Photo Credit: Augur Marketing via flickr
You will be surprised at the lengths to which people are willing to go to get that one extra click on their link. Or maybe not, probably because you are one of those people and you actually have plenty to say about attracting clients to your site, not to mention search engine optimization (SEO).
But for those who are unfamiliar with the concept, SEO is marketing that aims to increase the visibility of a business online without payment. Ruling out the use of payment involved in affecting SEO levels the playing field so giant firms, as well as start-ups, can have an equal chance to compete favorably. Success in SEO, however, is dependent on the proper utilization of the technicalities and creative aspects of marketing.
Like every other aspect of life today, people are unrelenting in their quest to make life easier. Hence, a number of tools have sprung up left, right and center, all carrying the promise of being the best SEO tools. Below, we offer you a list of some of the most useful tools for SEO.
This is a website crawler that is tailored purposely to facilitate SEO. This allows it to work fast and efficiently on every URL that you put in. Within just minutes, Screaming Frog avails data that is critical to SEO on that particular site. The data may be a bit difficult to make sense of, especially when you are using this tool for the first time, but there are resources to help you understand Screaming Frog features and data.
This is a suite of various tools with diverse marketing and SEO functionality. The Moz suite especially boasts user friendliness as its strong suit. Some of the tools that are available on Moz include the SERP Overlay that displays the SEO metrics relating to specific search results for easy analysis; Moz local that shows any company's local citations; Open Site Explorer that analyzes backlinks, possessing some high utility metrics of link equity, among other things.
Abbreviated as BWT, Bing Webmaster Tools is one of the more overlooked SEO tools, possibly because its main usability is specific to Bing, as the name suggests, and Bing is not as popular as Google. However, it is useful for Google users too. Primarily, this tool shows how your site is being treated by Bing, including its ranking in searches, and what you can do to improve your performance. It also provides useful information across search engines including Google. This includes insights into elements such as crawling, op-page keyword optimization and indexation, among others.
This is a console that is formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools, and as the name suggests, it is much similar to BWT. It provides you with data and configuration that allows you control relating to your website on Google. This is to Google users what BWT is to Bing users, although some people may argue that this is a much richer version.
This is easily the most common of the SEO tools, as most people can attest to. You too, no? Google is the biggest and most widely used in the search engine in the world and, therefore, ignoring data on the searches done on the search engine would be a folly. Google Analytics provides data that is unparalleled when it comes to insights. With Google Analytics, you can gain great levels of insight into the bottom line of the numbers that relate to search engine results.
This is one of the go-to tools if you are looking for a free tool that provides premium performance. It provides a great range of keywords once you enter a query — but they are not mere keywords; they are based on the autocomplete features of search engines including Google, YouTube, Bing, or App Store Search. Keywords are key to SEO and, therefore, having a tool that allows you to have data-backed keywords based on your unique terms gives you a definite leap ahead of the competition. It is especially helpful if you intend to have long-tail keywords.
Parents always to their children to be their own person, not one of the crowd. In marketing, however the crowd is the market and, as the African proverb goes, you have to follow the bees to eat their honey. Or you can lure the bees towards you, so to speak. Google Trends is can detect changes in queries that relate to a certain topic or entities. Having this knowledge means that you can change with the times, positioning yourself strategically in the thick of the trending topics. If you have not already, then, it is about time you learned to use Google Trends for SEO.
This is a more developed historical archive so that you can see what a website used to look like. This allows you to assess the evolution of the site and, thus, to effectively determine why a site might be underperforming in terms of traffic or otherwise. In a case of a dip in traffic too, the Wayback Machine has all the tools you need to discover what has changed.
This toolbar displays data that is pertinent to SEO. The elements displayed include links, traffic, on-page keyword optimization, social shares, among others. On top of the raw data it provides, the toolbar also has tips that make the experience of analyzing the data a breeze.
In the SEO technical audit phase, the Web Developer Toolbar is one of the more common tools. Its usage might seem quite complex, more so to the unfamiliar eye, but worry not, here is a guide to utilizing it for SEO.
This is a competitive reserve tool that covers both organic search results and AdWords. In addition to the usual ranking data, SEMRush also shows keyword volume and keyword value data results. It is a tool that you can use with Google, Bing, and other region-specific search results. This ensures that you know what the competition is up to, enabling you to gain the upper hand.
This is an indexing simulator tool that shows all outbound links, common phrases and words, as well as the source code to the page in question. It, therefore, allows you to analyze the suitability of the page for SEO.
Eliza Medley is a strategic marketing planner at Get Good Grade and a young blogger from Orlando. She shares her experience through the articles, which are full of helpful tips for readers. You can follow her on Twitter.
Source: 12 Essential Programs for Brilliant SEO
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