SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s the process of getting your website to rank higher in search results. This can be done by using certain keywords and phrases in your text, making sure your site is easy to navigate, and by providing high-quality content.
As you can see, SEO isn’t something you can just learn overnight. It’s a complex set of skills that requires constant practice and careful attention to detail. Luckily, there are tools out there that can help you improve your SEO workflows and get more traffic from Google searches.
In this article, we’re going to take a look at some of the best Excel SEO tools on the market today.
Excel Seo Tools
Excel is simply the best and fastest way to slice and dice small data sets. It is an essential SEO tool that belongs in your arsenal. Here’s why.
Excel is beloved by most SEO professionals – and by many paid aficionados, too.
Of all the SEO tools I use on a daily basis, few are more powerful or more versatile than spreadsheets.
While Word, PowerPoint, and Access have their little idiosyncrasies and challenges in daily work, Excel has stood the test of time and continues to be just as valuable as it has ever been.
There is simply no easier way to sort and categorize data quickly with so little input required.
I use Excel daily to sort lists:
- Keyword lists alphabetically.
- Revenue reports by most revenue earned.
- Pages by highest bounce rate.
- And every other thing you can think of or sort by.
Excel is also great for de-duplicating lists. You can easily take a huge list of data, like inbound links, and sort it and remove all the duplicates with a few clicks.
Pivot tables are phenomenal for categorizing and re-categorizing data sets with many values. Want to know how many people clicked on a particular keyword from a particular referral source by the date they clicked? There’s a pivot table for that.
And the VLOOKUP command is a poor man’s database, perfect for combining lists from multiple places quickly without having to enter all of the data into a cumbersome tool like Access.
Chances are, you already know all these tricks.
So what follows are some things you might not know you can do with Excel.
Note: While this chapter focuses on Excel, you can perform most of these tasks in any spreadsheet program, including Google Sheets.
1. WildCards
Excel supports the * command as a wildcard.
If you want to cut off part of a data set, it’s easy to do.
For example, let’s say you have a very large list of links but you only want one sample URL from each domain.
After you find/replace for http:// and https://, you can reduce every single URL to only its top-level domain by finding and replacing for /* – the star is a wildcard that removes everything after the first backslash.
If you want the backslash left on, replace for /.
If you want the / gone, replace for an empty field.
Then you can use that de-duplication function to remove all but one example of every URL.
2. LEN
This one counts the number of characters in the string.
This is great for checking the length of titles or meta descriptions. But it can also be used to bring the longest string to the top.
Taking the previous example, let’s say you wanted one sample URL from each domain that you deduplicated, but you wanted an interior page instead of just the top level domain.
You’d take the same steps as above, but instead of editing the URLs in place, you’d copy them to a new column (Source Domain) and edit those instead.
Then, use LEN to find the character length of the Source URL and sort by Col A ascending and Col B descending.
That will bring the longest URL for each domain to the top of the list and then when you de-duplicate, it will save the first instance of that domain – the longest URL.
3. Text to Columns
Text to columns is another brilliant feature of Excel.
You’ve probably used it to make a .csv file useful, by delimiting the data by commas. But did you know you can actually delimit any character you want?
I use this all the time to delimit by the backslash.
This is a terrific way to take an output from Screaming Frog or another crawler and quickly build out a visual architecture map.
By putting each subfolder in its own column, you can use a pivot table to find out exactly how many pages are in each level, then use the data from the pivot table to quickly build a visual map in something like Visio.
4. Find
The Find function is one of the most useful functions in Excel.
You can use it to eliminate things from lists of keywords.
For example, let’s say you have a huge list of keywords and you want to find things that only contain one version of a word (useful when categorizing).
You would start a new column, then use this formula where “word” is the word you want to find.
=FIND(“word”,B2,1)
This will show you the character count at which that word starts, and an error if the word isn’t there at all… like this list where I looked for anything with “mixed”:
Just sort by the “Sort” column descending, and you’ll bring all the keywords that contain “mixed” to the top of the list.
5. Concatenation
Concatenation is great for putting together simple rows of data, but it’s even better for automating the creation of a lot of URLs.
Let’s say you wanted to search a lot of sites to see if a particular keyword was in text on that site… maybe you’re doing a link audit and you need to see if your client’s domain name appears anywhere on a list of sites.
You could (theoretically) concatenate a simple list of commands that you could then run in a crawler like Screaming Frog to see if there are any results.
So, hypothetically speaking, you would do this:
Take the command you need to add and put it into a row in excel.
Let’s say the site is motorola.com, and you’re looking for the word “motorola” on a lot of websites, one of which is www.cnn.com.
Put the site you are searching on in A1. You’ll use this command in Excel:
=”https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3A”&A1&”%20motorola”
If each row in column A has a new value in it, then in theory, you could have a full set of Google commands to put in list mode in Screaming Frog.
Using the Custom configuration, you could look for any results that had “No results found for” motorola.com in the code.
This is all theoretical, of course, because scraping Google is a violation of their terms of service.
Summary
Hopefully now you see many uses for Excel that are beyond the standard mathematical and accounting uses.
Excel is simply the best and fastest way to slice and dice small data sets, and an essential SEO tool that belongs in your arsenal.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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