SEO is known as the art and science of getting a high ranking in search engines. When you do SEO, you cannot just focus on one and leave out the other. This means that you cannot just create awesome content without observing the technical aspects of SEO. Similarly, you will not gain a high ranking if you focus too much on the science of SEO and forget to give quality information to your audience.
There needs to be a balance in SEO. If you are already confident with your creative skills to construct informative and relatable content, the next thing you need to do is to back it up with useful SEO technical tools to ensure that your content does not only look good for your audience but it would also be interesting for the search engine crawlers.
In this article, we will focus on the vital tools that will help complete your SEO strategies. Generally, there are six main categories that SEO tools fall into:
- Keyword Analysis
- Ranking
- Content
- Link Building
- Link Removal
- Technical
Keyword Analysis
All SEO strategies start with the right keywords. Essentially, it is not possible to rank on search engines if you do not research the right keywords to focus on. In fact, keyword research is considered half of the process!
Efficiently finding the correct keywords to focus on will dictate the next plan of action in your SEO strategy. It will help the audience land on your site. If are ready to start your SEO journey, here are some great tools to determine the fitting keywords for your content.
- FREE: Ubersuggest
- FREEMIUM: Term Explorer
- PAID: SEMrush
Ranking
In SEO, it is also very important that you regularly monitor your current rankings in search engines. First of all, knowing where you are positioned will give a lot of insights on which strategies are effective and which ones need improvement or need to go. Ultimately, this will result in a maximized ROI and traffic improvement.
However, this is not to say that you should spend long hours going through every single page in the search results to find your ranking. There are effective tools that can help this part time-saving and easier. Explore tools like the Google Search Console and Authority Labs to get more accurate and intensive reports of your real-time rankings.
Content
Like we said above, SEO is not only a science. You also need to be relevant to your audience. You need to provide content that has the intent of offering solutions to the problems of your audience. This is why it is important to always come up with new and unique content ideas to keep your audience engaged. However, no matter how creative you are, there will come a time that you go into some sort of a block.
There will be times when you feel like you are running out of ideas. But, you do not have to worry! There are amazing tools to help you find interesting topics and ideas for your next content.
- FREE: Outdated Content Finder
- FREEMIUM: Yoast Plugin (WordPress)
- PAID: Buzzsumo
Link Building
Recently, many SEO experts and practitioners are stopping their link building strategies ever since Google made a major overhaul of their algorithms. The new algorithm puts the priority on websites that provide useful information and better experience to users, rendering the efforts of building links futile.
However, this is not to say that link building is completely dead. Backlinks still remain as one of the biggest contributing factors in building the credibility of your website. Here is a complete and insightful list of the best link building and analysis tools.
Link Removal
This part of SEO is what most experts dread. However, there are times when it becomes important especially if your website is one of those that have been penalized by the new Google Penguin algorithm.
It can take a huge chunk of your time and even then, you would not be a hundred percent sure that you have completely fixed erratic links. Thankfully, there are tools like Disavow and CognitiveSEO to help things become easier and faster.
Technical
This is considered the most advanced stage of SEO. It takes a lot of high-level skills to be able to explore the back-end part of the website and fix the technical issues that affect the rankings of the site. You can try exploring these tools if you are getting ready to dive into technical SEO anytime soon.
- FREE: WooRank
- FREEMIUM: Screaming Frog
- PAID: DeepCrawl
In Conclusion
There are still a lot of tools out there with specific functions and features that you may find helpful. SEO is all about continuous learning so don’t hesitate to explore more. The more tools you know how to use, the closer you are in dominating the first page of search engines!
Ritu Sharma is the Content Insights Manager at SEO Services Company PageTraffic, one of Asia’s most award-winning & recognized Digital Search Marketing agency. She has been the spear head of many successful Content Marketing Campaigns for PageTraffic.