The importance of building a good online presence in 2021 can not be underestimated. It may feel like a daunting task with the concept of updates and algorithms completely overwhelming. However, it is vital that you know where your traffic is coming from and if that traffic is relevant, in order to measure if you are reaching your target audience.
Successful online digital marketing strategy is often achieved by a combination of organic and paid traffic, for businesses looking to improve their online visibility in the short and medium term. It is inevitable that online SEO tools will be needed to reach these goals successfully.
Fortunately, there are some great SEO tools out there to help you; some are free and some you will need to pay for. So, let’s have look at 10 important tools, what they are and how they can improve your online presence.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is what is known as a ‘freemium’ service, meaning it is free to small businesses but for more advanced features, there is a monthly premium. It provides statistical and analytical data for SEO purposes.
Analytics is mainly used to track traffic visiting websites and convert that data into custom reports so that the quality of the traffic and the landing pages can be analysed. It can be determined which pages are performing the best and which keywords are being searched the most. Keyword analysis is vital in order to create quality and relevant content for your site and blogs.
SEMrush
SEMrush is an all-in-one solution, with 50+ tools, to measure the SEO effectiveness of your ad campaign. It effectively tracks the following:
- Domain ranking on Google Search’s organic listings
- PPC (pay-per-click) – tracks ads and their position
- CPC – (cost-per-click) – tracks ads and analyses the competition
SEMrush helps clients to analyse and select the best keywords for their campaigns as well giving invaluable insight into effective link building by helping you gauge the DA (domain authority) and traffic of the site you want to link to.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a one stop shop for SEO tools. With software that can audit your website, analyse your competitors, research keywords, track ranking and identify and learn from top performing content, it’s no surprise that it comes highly recommended.
This tool is most popular with:
- Small businesses that manage their own SEO
- Companies that employ in-house SEO professionals
- Affiliate marketers
- New bloggers and start-ups looking to grow their online presence
KWFinder
As the name suggests, this is keyword finder tool, which helps businesses to find the best keywords for their industry. With short tail keywords being dominated by websites with high authority, it is advisable for smaller business to find and utilise medium to long tail keywords and this is where KWFinder is an extremely useful tool. KWFinder provides a tool that tracks ranking of long tails keywords based on a single key metric. It provides useful historical data on keyword searches as well as analysis of backlinks and SERPS.
MOZ
Moz is a website offering tools to help you optimise web pages using the best target keywords so that you can run successful SEO campaigns. By helping its users to identify and understand their target audience better, Moz provides tools which find out how people search for your business so that you can optimise the most relevant keywords and attract quality visitors to your site.
Upgrading to MOX Pro allows you to use additional tools such as a crawler that will look at your site and find, report and fix errors as soon as they are discovered.
Ubersuggest
This tool, designed by SEO professional, Neil Patel, is a free keyword finder tool, that helps you to generate relevant keywords for your industry, with the intention of improving content marketing strategies. Ubersuggest uses the following key metrics for reporting:
- Historical data on search volume of keyword
- Competitor analysis
- CPC (Cost-per-Click)
- Seasonal trends relating to online content and campaigns
WooRank
WooRank is an easy to use SEO audit and digital marketing tool which allows you to track and report marketing data. For example, it can generate detailed reports about competitors and check to ensure that your content is not overlapping with theirs. It gives advice on where your site may need improvement from a content as well as technical point of view and provides step by step guides on how to fix any problems you may encounter. WooRank will also alert you to any security issues you may have on your site. Automated website crawlers and website audits are a big bonus, but more advanced tools are generally for paying clients only.
MoonSearch
MoonSearch is a backlinks checker with a custom made metric called MoonRank. Used to evaluate the popularity of a website, MookRank is a ranking tool which uses a complex algorithm to calculate, analyse and report data on website traffic volume, backlink quality and a domains online reputation.
The detailed analysis covers the following parameters:
- Description
- Provider and location
- Quantity of monthly and daily visitors
- IP Address
The MoonSearch bots crawl billions on webpages with updated data provided on a daily basis. The geotracking tool makes it possible to find which parts of the world a site is popular, which is helpful in identifying the geographical areas to target.
RankMath
RankMath is a free SEO plugin for WordPress designed to help monitor websites on a daily basis: The advantages of using this plugin include:
- Helps you to optimise page title and meta descriptions
- Helps to monitor 404 errors
- Identifies content opportunities by creating XML sitemaps
- Allows users to pick and choose features
- Runs SEO audits
- Fully compatible with WordPress Gutenberg and Classic Editors
So, in a nutshell, the purpose of RankMath is to enable you to make optimised posts easily, in order to get higher ranking results in Google Search.
Yoast
Yoast is another SEO plugin for WordPress with the chief purpose of helping businesses to establish online authority. It is a full featured plugin that helps to optimise every single aspect of a website and works on a sitewide level to customise URL structures and meta tags for indexing. It helps to improve readability and gives insights into improvements that can be made. It basically “grades” your content and offers feedback
Users can set up templates for titles and meta descriptions so that when a new post or page is added, it automatically inserts the information. Although there are many more free features, there are extensions and support available to help you get the most out of this WordPress plugin.
Using this plugin will give you the ability to do the following:
- Connect to Search Console through the Webmasters tools tab
- You can create titles and meta descriptions in the SEO section
- Generate XML site maps
- Customise social platforms using the social tab.
- ….. and much more!
In Conclusion…
Whichever SEO tools you decide to use, it remains extremely important that you utilise the opportunities that are out there to help you maximise your chances of realising your SEO goals. Take time to visit each site and try out the various options available to you.
Alternatively, if you find it all far too overwhelming or you simply don’t have the time, find a reputable SEO consultant who can take over all the hard work and bring a whole new level of success to your business.