Welcome to our blog! We are a team of SEO experts who love to share our knowledge with others. We know that the best way to learn is by doing, so we’ve put together this list of free SEO tools that you can use to grow your business, improve your marketing efforts, and make your life easier.
We’ll be sharing more valuable information like this in the future, so stay tuned!
Table of Contents
Free Seo Tools 2016
Engagement starts with organic search. Your mission as an SEO manager is to put your brand in front of as many interested, qualified people as possible.
Enhancing your presence is how you can play the numbers game and best reach an audience. Without search, there would be almost no traffic to engage. In 2014, Conductor.com reported that about 64 percent of organic website traffic came from search engines. The following 10 tools, which all offer free versions, are available to help you maximize your brand’s SEO and balance it with user intent.
Tools of the trade
- Screaming Frog17d7797
Screaming Frog has become one of the standard SEO tools that website admins use to quickly audit their site(s). The service examines a website’s links, images and other assets as if it were a web crawler. Admins can simply enter a URL, and the service will generate a report on the errors, problems and solutions.
Pros: Screaming Frog does a very quick analysis of your site, and offers a detailed, downloadable report. Ease of use and range of options make this service especially useful for small and medium-sized businesses.
Cons: The free version only supports up to 500 files.
- SEM RushSEMrush
SEM Rush allows users to view their competitors’ top keywords, as well as research domains, keywords and URLs to compare, and optimize site performance.
Pros: SEM Rush is fast-loading, and provides a clear, concise overview of everything. The free service is designed for marketers to compare sites, and quickly go back from one site to another.
Cons: Doesn’t do a deep dive into analytics or specific keywords – the free version only lists the top few keywords.
- JustReachOutJust
JustReachOut helps marketers connect with relevant journalists to help fill out their editorial calendar. This will ultimately help to generate backlinks for their website. The service, though not specifically an SEO management or research tool, indirectly helps increase overall SEO by building relationships with prominent writers. The quality backlinks these relationships can lead to is part of a complete SEO.
Pros: This service facilitates sending a pitch in the most effective way to foster relationships.
Cons: JustReachOut is not directly an SEO tool. Rather than providing analytics and insights, it locates professional writers and helps you reach out to them in order to generate press.
- SumoMesumome-site-logo-e1427409511328
SumoMe provides a suite of tools to increase websites’ reach and traffic. The services include a list-builder, a social share function and, most importantly for SEO, a user heat map. “Heat Maps shows you EXACTLY where people are clicking on your site. With this information, you can then improve your pages to show your visitors what they want to see,” according to SumoMe’s website.
In 2016, SEO depends as much on user intent as it does on links and keywords. Besides quality content, UX and web design are major factors in satisfying what a user is looking for. The heat map gives a clear illustration of which parts of your site are popular with users, and which are not as appreciated.
Pros: SumoMe is extremely user-friendly, easy to implement and integrate into your site, and works with most popular email services. Its easy to use platform can be used for analyzing traffic patterns, sources and clicks.
Cons: SumoMe embeds their logo and name into the free version of their product.
- BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo helps marketers discover the most shared content on social media, and the most notable influencers in an industry. Like SumoMe and JustReachOut, BuzzSumo is not a direct SEO tool. Instead, it operates adjacent to SEO. While Google’s algorithm doesn’t rank pages based on social media followers or presence signals, the larger the social media presence, the more links to a site there general are, which results in better SEO.
Pros: The interface is user-friendly and easy to get started with.
Cons: The analytics and insights BuzzSumo provides in its free version are fairly limited and basic compared to some other services.
Logo_searchmetrics_Webversion6. Searchmetrics
Searchmetrics offers a free version that gives you a high-level view of your site’s SEO, paid, link and social performance, with a view of the past 90 days. The service provides visibility trends for desktop and mobile, potential value and geography. Searchmetrics calculates your search position, top keywords, traffic index and CPC values.
Pros: Searchmetrics’ keyword and competitor analysis is extremely detailed, and the services provide actionable advice for boosting SEO.
Cons: There is a relatively higher learning curve than other comparable services. Exporting data is not included in the free version.
7, 8 & 9. Google’s SEO Suite
Google’s suite of free tools provides you high-quality, accurate insights and information straight from the horse’s mouth. Every year, search engine optimization becomes more and more synonymous with Google optimization.
GooGoogle_analytics_logo_2016gle Analytics
Pros: Google Analytics is easy to install and offers extremely dynamic reports. Training and certification for the service are provided free of charge too.
Cons: Provides very limited keyword data.
google_adwords_keyword_planner_logoGoogle Keyword Planner
Pros: Keyword Planner allows users to see search traffic volume, and what other people are searching for.
Cons: The service’s learning curve is steeper than other Google products.
google_trends_logoGoogle Trends
Pros: Google Trends allows marketers to analyze searches across time and geography, as well as compare them to related topics and queries. Users can analyze web, image, news, Shopping and YouTube searches. The layout is extremely user-friendly, with an emphasis on education.
Cons: Users can only compare 5 terms, and a minimum traffic requirement can make some topics less accurate or meaningful.
google_search_homepage
- An actual Google search!
The most obvious, free and easy-to-use tool for researching and analyzing SEO is the one that we’ve been talking about this whole time – Google Search. What better way to see how keywords perform in search than to use them in search.
Pros: The free version of Google is the only version of Google.
Cons: Google search results can vary depending on location, history, preferences and personal accounts. Every account has uniquely tailored modifications to the search algorithm. Signing out of your personal account to search will level the playing field by reducing influences of the search algorithm, but it can’t account for other users’ accounts.
What goes into search engine optimization?
SEO managers face several challenges in 2016, whether the goal is to:
Increase your website’s total traffic (which is helpful for monetizing with advertising).
Boost your leads and sales (to increase your customer base).
Build brand awareness, reputation, influence and mindshare (to demonstrate your brand’s thought leadership).
Staying ahead of Penguin and Panda is a primary focus for all of the above goals. Should you prioritize keywords or semantics? As Google’s “mobile-first” algorithm has been increasingly rewarding mobile-optimized sites, how much of your SEO budget do you devote to mobile, and how much do you keep designated for desktop? Do you invest in local SEO? Should you shift your focus from link-building to leveraging content?
Strong SEO takes into consideration traditional factors like links and keywords, but also depends on meeting user intent and answering questions as quickly, accurately and efficiently as possible. Using the free tools above is a great way to keep your site up to date in a period of such rapidly changing SEO factors.
cheap seo tools
Having a good search engine ranking can boost visibility, traffic, and sales.
But improving your SEO can be expensive.
SEO tools can cost hundreds of dollars every month. As a startup, you have limited funds and time. You need a fast, affordable, and sustainable path to increase signups.
But here’s the good news.
There are plenty of high-quality SEO tools on the market that are free… In fact, I use these free SEO tools often, especially when it comes to discovering keywords and link building opportunities.
So if you want to use these free and affordable SEO tools, make sure you continue reading below.
Google Analytics
- Google Analytics
Google Analytics can show you everything you need to know when it comes to your website’s data.
For example, Google Analytics can track every action you make on your website and show you how these actions affect traffic and conversions.
I highly recommend Google Analytics when it comes to tracking downloads, clicks, email signups, conversions, and keywords.
google page speed
- Google PageSpeed
Did you know that page speed is a direct ranking factor? The faster your webpage loads, the better your ranks can be.
Google PageSpeed is a fantastic tool to measure your website speed on both mobile and desktop. It also suggests improvements based on Google Webmaster Guidelines.
google keyword planner
- Google Keyword Planner
With the Google Keyword Planner is a free tool that you can use when you sign up for a Google Ads account, you can discover highly searched terms or easy-to-rank keywords.
Google can also give you suggested keywords based on your keywords. These suggested keywords also come with key metrics as well!
google search console
- Google Search Console
Google Search Console (previously Google Webmaster Tools) allows you to measure your website’s traffic, performance, and fix any issues when it comes to Google Search results.
For example, Google Search Console can use the Crawl Errors tool to find broken URLs that will show up negatively on Google.
It can also give you a complete breakdown of your backlink profile as well.
You can also see how your website is performing under Search Analytics. Here, you can track the total number of impressions in your SERPs, your average ranking position, and the click-through rate.
You can also find out which page is ranking for which keywords as well.
While Google Search Console is not exactly an SEO tool, the data from Google Search Console, can help you make better-informed decisions.
SEO PowerSuite
- SEO PowerSuite
The SEO PowerSuite is an all-in-one SEO software that covers every step in an SEO campaign. While the SEO PowerSuite has a paid version, the free version remains one of the most effective SEO site suites available.
With the SEO Powersuite (Free Version), you can:
Track keyword searches, improve your rankings, & steal traffic from your competitors
Perform SEO audits & optimize your site
Discover over 100k competitor backlinks & construct your link building strategy
Manage your links, build new partnerships, & find guest blogging opportunities
screamingfrog
- Screaming Frog
Screaming Frog is a fantastic website crawler that analyses and audits on-site SEO for you (or your competitor’s) site URL.
Here, you can find broken links, errors, and redirects, analyze page titles and metadata, review meta robots and directives, discover duplicate pages, and generate XML sitemaps.
While the Screaming Frog has both paid and free versions, the free version is available for up to 500 URLs.
gtmetrix
- GTmetrix
If you’re keen to boost your page’s speed, you should try GTmetrix. GTmetrix is a Page Speed tool that gives you more in-depth and thorough information about your site’s speed than Google Page Speed Insights.
GTmetrix gives you an overall site speed score, with a breakdown of what’s good and bad about your site.
GTmetrix also ranks your site speed problems in order of priority. The ranking system can help you can focus on the most important page speed factors first.
Furthermore, GTmetrix also explains problems in detail by outlining why, what, and how you can fix the problem.
While GTmetrix has both paid and free versions, the free version lets you monitor up to 3 URLs and save up to 20 URLs.
Ubersuggest
- Ubersuggest
Knowing which keywords are the best for your site is hard. But Ubersuggest is a handy little tool. Ubersuggest is a free keyword tool that can give you suggestions based on keyword ideas.
For example, if you want to rank for an article in the travel niche on Berlin Walking tours, you can hop on Ubersuggest, select the country and database you want to rank in and type in a keyword.
Ubersuggest will give you a list of alternate keywords people search for around the keyword you entered. Here, you can view search by toggling volume, cost per click, and competition for each result.
It’s a great way to build up a list of keywords for your website.
Check My Links
- Check My Links
Did you know that broken links can hurt your SEO? Instead of manually checking your links, you can use Check My Links to crawl your entire site to find broken links.
This way, you can quickly identify and repair these broken links and improve your SEO almost immediately.
For example, Check My Links will highlight valid links in green.
It’ll list warning links in yellow, and broken links you need to fix, in red.
openlinkprofiler
- Open Link Profiler
One of the best ways to boost your SEO is to build links. With Open Link Profiler’s browser, you gain incredible data about your backlink profile. All you need to do is go to their website and enter your URL.
You’ll then gain access to your Backlink Profile.
You can also access a list that breaks down all the links to your website. You can access their quality and see where the link is from.
You can export up to 1000 links from OpenLinkProfiler for free.
ahrefs
- Ahrefs
Ahrefs is one of the most expensive tools in the market. Ahref’s Lite plan begins at $99 per month, while the most popular standard plan is $179 per month.
Thankfully, Ahrefs offers a $7 for 7 days trial for both the Lite and Standard Option.
- SEMRush
SEMRush is another popular, premium, and well-known SEO tool. SEMRush’s Pro plan is $99.95 per month, while the most popular Guru option is $199.95 per month.
With SEMRush, you can sign up for a 7-day free trial for both the Pro and Guru plans.
I personally use SEMRush to find out what my competitors are doing so I can replicate their successes with my site.
Although premium SEO tools are expensive, most tools offer a free trial or a discounted sign-up rate. While they offer a limited time-frame (e.g 7 days, 2 weeks, or 1 month), you can plan what you need from these tools in advance so you can use the trial period effectively.
Conclusion
You don’t always have to use expensive SEO tools to rank well.
This group of free SEO tools is a great place to start.
They can help you audit your site, improve site speed, analyze data, improve ranks, fix broken links, and assist with other digital marketing efforts. Plus, they’re pretty easy to learn and use.
Conclusion
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