Artwork courtesy of Beeple.
Today, I’d like to share with you some of the best free SEO tools that I’ve used to grow this blog…
SEO has generated a good amount of visibility in Google search engines for me over the last few years…
I’ve also made some nice affiliate sales by ranking many of my blog posts on page 1…
The tools I’m discussing in this post are ones that I actually use for myself each month…
So this isn’t going to be a post about 101 SEO tools or anything like that…
I’ve broken the tools down into two categories…
Free Google SEO tools and other free SEO tools that I feel are the best at getting the job done…
The Free Google SEO Tools Every Site Needs
Guess how many searches Google receive per day…
Do you have an idea?
Well, Google receives more than 3.5 billion searches per day!
That translates to over 57,000 searches every second….
This explains why it’s tough to stand out and rank at the top of Google result’s page…
Before you do any research for your SEO strategy it will be important to set up these next two tools…
Google Analytics
More than 29.3 million people currently use Google Analytics for a good reason…
This tool gives users detailed information about their site visitors, which they use to improve their website and SEO strategy…
I use this tool monthly to monitor how my blog is performing and which blog posts are getting the most traction…
When you develop your SEO strategy it needs to include Google Analytics so you can track progress…
The good news is they have recently updated the application so you don’t have to re-figure out how to use it…
One important thing to know is how to block referrer spam to ensure you get the correct statistics in GA…
Google Search Console (Previously Called Google Webmaster Tools)
Regardless of the size of your website, setting up Google Search Console is a must…
Why?
This tool will give you valuable data about your site at a glance…
It can assess your website’s performance and identify potential problems that could lead to penalties or poor rankings…
But that’s not all.
You can use Google Search Console to report spam and even request reconsideration if your website or blog has incurred a penalty…
For instance, I regularly monitor my backlinks…
Whenever I find spammy backlinks pointing to one of my blog posts I update a disavow links file which tells Google to remove or ignore these links…
I’ve recovered rankings for a few blog posts using this tool…
With these two tools set up on your website, you can begin creating an SEO strategy using these other free tools…
The Best Free SEO Tools To Use
When I first started optimizing my website for Google search I invested in several paid platforms like Moz, SEMRush and AHREFs…
While I do believe paid tools are usually a good investment, for someone just doing SEO for their own website its overkill…
I hopped around a few different free tools until I stumbled upon a website that gave me all the tools I needed in one spot…
The cool thing is a lot of these tools pull data from these paid tools for free!
These free SEO tools are broken down into the following categories:
- SEO Analysis Tools
- Keyword Research Tools
- Content Tools
- Website Tools
- Auditing Tools
SEO Analysis Tools
These are the free SEO tools I use to analyze my website and my competitor’s websites whenever I’m researching a new blog topic…
Backlinks Checker
The Backlinks Checker is a critical tool to use regularly to monitor the backlinks your website is getting…
As your domain continues to grow in online visibility its inevitable that you’ll start attracting spammy backlinks…
These can damage your rankings if you don’t keep an eye on it…
This tool is also great for seeing new backlinks that link to your website from other sites…
I use it about once a month to see if I’ve gained new backlinks and to assess the quality of the backlink…
This tool uses the AHREF’s backlinks database to pull in accurate information without needing a paid account!
Domain Authority Checker
The Domain Authority Checker tool gives you the ability to see the domain authority of any domain online…
Whenever I’m working on a new blog, I like to find the top three competitors for the keyword I’m targeting and see their domain authority…
This gives me a good idea of how likely I am to outrank them…
This also helps me measure the authority of my own website to see how that grows over time…
Search Competition
The Search Competition tool is fairly useful because it takes all of the keywords you are ranking for and find other sites competing for those same keywords…
I will occasionally check to see what sites it is saying are my competitors…
I prefer to type in the keywords I want to rank for and see what websites hold the top 3 spots…
That is who I consider my competition in most instances…
Organic Traffic Stats
The Organic Traffic Stats tool gives you a broad overview of the number of organic keywords your website is ranking for…
It doesn’t tell you what keywords you rank for, but it gives you a number based on the keywords showing up in the top 100 positions…
You can use this tool to see how your website is doing versus a competitor…
I like to use this every few months to see if my organic keywords are growing…
The tool also calculates organic traffic but I don’t trust the accuracy so I use Google Analytics for that data…
Rankings Checker
The Rankings Checker tool is fantastic for finding out what keywords you are ranking for in the top 100 positions of Google…
While I like tracking the rankings of my primary keywords, its nice to see new keywords pop up that I didn’t target…
Sometimes there are some really great keywords you can rank even better for by going back and working them into your blog posts…
This is another tool taking advantage of SEMRush’s data that is free!
Other Tools
There is one other tool in this section that I don’t really use but I’ve listed it below because it can be helpful…
- Keyword Extraction Tool
Keyword Research Tools
After I’ve determined my blog topic, I use these tools for my keyword research and find the best terms to focus on for driving traffic…
Keyword Gap Analysis
With growing organic search competition for affiliate marketing I have started using the Keyword Gap Analysis tool more often…
Recently, I used it to find some easy keywords my competitors are targeting related to the ClickFunnels Affiliate program…
This led me to write my review of the ClickFunnels affiliate program and talk about my experience with it…
So this tool can really be useful for discovering new blog topic ideas based on the keywords competitors rank for…
Keyword Research
The Keyword Research tool will help determine other potentially valuable keywords based on the keyword you enter into the field…
So if you have a keyword in mind, you plug it in and the tool will find similar keywords…
I like to dig through and find the keywords that have a decent amount of traffic per month and low keyword competition…
I will pick a primary keyword and then one or two others that I will try and rank for in Google…
This tool uses data from SEMRush to find the information on the keywords but you don’t need a paid account!
Keyword Volume Checker
The Keyword Volume Checker tool works similar to the other keyword tool above but it just provides information on a single keyword…
So, if you find a keyword from the Keyword Gap Analysis tool that you want more information on, plug it in here…
It will tell you info on the search volume, how competitive the keyword is, and the number of results in Google…
This can help you determine whether or not to pursue a particular keyword…
Content Tools
Since this blog is built with WordPress, I’m using the Yoast SEO plugin to optimize my blog post content…
So, I don’t use the tools in this section…
However, I’ve listed them because if you are using another platform for your website then you will want to use these tools…
- Blog Topic Generator
- Headline Generator
- Keyword Density
- Content Readability
- Word Count
Website Tools
Similar to the Content tools, I don’t use the tools in this section…
They can certainly be helpful but I just don’t have a need for them…
- Conversion Rate Calculator
- Domain Age Checker
- Online Logo Maker
- SSL Certificate Checker
Auditing Tools
The tools in the auditing section are helpful for determining where you need to improve your SEO…
SEO Audit
The SEO Audit tool is a very valuable resource for evaluating how optimized your page or blog post is…
Even though I use Yoast SEO for optimizing my blog content, I use this tool as a second opinion…
I aim for a score of 90% or above, and I check what else the audit recommends I fix…
I like that any recommendations given are listed at the very bottom in a little to-do list…
Also, I can download a PDF of the report so I can compare later…
Other Tools You Can Use
My website isn’t focused on Local SEO so I don’t use these tools…
However, if you need to check your online reputation or get an local business listings audit then you can use these tools…
- Review & Reputation Audit
- Local SEO Business Listing Audit
Where You Can Find These Free SEO Tools Online
By now you’re probably ready to jump into these tools…
These tools are located at TheHOTH.com website…
You don’t have to sign up for a HOTH account to use these tools, but its free to sign up…
Now, keep in mind that these tools will help to optimize your website and create a strong SEO strategy…
However, if you want to start building domain authority with backlinks or you want help creating quality content then The HOTH can also help you there…
They are constantly running specials on their services so be sure to check them out after using their free SEO tools!
Wrapping It Up
Even though this blog is built on WordPress, you can use these free tools with any platform…
For the average blogger these are some of the best free seo tools that give you everything you need to begin improving your rankings in Google…
The fact that you can get them all in one place makes it even better!
Have you used any of these tools before?
Let me know in the comments!
