Are you searching for some new SEO tools to try out? or maybe you are a beginner searching for a complete list of tools and resources that could help you improve SEO for your website. I have created this post to help fellow digital marketers and bloggers to find out various tools for different SEO tasks. I have categorized these tools as per their use such as backlinking, keyword research, onpage SEO, content writing, etc. I have tried to include only active tools with their basic pricing and will update this post every six months. If you have any other suggestions please let me know in the comments section.
Note: Before you start taking a look at the list I want to say that SEO tools are available a dime a dozen. So, I have only listed those tools which either I have used personally or maybe I find those interesting.
SEO Tool or Software Suites
An “SEO software suite” or “SEO tool suite” is something that combines various small tools capable of doing keyword research, rank tracking, search analysis, reporting, provide SEO & content recommendations, track & analyze competitor website, backlink analysis, crawl site for audit, track social media & integrate with analytics tools.
So, these are all software suites for SEO. Most of them are paid but some provide a trial. Every SEO Tool suite is good at a few things and average at others. So, do your proper research before choosing one.
| Tool | What It Does? | Pricing | Where To Find? |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEMrush | A SEO tool suite for keyword research, rank tracking, onpage audit, social media, backlinking, content improvement & ppc campaigns. | Paid / 7 day free trial / Starts $119 .95 per month | Semrush |
| Ahref | Another popular SEO tool suite for backling research, competitor analysis, keyword research & many other tools. | Paid / 7 day trial for $7 / Starts $99/month | Ahrefs |
| Spyfu | Great tool for competitor research, PPC research, backlinks, keywords and tracking. | Paid / Free trial / Starts $39/month | Spyfu |
| Linkdex | A tool suite for content outreach, backlinks and manage various aspect of your SEO strategy | Paid / Free trial / Starts $600/month | Linkdex |
| Serped | For keyword research, rank tracking and backlink analysis | Paid / Starts $79/month | Serped |
| SISTRIX | A tool used for links & keywords by SEO professionals. | Paid / 14 days free trial / Starts €100/month | Sistrix |
| Searchmetrics | Provides valuable insights based on industry researched data | Paid/ Starts €89/month | Searchmetrics |
| Moz Pro | Moz pro is all-in-one suite of SEO tools | Paid / 30 days free trial / Starts $99/month | Moz |
| Site Analyzer | Site Analyzer is all in one SEO optimizer tool | Paid / 14 days free trial / Starts $29/month | SiteAnalyzer |
| Alexa | A popular tool to find new competitors 7 find new opportunities. | Paid / 14 days free trial / Starts $149/month | Alexa |
| Lipperhey | Provides free website analysis, free keyword research & backlink data | Free / Currently rebuilding | Lipperhey |
| Seobility | Provides SEO features for keyword research, backlinks & more | Paid / Free plan for 1 project / Starts $50/month | Seobility |
| SerpStat | Perform site audit, check historical data, & competitor research | Paid / 7 days free trial / Starts $69/month | SerpStat |
| Rank Ranger | Monitor & analyze your's & your competitors website | Paid / 14 days free trial / Starts $79/month | RankRanger |
| Woo Rank | Find new opportunities & onpage issues with site audit & other tools | Paid / 14 days free trial / Starts $59.99/month | Woorank |
| Web CEO | A digital marketing tool for SEO analysis, lead generation & reports for your website | Paid / 14 days free trial / Starts $35/month | WebCEO |
| Cognitive SEO | Content analysis, backlink research and rank tracking for a website. | Paid / 7 days free trial / Starts 129.99/month | CognitiveSEO |
| SE Ranking | Track your website rankngs, find onpage errors & improve SEO | Paid / 14 days free trial / Starts $31/month | SERanking |
| Raven Tools | Complete SEO tools with comprehensive reports to show progress & performance | Paid / 7 days free trial / Starts $39/month | RavenTools |
| Unamo SEO | Advanced SEO Performance Tracking and Analytics Suite | Paid / 14 days free trial / Starts $19/month | Unamo |
| Similar Web | Find the traffic stats, traffic channels & track competitors. | Paid / Free limited features / Paid info via contact | SimilarWeb |
| SeoSiteCheckup | Tool suite for SEO analysis, keyword monitoring & competitor analysis. | Paid/ Starts $24.95/month | SEOSiteCheckup |
Keyword Research Tools
This is a very important aspect of the digital marketing strategy of a website. Finding a viable niche and searching keywords with enough volume that are easy to rank is essential. There are many methods to keyword research and finding easy keywords is an art. These keyword research tools provide a rough estimate of keywords and their volume so you have to take everything with a pinch of salt. With enough time spent on creating SEO projects, you will gain experience which will help you judge the value of a keyword. So, if you are looking for a new resource to find keywords here are some ideas.
| Tool | What It Does? | Pricing | Where To Find? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Keyword Planner | An excellent tool by Google for keyword research with CPC data. | Free | KeywordPlanner |
| Keyword Everywhere | A browser extension which shows you related keywords. 1 credit = 1 keyword | Paid / Starts $10 for 100000 credits | KeywordsEverywhere |
| Keyword Surfer | Another browser extension for keyword research from SurferSEO | Free | SurferSEO |
| WMS Everywhere | A browser extension that lets you find new keywords while your surf | Free | Whatsmyserp |
| Ubersuggest | A tool by Neil Patel for keyword research, rank tracking. A fairly new SEO software suite. | Paid / 7 day free trial / Starts $12/month | Ubersuggest |
| Wordstream's Keyword Tools | It is paid tool that you can use for keyword analysis and long-tail keyword research. | Paid / Starts $49/month | Wordstream |
| Seed Keywords Engine | A very unique tool to find valuable keyword suggestions from real people based on a seed keyword or search scenario. | Free | SeedKeywords |
| Bulk Keyword Generator | A bulk keyword generator for local businesses which generates keyword suggestions based on templates. | Free | BulkKeywordGenerator |
| Keyword Grouper Pro | It is a good tool when you have lots of keywords and you want to divide them into relevant categories or groups. | Free | KeywordGrouper |
| Keyword Shitter | A tool to find various combinations of new keywords. | Free | KeywordShitter |
| YTCockpit | Performs keyword research and keyword tracking for Youtube only. | Paid / $19/month | YTCockpit |
| Wincher Rank Tracker | A tool for rank and keyword tracking. Offers 14 days trial at no cost. | Paid / 14 day free trial / Starts €10/month | Wincher |
| SECockpit | Another tool for keyword research and tracking. | Paid / 7 day free trial / Starts $39/month | SEOCockpit |
| Power Suggest Pro | A downloadable software for keyword research and finding new niches | Paid / $57 Lifetime License | PowerSuggestPro |
| Keyword Tool Dominator | A keyword research software to find keywords for Amazon, Bing search, eBay, Etsy, Google, Walmart, and YouTube | Paid / Price ranges from $29 to $139 | KeywordToolDominator |
| Soovle | A cool and innovatie customizable search engine that provides keyword suggestion from different search engines like Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, Bing, Youtube at one place. | Free | Soovle |
| LSI Keyword Generator | Find longtail and semantically related keywords with this tool. | Paid / Starts $27/month | LSIGraph |
| Keyword Revealer | Another keyword research tool to find long tail keywords. | Paid / Free with limited options / Starts $9.97/month | KeywordRevealer |
| KWFinder Mangools | A nice tool by Mangools for keyword and backlink research. | Paid / Starts $49/month | Mangools |
| SEOmonitor | A tool for keyword research, management and rank tracking. | Paid / Starts $238/month | SEOMonitor |
| AlsoAsked.com | A nice keyword research tool offering keywords in a graphical flowchart. | Free / Currently Beta Access | AlsoAsked |
| AnswerThePublic | A keyword research tool that can improve on Google autosuggest feature. | Paid / Limited Free Searches / Starts $99/month | AnswerThePublic |
| Semscoop | Find variety of keywords with historical data & volume | Paid / Free plan with limited searches / Starts $9/month | Semscoop |
| Long Tail Pro | Another tool you can try to find long tail keywords for SEO. | Paid / Starts $37/month | LongTailPro |
| KeywordTool.io | Finds keyword based on Autocomplete feature of Google, Youtube, Bing, Amazon, eBay, etc. | Paid / Starts $89/month | KeywordTool |
| Google Trends | A fantastic tool to discover trends and find new keywords. | Free | Google Trends |
| Scout Suggest | Find related keywords, phrases, synonyms and questions | Paid / 7 day free trial / Starts $49/month | SEOScout |
| SEODataViz | It does keyword research based on NLP and using various API's | Currently in Beta | SEODataViz |
Some FAQ’s regarding keyword research
Is keyword research necessary? Are they relevant for success in SEO?
Yes, keyword research is necessary and relevant for SEO. Some of the pages or blog posts you find on Google might not seem like they are targeted for a particular keyword. However, as per my experience if your keyword research is on point and content is optimized for that keyword then chances of ranking higher increase dramatically. So, don’t ignore keyword research.
What is the best free keyword research tool?
The best keyword research tool is a myth. Each tool has its own plus point and you can use a combination of tools for keyword research. For example, I use Google Autosuggest, Keyword Surfer, WMS Everywhere, & Semrush in combination for finding easy to rank keywords. Your keyword research game will get better with time and experience. With enough experience and working in a particular niche, you will be able to judge whether with your site authority you can rank on a particular keyword or not. So, there is no best just pick one of these and get started with your SEO journey.
Are there any free keyword tools? & Do they work?
Yes, there are a lot of free keyword research tools as you see in the above list. If you don’t have a budget to invest in a paid keyword research tool then free tools work fine as well. You just have to learn how to use them and judge whether a keyword is relevant and useful to your site niche.
How accurate are keywords research tools?
Most keyword research tools provide you data based on various sources. Sometimes, they are inaccurate but you can use them as a guideline. You don’t need to accurate all the time just get an idea about a keyword volume, CPC, search intent, and difficulty. Don’t go buying or using a lot of keyword research tools, instead focus on one or two tools and refine your keyword research process.
How do keyword research tools work?
Every keyword research tool has its own method or algorithm to judge the difficulty of keywords. As for the data they rely on AdWords API, third-party sources like GrepWords, Click Stream Data, etc. So, they pull data from different sources, crawl the web through their own bots, apply their own algorithm, and then you get the refined data through a dashboard with a nice UI.
Can we do keyword research manually?
If by manually you mean without using any tool then you can use the Alphabet soup method by Income School but that is a very lengthy process. Also, relying on software or tool for keyword research is never a good idea. Just use some free extensions and use your intellect and experience to judge the quality of a keyword.
Content Writing & Editing Tools
Here are some tools, software & extensions that will help you get content ideas, write better and optimize content for your website. Writing better takes time, patience & lots of learning so don’t get discouraged too early. Check out these tools and you may find something helpful.
| Tool | What It Does? | Pricing | Where To Find |
|---|---|---|---|
| Textmetrics | Content optimization tool using AI | Paid | Textmetrics |
| KillDuplicate | Monitor your website for duplicate content & stop plagiarism by others | Paid / Starts €19/month | KillDuplicate |
| Copyscape | Find if your content is plagarized & compare content between urls | Paid / Free with limited queries each month | Copyscape |
| Grammarly | A tool for grammar checking & content improvement | Paid / Free with limited features / Starts $11.66/month | Grammarly |
| Contentbird | Content optimization & | Paid / Free trial / Starts €100/month/user | ContentBird |
| Buzzsumo | Find new content ideas, discover influencers & more | Paid / 30 days free trial / Starts $99/month | Buzzsumo |
| TextCleanr | Clean your copied text of unnecessary elements before pasting | Free | TextCleanr |
| easel.ly | Create engaging visuals like infographic & reports based on content | Paid / Free with limited options / Starts $2 | Ease.ly |
| StoryBase | Find content ideas for your content startegy | Paid / 14 day free trail / Starts $49/month | Storybase |
| Convert Word Documents to Clean HTML | Convert word to clean html docs | Free | WordToHTML |
| RelevancyRank | Check content relevancy and improve website content | nTopic is moving To Relevancy Rank so Pricing unknown | RelevancyRank |
| Text Tools | A tool to optimize content through semantic analysis | Paid / Starts $37/month | TFIDF |
If you want to write quality content then you must focus on doing extensive research on the topic. If you work in the same industry or have knowledge about it then this makes the task very easy. If you outsource your content then hiring a person with relevant industry experience can justify the money spent. A few things to keeping mind while doing content creation
- Do thorough research
- Create a detailed outline or content structure
- Include other media like images, video, infographic, or audio
- Proofread
- Interlink to relevant articles
- You can also use audio to text software like Otter for faster writing
SEO Reporting and Analytics Tools
SEO is very simple but it takes a lot of effort and time to reap the fruits of your labor. One thing that makes SEO interesting to me is the ability to go through the acquired data, analyze it and gain insights. Those insights help me in judging whether the strategy is working or not. So, data analysis is a very essential thing and it helps us to understand user behavior, improve CTR, improve conversions, increase average session time and optimize our sales funnel. So, these analytics tools help you to gather useful data about a variety of metrics, and then you can analyze them to get better results.
| Tool | What It Does? | Pricing | Where To Find? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics | A must have tool for tracking traffic, goals, conversions & other metrics on your website | Free / Paid plan for Large Enterprise Users | Google Analytics |
| Google Search Console | A free tool by Google to measure site performance, fix issues & view indexed links. | Free | Search Console |
| Google Data Studio | A very nice tool by Google that helps you understand gathered data in easy manner throuugh visualizations | Free / Paid when using Third Party data connectors | Googgle Data Studio |
| Bing Webmaster | An alternativce of Search Console for Bing Search engine | Free | bing Webmaster |
| SEOmonitor | A reporting and keyword tracking tool for managing multiple websites | Paid/ Offers free trial/ Starts €198/month | SEOmonitor |
| Stat Counter | An analytics alternative for people whop want to avoid Google analytics | Free upto 500 pageviews /Paid starts at $9/month for 100,000 page views | StatCounter |
| Matomo | An alternative to Google analytics tracking for people concerned about privacy | Free hosted on your server with limited features/ Paid starts $35/month hosted on their server | Matomo |
| Simple Analytics | No cookie tracking and privacy focused analytics | Paid/ Starts $19/month | Simple Analytics |
| Jepto | A tool for website monitoring and automating data analysis | Paid/ Starts $49/month/ Offers free trial | Jepto |
| Finteza | Comprehensive traffic analytics and marketing campaigns management tool | Paid/ Starts $25/month | Finteza |
| Adobe Analytics | Adobe Analytics for ecommerce site tracking to show customizable visualizations based on data. Some aspects like user pathing and reporting are better than Google Analytics | Get in touch | Adobe Analytics |
Technical SEO Tools & Other Utilities
Another important and interesting part of SEO is technical SEO. Technical SEO is the process of optimizing a website’s technical aspects to suit the requirements of search engines. It involves things like optimizing page redirects, HTML/CSS code, header responses, sitemaps, page speed, user interface, caching, crawling, rendering, indexation, etc. It has nothing to do with content, backlinks, keywords, or social media marketing. As per my experience optimizing your site’s technical SEO can help you get better results in the long term. For a small site, there are not many issues but when we work on a large e-commerce site then technical SEO becomes very important. So, here are a few tools that will help you find technical SEO errors and resolve them.
| Tool | What It Does? | Pricing | Where To Find? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screaming Frog | A very useful tool to crawl your site as a spider and find onpage & technical issues | Free upto 500 URL's/ Paid £149.00 Per Year | Screaming Frog |
| Robots.txt Analyzer | A simple way to test robots.txt code if you don't have access to the search console. You willfind a few other useful tools as well. | Free | Robots.txt Validator |
| Botify | Botify is an SEO crawler & analytics that can help you in optimizing your website. | Paid/ Contact to find out | Botify |
| Test My Site | A free tool by Google to provide suggestions to improve based on your site speed and performance. | Free | Test My Site |
| Robots Generator | There are many free tools out there for this task but i like this one to generate robots.txt file | Free | Robots.txt Generator |
| BuiltWith | A very useful tool to find out the technology of a competitor site is built on. | Free for individual site lookups/ Paid starts $295/month | BuiltWith |
| HTTP Header Checker | A nice tool to check status codes, response headers, & redirect chains for URL's | Free | HTTPStatus.io |
| HREFLANG Tags Generator | An easy way to create HREFLang when you are in a hurry | Free | HREflang Tags Generator |
| XML Sitemaps Generator | A pretty simple tool that you can use to geneerate sitemap upto 5oo URL's for free. | Free upto 500 URL's/ Paid from $3.49/month | XML Sitemap Generator |
| DeepCrawl | A technical SEO crawler to find errors and analyze URL's of a website with lots of URL's | Paid/ Contact to find out | DeepCrawl |
| Xenu | A nice free tool for creating sitemaps, check broken URL's, redirections for large sites | Free | Xenu |
| OnCrawl | An SEO crawler and log analyzer | Paid/ 49€ per month/ 14 days free trial | OnCrawl |
| Htaccess Redirects & Rewrite Generator | A great tool by Aleyda Solis for writing htaccess redirect rules | Free | Htaccess Redirects & Rewrite Generator |
| Microdata Generator | A simple tool to generate microdata for local business | Free | Microdata Generator |
| Siteliner | A great tool to find duplicate content, broken links, & creating a sitemap | Free upto 500 URL's/ Paid Contact to find out | Siteliner |
| Seoptimer | An SEO audit & reporting tool | Paid/ Starts at $19/month/ free trial | SEOptimer |
| Rich Results Test Tool | Previously known as structured data testing tool provided by Google | Free | Structured Data Testing Tool |
| Google SERP Snippet Optimization Tool | A simple yet very useful tool to create meta title, descriptions & urls | Free | Rich Test Results |
| ContentKing | An SEo auditing and monitoring tool | Paid/ Starts at $39/month | ContentKing |
| Mobile-Friendly Test | A way to check your website mobile friendliness | Free | Mobile Friendly |
| Pulno | A toolfor SEO audit, site content analysis, | Free upto 200 pages/ Paid starts at $12/month | Pulno |
| Schema Generator | A simple tool to create various types of Schema codes | Free | Schema Generator |
| Sitebulb | An online web crawler for technical audit of website | Paid/ Starts at £10 + VAT /month | Sitebulb |
| Redirect Detective | In case you want to check the redirection path of a URL | Free | Redirect Checker |
| MobileMoxie SERPerator | A tool to check and test your site performance on mobile devices | Paid/ Starts $29/month | Mobile Moxie |
| SiteAnalyzer | A collection of SEO tools to audit and improve your site SEO | Paid/ Starts at $29/month | Site Analyzer |
| SSL Checker | A simple tool to test the validity of an SSL certificate | SSL Checker |
Backlink Creation & Backlink Auditing Tools
| Tool | What it Does? | Pricing | Where To Find? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs Backlink Checker | A free version of their tool by Ahrefs for checking backlinks | Free/ Paid starts $99/month/ 7 day free trial | Ahrefs Backlink Checker |
| Moz Link Explorer | A tool by MOZ for finding backlinks and other SEO tasks | Paid/ Starts at $99/month/ 30days free trial | MOZ Pro |
| WebMeUp | A toolfor backlink rtesearch with a huge databse of links | Fremium | WebMeUp |
| Monitor Backlinks | A tool to monitor and analyze backlinks for your projects | Paid/ $25/month | MonitorBacklinks |
| SEO Spyglass/Powersuite | A part of SEO powersuite tool that can be downloaded for backlink audit | Free/ Paid starts at $99/year | SEO SpyGlass |
| Ontolo | A prospecting tool for backlinks and other SEO oppportunities | Paid/ Starts$97/month | Ontolo |
| Help A Reporter Out | A tool to connect journalists with info providers.It can get you valuable backlinks | Free/ Paid starts at $19/month | HARO |
| Linkody | A nice toolto track backlinks and find new link opportunities | Paid/ Starts at $14.90/month | Linkody |
| Majestic | Another popular tool for implementing link building strategies | Free/ Paid starts at $49.99/month | Majestic SEO |
| Link Prospector | A scraper for finding link building prospects | Paid/ Starts at $47/month | Link Prospector |
| Remove'em | A tool to remove unnatural and spam links | Paid/ Starts at $99/month | RemoveEm |
| rmoov | A tool for removing unwanted backlinks | Free/ Paid starts at $49/month | Rmoov |
| Pitchbox | A link building and outreach tool | Paid/ Contact to find out | Pitchbox |
| ScrapeBox | A scraper for keyword scraping and link prospecting | Paid | Scrapebox |
| Open Link Profiler | A link audit tools works great although with a small link database | Free limited version/ Paid starts at $69.95/month | OpenLinkProfiler |
| Postaga | A link building and outreach tool | Paid/ Starts $99/month | Postaga |
| Kerboo | A backlink monitoring and backlink audit software | Paid/ Starts at £249/month | Kerboo |
| URL Profiler | A software to audit backlinks and their metrics in bulk | Paid/ Starts $29.95/month | URL Profiler |
Some FAQ’s regarding backlinks
Are Backlinks still important in 2022?
Yes, backlinks are still important for better rankings in 2022 and they are going to stay relevant for many years to come. The search engine algorithms have changed a lot but they still rely heavily on backlinks for judging a site’s authority. The Google page rank algorithm is part of the overall mechanism of ranking sites. So, as long as you are making high-quality and nice relevant backlinks they will help you gain a better footing in SERP’s. Google is now able to read text mentions as well, so if you get yourself mentioned on a big authoritative site then it would also work in your favor.
What are high-quality backlinks?
A backlink that looks naturally acquired, comes from a highly reputable website, from niche relevant content with an anchor text that is useful for the reader is considered a good quality backlink. For example, you are an SEO consultant who wrote a guide on “How to create a blog or website?” and that article was linked in an article from SearchEngineJournal with the anchor text in a sentence “you may find this guide useful for creating a blog easily” then this will be a good backlink for you.
How do I get quality backlinks in 2022?
There are a lot of techniques and strategies to help you get high-quality backlinks. The success rate of your strategy depends on your experience, site authority, the efficacy of implementation, time and money invested into it. Getting backlinks organically is very difficult yet if you have the right digital marketing team then they can improve the chances of that by creating link-worthy quality content.
How many backlinks per day is safe?
The number of backlinks per day to make depends on a lot of factors. If you one of your blog post or product has gone viral then you will amass a lot of backlinks in less time. This is normal if you have genuinely managed to go viral. However, if you have a news website and you spend a lot of money to get a lot of backlinks in a short period of time then this would look unnatural in the eyes of Google. So, the frequency of building backlinks should mimic a natural link profile in that niche. Maintain link diversity and maintain a consistent pace. Anything unnatural or spammy behavior in acquiring backlinks will lead to an SEO penalty.
What is a good number of backlinks?
There is not a definite number of backlinks to gain. Just try to get quality and relevant backlinks and build a better backlink profile than your competitor.
How do I know if my backlinks are toxic?
Run a backlinks audit with an SEO tool and check for backlinks which
- are from non-relevant niches and posts
- from unindexed and spammy sites
- backlinks from spam backlink comments or an overly promotional anchor text
These are some of the factors that make a backlink toxic for your website.
Rank Tracking Tools
Tracking your targeted keywords will help you understand what kind of content and strategy work in your niche. Targeting all the keywords is not necessary but there should be few focus keywords that should be tracked. The ups and downs in your keyword rankings help you understand the impact of minor and major changes you do to your site. Also, when a Google update happens you can measure its impact on your site. So, here are a few tools that make the task of rank tracking very easy.
| Tool | What It Does? | Pricing | Where To Find? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Advanced Web Ranking (AWR) | A nice tool for rank tracking & other features like keyword research & site audit | Paid/ Starts at $49/month | AWR |
| STAT Search Analytics | An enterprise level tool for rank tracking | Paid/ Contact to find out | Get Stat |
| AMZ Tracker | A rank tracker to track your position on Amazon product pages | Paid/ Starts at $50/month | AMZ Tracker |
| Authority Labs | A reliable and accurate software for SEO rank tracking | Paid / 14 days free trial / Starts $49/month | AuthorityLabs |
| GeoRanker | A tool to track your rank based on targeted geolocation | Paid/ Starts at $99/month | GeoRanker |
| Pro Rank Tracker | Another rank tracking tool with nice UI | Free limited version/ Starts at $13.5/month | ProRankTracker |
| Serpfox | A simple easy to use rank tracker | Free limited version/ Paid starts at $10/month | SERPFox |
| NightWatch | Rank tracking with a nice UI SEO dashboard | Paid/ Starts at $24/month | NightWatch |
Speed Optimization and Speed Testing Tools
Speed has been one of the factors in SEO for a long time but now it has become more prominent with the Google page experience update. Speed & better loading of your site will act as a tie-breaker between you and your competitor with other similar SEO metrics. Apart from pleasing Google fast site speed will also help you provide a better experience to your users. Better UX is a very important factor in certain niches and a slow loading page could lead to loss of revenue. So, here are a few tools to help you measure and improve your site speed.
| Tool | What it Does? | Pricing | Where To Find? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Page Speed Insights | Test your site for speed via lab & field data & optimize for better UX | Free | PageSpeed Insights |
| ChromeDevTools / Lighthouse | A very simple yet effective tool to test and optimize your site speed | Free | Lighthouse |
| ThinkWithGoogle | Measure your site speed and performance on Mobile | Free | ThinkWithGoogle |
| GTMetrix | Test your site speed and get recommendations on what can be improved | Free/ paid starts at $10/month | GTMetrix |
| Pingdom Site Speed | Another tool to get an idea about your site speed | Free/ Paid starts at $15/month | Pingdom |
| Uptrends Speed Test | make sure your site is fast and working at duifferent locations | Freemium | Uptrends |
| WebPageTest | A nice tool to test and compare speed of multiple sites | Free/ Paid starts at $9.89/month | WebPageTest |
Local SEO Tools
Getting a business ranked online for a particular geographical area can become pretty tough if there are competitors making good efforts on the SEO side. Local SEO is always challenging but if done properly will lead to a lot of leads to a business. So, here are a few tools that could boost your efforts for local SEO.
| Tool | What It Does? | Pricing | Where To Find? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moz Local | A tool by MOZ to manage and optimize local listings | Paid/ Starts at $129/year | MozLocal |
| Whitespark | A wide range of tools & services for local SEo optimization | Paid | Whitespark |
| Google Business Listing | A must have tool by Google for local lead generation & SEO | Free | GMB |
| BrightLocal | A wide variety of tools combined for local SEO of a business | Paid/ Starts at $29/month | BrightLocal |
| Yext | Another tool to manage local citations and listings at one place | Paid | Yext |
Browser, CMS, Excel Plugins & Extensions
As an SEO consultant, my browser is equipped with a lot of simple extensions like Keyword Surfer, Similar Web, Tag Assistant, SEO Quake, Moz, Grammarly, etc. These extensions make it easy for checking out metrics or doing simple tasks without spending any money. So, I think some of these extensions might help you in the SEO journey.
| Tool | What It Does? | Pricing | Where To Find? |
|---|---|---|---|
| LinkParser Firefox add-on | A Google chrome & firefox extension to check links status of a webpage | Free | Link Parser |
| Open SEO Stats Chrome extension | Get a brief idea of page backlinks, traffic & other SEO stats | Free | OpenSEOStats |
| Google Sitekit | Provides analytics, adsense and other Google products metrics inside Wordpress dashboard | Free | SiteKit |
| Yoast Wordpress plugin | One of the many SEO plugins for meta title, descxriptions, schema, interlinking, etc. | Free/ Paid starts at $89/year for1 site | Yoast |
| RankMath Wordpress plugin | A new wordpress SEO plugin top optimize basic SEO of posts | Free limited/ Paid starts at $59/year | RankMath |
| Tag Assistant Legacy | An extension by Google for testing firing tags on a page | Free | Tag Assitant |
| New Tag Assistant | Now check tags of any website with this new tool provided by Google | Free | New Tag Assistant |
| SeoTools for Excel | A very great tool for SEO experts who like to work in excel in Windows system | Paid/ €99/year 14days free trial | SEOTools for Excel |
| Hreflang Tag Checker | A simple extension to find href lang tags on a page | Free | HREF Lang Tag Checker |
| SERPTrends | Tracks changes in terms yopu regularly search in seaarch engines | Free | SERP Trends |
| Google Lighthouse | Audit your site for accessibility, speed, seo, pwa & performance | Free | Lighthouse |
| User-Agent Switcher for Chrome | Check your website displya in various browsers | Free | User Agent Switcher |
| SEOquake Chrome extension | Check SEO metrics for any page instantly | Free | SEO Quake |
| Highlight Link Types Bookmarklet | Check the types of links on a page ugc, sponsored, or nofollow | Free | Highlight Link Types |
| Link Redirect Trace | Helps you check for 301, 302, & javascript redirects for a link | Free | Redirect Trace |
| Detailed SEO Chrome Extension | This extension helps you view schema, heading tags and other page lvel insights useful for SEO | Free | Detailed SEO |
| Mailtrack extension | A nifty tool to track emails and clicks on your in mail links | Free limited version/ Paid starts at $4.99/month | Mailtrack |
| Search Analytics for Sheets | Pull data from Google search console into Google Sheets to analyze | Free | SearchAnalytics For Sheets |
| MozBar | Check Domain Authority (DA), Page Authority (PA) & Spam Score | Free | MOZBar |
| SEOGadget for Excel | Combine data from Majestic SEO, Moz, Grepwords in excel sheets | Free | SEO Gadget Excel |
| Similar Web Extension | Check any site's traffic, traffic sources & other related metrics | Free | Similar Web |
Useful SEO Tools Made By Google
Google provides a lot of services and tools which could make the life of an SEO expert very simple. For example, I heavily use Google Sheets and Data Studio to keep track of tasks and analyze large amounts of data gathered from search console and analytics.
| Tool | What It Does? | Pricing | Where To Find? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Alerts | Set alerts for keywords to get relevant news and updates | Free | Google Alerts |
| Google Trends | Use this to find new keywords based on trends and validating niche ideas | Free | Google Trends |
| Google Analytics | Track your website, improve conversion rate, monitor metrics, user behavior & more | Free/ Paid for enterprise level users | Google Analytics |
| Google Search Console | View impressions, page speed, links, & other metrics helpful for improving site performance in Google SERP | Free | Search Console |
| Google Data Studio | Link this tool to various data sources to analyse & find insights through dashboards | Free | DataStudio |
| Test My Site | Test your site for issues and make changes to get better Ui/UX | Free | Test My Site |
| Structured Data Testing Tool | Test your site schema and get rich results bin SERP | Free | Rich Results |
| PageSpeed Insights | Optimize your website as per Google's core webs vitals criteria | Free | Page Speed Insights |
| Mobile-Friendly Test | Check your site look and feel for mobile devices | Free | Mobile Friendly Test |
Productivity Tools For SEO
There are a plethora of tools like Asana, Todoist, and more that can help you manage multiple projects. These help in assigning tasks and collaborating with clients. I try to keep everything simple and I don’t manage a lot of sites at once so I don’t need to use an expensive productivity tool for SEO yet. So, here are a few tools that help me in managing one to five websites at once.
| Tool | What It Does? | Pricing | Where To Find? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Sheets | A lifesaver for keeping track of content creation, backlink, keyword research & anything else... | Free | Google Sheets |
| Trello | A tool to create boards with descriptive lists... Use it for content management & collaborate with teams | Free upto 10 boards/ Paid starts with $12.50/month | Trello |
| Discord | A nice tool to make a commmunity and share your knowledge & learn from others | Free/ Paid starts at $9.99/month | Discord |
| Google Keep | A note taking app integrated with gmail...easy way to take short notes or make to do lists | Free | Google Keep |
Miscellaneous Tools
This list is quite short but some of these are useful for SEO.
| Tool | What It Does? | Pricing | Where To Find? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snippet Optimizer | A handy tool when you create meta title, description & URL for a page | Free | SEOMofo |
| MozCast | Keep an eye out on the algo changes and SERP features on Google | Free | MOZCast |
| Multiple URL Opener | In case you want to open multiple URLs at once | Free | URL opener |
| Browseo | See your website from the perspective of Google bot | Free | Browseo |
| Whois Lookup | Find out where a domain is hosted, domain age and who the owner is | Free | Whois |
| Wayback Machine | Take a look at archived pages of websites and how they progressed over time | Free | Web Archive |
There are a lot of SEO tools lists on the internet that are vaster than this one and maybe more useful. However, I tried to include SEO tools that are useful and many of them I have used myself. I will add or remove any tool depending on its usefulness. If you have any suggestions regarding adding to removing any SEO software then please let me know in the comments section.
Very informative stuff. Thankyou.