What are SEO tools? (a beginner’s guide to best SEO tools)

If you’re reading this post, chances are that you are new to SEO. You’ve learned here and there about SEO, but you still have no idea how to start working on your website and where to start from. This blog is a complete guide on what SEO tools are.

What are SEO tools?

SEO tools are software or online platforms designed to help website owners, digital marketers, and SEO professionals optimize their websites for search engines. These tools assist in analyzing, monitoring, and improving various aspects of a website’s performance to increase its visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) and drive organic traffic.

Different types of SEO tools:

With just a quick search on the web, you realize that there are hundreds of SEO tools out there. each of which focuses on one or multiple aspects of search engine optimization. These aspects include:

1. Keyword Research tools:

Keyword research is the process of finding relevant keywords and phrases that users are searching for in search engines. This process consists of selecting the keywords to target based on their volume, competition, intent, difficulty, etc. We use keyword research tools to set a good site structure, find topic ideas, and so have a good content writing strategy.

2. Technical SEO Tools:

Technical SEO tools assess the technical aspects of a website that impact its visibility in search engines. They identify issues such as crawl errors, broken links, duplicate content, site speed problems, mobile-friendliness issues, and more.

3. Content Optimization Tools:

Content optimization tools analyze the quality and relevance of website content for target keywords. They suggest improvements such as adding or updating content based on user intent and search engine algorithms.

4. Reporting Tools:

Reporting tools generate customizable reports that summarize key metrics related to website performance, keyword rankings, backlink profiles, competitor analysis data, and other relevant insights for stakeholders.

5. Advertising research tools:

You can use these tools to realize how much your competitors are investing in marketing to rank for each keyword. These tools can show you where there’s opportunity.

6. Local SEO Tools:

Local SEO tools focus on optimizing websites for local searches by improving visibility in local directories, managing online reviews, monitoring local competitors, and enhancing location-based targeting strategies.

7. Social Media Management Tools:

Social media management tools assist in integrating social media platforms with SEO strategies to enhance brand visibility and engagement across social channels.

Best SEO tools in my own opinion:

Here’s my favorite SEO tools list. I will explain why I’m obsessed with each of these tools and why you should probably be obsessed with them too. I have ranked these tools based on their features and price. The first three tools on this list belong to Google itself. And so they are must-have tools for every website:

1.Google Search Console:

Google Search Console is a free tool provided by Google that offers insights into how Google crawls, indexes, and ranks a website. It provides data on click-through rates, core web vitals and more. You can trust the data this tool produces because it produces field data which is real data from real users.

2. Google Analytics:

Google Analytics is a powerful web analytics tool that tracks and reports website traffic, user behavior, conversions, and other key metrics essential for understanding the performance of a website. It provides valuable insights into audience demographics, user engagement, popular content, conversion rates, and more. This tool is free!

3. Chrome User Experience (CrUX):

CrUX is a dataset in Google’s Page Speed Insights that provides real-world performance data on how actual Chrome users experience popular websites. This tool is free and strangly enough hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. You can use this tool to assess the loading speed and user experience of your website.

4. Keyword Surfer:

It’s a free Chrome extension that provides search volume data, related keywords, and backlink information directly in Google search results. It’s a great tool for beginners to check the search volume of each keyword for free.

5. Keyword.io:

It’s a free keyword research tool that generates keyword suggestions from various search engines like Google, Bing, Amazon, eBay, and more. What I love about this tool is that you can export 700 keywords for free with each search.

6. Keywords Everywhere:

It’s a keyword research browser extension that displays search volume, CPC data, and related keywords. This tool is not free but you can buy it at a very low price. Using a silver plan, you can get 400000 keywords for just 6 dollars each month.

7. Screaming Frog:

This one is a software. It’s a website crawler tool that audits on-page SEO elements like meta tags, headings, and broken links. It helps in identifying technical SEO issues for website optimization. It’s really good software and is great for finding SEO issues. It’s not free but you can buy it at a very rereasonable price. You can access all the features with just 259$ per year. What’s even better is that before you decide to buy the app, you have access to crawl 500 URLs.

8. SEMrush:

This tool is not free, but it’s well worth it. It’s an all-in-one marketing toolkit offering features like keyword research, site audit, rank tracking, backlink analysis, and competitor research. It only costs 139$ per month. You can use this tool for 2 weeks before moving to the paid version.

The list I’ve compiled above is the list of tools that I constantly use myself. There are other great tools out there like Ahrefs that weren’t listed above because they were more expensive or not tested by myself. If you have any questions about these tools, comment it below. You know I answer each and every comment!