If you’re looking for Google SEO tools, you’ve come to the right place. This article is a comprehensive list of everything you need to know about Google SEO searches. We’ll cover why your website needs SEO in the first place, how to create content that will help your site rank better, and how to optimize your site for SEO.
The beauty of SEO is that it’s not just a one-time task; there are always new opportunities to optimize your site and generate more organic traffic. This article will give you everything you need to know about using Google SEO tools and optimizing your site so that it appears higher in search results.
Table of Contents
Google Seo Tools List
1. Google PageSpeed Insights
Check the speed and usability of your site on multiple devices
Limitations: None
Enter a URL and this tool will test the loading time and performance for that URL on desktop and mobile. It then grades your site’s performance on a score from 0 – 100. It tells you exactly how fast it takes to load the site according to different metrics, and also suggests areas for improvements.
Alternatives:Pingdom, WebPageTest, and GTMetrix
2. Ahrefs Webmaster Tools
Run a technical audit of your site
Limitations: 5,000 crawl credits per project per month
Sign up for Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, verify your website and you’ll be able to audit your website for over 100+ technical SEO issues. The tool also gives suggestions on how to fix them.
After running an audit, it also suggests areas where you can improve your internal linking, which is helpful in boosting your rankings in search engines.
This tool also allows you to see your site’s organic keyword rankings as well as who’s linking to you.
Alternatives:Screaming Frog (audit), Beam Us Up (audit)
3. Answer the Public
Hundreds of keyword ideas based on a single keyword
Limitations: Two free searches per day
Enter any relevant keyword, and Answer the Public will provide a huge list of long-tail keyword opportunities, plus common questions asked.
Alternatives: KeywordTool.io, UberSuggest, Keyword Sheeter, Keyword Generator
4. Google Analytics
Complete web stats and search insights
Limitations: No limitations for its usage, but queries that are sending you organic traffic are hidden
Quite possibly the most powerful free analytics tool available, Google Analytics tracks pretty much every bit of traffic you can imagine on your website—where it comes from, which page is receiving it and so on.
While it’s not purely for SEO, it’s still a helpful tool to track if you’re getting traffic from organic search.
However, Google Analytics has since stopped showing which keywords are sending you those traffic. You’ll have to pair it with a tool like Keyword Hero to uncover what’s behind “(not provided).”
Alternatives:Matomo, Open Web Analytics, and Clicky
5. Google Search Console
Constant website analysis, alerts, and error reports
Limitations: Only shows a handful of technical SEO issues, the top 1,000 backlinks and top 1,000 organic keywords
Google Search Console gives you a taste of what the most used search engine thinks of your website. You can use it to check and fix technical issues on your website, see important SEO data like clicks, impressions and average ranking position, submit sitemaps and more.
If ranking in search engines like Bing and Yandex are important to you, then take note that they have their own “search console” too.
Alternatives:Bing Webmaster Tools, Yandex Webmaster Tools
6. Ahrefs’ Backlink Checker
Comprehensive link analysis
Limitations: Free for the top 100 backlinks
The free version of Ahrefs’ Backlink Checker shows the top 100 backlinks to any website or URL, along with the total number of backlinks and referring domains (links from unique sites), Domain Rating (DR), and URL Rating (UR) where applicable.
A great way to use this tool is to paste your competitor’s website and find potential link building opportunities.
Alternatives: Moz Link Explorer
7. Google Ads Keyword Planner
Know what people search for
Limitations: You’ll need to run an ad campaign to see exact search volumes
Enter a keyword or group of keywords into the tool, and Google Keyword Planner will return all sorts of helpful stats to guide your keyword strategy: monthly search volume, competition, and even suggested terms you might not have considered.
Alternatives:Bing Keyword Planner
8. SERPSim
Preview how your web pages will look in Google’s search results
Limitations: None
See how your meta title and description will appear in the search results before you even publish your web page. Works for desktop and mobile.
Check for truncation issues and fix them instantly.
9. Google Trends
See the relative search popularity of topics
Limitations: None
Google Trends shows the popular search terms over time, which is useful for uncovering seasonal variations in search popularity amongst other things. Compare multiple terms to see the relative popularity.
10. Ahrefs’ SEO toolbar
Check the broken links, redirect chains, nofollow links and on-page elements for any webpage
Limitations: Technical and on-page SEO features are free, but you’ll need an Ahrefs account to see SEO metrics within the SERPs
The Ahrefs SEO toolbar is a free Chrome and Firefox extension that allows you to check for broken links, trace redirect chains and highlight nofollow links for any webpage. It also generates an on-page SEO report that includes the webpage’s:
- Title
- Meta description
- Word count
- Headers
- Hreflang tags
- Canonicals
- OG tags
This makes analyzing any page much easier and faster.
If you have access to a paid Ahrefs account, you’ll also be able to see important keyword metrics like search volume, CPC and keyword difficulty within the SERPs.
Alternatives:Detailed SEO Extension, SEO Minion, LinkMiner (broken links), Ayima Redirect Path (redirect tracing)
seo tools for digital marketing
Top 5 SEO Tools for Digital Marketing Agencies
1. Semrush
Use it if your top priority is keyword research, competition analysis, and site audit.
Price: Starts at $119.95/month (Click here for a free trial)
Let’s kick things off with my favorite SEO tool: Semrush. I’ve been using Semrush since the early days of my agency and it’s my go-to product for all things SEO.
Semrush is primarily known for its keyword research and competitive intelligence capabilities. If your client is relatively new in the market or operates in a space with lots of competitors, then it’s not going to be easy to rank for high volume, high competition keywords. In such cases, your best bet would be to start targeting low competition keywords with high traffic potential.
You can use Semrush’s Keyword Magic tool to identify the best keywords to focus on for your clients’ websites. You can find both head terms and long-tail keywords for your campaign, but if you’re targeting long-tail keywords with high traffic potential, look for keywords that have low-to-medium search volume, low competition, and low keyword difficulty.
The Semrush toolkit also features one of the most advanced SEO audit tools on the market. With the Semrush Site Audit tool, you’ll be able to quickly identify and fix all the critical errors on your clients’ websites.
Top Features
- Semrush’s Site Audit tool does a thorough technical SEO site audit and helps you fix all the critical SEO errors on your site.
- The Organic Research report allows you to see your competitors’ best performing keywords, discover new organic competitors, and monitor position changes of domains.
- The Keyword Magic tool lets you find the best keywords to focus on for your SEO and PPC campaigns.
- With the Domain vs Domain tool, you can conduct side-by-side domain comparisons of up to five domains and see domains’ common and unique keywords.
Click here to sign up for a 1-month free trial of SEMrush Pro
Side note: If you’ve just subscribed to SEMrush or are an existing user, then I’d urge you to download our free eBook – “The Ultimate Semrush Playbook.” The eBook is an in-depth user guide to using Semrush for SEO, competitor research, and content marketing. Click here to download the eBook.
2. Ahrefs
Use it if your top priority is backlink analysis.
Price: Starts at $99/mo
When it comes to backlink analysis, there’s no tool better than Ahrefs. It’s the preferred backlink analysis tool of leading experts in marketing and SEO because of its massive index size and the accuracy with which it presents the data.
Ahrefs boasts of having the world’s biggest index of live backlinks (16 trillion links) and its crawler processes up to 5 billion webpages a day. It also has a user-friendly interface which further bolsters its reputation as a top-notch SEO tool.
Over the last few years, Ahrefs has evolved into a complete marketing toolkit, offering separate tools for keyword research, site audit, and content. But Ahrefs continues to be known for Site Explorer — a backlink checker and organic research tool which offers an in-depth look at the organic search traffic and backlink profile of any website or URL.
With Site Explorer, you can see which websites link to your clients’ websites and their competitors’ sites and gauge the quality of their backlink profiles. You can also analyze the keywords the competitors are ranking for and see which pages bring the most search engine traffic.
Then there is Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker which is one of the most frequently used tools in SEO. With Rank Tracker, you can monitor your clients’ search rankings over time and chart their performance against that of their competitors’. You can also get scheduled reports delivered straight to your inbox.
Top Features
- The Site Explorer tool provides an in-depth look at the backlink profile and search traffic of any website or URL.
- Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker lets you monitor your Google search rankings on desktop and mobile across 170 countries and chart your performance against your competitors’.
- With Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer 3.0, you can get thousands of relevant keyword ideas with accurate search volume, keyword difficulty score, and advanced metrics like clicks, return rate, and parent topic.
Click here to start a 7-day trial of Ahrefs for $7
Side note: For a more in-depth comparison of features between SEMrush and Ahrefs, check out Semrush vs Ahrefs: Which SEO Tool is Better?
3. HubSpot
Use it if your top priority is optimizing your clients’ conversion rates.
Price: Starts at $560/month
HubSpot provides a whole suite of SEO and content tools to build your search authority and skyrocket conversions.
HubSpot’s SEO tools are integrated with HubSpot’s content strategy tool, a tool which allows you to easily discover and rank for the topics that matter to you and your clients. This integration can be really helpful when you’re researching potential keywords in your clients’ niche to create content on.
Since HubSpot’s SEO tools are also paired with other Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) tools such as landing pages, A/B testing, conversational bots, and calls-to-action, you can really focus on maximizing the conversion rates for your clients, both macro conversions (visitors buying their product/service) and micro conversions (visitors signing up for their newsletter, watching a promotional video, etc.)
Now let’s talk about the main drawback with HubSpot’s SEO suite: the cost. In order to access HubSpot’s SEO tools, you’ll need to upgrade to HubSpot Marketing Hub’s Professional plan which is $560/month. That’s a steep price to pay for a marketing software. As such, I’d suggest you consider this option only if you’d like to use premium CRO tools and to access your entire marketing software suite in one place. In other words, if conversions are your main goal, then you should probably go for HubSpot.
Side note: HubSpot also boasts of an extensive SEO resource library and their free SEO courses are remarkable for marketers and business owners who’d like to hone their SEO stills. You can sign up for the following free courses below:
- HubSpot’s Google SEO Tutorial
- HubSpot’s Link Building Tutorial For Beginners
Top Features
- HubSpot provides topic suggestions based on relevance, competition, and popularity, as well as access to monthly search data so you can estimate how ranking for specific topics will translate to organic traffic gains.
- You can get actionable on-page SEO advice in the same place you’re creating blog posts, landing pages, and site pages.
- You can easily monitor the performance of your content to identify the topics that are working the hardest for you — and the ones that aren’t.
- You’ll also get access to HubSpot’s Marketing Hub tools such as landing pages, chatbots, live chat, A/B testing, email marketing, and more.
Click here to learn more about HubSpot’s SEO tools
Related: 15 Free HubSpot Tools and Resources Every Marketer Should Be Using
4. Serpstat
Use it if you have a smaller budget, but would still like a reliable SEO tool.
Price: Starts at $69/mo
The problem with most SEO tools is that they cost almost $100 per month. That’s the standard pricing practice in this industry. Popular SEO tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz are all similarly priced, which is not ideal if you’re just starting out.
Serpstat breaks away from this standard pricing practice with its basic plan costing just $69/month, making it a great alternative to SEMrush and Ahrefs for small agencies.
Launched in 2013 as simply a keyword research tool, Serpstat has gradually evolved into a full-fledged SEO and PPC analysis platform.
With Serpstat, you can do keyword research, competitive analysis, technical site audits, backlink analysis, and much more. The data generated via this tool may not be as accurate or comprehensive as other tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs, but it’s still a reliable SEO tool. And considering the fact that Serpstat’s plans start at a modest $19/month, it’s well worth the investment.
Top Features
- Serpstat’s advanced site audit tool allows you to uncover and eliminate all the critical SEO errors on your website.
- With the incredibly useful “Search Questions” function, you can research niche questions and find ideas for creating traffic-driving content.
- With the “Related Keywords” report, you can generate all the search queries that are semantically associated with your seed keyword.
Click here to sign up for Serpstat
Side note: If you’ve just started using Serpstat, then I’d recommend downloading our free eBook – “The Ultimate Serpstat Playbook.” This in-depth guide will help you get the best results out of your Serpstat subscription. Click here to download the eBook.
5. Mangools
Use it for its phenomenal keyword research capabilities.
Price: Starts at $49
Last but not least, we have the Mangools suite of SEO tools. Launched in 2014, Mangools includes five SEO tools — KWFinder for keyword research, SERPChecker for SERP analysis, LinkMiner for backlink analysis, SERPWatcher for rank tracking, and SiteProfiler for website analysis.
Mangools is perhaps best known for its flagship tool KWFinder — a cloud-based keyword research tool that helps you generate the perfect keyword ideas that you can use on everything from blog posts, website content, landing pages, and copy on PPC ads. But the other SEO tools in the suite are just as useful and available at a fairly affordable price.
So if you’re operating on a shoestring budget, but would still like to invest in a tool that helps you with day-to-day SEO, Mangools is your best bet. It’s the most economical SEO tool on this list.
Top Features
- KWFinder — Mangools’ keyword research tool — allows you to find keyword ideas with exact search volumes and it has one of the most accurate keyword difficulty metrics on the market.
- With LinkMiner, you can find and replicate the most powerful backlinks of your competitors.
- SiteProfiler — the website analysis tool — allows you to analyze your competitors’ traffic, most valuable content, and backlink profile.
Click here to try Mangools free for 10 days
Related: Semrush vs Mangools: Which SEO Tool is Better?
Final Thoughts
So these are the five SEO tools I’d recommend to digital marketing agencies. Based on your top priority and budget, you can choose any of these 5 SEO tools:
- Semrush – Use it if your top priority is optimizing your clients’ conversion rates. Pricing starts at $119.95/mo.
- Ahrefs – Use it if your top priority is backlink analysis. Pricing starts at $99/mo.
- HubSpot – Use it if your top priority is optimizing your clients’ conversion rates. Pricing starts at $560/mo.
- Serpstat – Use it if you have a smaller budget, but would still like a reliable SEO tool. Pricing starts at $69/mo.
- Mangools – Use it for its phenomenal keyword research capabilities. Pricing starts at $49/mo.
You can also check out these free SEO tools to supplement your SEO efforts, but to get the best results for your clients’ SEO and PPC campaigns, you’ll need to invest in at least one of the above SEO tools.
Conclusion
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