SEO plays a very crucial role in boosting traffic to your website and increasing visibility. The word free is always “attractive” especially if that is helping you get more traffic to your website. In this article, we will talk about a few slick, intuitive, effective, and free tools for SEO. This guide helps you discover all the great SEO tools that can help you get started for free if you are a company or help you learn if you are a marketing enthusiast.
Technical SEO tools for free
Optimize your website crawling and indexing phase with our list of best free SEO tools. And we bet you are probably aware of them but have never used it from this perspective, let’s dive in:
1. Google analytics
Google Analytics is one of the most important online SEO tools for an online marketer. It provides high-quality and detailed information. It is the most credible source of data. Besides tracking the traffic on your website, Google Analytics also surfaces several keywords insights i.e. the specific keywords or terms that your audience use to search for your business and land on your website.
You can advance to “Acquisition”, then click on “Search Console” and end up on the “landing page” option. This will bring up all the pages on your website that have gotten the most number of clicks and impressions from Google. You should see your CTR (Click Through Rates) field to see which pages are getting the best CTR. Pick up the elements from the title and description tags and apply them on the pages that are doing not as well. This will help your traffic move up the website.
2. Google search console
Google Search Console helps you in monitoring, maintaining, and troubleshooting the presence of your website in Google’s search results. Google Search Console is one of the free tools for SEO that help you understand and improve the way Google sees your website. Google Search Console offers reports for the following actions:
- Whether your website is found and crawlable by Google
- Fix indexing problems and re-index new content
- Receive alerts on indexing, spamming and other issues on your website
- Shows you the sites that have linked to your website.
- Troubleshoot issues for AMP, usability on mobile, and other search features
3. Google Page Speed Insights
The speed of your site is a definite ranking factor. It has a direct impact on the user experience (UX) of your website. Slow pages often affect your number of conversions and eventually affect the ranking of your website. Google Page Speed insight is one of the best online SEO tools to keep you on top of the search results. You can use Google Page Speed Insights for understanding your site’s page speed score and also learn how to improve or fix all the highlighted issues. You will be able to see and manage the main areas that are affecting the site speed even if you do not have much technical knowledge.
4. Google Data Studio
You can check out Google Data Studio for interactive dashboards when you need to create an engaging SEO report. There are times where you need to combine data from various sources for making an analysis report for understanding the behavior of your site and your users. In such moments Data Studio lets you do that with its effective reporting dashboards that make use of multiple sources and lets you merge them.
5. Screaming Frog
It is one of the best free tools for SEO that allows crawling up to 500 URLs with a free account. It authorizes high levels of insights on various technical issues related to your site. It is a desktop-based tool that helps in analyzing and auditing various technical SEO issues such as: finding broken links, analyzing metadata, discovering duplicate content, and so on.
Free SEO Tools for Keywords research
Keywords are an integral part of SEO as they give an idea to search engines what your content is about. Your keywords should be the words or the phrases that your target audience uses commonly for finding you or businesses that are relevant to you. Here are a few tools that you can use to find out the best relevant keywords for your business.
1. Google keyword planner
If you have a Google AdWords account, you can access Google keyword planner for free. It is one of the most powerful SEO tools as it offers the most accurate information about keywords and SEO in the market. Google Keyword Planner offers search volume and feedback on the competition for other keywords. It is a free tool for SEO. It gives you insights on the following: the search volume, the amount of competition, and also what people are paying for those particular keywords on Google AdWords.
2. Ahrefs SEO keyword tool
Ahrefs is one of the most popular online SEO tools that’s recommended after google. It is one of the largest website crawlers that highlights the parts of your website that need improvement for ranking higher in search results. You can also use Ahrefs for competitive analysis to figure out the type of keywords and content that’s trending in your niche. The data Ahrefs offers is extremely accurate and provides valuable insights on how to score higher in the SERPs. There are various in-depth metrics for improving your CTR(Click Through Rate) as well as SERP analysis. This free tool for SEO doesn’t offer its keyword explorer separately like several other suites. You can access the entire set of online SEO tools that come under Ahrefs, i.e. site audits, site explorer, rank tracker, and so on.
3. SEMRush
For all marketers, SEMRush is one of the most favorite online SEO tools. It is a comprehensive keyword research tool for SEO as well as your competitive analysis. The popularity of this online SEO tool is pivoted on the in-depth data that it has to offer. It lets you assess your rankings very easily and also identifies changes for the improvement of the rank of your website. The feature of Domain v/s Domain analysis of SEMRush is extremely helpful for analyzing your website’s search data, traffic, and so on. You can also compare the keywords within your domain with that of others and see what your competitors are focusing on. If you want to know the keywords that you are ranking for, you can search for your website on the organic research tab of SEMRush. This online SEO tool will also show the keywords that your website is ranking for without even targeting.
4. Moz
Moz is a full-service powerhouse when it comes to keyword research tools for SEO. It has established itself in the market as a go-to resource for all SEO professionals. It is one of the free tools for SEO especially when you are looking for keyword recommendations or even a site crawl. Besides all of these, Moz will also give you an insight into how you a improve your website and rank higher in SERPs. There are both paid as well as free versions of Moz.
In the free Mozbar toolbar, you can see the insights of your website metrics as well while you are browsing through pages. There are two unique points to this keyword research tool for SEO, organic CTR and the priority score. You can analyze the number of expected clicks via your organic CTR. Moz has an exclusive combining feature where it accumulates and combines various data such as CTR, volume, and difficulty which is crucial for filtering out the best terms or keywords for your need.
You can start with the Moz Keyword Explorer free version that comprises 10 queries per month. Upgrading to the pro version offers you over 30,000 queries with a charge of $99.
5. Ubersuggest
It is a keyword research tool for SEO that’s developed by Neil Patel. It is a free keyword-finding tool that helps you identify the trending keywords in your niche and also offers insights into the search intent behind them. It is the best SEO online tool that shows you suggestions from short to long-tail phrases. The Ubersuggest metrics show the following, keyword volume, competition, CPC, and latest trends as well as seasonal trends. It is best for both organic as well paid PPC as it helps in determining if a keyword is worth targeting and how competitive is it.
6. SERPstat
Another comprehensive SEO suite that should be on your radar is SERPstat. It includes various functionalities such as keyword research, website analytics, SERP analysis, rank tracking, and so on. It is more oriented to the analysis of a single page. For an entire URL, you can define the missing keywords and the exceptional “tree view” feature helps you in analyzing the keywords for which you have reached the top results in SERPs. In this keywords research tool for SEO, you can set parameters for funneling in your research and find exactly what you are looking for. This effective functionality of filter is extremely effective as SEO keyword research can often consist of a lot of data.
7. Keyword Tool
For delving deeper into keyword research, one of the best keyword research tools for SEO. You can get detailed insights into keywords and create in-depth reports for Google, YouTube, Amazon, bing, Social media, and more. It is like an upgraded version of Google Keyword planner that focuses exclusively on keyword research. With an exceptional user experience, you can access over 700 keywords for free.
The pro version of this software offers even more in-depth data.
8. LongTail Pro
Long-tail keywords form the backbone of SEO. They are more likely to convert as they are lesser competitive. Long Tail Pro focuses more on the trend of usage of long phrases for SEO. It is a brilliant way of incorporating high-value keywords into your content. Based on your seed keywords, Long Tail Pro offers valuable research tools for SEO for your niche keywords. The metrics provided are detailed and highly useful for finding high-end organic traffic sources. Overall, this keyword research tool for SEO offers a great user experience with its well-designed and easy-to-understand interface. It can be used by both advanced users as well as beginners.
9. SpyFu
It is more focused on analyzing the SEO strategies of your competitors. It is rendered as one of the best keyword research tools for SEO. It helps uncover valuable and untapped keywords for targeting in your niche. SpyFu can be used by beginner as well as average users very easily. It also includes detailed and sufficient data for the satisfaction of an advanced SEO professional. In addition to all of these, it offers ongoing site monitoring, insights for PPC ads as well as variations in campaigns.
Free Link building Tools
Link-building is one of the best tactics for making your SEO stronger as having a great backlink pool signals search engines that your website is a credible source of information. Gaining links from other websites make search engines perceive that your website is authoritative and worthy of citation. Hence the more credible backlinks you have, the higher will your rank be in the SERPs.
1. Majestic
This is one of the best free SEO tools for your link-building strategy as you can swim through a wide range of links here. The metrics offered by Majestic help identify the types of sites that you should be generating your links from. It also provides recommendations on the number of unique domains that you should be focusing on while building your site. Get detailed insights on trust /citation flow distribution. The information that you get via searching is as follows:
- External backlinks
- Referring domains
- Referring IPs
- Referring subnets
- Backlink history
- Backlink breakdown
- Anchor text
Make sure that you pay close attention to the backlink section as that provides basic information on each link. It also provides an opportunity to get more data via making a detailed analysis report. This online SEO tool helps you in making a great link-building strategy as it breaks down all the high-level information into easy tidbits.
2. Buzzstream
World’s best link-builder relies on this online SEO tool for link building. It is used by both small and large companies. It has a multitude of benefits. Some of the benefits are as follows:
- You can research prospects very fast and efficiently.
- Speed up the process of your research, keep track of your contacts, and curate key information for your outreach purposes automatically.
- A major part of link building is establishing good relationships. You can use BuzzzStrem for personalizing your outreach messages for generating more efficient results. This boosts your placement rate.
- Manage your link-building campaigns effectively from the beginning to the end. You can track every aspect of your campaign using BuzzStream for example setting reminders for follow-ups or even sharing tasks with your team members.
3. Moz Link explorer
When it comes to link building, Moz is a robust SEO tool or free that is extremely vital. It offers you data of domain authority, page authority, number of established links, and so on. The primary functionalities of Moz when it comes to link building are as follows:
- Researching backlinks and finding out who are your competitors.
- Find link building opportunities and have strategies for doing the same
- Find broken or damaged links and get suggestions on improving them
4. Ahrefs
One of the largest and the most accurate database of backlinks are available on Ahref. This makes it one of the most favorite online SEO tools of SEO professionals. You can add a lot of value to the SEO of your website by using the full-suite of Ahref. There are 6 distinct tools available in Ahref that are useful in terms of link building:
- Site explorer
- Positions explorer
- Content explorer
- Crawl report
- Position tracker
- Ahref alerts
This online SEO tool is extremely helpful for understanding the following:
- The website linking
- The anchor text that’s being used
- Strength of the backlink
5. Follower Wonk
On this social network, you will find some of the best opportunities for link building. The first step of this free SEO tool is to find various influencers in your niche. After you target these influencers, you build a relationship with them. This increases the opportunity of gaining a backlink exponentially. This online SEO tool is more dominantly used for social media such as Twitter. With the kind of sorted data provided by this tool, it’s extremely simple to implement a social outreaching targeting the right set of audience.
6. Link prospector
Link prospector that’s designed by Citation labs makes the whole process of link building extremely stress-free. It organizes outreach opportunities and ensures maximum reach. Such amplification is necessary for earning necessary links and social mentions. This online SEO tool can produce 16 types of reports. All of them fall under these 4 broad categories:
- Content development and outreach
- PR
- Outreach
- Conversation
The outreach category includes various opportunities such as link pages, reviews, directories, and so on. The simple three steps process of Link Prospector makes it the
The outreach category involves several opportunities such as link pages, reviews, directories, and so on. The 3 step process of Link Prospector makes it extremely desirable amongst SEO professionals globally. The 3 steps are:
- Choose your report type
- Enter your target keyword phrases
- Review link opportunities
7. SEOSpyGlass
This online SEO tool is one of the top choices of SEO professionals for monitoring the performance of backlinks. This helps to spy on the competitors as well at the same time. This free tool for SEO offers services related to these 4 primary areas:
- Find every backlink of a website
- Running a link audit and remove all the harmful or malicious links
- Analyze every backlink that’s broken down by more than 50 unique factors
- It helps in reconstructing or reverse engineer your competitor’s strategy of link building
8. SEOQuake
If you are using the Firefox browser, this extension comes in handy when you are working on link building. This online SEO tool works within your browser and it is all about convenience. It is a powerful SEO tool online as it offers in-depth insights on various parameters for the page that you are visiting. It is fully customizable hence it is extremely easy to get along with this extension. You can set the factors according to your needs and completely rely on the results offered by this online SEO tool.
9. Link detox
High-quality links are what every SEO professional desire as it plays a pivotal role in determining your rank in the SERPs. Link Detox is an extremely crucial SEO tool that assists you with the following:
- Finding spammy links that are dragging down the rank of your website
- Cleaning your backlink profile
- Prevention of human error during the usage of disavow audit mode
- Usage of human signals and millions of other data points
Conclusion
The application of SEO strategies is extremely important for ranking your website. Besides the execution, the measuring and the monitoring of the results are also important. We have included all the tools that you might require for your various SEO activities starting from your research to measuring your metrics of effectiveness. You can try out these tools according to to your needs