1. Google Analytics:
If you’re not yet using Google Analytics, I recommend you start as soon as possible. There is no other data source that provides high-quality and detailed information like Google Analytics. In a Google-dominated era, it’s what we have to work with. Most of the other data tools simply piggyback on Google’s data using the API.
Assessment: You can’t ignore Google Analytics. Virtually all the actionable and important data about site visitors, traffic, etc., comes from this critical source.
2. Google Search Console:
If Google Analytics is the air that an online marketer breathes, then Google Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) is the food that the online marketer eats.
The word “webmaster” in the former name is a bit of a misnomer. The tool is for more than webmasters. It’s for SEOs. The very focus of the tool has to do with “search” and “optimization.”
Some of GSC’s best insights come from just glancing at the dashboard. SEOs and marketers need to keep up with the dashboard on a regular basis.
Google Search Console provides some of the same data as Analytics but in a simpler and more straightforward way. There’s less tweaking you can do with the numbers, but easier access to them.
One of the most important datasets is the link data. (Search Traffic → Links to Your Site → More). Staying up to date with toxic backlinks is one of the most essential steps in off-page SEO.
If you ever have to deal with the dreaded manual penalty or are routinely disavowing stubborn spam links, you will become very familiar with Google Search Console.
Assessment:
Clearly, Google Search Console is indispensable. You need the data, you need the tools, and you need the power. I wish that more SEOs saw the value of the tool and used it more.
3. Ubersuggest:
Ubersugest is an all-in-one SEO tool designed to help you win the game of SEO. A big part of SEO success is knowing what you’re doing, what your competitors are doing, and how to adjust your strategy to take advantage of holes in the market.
Getting started with Ubersugest is as simple as typing a domain or keyword into the search bar. From here, you gain instant access to a report for your chosen domain or keyword.
For the sake of this post, I want to focus on the keyword search capabilities of Ubersuggest. It’s a great alternative to the Google Keyword Planner tool, which has lost some of its lusters over the years.
After running a search for your primary keyword, here’s how you can use Ubersuggest to uncover related keywords to include in your content.
Step #1: Click “Keyword Ideas” Located in the left sidebar, click “Keyword Ideas” to be taken to a comprehensive report.
Step #2: Review the Results This is where the fun begins. You’re provided a long list of keywords related to your seed keyword.
There are four columns with corresponding data for each keyword:
Volume – Average number of monthly searches the keyword has on Google.
CPC – Average cost per click for a Google Ad for the keyword.
PD – Estimated competition in paid search (the higher the number, the more competitive).
SD – Estimated competition in organic search (the higher the number, the more competitive).
While this data alone is helpful, I want you to drill down deeper. Let’s keep going.
Step #3: Click on a Keyword For example, if you want to rank for the keyword phrase “content marketing agency,” click on it to access the following.
Now, there’s no question as to what you need to do to reach the first page of Google. This data allows you to address points such as:
How much traffic you can reasonably expect to receive for each position on page one
The number of backlinks for your page one competitor
The number of social shares for each URL
Use this data to create content that’s 10x better than your competitors.
Step #4: Filter Your Search After you gain a clear overview of related keywords that align with your company and its goals, turn on the filter feature to narrow your search. Here’s an example.
You can set additional parameters, but this is where I like to start when searching for long-tail keywords.
You want to uncover keywords with enough search volume to move the needle, without focusing on anything that has an extremely high SEO Difficulty score.
Even though it cuts out more than 400 keywords, you’re left with 12 that match your exact criteria. “Content marketing examples” is one of the best keywords on the list, despite an average monthly search volume of only 1,000. It has the ability to drive highly targeted traffic to your website, and with an SD of 17, you have a good chance of ranking.
Assessment:
You can do a lot more than keyword research with Ubersuggest, but it’ll definitely help in this department. With this, you have what you need to select keywords that allow you to create killer content that’s destined to rank.
You can also add the free Chrome extension to use Ubersuggest right from the SERPs.
4. MozBar:
Knowledge is the name of the game with the MozBar. When you think about it, SEO has a lot to do with knowing the right stuff. The MozBar helps you discover the right stuff at a glance.
The MozBar button sits right up in your browser toolbar — the place where all the action is going on. Click on MozBar, and you generate an instant report on the website you’re visiting.
You can position the MozBar at the top, side, or bottom of your browser window at all times.
The toolbar has three main categories of data — Page Elements, Page Attributes, and Link Data.
Page Elements displays the nuts and bolts of on-page SEO. There’s a lot of information accessible at a glance. You can see the various tags — title, description, H1s, etc.
Page attributes show some below-the-surface onsite optimization features, such as robots, rel=”canonical” and load time. Additionally, you can find out on-page link data.
The Link Data tab has ranking factors and more information on a site’s links. Complete information is available only with a paid subscription.
Assessment:
The MozBar’s true power is available to those who subscribe, and it’s a service worth the money. If you’re still in the startup-cash-strapped phase, though, the folks at Moz are kind enough to provide this robust version of their tool at no cost.
5. SEOWorkers Analysis Tool:
The Analysis Tool allows you to plug in a website URL — any website, even if it’s not yours — and generate a report.
SEOWorkers doesn’t provide anything new, but it does help to save a lot of time in analysis. Also, it provides background information on the data.
The report is quick and detailed.
Some of the data, like the HTTP Headers Check, is under-the-hood stuff that you wouldn’t normally think to check for.
Other analyzed features provide helpful icons to show you if you’re doing well, or if you need to pay attention to something:
Here is SEOWorker’s unique feature. They teach you about SEO in addition to showing you the SEO data that matters. Within each analyzed category, the report provides a detailed discussion.
The keyword analysis is comprehensive. It displays head terms (single keywords), and two-, three-, and four-word keyphrases (longtail keywords).
Assessment:
SEOWorkers provides a lot of information, and some of it is different from other SEO and reporting tools. However, it can be information overload.
For the experienced SEO, the discussion in each section is superfluous. For new SEOs who are still learning the tricks of the trade, it could be useful.
6. WooRank Website Reviews:
At first glance, WooRank’s Website Review appears to be just another freemium website analyzer. Upon closer, inspection, however, it gives handy insights into some not-so-obvious stuff.
You can analyze any website, and generate a report in seconds.
WooRank first displays a “Top priorities section. Unfortunately, here’s one of the downsides of the tool. Somehow, it thinks that I have a 404 error, lack a favicon, and don’t have a robots.txt file. All of these are inaccurate.
For example, when I click on “Blog,” in the SEO report section, I receive this message.
I’m nonplussed since content marketing is kind of my middle name, and my website definitely has an active blog.
On to more positive things.
The geodata is insightful, although Analytics provides similar information.
Social shareability is another helpful section. Few free analysis tools are able to aggregate this much social network data in a single place.
The most outstanding feature of WooRank that I want to point out is the mobile section. Few free SEO analysis tools provide this level of data and perspective.
That being said, Google does offer a free Mobile-Friendly Test.
Assessment:
For its ease, interface, and amount of data, WooRank gets high marks. Unfortunately, not all the data seems to be accurate.
One of its major tools, the mobile optimization overview, can also be viewed using free tools from Google, so it’s not really revolutionary anymore.
7. Neil Patel SEO Analyzer:
We’ve already covered Ubersuggest, but there’s another tool in there that you need to be aware of — our SEO analyzer. (It used to be a separate tool, which is why I gave it its own number.) It really is a valuable tool — and it’s totally free.
Just plug in your URL, and the tool will spend about 10 minutes crawling your site.
The visual layout is clean and intuitive, providing plenty of crucial information including estimated traffic score, SEO score, and backlinks.
It will also tell you if you have any broken or blocked pages.
It will also share SEO issues, see how your site performs on mobile, and actually give you tips on how to improve your site.
Assessment:
Personal bias aside, I think that my website analyzer provides a very helpful perspective both on your own site, and especially on a side-by-side comparison of your competitors.
8. ClickFlow:
When it comes to growing your traffic, most marketers default to creating new content, building new backlinks, and so on.
The ClickFlow Content Decay Tool is different—it shows you old pages on your site that are no longer performing well. These outdated posts are great candidates for a content refresh.
First, you’ll want to connect the Content Decay Tool to your Google Search Console.
Once ClickFlow imports your data, you’ll see a report that shows you the pages on your site that have lost the most search traffic over the past 12 months.
From there, you can update these posts to win back lost traffic. Simply expand upon your content, add examples to make it more thorough, and cut any outdated references.
If you choose to upgrade to a paid ClickFlow account, you can even measure your content refreshes.
ClickFlow will show you the impact that updates have on your traffic and rankings, on a page-by-page basis.
Conclusion:
These free SEO tools will get you started, and a few of them are pretty powerful.
If you’re serious about SEO, you’ll need to pony up the cash to get the right tools. You won’t be able to do thorough SEO work without a paid subscription to something.
Here are the things that are typically not available for free:
Heat Maps: If you’re interested in usability, conversions, and SEO, a heat mapping tool like Crazy Egg is crucial.
Rank Reports: Knowing where your site ranks in the SERPs for certain keywords is an important part of good SEO. Rank trackers allow you to see what page and position you’re on, and track your rank over time.
Backlink Analysis: Crunching all the data behind backlinks — anchor text, DA level, site quality, webmaster contact info, velocity — is necessary when you’re doing any sort of backlink audit. The tools that provide such analysis are sophisticated but usually not free.
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