When it comes to getting found online, most businesses sell their products and services at least partially through organic search. This describes the process of using search engine optimization (SEO) and related SEO tools to appear on the first search engine results page (SERP) under the paid search results.
When you look something up on Google, you’ll receive the first SERP in response to your query. Most people don’t look beyond that to find the information they’re looking for, and Google prioritizes content that answers their questions and provides reliable information. Google wants people to produce content that is helpful, genuine, and created by humans. If you want to rank well on the SERPs, for example, ranking for a specific term like dogs leashes, that means combining the right top SEO tools with your subject matter expertise to craft the ideal page.
When users find your content helpful, they’re more likely to return, subscribe, and buy from you. Your Denver web design agency has put together a top SEO tools list to help you navigate the necessary world of website audit and ranking.
Top SEO Tools to Help You Rank
Use some of the tools below to successfully rank for your desired short-tail (broad) and long-tail (phrase) keywords.
Top SEO Tool #1: Google Search Console
Google Search Console comes to you from Google. It’s the official tool that allows you to measure and report how your website performs in the SERPs. It will also suggest some general improvements and works well with other Google tools such as Google Analytics.
Top SEO Tool #2: Google Analytics
Another official Google resource, Google Analytics works on the back end of your site. It helps you learn about what type of people are visiting your site (both demographics and psychographics) and provides information about traffic sources and how a user clicks through your site. If you’re selling something and/or want someone to stay on your website for a while, this is crucial info to have.
Top SEO Tool #3: UpCity Free SEO Report Card
UpCity is like a ranking report card for your website. Input your main keyword and see how you stack up in six content areas. This is an excellent way to get a broad overview of how your website banks with minimal effort, cost, or time.
Top SEO Tool #4: Internet Marketing Ninjas
Founded by Jim Boykin, Internet Marketing Ninjas represents a content marketing and SEO agency with a uniquely developed suite of SEO tools focused on ranking content.
Top SEO Tool #5: Bing Webmaster
We all know Google and most of us use it, but Bing still captures a percentage of the market. In 2022, Bing captures about 126 million unique users monthly, so it’s also important to optimize for them. Microsoft’s Bing Webmaster allows you to do just that: it’s the Bing version of Google’s tools.
Top SEO Tool #6: Google Trends
While evergreen content is great for long-term ranking, newsjacking and identifying emerging search engine trends over time are also valid strategies. This is a great way to learn what customers are thinking about. Google Trends help you do just that — all for the cost of free.
Top SEO Tool #7: Seolyzer
If you’re looking to find how people discover and navigate your website so you can optimize the site experience, Seolyzer is your friend. This tool helps you uncover any barriers to getting search engines to index your site.
Top SEO Tool #8: SEOquake
SEOquake is a browser plugin originally created by the experts at Semrush. As you surf the web, you can analyze the pages real-time via the plugin.
Top SEO Tool #9: Seobility
Seobility focuses on the web building and design process with an emphasis on sustainability. They’ll check your complete website, too.
Top SEO Tool #10: Check My Links
Check My Links is an extension for the Chrome browser. It will crawl your site to find broken links so you can repair or redirect them.
Top SEO Tool #11: BROWSEO
BROWSEO lets you remove all graphic styling from a website so you can access its content more quickly. In addition to making websites easier to read or scan, it emphasizes features or sections of the page that help it rank.
Top SEO Tool #12: HubSpot SEO Marketing Software
HubSpot is the master of inbound content marketing, and largely defined the term. HubSpot’s tools focus on streamlining your marketing processes with the help of SEO. They have a reputation for being devastatingly effective, but also expensive.
Top SEO Tool #13: Ahrefs
Looking for software that focuses on competitor analysis, link building, ranking, website audit, and more? Ahrefs provides all of these fundamental metrics.
Top SEO Tool #14: Semrush
Semrush is a complete digital suite of marketing tools with SEO at its center. Known for its ability to handle massive amounts of data and alert users to changes in ranking, Semrush’s smart technology, like the “content wizard,” can make content suggestions for you. They now have a writer marketplace and social mention tool, with the goal of being a one-stop-shop for marketers.
Top SEO Tool #15: KWFinder
KWFinder focuses on rounding out your website by providing you with more keyword suggestions to rank for. It’s known for providing accurate pay per click (PPC) data.
Top SEO Tool #16: GrowthBar
Another Chrome extension, GrowthBar lets you provide keyword research right in your search bar. You can access SEO rank, competitive analysis, and more without even leaving your search result.
Top SEO Tool #17: Woorank
Focusing on SEO audits and general digital marketing, Woorank is one of the easiest tools for a beginner to use. If you’re looking for a full suite of digital marketing tools but you’re just starting out, this is a great place to begin. By using Woorank, you can level up your SEO terminology and skills.
Top SEO Tool #18: BuzzStream
Want to get found by getting buzz about your brand? BuzzStream is in that business. With a focus on outreach, BuzzSteam lets you turn your inbound success into successful email marketing opportunities. BuzzStream is end-to-end outreach.
Top SEO Tool #19: Moz Pro
Founded by the legendary “Wizard of Moz” Rand Fishkin (who has since moved on), Moz is all about search engine visibility. Moz was one of the first digital marketing companies to retain users by educating them with weekly videos.
Top SEO Tool #20: Linkody
Linkody focuses on backlinks, which are essential and valuable to your site’s ranking. It pulls data from multiple sources and is best used as part of a linkbuilding campaign.
Top SEO Tool #21: Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Screaming Frog is a tool that scales for business growth. The UK-based spider tool functions primarily as a scrape crawler, allowing you to gather competitive SEO Intel and use it to your advantage.
Top SEO Tool #22: BACKLINKER PRO
Simplify your backlink management, track your links, and get rid of spreadsheets. Backlinker Pro is an link management platform that allows you to quickly add new links, monitor past links, share between accounts and other users, and export active links instantly.
Top SEO Tool #23: AnswerThePublic
Answer the Public is a must-have for content generation. You can type in any topic or subject, and it will tell you what questions people have searched for about the topic. For example, if you type in “Halloween,” it might generate results such as “What should my dog wear for Halloween?” or “What day of the week is Halloween on this year?”
Top SEO Tool #24: Keyword Hero
Working with Google Analytics data, Keyword Hero allows you to determine which specific keywords users looked up to land on which specific page. This is ideal for a granular analysis or page-by-page website audit.
Top SEO Tool #25 SpyFu
SpyFu is a competitor analysis tool. Put your competitor’s URL into the tool and it will show you everywhere they’ve shown up on Google, allowing you to reverse engineer their SEO strategy and process.
Top SEO Tool #26: Seomater
When you’re doing an audit, Seomater is your best friend. It’ll reveal which areas of SEO you need to focus on to most rapidly improve your SEO health. Think of it as CreditKarma for your website instead of your FICO score.
Top SEO Tool #27: ContentKing
You have to sleep, but ContentKing doesn’t. It will alert you in real time to any changes in ranking, quality, or SEO.
Top SEO Tool #28: SE Ranking
SE Ranking is entirely focused on SERP ranking. SE Ranking is simple but dangerous, providing a lot of data in a dashboard format.
Sifting through these tools, most of which require a subscription, can be a daunting task, but the free trials and free-to-use tools will give you an idea of how far off base you are. For a complete SEO audit, trust a professional.
If you’re ready to rank better on Google, reach out to Tag Team Design, your Denver web design company. We will perform a complete website audit using some of the above SEO tools to ensure prime optimization for your content. As we build your site, we’ll work with expert SEO content writers to create natural sounding websites that help you get found.
Ready for your free website audit? Give us a call today.