best free tools for link building
Ahrefs Backlink Checker
Like their Keyword Research tool, Ahrefs Backlink Checker is a free version of their full tool that shows you the top 100 backlinks to any website you search. To use this tool, enter a URL into their search bar and you’ll see the site’s domain rating, the number of backlinks, and the number of referring domains.
Benefits
This free tool is great for some light backlink checking as well as analyzing your competitors. Even though you’re limited to viewing 100 links, it’s still a great place to start. You’ll see the total number of backlinks, links from referring domains, the site’s Domain Rating, and its URL rating.
Screenshot of Ahrefs Backlink Checker homepage
SEM Rush
Similar to the other tools mentioned above, SEM Rush has a free version of their robust tool. Not just for link building, SEM Rush can provide help with keyword research, on-page SEO audits, content optimizations, rank tracking and much more. Create a free account and access these features.
Benefits
The SEM Rush’s Backlink Analysis and Link Building Tool provides you an in-depth look at your backlink profile. The free version limits you to 100 domains in the Link Building Tool but you’ll be able to identify your referring domains and backlinks overtime, including gains and losses, and your backlink authority score. The tool helps you identify areas to improve your link building efforts or where you can gain more visibility online.
Screenshot of SEM Rush’s backlink analytics tool
Final thoughts on free SEO tools
While SEO is a crucial part of the content process, it works best when combined with other marketing strategies like content and social media marketing. You’ll get the most out of your optimizations when using both SEO and social monitoring software together. And these free SEO tools help you build a foundation to these strategies.
Throw in some social media keyword search tools and you’ll be able to cast an even broader net to learn more about what your audience wants. For more on how to marry your social media and SEO strategies, check our post on how SEO can inform social media marketing and vice versa.
Conclusion
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