Why use SEO tools
Today, it’s hard to imagine any online business without proper SEO optimization, because it helps avoid getting lost among thousands of other websites on the internet. People use different search engines with various search mechanisms, so writing content is just a part of having a successful blog, you also need to be found.
SEO management tools are aimed at providing higher organic rankings and maximum visibility. As a result, it all impacts readers’ involvement and your income.
Finding topic ideas
Coming up with a catchy blog post idea is the first step, and it often requires a lot of knowledge. One of the tricks will be to use special software for analyzing popular queries and getting your ideas organized. To validate idea on traffic use the Google Trends or another services.
AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic is a tool designed by the PR giant CoverageBook. It offers content ideas for your keywords. A Pro subscription allows to generate topcis based on additional metrics, such as geolocation, for instance. The tool will deliver a list of ideas, like the one in the picture below.
The platform offers both free and paid packages. A free plan is good for those who only need a few content ideas. A pro plan costs $99 per month and offers unlimited searches, data comparison, language and location-based results, customer support and more. To learn more about how autocomplete influences your content, enroll in this free email course, offered by AnswerThePublic.
Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer
This free tool evaluates how much your headline is emotionally friendly and points out what kind of feelings it triggers. Let’s take this simple headline and see what we get:
As you can see, this headline does not cause any strong feelings due to the EMV score, and it might not motivate users to proceed with reading. Here is a more successful example:
Portent’s Content Idea Generator
This free content idea generator provides multiple ideas for your blog post headlines. Type in one or a few words to get a topic suggestion:
Some ideas are just funny, but you can refresh the search as many times as you want. Isn’t this tool great? And it is free to use.
Hubspot Blog Topic Generator
This is another blog topic generator. You type in one to five nouns to create an independent topic idea. As a result, you get five topics to write about. You can also unlock 250 more ideas after filling in a special form. The topic generator is free of charge.
Competitor research
Tracking competitors’ activity might be a great way to get insights into what happens in the market. The strategy of watching your back has always been important while doing any business. The knowledge of your competitors’ success or failure will make you realize what direction you should move to or what mistakes to avoid making.
SEMrush
SEMrush will give you an insight into any website’s traffic. You will learn where this traffic comes from and how engaged users are with the site.
As a result, you get a full report such as the one in the picture below:
You will be aware of:
- A number of visits
- How long an average visit lasts
- How many visitors leave the site after only viewing one page
- The sources traffic comes from
- Top organic keywords
- Main organic competitors and much more
There are many types of pricing including monthly or annual subscriptions.
- Pro plan for $99 (basic tools + 5 projects to track your site and competitors, and 500 keywords to monitor)
- Guru plan for $199 (extended set of tools, 50 projects, and 1,500 keywords)
- Business plan for $399 (200 projects and 5,000 keywords)
- Enterprise plan (learn about the advanced features and price by submitting an application)
Also, there are annually billed plans that will cost less with a total of 12 months.
SEOquake
SEOquake is a browser extension. It is available for Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari. This free plugin allows you to see metrics for any domain you are researching. With an SEO bar, you can get instant stats of any page. However, if you don’t like additional bars in your browser, you may want to use an SEO dashboard. All the information is one click away.
What’s more, you can also get a full report on the keywords used on a certain webpage and download it in a CSV format.
Serpstat
Serpstat is an all-in-one SEO platform that offers many features and is particularly good with competitor research. With Serpstat, you will be able to see:
- Your direct competitors
- Keywords they use to get to the top of the niche
- Statistics on their traffic
- Their advertising budget and much more
With the simple reports, infographics and visualization, you are going to fall in love with Serpstat. Free accounts have a daily limit of 30 queries. There are also four types of paid plans:
- Lite for $69 per month
- Standard for $149 per month
- Advanced for $299 per month
- Enterprise for $499 per month
A yearly subscription will cost you 20% less per month. Each plan provides access to 230 Google and nine Yandex databases.
Mangools
Mangools is a versatile platform providing many different tools to “spy” on your competitors. Let’s see some of them:
- With a KWfinder, you will be able to assess your competitors’ keywords, their difficulty and other metrics.
- With a SERPchecker, you can gain knowledge of what people are searching for in 52 countries.
- With a SiteProfiler, you will get your competitors under the spotlight, learning all about their traffic, content, backlink profile and more.
You can start with a 10-day free trial. As for the pricing:
- Mangools Basic for $49 per month
- Mangools Premium for $69 per month
- Mangools Agency for $129 per month
With every advanced package, you get more options and higher limits. If you decide to buy a yearly subscription, you will save up to 40% of the monthly cost.
Wordtracker Scout
Wordtracker Scout is a free keyword research extension for Chrome that allows to analyze your competitors’ websites for keywords. The program has a simple graphic interface and is easy to use. It will show high-performing keywords of every website you want to analyze so that you can attract targeted and profitable traffic to your blog.
Google-tailored tools
Google is the most powerful search engine, and all bloggers fight for the opportunity to be shown on its first search results. Google has also developed multiple SEO tracker software pieces to help with blog promotion.
Google Trends
Google Trends analyzes the popularity of the queries put in Google search all around the world. The program checks how much the audience is interested in a search term over time. You can filter results by country, time frame, category and more.
Google Trends is a great tool for blog promotion, as it helps you find the best niche to fit in, related product categories and queries, seasonal trends, competitors’ positions with Google Trends Compare and more. Just set up the necessary filters, like region and keywords, and you will get whole stats on trends over a certain period. Don’t miss out, it’s a really great tool.
Mobile-friendly test
There is a huge percentage of people who prefer to use mobile devices while surfing the internet. That’s why it’s significant to make sure your site is compatible with various gadgets. For that purpose, you can easily use a Mobile-friendly test by Google to see whether your site complies with one of your readers’ essential needs.
Google Analytics
With Google Analytics, you will evaluate your content and understand your customers. As you can see in the picture below, it shows traffic sources, real-time active users, and many other aspects important for your website promotion.
In the end, you will get a complete picture of how people interact with your website, which users are more likely to convert, as well as be able to integrate other Google solutions.
Search Console by Google
This tool allows for checking an indexing status and optimizing the visibility of websites. You will be able to:
- Optimize your content by knowing which queries people usually use to reach your site
- See how your pages are ranked in the Google search results
- Correct the errors occurring on your site by receiving timely notifications and more.
Panguin Tool
This free SEO monitoring tool will help you investigate whether you have failed to comply with Google’s algorithm updates.
So, if there was a regularly scheduled Google update, you can figure out what went wrong and fix it to improve your website ranking on Google.
Bulk Google Rank Checker
If you want to know how high you rank for a particular keyword in a particular search engine, this checker can be of help. You’ll need to select a search engine, enter website URL and keywords that you need to check. Not only is it useful for staying in control of your blog promotion, but also keeping an eye on competitors.
Google Suggest
Google Suggest is a great tool that provides users with ideas for search queries. You must have used it many times: these are those suggestions that you see while typing words in a search bar on Google. For example, if you type in “travel blog”, you’ll see what aspect interests people more.
Google has a complex algorithm taking into account your location, search history and many other aspects as well as current trends: you can check what people are looking for nowadays. Moreover, Google Suggest can help you research on which keywords you should optimize your websites with.
Keywords research
Now, we’ve come closer to the keyword research tools which will help you target your audience better with strategic keywords. Remember, you should also pay attention to the content in general so that it can be satisfying for both people and engines.
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is a free keyword research instrument that allows for a domain or keyword overview for a particular location. In the picture below, you can see the volume of searches for the word “travel” and other related aspects.
Ubersuggest will also help you find keywords and content ideas as well as backlink data and top SEO pages reports.
KWFinder
This analytical tool provides both keywords and domains overview. All the settings can be adjusted by country or language. To use it, you have to log in with your Mangools account. KWFinder will analyze keywords’ popularity, CPC, PPC, KD and other characteristics, as you can see in the picture below. What’s interesting is that the SERP overview stats also show long-tail keywords that are specific to some particular locations.
SpyFu
SpyFu is a great tool to analyze your competitor’s website. What organic keywords does this domain rank on? What keywords does it buy? And what are the estimated monthly PPC clicks?
Every field of research is provided with a detailed explanation of what these measurements signify. If you scroll down the overview page, you will see more metrics, such as competitor shared keywords, top keywords, cost per click, monthly cost, AdWords history and more. SpyFu also has an interesting blog that could be useful for all marketers. There are three plans:
- Basic for $39 per month
- Professional for $78 per month
- Team for $299 per month
With all the plans, you get unlimited access to all the metrics and tools. The more expensive ones offer additional perks like a bigger number of sales leads, domain contacts and more.
Seed Keywords
Seed Keywords is a free tool allowing you to find important keywords by creating your own scenario. For example, you need to know what people usually search for to find a cheap flight to Italy. You’ll be granted a link to send to your friends or contacts to know what they would type into Google. It’s a great platform to explore your audience’s needs and find keywords to use in your articles.
CanIRank
CanIrank is another unique SEO software. It uses artificial intelligence to provide real recommendations for your website promotion. For every recommendation, you get detailed DIY instructions. With a keywords research feature, you will learn what keywords your competitors are aiming at. They will be filtered by search volume, ad value and ranking difficulty. Every keyword research is launched automatically for every project you are running.
There are four types of plans:
- Free
- DIY individual for $49 per month
- DIY pro for $79 per month
- DIY agency for $299 per month
Majestic
Majestic updates its index several times a day which provides you with the freshest data. Type in a keyword to see the pages where it appears and reasons for listing them. This marketing SEO tool offers the following plans:
- Lite for $49.99 per month for one user.
- Pro for $99.99 per month for one user and more features available
- API for $399.99 per month for five users.
The search explorer feature is available in the Pro version only.
Keywords Everywhere
This is a browser extension for keyword research. It’s available for Chrome and Firefox. It works just inside your browser and shows a monthly search volume, cost per click and the level of competition for keywords. Just start typing in the search bar on Google to get related searches. Keywords Everywhere lets you download the reporting list with metrics in Excel, CSV or PDF formats.
All-in-one SEO tools
These are the tools that cover all the aspects of SEO techniques in a single package. If you don’t want to optimize different website parts separately, these tools will make it simple for you. Such all-in-one solutions are designed to manage on-page optimization, rank checking, backlink and keyword research, competitive benchmarking and reporting all in one package.
MOZ
This is an SEO software with more than 500,000 trusted users on board. You can use its web version or download a MozBar to research your browser on the go. It provides:
- Keywords research
- Rank tracking
- Site crawl
- Content optimization
- Link research
- Analytics and reporting
These perks are available for free for 30 days, then you’ll be charged according to the plan you’ve chosen:
- Standard for $99 per month for two users
- Medium for $179 per month for 10 users
- Large for $249 per month for 25 users
- Premium for $599 per month for 40 users
Annual billing will save you up to 20% of the monthly cost.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a versatile tool for monitoring your niche, keeping an eye on competitors and growing search traffic. It is widely used and boasts the following coverage:
Ahrefs provides:
- Competitive analysis. It checks the exact keywords your competitors rank for and the amount of traffic driven by these words
- Keyword research. You get tons of keyword ideas and different keyword research metrics
- Backlink research. Thanks to constant updates, you always have the freshest data
- Content research. It illustrates which content attracted more attention and drove more traffic
- Rank tracking. It produces accurate ranking reports based on the location
- Web monitoring. Tracks everything your competitors do, like link building activities, keywords mentioning, and others
You can buy a seven-day trial for $7 and then proceed with one of the following plans:
- Lite for $99 per month
- Standard for $179 per month
- Advanced for $399 per month
- Agency for $999 per month
WooRank
WooRank is a website review tool and SEO checker in one package. It provides:
- In-depth website reviews which you can download in PDF format
- Competitive analysis
- Marketing checklist (helps you solve the issues)
- Powerful keyword tool
- Site crawl analysis
You can subscribe to a 14-days free trial. There are three paid plans to choose from, once a free trial is over:
- Pro for $59.99 per month
- Premium for $179.99 per month
- Enterprise for $249.99 per month
If you are working alone with one project, you may want to choose the Pro version. If you need to follow up to five projects, take a look at the Premium plan.
SEO PowerSuite
This toolkit is available for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. SEO PowerSuite covers every step of an SEO campaign of any kind.
The best part is that you can get access to unlimited sites and keywords for free. Automatable tasks are run according to the schedule you set up. Branded SEO reports can be delivered to you with a shareable link. The platform also provides:
- Keyword research and rank monitoring
- Site auditing and on-page optimization
- Backlink research and auditing
- Link building and management
As we’ve already mentioned, a free version is good enough and suits those who occasionally check various SEO factors. There are two more plans, however:
- Professional for $299
- Enterprise for $699
BrightLocal
This platform caters to four SEO aspects, such as:
- Tracking local rankings. It runs SEO audits to improve local search performance
- Monitoring and responding to the reviews on many sites to build up a good reputation
- Maximizing visibility with the help of a citation builder
- Converting website visitors into sales-ready leads
BrightLocal provides a 14-day free trial and four paid plans:
- Single business for $29 per month (up to three locations)
- Multi business for $49 per month (up to six locations)
- SEO Pro for $79 per month (up to 100 locations)
- Enterprise, price is available upon request (for more than 100 locations)
SEO audit
An SEO audit is an evaluation of your website according to factors that search engines use to provide organic search results. Since things change very quickly, dont forget to follow the trends. What’s working today, may not work in, say, three months from now because of multiple updates. So, to stay in sync, it’s vital to perform SEO audits once in a while. Below, we’ll discuss tools that you can use to audit the website on your own.
SEOptimer
SEOptimer is an SEO audit and reporting tool. It reviews the pages to help identify problems that can cause failures on your site.
SEOptimer provides:
- Simple interface suitable even for newbies
- Branded white-label PDF reports
- A possibility of customization and setting up any language option and other perks
This tool not only audits your website but also provides recommendations and easy-to-follow tasks to increase your website performance. In the picture below, you can see an example of a website audit and a detailed tip on how to overcome failures.
After a 14-day free trial, you can choose one of the following plans:
- DIY SEO for $19 monthly
- White label for $29 monthly
- White label and embedding for $59 monthly
Screaming Frog
This industry-leading website crawler gathers on-site data to analyze the results in real-time. It is available for Windows, macOS, and Ubuntu. Screaming Frog has the following features:
- Finding broken links
- Analyzing page titles and metadata
- Generating XML sitemaps
- Discovering duplicate content
- Visualizing site architecture
- Integrating with Google Analytics and more
A free package includes basic features and a 500 URL-crawl limit. A paid version costs £149 per year and provides an advanced set of tools.
SEObility
This is a versatile tool, but we decided to see it from the audit perspective because it is really good. The program provides:
- Google rank tracker with daily updates
- Backlink checker and link building tools
- Monitoring and white label reporting
For beginners, there is a free plan with basic options for the management of one project only. Other than that, there are two more plans:
- The premium for $50 per month with a 30-day free trial. It allows to manage up to three projects
- Agency for $200 per month with up to 15 projects onboard (Maximum 100,000 crawled pages/project)
Varvy SEO tool
This website is created by Patrick Sexton, a famous web marketer. Varvy is a great free program with a simple interface to check a webpage’s compliance with Google guidance. In the end, you’ll get is a complete report with the recommendations for your site optimization regarding mobile device compliance, security, accessibility, page speed and more.
Siteliner
Siteliner is great platform for a website SEO audit, helping discover broken links, duplicate content and blog malfunctioning. It is an optimal solution for if you need to check your website performance fast and pay-free.
Lipperhey
This is another website monitoring service, offering website analysis, keyword suggestions, SEO analytics, backlink checker and other options. Below, there is an example of the BBC homepage analysis:
Lipperhey helps to:
- Improve website indexability
- Optimize content
- Track visitors
- Benchmark your website
- Provide keyword suggestions
If you want to manage more than one project and get some additional features, acquire a Pro plan for $99 per month.
Dareboost
Dareboost is a unique web performance monitoring tool that analyzes web pages to detect quality and loading time issues, and it compares your website ranking in terms of loading speed to your competitors.
As for the pricing, there are two options:
- Business for $57 per month
- Performance for $356 per month
Note that you can also configure your own plan, starting from $22 per month, to include only the necessary features and not overpay.
Backlink report
Backlinks are the links that other sites use to refer to your site. These links are important to search engines because they show your site’s “health.” The more backlinks you have on different reputable sites, the higher your site ranks in the search results. But, backlinks from websites with a low reputation can get you a Google penalty. That’s why it’s so important to avoid such issues.
Linkody
Linkody helps identify when you lose or gain links. It also gets insights into competitors’ link building strategy, analyzes your link profile and easily identifies bad links.
Linkody grants a 30-day free trial, then you can choose among:
- Webmaster for €13.90 per month with up to two domains
- Advanced for €22.90 per month with up to five domains
- Pro for €46.90 per month with up to twenty domains
- Agency for €94.90 per month with up to fifty domains
- Agency XL for €134.90 per month with up to a hundred domains
With a yearly subscription, you get a three-month free trial.
Backlink checker by Ahrefs
Ahrefs’ backlink checker can:
- Find followed and unfollowed links. The more followed backlinks of good quality a site has, the more trust it gets from Google
- Analyze anchor texts to see how your competitors optimize their backlink profiles
- Deal with spammy links
- Export reporting to PDF and CSV
- Use inbuilt filters
There is a seven-day free trial. Then, you can go Lite for $99 per month or Standard for $179 per month.
LinkMiner by Mangools
This is a service with 9.5 trillion backlinks in the database. It is able to:
- Mine the most powerful backlinks of competitors
- See the link placement in the website preview
- Focus on specific types of backlinks
- Save the best finds into a list
See the pricing here.
Best SEO tools for your blog
Today, there are many SEO monitoring and measurement tools to choose from. It all depends on your needs and skills. If you wish to optimize different aspects of a website, go with all-in-one SEO packages. On the other hand, if you need tools aimed at narrow research or simply don’t want to pay for the functions you are not interested in, take a look at dedicated platforms.
