Search Engine Optimization creates a huge opportunity to drive the most relevant traffic to your site. Make sure you’re getting the most out of your organic web presence with these SEO tools and platforms.
Search engines have a vested interest in providing the highest quality and most relevant content for every query. Services like Google, Bing, and Yahoo crawl the web with bots and index sites in order to display them later in their search results. By providing these bots with the most detailed information about what your website contains, you can increase the opportunity for your product, service, or business to appear organically in search results.
SEO – or Search Engine Optimization – is the practice of optimizing your site’s content and web presence in order to generate more organic traffic for your website.
Companies and sites who successfully execute SEO strategies generate a large proportion of their traffic from organic visitors. One of the main advantages here is that these clicks are entirely free – unlike traffic generated from PPC or paid social media advertising. On average, organic search impressions generate around twenty times more clicks than paid search ads. Clearly generating organic traffic is a valuable asset, but how do you get it working?
Ask any expert: there are a lot of different ways to accomplish it. In fact, there is no simple recipe. Ranking in organic search results is a cumulative effect of a number of small optimizations, and staying on top of all of these checklists can be a daunting task. There’s a cavernous difference in traffic volume generated from being the first search result compared the fourth or fifth result. Complicating things further, search engines are continually refining their algorithms and adjusting how their results are displayed.
Thankfully, there’s an abundance of tools from SEO experts to choose from to help demystify this process. But which SEO tools are the best?
Well, that depends on what you’re trying to achieve. There’s a whole lot of SEO tools out there, each designed to support particular components of SEO. Some are particularly good at helping you plan the keywords that you want to rank for, while others provide detailed breakdowns of your site’s backlinks and how they are impacting your domain’s authority in the eyes of the search engines. In addition, some tools will allow you to research your competitors and ensure that you’re reaching the top of the results page… ahead of them!
While reviewing which tools you need to use, there are plenty of things to keep in mind. When selecting an SEO tool, it’s worth considering: cost, functionality and ease of use, product range, cancellation policies, customer service, and available learning resources to help you get the most out of the tool. Often, these factors aren’t easy to compare uniformly across SEO tools to ensure you make the most informed decision without needing to spend hours trawling through landing pages. At least… not until now!
What type of SEO tools are available?
There are tools available to help you with monitoring your backlinks, keyword research, link building, SEO auditing, competitor research and rank tracking. Each of these are important components in SEO strategy.
Where should I start with SEO?
Generally, the best thing to do is to audit your site and make sure that you’ve ticked off all the technical aspects of SEO. After that, you have a few options. You can start building backlinks to improve your domain authority, or you can strategize about which keywords you want to rank for.
How do I pay for these tools?
Usually tools are paid for on a monthly basis. However, most tools do offer a discount if you buy an annual subscription. Payment options often include credit/debit cards and/or bank transfers – it’s recommended that you double check this for tools you’re considering purchasing. And… don’t forget to add your VAT ID if you have one!
Can my site be penalized for using these tools?
Sites that use shady or illegitimate SEO tactics – often known as “blackhat” approaches – can be penalized in rankings by search engines. However, these tools allow you to tackle SEO through a legitimate and systematic approach. By using these tools to provide the most valuable content you can to search engines and future customers, you’re unlikely to run into any trouble.
Can I add multiple users to the same account?
Some offer unlimited users and some charge per additional user you add to the account. It is best to check with the individual tool.
We include a range of tools in our comparison tables. In these comparisons, you will be able to find platforms and providers that are suitable for small sites and blogs, medium-sized businesses and digital agencies, all the way up to multinational e-commerce sites.
We encourage you to read through the pros and cons of each tool to find the one right for your business needs – there is often no one-size-fits-all approach!
Link building tools: These tools allow you to bolster your site’s domain authority by building links from other credible sites. This can often be a very manual, time-consuming process but it pays off in a big way for sites that do it well.
Backlink monitoring tools: Backlinks are instances when other websites “link back” to your website. Building the number and quality of your site’s backlinks is a key component in building authority with search engines. Sometimes you’ll need to disavow backlinks that come from spammy, discredited websites. These tools will help you keep on top of your backlinks!
Keyword research tools: Every SEO strategy starts with a list of search queries or keywords that are relevant to your services or product. But… not all keywords are created equally. Some simply don’t generate much traffic, while others are highly competitive to rank for. Refine your keywords with these tools to identify opportunities to rank!
Rank tracking tools: Rank tracking tools allow you to monitor where your site is ranking for key search terms. You can also configure alerts for when your site drops below a certain rank or rises above the pack!
Competitor research tools: For every place your site ranks closer to the top, the benefits are exponential. This often means that companies in competitive industries need to keep a close eye on the field. These competitor research tools will allow you to better monitor the search results of critical keywords, and send alerts when your competitors pull ahead.
