Mastering SEO optimization may seem hard, especially for beginners. Luckily, this article describes the 11 best tools that SEO experts use. And surprisingly, some, like Google Search Console, are completely free yet very useful in helping you boost your website traffic. Others like Semrush and Ahref Webmaster Tools enable you to identify and solve SEO issues.
The free and paid SEO tools discussed herein save you tedious keyword research and data analysis. They will assist you in finding great and less competitive content ideas to target. And show you what part of your SEO strategy is working and which one needs some adjustments.
These best SEO tools help you with a competitive analysis to understand what pages or keywords are bringing more traffic to your competitors and discover new opportunities. Others allow you to understand your search appearance and performance across countries. Of course, you don’t have to use all 11 tools; find the most suitable one for your business.
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11 Best SEO Tools for Experts and Beginners
Here’s the list of my top 11 tools that will take your SEO to the next level.
1. Google Search Console
Made exclusively for webmasters, Google Search Console helps you submit your website to Google. And monitor how it appears and performs on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) for free. But you have to submit your website’s sitemap for indexing to use it.
Although having a Search Console account for your website to appear on Google is not mandatory, having it will help you solve crawlability issues and decide what pages get indexed. You can also monitor the clicks and impressions per search terms, pages, and countries. Then you can use the information during your next content update to turn impressions into clicks.
Not to mention that this tool helps you check your internal and external links, top linking pages and anchor texts, and top linked pages. It also helps you monitor and solve mobile usability problems that could hurt your user experience on mobile devices and sink your SEO results.
If you want to optimize your website on Google, submit it to Search Console. Remember, as of June 2022, its global search engine market share was 91.88%.
2. Bing Free Webmaster Tools
According to StatCounter, Bing is the second most popular search engine, with a global market share of 3.19% of all searches in June 2022. The market share may seem small, especially given that Google dominates the market with over 90% shares in the same month.
However, according to Semrush, Bing received 1.52 billion users in August 2022, an increase from 1.42 billion users in August 2022. That’s not an insignificant number. So it’s worth using Bing Webmaster SEO tools that help monitor your site performance on Bing search.
This special yet free SEO tool, like Search Console, helps you with backlinks reports, keyword research, SEO report, and site scan, among other features, to help reach more users. These two tools will help audit your site, monitor rankings, and solve all SEO issues.
3. Semrush – All-in-one Marketing Toolkit
Semrush marketing tool gives you all the information and tools you need to analyze your website and increase your organic and paid traffic. It overviews your website or competitor’s traffic analysis, organic research, and keyword and backlinks gap.
It is one of the best SEO tools for beginners and experts, given that it has a free version to test its suitability for your business. You can free exploit features like local SEO marketing, domain analytics, position tracking, market explorer, and on-Page SEO Checker.
But that’s not all. Most SEO experts love Semrush as it allows them to track how their rankings change over time, helping them make necessary adjustments to their content. So, if you want detailed and relevant data about your website or competitors’ search data and traffic, this tool is the best for you. It will assist you in discovering new keyword and backlink opportunities.
4. Ahref Free Webmaster Tools
Ahref is one of the most recommended SEO tools by experts. It is the second largest website crawler after Google, with many paid tools and free tools. But the one that got my attention recently is the Webmaster Tools that help audit and improve your website.
Like other webmaster tools, like Search Console and Bing, Ahref audits your website and identifies on-page, off-page, and technical SEO issues that could harm your organic traffic. With it, you can monitor your domain rating, referring domains and backlinks, organic keywords, and traffic per country. And other features like content explorers and site trackers.
5. Keyword.io – Long-trail Keyword Finder
Whether you’re looking for keywords for your PPC marketing, SEO, or content writing, long-tail keywords are worth targeting. Despite receiving less search traffic, they are more specific and have higher conversion values. Keyword.io is one of the best tools to find them.
This SEO tool helps you find keywords and questions to target while optimizing your content to rank on Google. It is equally relevant for finding YouTube video ideas, writing Amazon product descriptions, and finding great ideas for platforms like Fiverr, Alibaba, and eBay.
So, this tool, which has a free version, is very useful for beginners who want to list ideas they can write articles on or give to freelance writers to write content for them.
6. Moz Pro: SEO Software
Moz Pro is one of the best SEO software for experts and beginners. This amazing SEO tool gives fresh insights and empowers you to stay competitive. In addition to helping your website improve on search engines, Moz gives you reliable SEO ideas.
Some features you enjoy while using this tool include domain authority checking, organic traffic, rankings report, and domain and backlinks report for your site. It also lets you analyze your competitors’ organic reach and monitor what pages and keywords drive them more traffic. You can use this data to optimize your website and get more traffic.
7. Ubersuggest: Keyword Suggestion Tool
Developed by Neil Patel, a leader in SEO marketing, Ubersuggest is more than just a free keyword research tool. It helps you monitor rank tracking and SEO opportunities, conduct site audit, and gives you data on your website (or competitors’) backlinks and traffic reports.
Take the keyword ‘make money online’ for example. Using this SEO tool, I can see the key phrase has a search volume of 3,600 in Kenya, has an SEO difficulty of 40, and paid difficulty of 83 (out of 100). It also has a high CPC of $43.19. Thus, it is fairly competitive, especially given that the top website ranking for it has 5,901 backlinks and a Domain Authority of 78.
You can browse for keyword ideas and get a long trial version of this keyword (which would be less competitive), see the most asked questions, or use a tool like Keyword.io for more ideas. That way, you can rank for its longer version as you work to improve your website authority.
8. Answer The Public: Free SEO Tools
Do you want more questions, maybe to include them in your titles or FAQs? Free SEO tools like Answer The Public, which Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest recently acquired, help you find great topics for your blogs. It is really important while searching for Video ideas.
Adding questions to your content and answering them can help improve traffic and drive quality leads to your sales teams. Search engines love this type of content because it gives users the exact answers they are looking for, and you should include some in your FAQs section.
9. Woorank: SEO Ranking Tool
With paid and free options, Woorank is another resourceful SEO analysis website that helps you track your website health score and report your digital marketing data.
The tool has features like competitive analysis to help monitor your SEO rivals, keyword research, and rank tracking to help you discover new opportunities. It also helps you audit and solves SEO issues that could undermine your online visibility and gives instant sire reviews.
So, it is one of the best tools for SEO experts to increase their online visibility.
10. Google Trends: SEO Checker Tool
Google Trends is one of the best SEO tools for discovering content ideas and trends, yet it has been underutilized over the years. If you want your content to trend, you can use it to discover what’s trending in your area and share awesome content to increase your SERP rankings.
With it, you’ll be able to explore keywords in any country and, therefore, write relevant content the audience in your target country is searching for online. It is completely free, by the way.
11. HubSpot Website Grader
SEO experts use HubSpot’s free website grader to understand their website performance, security, search engine optimization (SEO), and mobile experience. With it, you can check website performance issues and understand what you need to fix to avoid guesswork.
FAQs on Best SEO Tools
Some of the best SEO tools experts use include Google Search Console, Bing and Ahref free webmaster tools, and Semrush. Other free and paid tools include Keyword.io, Ubersuggest, Google Trends, Woorank, and Hubstopt’s free website grader.
The four main search engine optimization (SEO) types are On-page, Off-page, Technical, and local SEO. There is also WordPress and YouTube or Video SEO.
Absolutely YES; you can be a DIY SEO (Do It Yourself SEO). With much practice and research, you can learn SEO best practices and how to promote your business online. With a little time, you can be an expert in content marketing and link-building.
Some argue that SEO is dead, but I say it doesn’t. What’s dying is black-hat SEO (the shortcuts) as search engines like Google are becoming more intelligent. So, while creating content, think of your audience’s problems instead of paying all attention to ranking.
You can increase your website SEO ranking by writing relevant and resourceful content in your niche based on extensive keyword research. But that’s not all. Audit your site to identify and solve issues that could hurt your online visibility and keep updating your content.
Ranking on Google and search engines like Bing and Yahoo is completely free. And you can get more traffic by improving your website content and solving SEO problems.
Many tools help you identify and track SEO keywords, including Semrush, Ahref, Ubersuggest, Google Trends, and Bing, and Google Search Console.
Conclusion
SEO tools are very important; they help you audit your website, improve performance and search traffic, and get regular marketing data. Instead of storing your data manually on Google Sheets, you can use SEO tools to track rankings, traffic, and performance.
- Google Search Console
- Bing Free Webmaster Tools
- Semrush – All-in-one Marketing Toolkit
- Ahref Free Webmaster Tools
- Keyword.io – Long-trail Keyword Finder
- Moz Pro: SEO Software
- Ubersuggest: Keyword Suggestion Tool
- Answer The Public: Free SEO Tools
- Woorank: SEO Ranking Tool
- Google Trends: SEO Checker Tool
- HubSpot Website Grader
Some tools like Search Console and Bing Webmaster are free, while others like Keyword.io, Semsush, and Ahref Free Webmaster Tools have free and paid options. I’d suggest you use the free options until you’re sure they are the best for your business. But I’ll let you decide.
Let me know which of these tools you consider the best and why. Or which ones do you plan to use soon? In case of questions or need help marketing your online business, contact me.
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