SEO can often feel overwhelming. However, with the right set of tools, you can get clarity on your search traffic and keyword data. This article covers the best free SEO tools available so you can improve your efforts without worrying about cost.
The Best Free SEO Tools
Here are what we consider to be the most popular and useful. Anyone maintaining a site can use these for free, and if they put in strategic work, see positive SEO results from their use. We’ll cover additional tools by category below if you still want more.
Google Search Console
Search Console allows you to monitor your site’s performance in Google search results and informs you about any issues Google encountered while crawling and indexing your site. This is a must for any SEO, and we recommend getting started with it ASAP if you’re unfamiliar.
Why use it? This tool is your direct line to Google. It provides insights on organic search traffic, which pages are the most popular, and if there are any technical issues hindering your site’s performance.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is the backbone of most web data analysis. This tool provides in-depth statistics about your website’s traffic, information about your visitors, their behavior on your site, and much more.
Why use it? Understanding your audience’s behavior can guide your content strategy, improve user experience, and help identify what’s working and not on your website.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider
This desktop software crawls websites and provides useful SEO data on what it finds. The free version allows up to 500 pages per crawl, which is plenty for most sites getting started. Great way to audit your site from a Technical SEO standpoint.
Why use it? For in-depth site audits, Screaming Frog is indispensable. It can quickly highlight issues like broken links, bad meta tags, or other technical issues potentially hurting your SEO.
MozBar
MozBar is an SEO toolbar browser extension. It offers instant metrics on page authority while viewing a webpage or SERP. Features include the ability to quickly assess page authority and domain authority scores, view meta tags, check link metrics, and highlight types of links.
Why use it? MozBar is useful for those who want to conduct on-the-fly SEO analysis. One of its standout features is the ability to view Moz’s authority metrics that estimate a domain’s or page’s potential ranking power. It also makes grabbing title tags and meta descriptions much simpler, or other elements critical for On-Page SEO tasks.
Yoast SEO
Exclusively for WordPress users, Yoast SEO helps optimize web pages by providing real-time content analysis and recommendations, as well as critical tools for content management and SEO tasks.
Why use it? SEO can be complex, but Yoast breaks it down. The traffic light system it uses is intuitive, guiding you to make every page green (optimized).
Now let’s explore SEO tools by category. There are plenty of quality free tools out there, so it would be a waste to only mention the highlights.
Free Keyword Research Tools
These are engineered to provide you with a solid understanding of your keywords and what you should go after.
Google Trends
Google Trends displays the popularity of search queries over specific periods. It’s great for performing keyword research on emerging topics, as traditional professional tools like Ahrefs and Semrush might not have data on them yet.
However, we should note that Google Trends isn’t the best source for most keyword research. It can give you an overview or quick comparison metrics, but for serious research, you should be considering keyword difficulty metrics from reliable tools.
Google Keyword Planner
Keyword Planner is a tool within Google Ads designed to help marketers research and identify keyword opportunities. It offers insights into search volumes, keyword competitiveness, and potential CPC. It’s great for those that only need occasional or casual keyword research.
Ahrefs Free Tools
While Ahrefs’ main keyword research tools are paid, they do offer free solutions with limited functionality. These are useful for small projects and one-off bits of research.
Free SEO Audit Tools
These will help you discover problems with your site that might be broken or causing SEO issues.
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools
This is a bit of a hidden offering, even for seasoned SEO professionals. While Ahrefs requires a paid account for most keyword research, they offer free webmaster tools for those looking to improve their content and fix technical issues.
Woorank
WooRank is a website review and SEO audit tool. While it does offer premium features, its free version provides an instant SEO review of a page, examining various on-page and off-page factors. This tool covers areas such as meta descriptions, keywords usage, mobile responsiveness, sitemap validity, and even social media integrations.
Speed and Technical Audits
These can help with improving your site’s loading times and technical capabilities.
Google PageSpeed Insights
Google PageSpeed Insights assesses the performance of a web page and provides recommendations on how to make it faster. Essential for anyone looking to improve their site speed for SEO and user experience improvements.
Mobile-Friendly Test
This tool ensures your website performs well on mobile devices. Testing and understanding this will improve your sites usability, as well as send quality signals to Google indicating this. With the majority of searches being done on mobile, this is an essential consideration.
GTmetrix
GTmetrix is another popular tool that analyzes the loading speed and performance of a website. By entering a URL, you can get a comprehensive report detailing the site’s performance metrics, such as fully loaded time, total page size, and the number of requests made. The platform offers insights based on key performance indicators and visualizations like waterfall charts, which break down the load order and time of each element.
Browser Extensions
Check these out so you can have useful SEO information on hand while you browse the web.
Check My Links
A Chrome extension designed for web developers, designers, and content creators. Its primary function is to crawl through your web page and check for broken links. Within seconds, it can scan a page and highlight which links are working correctly and which ones are broken.
SEOquake
SEOquake is a powerful browser extenstion with wide support. It provides comprehensive data about web pages at a glance. You can quickly view numerous SEO metrics and fields. The tool also allows users to conduct on-page SEO audits, review internal and external links, compare domains and URLs in real time, and examine numerous important parameters.
Bottom Line
With the right tools, SEO becomes less of a challenge and more of a structured process. Each tool in this list offers a unique set of features, tailored to different SEO needs. Test them out and enjoy the free equipment. ?
