SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the act of getting organic traffic from the search engines naturally.
If you are looking for quality traffic along with quantity for free, you have to rank your site at a high position in SERPs.
Using the best SEO tools is the first step you need to take to achieve that. I have listed the best SEO tools for 2017 that can get you the targeted audience and make your blog post go viral.
What You Will Learn
- Factors responsible for Search Engine Ranking
- How to do an SEO analysis of your website?
- Which are the best SEO tools in 2017?
- How to use SEO tools to get results?
- Best SEO tools for small business?
Search Engine Ranking Factor – Google uses a sophisticated algorithm consisting of hundreds of factors to sequentially rank every site on their result pages according to their ranking scores.
A group of experts has decoded the algorithm and reached the following conclusion regarding the factors affecting ranking.
Some of these factors are inter-dependable and using the following SEO tools will make it easy for you to fulfill most of these factors effortlessly.
What Are SEO Tools?
To make your website SEO-friendly, you have to obey the principles of SEO in every step you take. SEO tools are applications that will help you to follow the rules rigorously.
For example, there are SEO tools for SEO analysis, finding best keywords, maintaining on-page SEO, stealing your competitors’ SEO strategies and likewise.
#1) SEO Tools For Free SEO Analysis
SEO Analyzer – You should do SEO analysis of your website at least once in every six months. SEO analyzer developed by Neil Patel, the renowned SEO expert cum blogger, provides a detailed report about the SEO condition of your website.
You can also compare your site with any other site in your niche to understand your relative SEO position.
The detailed report consists of Page level SEO analysis which points out errors and gives warnings for improvement.
It states social media impact of your site, complete analysis on backlinks and keywords and page level speed.
Most importantly, it offers recommendations according to priority, and you must pay immediate attention to high priority recommendations.
SEO Quake – SEO Quake is a Chrome and Firefox extension that will give you important SEO metrics about any web page or website.
It lists the parameters for search engine result page ranking, provides on-page SEO audit report and keyword density report.
Additionally, it offers a complete analysis of inbound and outbound links and social media metrics.
In this connection, SEMrush, Alexa, and Ahrefs are also quite popular for getting a detailed SEO analysis. You can use them for your own site’s analysis as well as your competitors.
#2) Free Google SEO Tools
Keyword Planner – It helps you to find the keywords for an article you are planning to write.
It lists the keywords along with average monthly search count and average cost per click rate.
You can find single keywords as well as keywords with multiple words (also known as long tail keywords). All you have to do is search with the topic of the article you are planning to write.
For example, you are thinking about writing an article on camera. So, you search with ‘camera’ to find the keywords associated with it and choose the ones with high CPC and high search rates. You can also select the targeting countries for the same.
Google Analytics – It tracks your web traffic and shows you a detailed report with complete analysis. You can get an idea about –
- The countries from where your traffic is coming,
- What kind of devices and browser they are using,
- How much percentage is new traffic and the bounce rate,
- Which post is receiving how many views,
- What people are searching on your website?
By understanding which contents are performing better and which is not and what people are searching, you can frame your next content accordingly to give them what they want.
You can also watch real-time web traffic to understand their behavior and interest.
#3) More SEO Tools For Keywords
Other than backlinks, keywords are the keys to be on the first page of search engine result pages.
Furthermore, if you are running an ad campaign, right keywords can make your campaign super successful.
SpyFu – It is a unique SEO tool that can provide you the success strategies of your competition or top players in your niche.
Just enter the URL of their site, and SpyFu will reveal the keywords they are using for organic ranking and ad campaigns.
You can use those keywords for your articles and ad campaign to be successful every single time.
You can also find from where exactly you competitors are getting backlinks. You can try to get backlinks from those places to be on par with them in Page ranking.
Keywordtool.io – This is a very simple keyword finding tool. You have to buy the Pro version to get the best out of this SEO tool.
It lists the most profitable and highest search volume keywords specifically from Google, Bing, Amazon and YouTube.
It also shows the AdWords competition for all those keywords which is instrumental for the success of your ad campaigns.
#4) SEO Tools For Content Optimization
Keyword Density Checker – Keyword density is the percentage of your focus keyword with respect to all the words in your content.
It is important to keep the keyword density optimal for better search engine ranking.
According to ShoutMeLoud, you should keep keyword density for your main keyword in between 1% to 3%.
Keyword stuffing or overuse of a keyword is not at all good from SEO perspective. With the main keyword, you can have multiple other keywords for even better ranking.
Yoast SEO – If you have a WordPress site, Yoast SEO plugin is a must-have for you. Optimizing content is equally important as getting quality backlinks.
This plugin helps to SEO optimize your content by indicating your readability and on-page SEO mistakes.
It uses green, yellow and red light to show SEO and readability scores for your content.
Yoast SEO plugin provides suggestions for improvement such as using heading tags, writing alt text for images, less use of passive voice, keyword density of focus keyword and much more.
Character Count Online – At times, you will need a counter which can show how many character, words, sentences, paragraphs and white-spaces you have in a specific content.
For example, while writing meta description, you need to write it within 160 characters. Similarly, under every heading, there should not be more than 300 words. For all such situations, this tool will come handy.
#5) SEO Tools For Plagiarism Checking
Plagiarism is the act of copying someone’s content and publishing it on your website.
Plagiarism is terribly bad for SEO, and hence, you have to check your articles for plagiarism before publishing.
It could so happen that coincidentally, some lines may become plagiarized, you should rewrite the sentences to reach zero plagiarism state.
AntiPlagiarism – This SEO software helps to identify plagiarism in your articles so that you can modify the sentences.
Download the demo version and if you get full satisfaction, definitely buy the premium version. You will need it for the rest of your life.
CopyScape – Copyscape is a very popular web tool to find duplicate content. The demo version allows you to check for plagiarism only after you publish your content. Premium version lets you check content for plagiarism before publishing.
Similarly, you can check if anyone is copying your content and file a notice of DMCA infringement.
Image Source
#6) SEO Tools For Image Optimization
Tiny JPG and PNG – This free SEO tool can reduce the size of JPG and PNG file image significantly without any distortion in quality.
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Before uploading any image on your website, you should compress them with it. It will reduce the loading time of the images and save space on your web server.
PicResize – It is always better to show the required portion of an image rather than the entire image.
For example, screenshot images need resizing to focus on the required part rather than showing the entire image. You can crop out unnecessary parts.
Sometimes, uploading large-sized images make no sense when you are going to display in small to medium size.
This picture optimization tool can help you to crop and resize any image. You can select or specify how much percentage of the image you want to resize.
Furthermore, you can add special effects to the images for making them eye-catching.
Alt Text Checker – Placing an alt or alternative text for every image is good from SEO perspective. It also helps your images to appear in search engine image search result such as Google Image.
When you have too many photos in an article, the chances are high that you can forget about putting alt text on every image.
With Image Alt Text Checker, you can provide URL of the webpage you want to check and it will list all the images with and without alt text.
#7) SEO Tools From Moz
Open Site Explorer – This SEO tool from Moz helps you to find all the details about link information of any website.
It lists the inbound links, recent links, top pages having highest inbound links and linking domains according to domain authority.
It also shows anchor text or keywords in hyperlinks that are performing best and can compare your site’s metrics with another URL.
Moz Pro – It is a premium service that Moz offers through which you can improve your SEO performance remarkably.
You can find your search engine visibility for the keywords that you have used. Hence, you can experiment and see which keywords can give you the best rank.
It provides a report on your performance for desktop and mobile platforms. Thus, you can improve in that part where you are lacking.
It breaks down your web traffic into various segments according to their sources from a better understanding.
It also lists the keywords that are performing best in the local and global scenario and hence, it is indispensable for small businesses. It also points out crawling errors, 404 errors and page and keyword opportunities to capitalize on.
You can also install MozBar for on-page SEO insights.
#8) All In One SEO Tool
SEO Review Tools – This is the only place where you will get all the best free SEO tools at once. There are four categories of free online SEO tools.
SEO Authority Tools – It contains all types of free website SEO checkers like website authority, domain authority, page authority and backlink checkers.
Technical SEO Tools – It contains all types of analyzers like meta robots, SEO list crawler, and internal link analyzer.
SEO Content Tools – It contains all free online SEO tools for checking plagiarism, content optimizer, and SEO keyword suggestion tool for on-page SEO.
Social Media Tools – It contains some innovative SEO tools for checking your social page authority across all popular social media platforms.
You should also have a look at Searchmetrics for all types of SEO metrics.
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#9) Best SEO Tools For Small Business
Business is all about competition and coming out on top. Among all the SEO tools, two tools can help you to measure you’re and your competitor’s performance.
Ontolo is that all-in-one SEO tool to measure your performance. Additionally, you can discover prospects for link building opportunities, SEO and content marketing, social media vibes, sales and e-commerce activities, and building a brand with advertisement and promotion.
Ahrefs is another SEO tool you should try out.
Optimizely is a fantastic tool for any website especially business sites. It is that tool which lets you experiment with your designs, advertisement units and content with A/B testing.
Hence, you can put up different products and ad segments and check which is performing better and stick to that for your short to long term success.
For any business, selling the demanding products is important to increase its sales exponentially.
Optimizely helps to find the best product or services for your customers. Similarly, it helps you to find out the right place to put your ads and type of ads to draw revenue for your website.
Moz Local is tailor-made for small businesses focusing on local customers. It shows your listing on the local search engines and business directories.
It gives you suggestion to improve them. If you are new, you have to enter your location information, and Moz Local will list you everywhere possible to increase your visibility.
We have already discussed SpyFu which is the ultimate SEO tool to keep track of your competitors’ SEO activities. You can steal their successful SEO strategies and make your every step sure shot success.
Linkio SEO Management plays a very important part in online rankings. If you want to build backlinks, would also like to save some time and are looking for a software that makes insightful and useful recommendations – Linkio might be what you’ve been looking for.
Finally, for any website, it is important that the site takes minimum time for loading completely. Pingdom is the world renowned tool for checking your website’s loading speed and up-time.
Wrapping It Up
Every step you take for building your website, you have to keep SEO factors in mind. Therefore, choose a domain name that has keywords in it.
Apply a theme that is easy for search engine crawlers to crawl like it should be clean, organized and user-friendly. Use Pingdom to find your site’s loading speed and up time.
Before writing any content, do thorough keyword research using Keyword Planner. Check which keywords your competitors are using to be successful using SpyFu. Make sure your content has optimum keyword density with Density Checker.
Make sure it follows on-page SEO principles with Yoast SEO. Check your content for zero plagiarism using AntiPlagiarism.
Optimize your images before uploading tinyJPG and PicResize. Check the alt text of every image using Alt Text Checker.
Keep a strict watch on your traffic with Google Analytics. Identify backlink creating opportunities by analyzing your competitor using Moz Pro and SpyFu.
Most importantly, keep track on your SEO performance with various tools mentioned and illustrated above.
Once you start utilizing these tools regularly, you will find that organic traffic starts to flow on your site and you can overcome your competitors like a pro.
Author Bio – Arushi Jain is an India based writer with interest in blogging. Interested in digital marketing, social media and latest trends. She’s a contributor at www.GetThatRight.com.