Great Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, can be what makes or breaks a website—so it’s no wonder that some companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to make their websites as SEO-friendly as possible. But even beginners can access tools and tips that will put them on the right track for awesome organic search rank. Check out five of our favorite SEO tools that are free for anyone to use.
Google Analytics
If you want to improve your site’s SEO, the first step is understanding the type of traffic you are currently attracting to your website. Google Analytics is a free tool that helps you track how many visitors are coming to your website, where they’re coming from, what they’re most interested in, and more. It can also give you an idea of what type of content is attracting the most qualified visitors. If you’ve never used Analytics before, this post explains a few key metrics you’ll want to consider while interpreting your data.
Yoast SEO
If you use WordPress to manage your website, Yoast SEO is a must-have plugin. The tool works by “reading” your content as you’re creating it and offering suggestions about how to improve it. When you enter a keyword you’d like to focus on into the tool, it will tell you what your problem areas are, what can be improved, and what you’re doing right. While they do offer a paid option, the free version should work just fine for most cases.
Website speed test
Google and other search engines take page loading speed into account when determining which sites should rank above others. Run your website through Pingdom’s speed test to determine if a laggy website is holding you back. The test will identify what specifically is slowing down your site so that you can fix any major problems accordingly, giving you a better chance of ranking well in organic search.
CoSchedule Headline Analyzer
Quality, keyword-rich headlines play an important role in whether people are able to find the pages and articles on your website when they search for a relevant keyword. CoSchedule offers an easy-to-use headline analyzer that you can utilize every time you write a new post. The tool breaks down the words in your headline and assigns a certain amount of value to each. Headlines that use interesting, engaging words in the right combination will score higher than generic headlines that might not sound as helpful to users.
The company recently added a requirement for users to sign up to get their results, but the slight inconvenience is still worth it to use the tool.
Moz Keyword Explorer
As you may have noticed, several of the tools we suggested focus on integrating relevant keywords into each of your web pages. But if you’re not sure what the best keywords are for you to target, how are you supposed to figure it out? Enter Moz’s Keyword Explorer, which helps you hone in on the keywords your website is already ranking for and how plausible it would be to improve that rank. The tool does require a sign up to access it, and free accounts are limited to 10 queries a month, but it is still an invaluable tool for creating more keyword focus on your site.
There is no exact process you can follow that guarantees that your website will rank well organically, but these tools will give you everything you need to get on the right path.
