Who says you have to spend money to get more traffic?
There are tons of free SEO tools that can help you drive visitors to your site. Sure, you may know of some, like Ubersuggest, but many more options are available.
Are you ready to dive in? Let’s get started!
Key Takeaways
- Free SEO tools can help you drive traffic, aid content optimization, and increase visibility.
- Free SEO ranking software streamlines keyword research and assists with competitor and backlink analysis, on-page optimization, and more.
- Free keyword research tools like Ubersuggest, AnswerThePublic, Google Keyword Planner, and Google Trends can be game-changers for your SEO strategy.
Why You Need to Use SEO Tools
Fifty-three percent of marketers plan on spending more on digital marketing this year. If you intend to do the same, that means using SEO tools to simplify your research and track results.
SEO tools are software that works to help marketers improve their site’s visibility and ranking on search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
With SEO tools, you can streamline keyword research, competitor analysis, on-page optimization, backlink analysis, and more. Some examples of SEO tools include:
- Keyword research SEO tools: Identify the most relevant and profitable keywords for a website with these tools.
- Content marketing SEO tools: It’s important for identifying opportunities and tracking progress. However, you should use them with an extensive content marketing strategy and not as a replacement for creating high-quality and engaging content.
- Technical SEO tools: Find and fix technical issues that may impact your site’s SEO.
- Rank tracking SEO tools: These tools help track a website’s search engine rankings for specific keywords over time.
But first, let’s discuss why they can be a game changer for your SEO strategy and why you need SEO tools.
I get it.
Trying to put together content people need and want isn’t easy. However, SEO tools can act as your assistant.
OK, so they won’t replace the expertise of an SEO professional. But they’ll refine your strategy by giving you better insights and save time with the tedious tasks so you can focus on what matters most.
The good news?
There are plenty of free SEO tools that can help you identify problems with your site and determine what kind of change you need to make.
Let’s look at some of them now.
Free Keyword Research Tools
All the tools in this category help you find more keywords. Many have different ways of developing keyword suggestions, so you may want to check them out.
Ubersuggest
I mentioned Ubersuggest before, but as it’s one of the most popular free SEO tools, it’s worth another mention. It has a free rank-tracking feature and helps you find new keywords. You can access it by:
Following the link, logging in, and entering a URL to access the dashboard. Navigate to “Rank Tracking” from the left side menu. You’ll see tracked keywords, average position, and current search result rankings from there. Here’s an example using my website URL:
You can track your rankings daily for any keyword or groups of keywords for any country, city, or county.
It also saves your data so you can go back as far as you want to see if your rankings have increased or decreased.
AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic soon became one of my favorite free SEO tools, and it’s now part of the NP Digital family. Like Ubersuggest, it also shows you comparison and preposition-related keywords.
I like the tool because, compared to competitors, it visually represents the data and makes information easy to absorb.
AnswerThe Public leverages Google Suggest and finds all the questions people may have related to any industry or keyword.
Just type in a keyword, and it gives you a laundry list of related questions people are searching for.
Google Keyword Planner
Of course, the search giant Google has its own suite of free keyword search tools for SEO purposes.
The Google Keyword Planner gives you suggestions, CPC data, and click estimates.
You’ll also notice that many other keyword tools have CPC data, but they are likely pulling it from Google Keyword Planner.
When using Keyword Planner, look for terms with a high CPC, as they tend to convert well when you rank for them organically.
Google Trends
Out of all the tools on the list, I probably use Google Trends three to four times a week. That’s how much I **** it.
Trends show you what is *** right now. In addition, it tells you if an industry is getting less search volume or more over time.
You can also filter your data based on a specific country or look at the data from a global perspective.
Soovle
Soovle takes the concept of Google Suggest (autocomplete) but for many popular sites around the web. It’s a customizable search engine that pulls all popular keywords on Google, YouTube, Amazon, Wikipedia, Bing, Yahoo, and Answers.com.
Getting a database full of popular keywords can help you rank high in the SERPs. Knowing that these keywords are popular on Google removes the hard work and makes Soovle one of the best free SEO tools, in my opinion.
Free Keyword Ranking Tools
Finding keywords is just one area of SEO. You’ll also need free keyword ranking tools to see how well your website performs. Here are a few of the top ones to choose from.
Google Analytics/Google Analytics 4
You can’t ignore Google Analytics for content marketing or SEO. Adding GA4 upped the ante to capture the measurement of event-based data to understand the customer journey better. Virtually all the actionable and vital data about site visitors, traffic, etc., comes from this critical source.
If you’re not using Google Analytics/4, I recommend starting as soon as possible. No other data source provides high-quality and detailed information like this free keyword ranking tool. To utilize this feature, connect your account to the search console.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is among the best free SEO tools.
Because this tool is from Google, it can tell you about your average ranking per country for any of your pages.
And because the data comes from them, Google averages it to give you accurate information.
You can also go back 16 months to see how your rankings have changed and see which of your pages Google indexed.
Submit an XML sitemap to get started.
Bulk Google Rank Checker
The Bulk Google Rank Checker is a real-time, free SEO tool for retrieving rankings for your website or competitors’ websites.
The tool extracts different search results from mobile and desktop with one click and categorizes keyword searches.
You can input up to ten keywords to see how you rank for them in over ten countries on desktop and five on mobile.
Mozbar
This is probably one of the most popular free SEO software tools around. It has many features, but one thing that makes it stand out is its domain authority checker.
Even though Google doesn’t use domain authority, in general, the higher the authority of a site linking to you, the better off you are.
The MozBar Chrome extension shows you the domain authority and page authority of every page on the web, enables data export, and does custom searches.
Spyfu
As the name suggests, SpyFu is about spying on your competitors. You can use the SEO marketing suite, conduct backlink outreach, perform competitive analysis, and more. You need all the features to boost your marketing revenue in SEO and PPC profits.
Stay current with tracking keywords and outputting custom reports to turn data into customers.
Make better contact connections to build partnerships or generate sales and monitor your SEO ranking to drive more traffic to your website.
Paid subscriptions are available, but you can access the SEO tools free of charge.
Free Technical SEO Tools
SEO has changed. You can no longer just do a few things and expect your site to rank well. You have to do everything if you expect to beat your competition.
And when I mean everything, that includes technical SEO.
SEO Analyzer
I’ve got more free SEO tools to offer you!
If you haven’t already, try running your URL through my SEO Analyzer.
From duplicate meta tags and redirect errors to sitemaps and much more, it looks at every major factor in SEO.
It performs SEO analysis and audit reports, which you can use to check backlinks and site speed. It will tell you what’s wrong with your web pages through the SEO checker.
When you check your website, you’ll see data on monthly Google visitors, backlinks, domain numbers, and competitor data.
And if you register for a free account, it automatically checks for errors each week on your behalf.
Google Pagespeed Insights
Speed is everything. The faster your site loads, the better your rank, especially regarding Google’s mobile index. And, yes, speed is a ranking factor, so if you want to optimize page load times, using free SEO tools is your starting place.
PageSpeed Insights tells you what to fix so your site loads fast on any device.
To use PageSpeed Insights, enter your URL and click “Analyze” for a full report.
It doesn’t matter if you optimize for tablet devices, desktops, or mobile; it will tell you what to fix.
Sitechecker
Improve your on-page and technical SEO by running a website crawler to do an audit on your site. Sitechecker often gets picked as one of the best free SEO tools.
What I like about Sitechecker is you can get a technical SEO audit whether you’re just launching the site, moving a site, or wanting to up your search performance.
Get a complete SEO audit report and a specific checklist on optimizing your website and ranking higher on Google.
Sitechecker offers over 90 more free SEO tools, too.
Pingdom
Things like your server and CDN impact your overall load time, so knowing if your site measures up is essential.
As I’ve previously explained, website speed is essential for SEO. Fortunately, you can find plenty of free search engine optimization software to check page speed.
Pingdom tells you your actual load time and what makes a webpage fast, slow, etc.
With Pingdom, you can pick which location to test your load speed from, and it tells you what code on your site is causing the biggest slowdown.
Aside from its free SEO software, Pingdom also provides a monthly website monitoring subscription.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider
The Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a website crawler that audits common SEO issues to help you boost onsite SEO.
You can use the free SEO tools to crawl 500 URLs, access other capabilities such as URL mapping, and analyze page titles and meta descriptions.
ScreamingFrog lets you analyze the findings in real time, find broken links, and audit your redirects.
It also collects critical onsite data to help you make informed judgments about your site’s needs.
FAQs
What's the best free SEO tool?
It depends on what you need! Ubersuggest is ideal for backlinks, keyword research, and competitive research. XML-sitemap.com makes it simple to create XML site maps, and Google Analytics provides tons of information about how users interact with your site.
What tools do I need for SEO?
You’ll want a keyword research tool, such as Ubersuggest, and an overall tool like Google Analytics to track your efforts.
Do I have to pay for SEO tools?
Not to start with. Many free SEO tools include Answer the Public, Ubersuggest, and Google Analytics.
What's the best free SEO tool?
Google’s suite of tools is powerful and free. Google Analytics and Google Search Console are must-haves.
{
“@context”: ”
“@type”: “FAQPage”,
“mainEntity”: [
{
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “What’s the best free SEO tool?”,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: “
It depends on what you need! Ubersuggest is ideal for backlinks, keyword research, and competitive research. XML-sitemap.com makes it simple to create XML site maps, and Google Analytics provides tons of information about how users interact with your site.
”
}
}
, {
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “What tools do I need for SEO? “,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: “
You’ll want a keyword research tool, such as Ubersuggest, and an overall tool like Google Analytics to track your efforts.
”
}
}
, {
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “Do I have to pay for SEO tools? “,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: “
Not to start with. Many free SEO tools include Answer the Public, Ubersuggest, and Google Analytics.
”
}
}
, {
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “What’s the best free SEO tool? “,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: “
Google’s suite of tools is powerful and free. Google Analytics and Google Search Console are must-haves.
”
}
}
]
}
Conclusion
Tools don’t have to cost money. I got into SEO because it was the free traffic source I could leverage to compete with the big companies.
You can leverage one of the free SEO tools above to grow your search rankings.
If you’re serious about SEO, you’ll eventually need to pay the cash to get the right tools. You can’t do thorough SEO work without a paid subscription to something.
Here are the things that are typically not available for free:
- Heat Maps: If you’re interested in usability, conversions, and SEO, a heat mapping tool like Crazy Egg is crucial.
- Rank Reports: Knowing where your site ranks in the SERPs for specific keywords is essential to good SEO. Rank trackers allow you to see what page and position you’re on and track your rank over time.
- Backlink Analysis: Crunching all the data behind backlinks — anchor text, DA level, site quality, webmaster contact info, velocity — is necessary for any backlink audit. The tools that provide such analysis are sophisticated but usually not free.
Before you start paying, however, I strongly recommend starting with these free SEO tools!
Do you use free keyword search tools for SEO? Which ones work for you?
