What is SEO?

Ever wonder how some sites appear on the top while some at the bottom? That is because the top-ranked sites are optimized to outperform others. How do they do that? Through SEO.

SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is a set of strategies to improve the quality of a website to increase traffic. There are many factors that search engines would want from your site and that all comes under SEO.

Onpage and offpage

Onpage SEO refers to the methods that you use on your site to promote your brand/company while Offpage SEO refers to the techniques applied on other platforms like social media websites and other sites.

E.g. when a site refers to you it comes under Offpage SEO and when you use keywords on a blog on your website then that’s Onpage SEO. With these points settled let’s move on to the SEO tools that will help us implement SEO better.

20 best Free SEO tools

Here are the top 20 free SEO tools for off and Onpage SEO that anyone can use without worrying about the budget.

1. Bing Webmaster tools

Bing offers website and search analytics along with keyword reports, data crawling and keyword research assistance through this handy tool. To keep you updated personalized messages and alerts are sent to you so you know the performance of your page and key insights into what people are looking for.

2. Google Data Studio

This tool allows you to sync your marketing and analytics data in an easy-to-understand visual manner. It turns your data into an appealing dashboard that is convenient to share and analyze. The visualization feature will assist you in making decisions and data imports.

3. Enhanced Google Analytics Annotations

To stay ahead it’s vital to stay updated. That is what this tool cares for. Information regarding how Google updates and seasons affect traffic on your page can help you understand performance patterns.  This Google plugin keeps you aware of external forces so you can take action whenever there is a rise or fall.

4. Google Analytics

This is the most common tool used for web analytics. Why? It’s powerful and works well with other tools like Google Search Console, Optimize, and Data Studio.  The best part is that you get machine learning capabilities and Google insights that are unique to Google. You get information regarding app users and your site’s performance to take steps with better knowledge.

5. Search Console

This is a very reliable and common tool to make your site stand out on Google. With this tool, you get reports about page traffic, issues, and page performance. With sitemaps and URLs data crawling and with site clicks and impressions analysis Google Console helps optimize your page.

6. Google Page Speed Insights

This tool as the name suggests will tell you about the load speed and performance of your site. A site that loads very slowly can lead to users leaving it very soon. To prevent that bounce you need to know how fast your site loads. Just enter a URL and you will get a rating from 0 to 100 by using different metrics.

7. Ahrefs Webmaster Tools

It’s crucial to keep your site under check to avoid time and resource wastage. With this tool, you can audit your page and check for issues. The tool will guide you on 100+ technical SEO issues, will help you in improving interlinking, and will inform you about organic keyword ranking and about who links to you.

8. Answer the Public

Keyword research is very important for successful page optimization. Finding the right one thus becomes a tricky step. That is where this tool comes in with 2 free searches per day it suggests long-tail keywords along with common questions related to that keyword.

9. Ahrefs’ Backlink Checker

This tool helps keep your competitors in check. Just type your competitor’s URL and see the top 100 backlinks, domain and URL rating, total number of backlinks, and referring domains. The process will help you build links for your site and see how others are building their community.

10. Google Ads Keyword Planner

For keyword research, this tool is a great option. This tool requires you to run an ad campaign but once that is done you can enter a keyword or a bunch of keywords for suggestions. You will get keyword strategy, competition, monthly search volumes, and keywords that you should consider.

11. Ahrefs’ Keyword Generator

If you are looking for keyword variety then look no further. Just type a keyword or phrase and get the top 200 suggestions from 10 Billion keywords in the database. What about keyword statistics? Well, for the first ten suggestions you will get keyword difficulty scores along with monthly search volumes.

12. Google Trends

Google trends are like a magazine for SEO fashion. It shows how keywords are performing so you can choose the latest ones. This way you won’t waste time on keywords that do not interest the public.

13. Keyworddit

This tool is for keyword research but from Reddit.  Just enter a keyword but in the subreddit form and get keyword options with monthly search volumes.

14. AlsoAsked.com

This tool takes questions and sub-topics from Google’s People Also ask boxes to help you add variety to your site.

15. Keyword Surfer

This tool gives you monthly search result volumes and global search result volumes for any word entered on Google. Not only that but it suggests related and similar keywords to you as well.

16. Woorank’s SEO & Website Analysis Tool

This tool is very useful, firstly to get the SEO score for your site and to understand ways to improve Onpage and Offpage SEO.

17. Animalz Revive

Updating and improving old content is a key factor to stay ahead. Animalz Revive helps you do just that by spotting articles that require your time.

18. CanIRank

This tool is your one-stop guide to keywords. When you begin keyword research it’s very important to find ones that you can rank for and that is exactly what this tool will tell you whether a keyword can be ranked or not.

19. Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test

Many people search the web through mobile phones now and so your site needs to be mobile-friendly. If you are in doubt then use this tool to get the answer.

20. Seed Keywords

A seed keyword is a clever tool that takes data from customers to see how people research a certain keyword and then lets you know those keywords to grab people’s attention.

Conclusion

In this article, we went through 20 free SEO tools that you should try for your site. From keyword research to SEO scores and from search result volumes to technical issue detection these tools cover a wide area and thus you can start your SEO journey without any worry.

We recommend you go through all these tools and choose what works for you and conduct more research from online resources to understand the tool usage. SEO might be hard but with these tools you are not alone.