Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a simple word that holds a lot of meaning when you want your website to rank higher on Google or any other search engine results. Most commonly referred to as SEO best practices. This unique process can help you gain more visitors and traffic to your website. SEO is not just a practice but a process that has many underlying elements. From tailoring your content to reach a wider audience by using keywords, or optimizing your website for traffic. SEO has become an integral part when you want results.
SEO tools can enable you to strengthen your SEO strategy and make it stronger. With the use of accurate and correct tools, you can gain insights that can be groundbreaking in determining your marketing strategy. SEO not only benefits your website and business by giving you better traffic. But this process can also be utilized to see what your competitors are doing, and how you can outmatch them.
People looking for any kind of information are likely to stay on the first page of results. And that makes the use of these tools even more essential. Before actually working on improving your SEO strategy. It is important to understand that SEO works a bit like a puzzle. You will have to piece a lot of elements together in the right way to create a successful SEO strategy, and SEO tools allow you to do just that.
These tools can assist you in optimizing the content on your website. And also save you time and money on manual SEO audits. You can track your progress and KPIs in real-time to find any discrepancies and fix them along the way. Since SEO has become an important part of marketing, we decided to curate a list of top free SEO tools that you can use to rank your website higher. We tried and tested these tools, and this list contains the best free SEO tools that actually work.
1. Google Analytics
Google search is among the most used search engines in the world. Most users prefer to use Google for their search, and that means the most search traffic is also on Google. Although Google Analytics may not strictly be an SEO tool, this tool should be used by every SEO professional. This arrow should be in your quiver when you are trying to appear on the first page of Google search results.
Google Analytics is a free SEO tool that offers a dashboard to allow seamless control over numerous Google Search settings and other services like Search Console and Data Studio. With this tool, any SEO professional can do intuitive tracking of their Google AdWords account and all the other important marketing data that is scattered across your Google applications. This tool offers reliable insights on your website’s data like traffic sources, time on site, bounce rate, page speed, etc.
You will also find several unique features with this tool like Audience Reports. These can provide you valuable insights about your website including who your audience is and what they want. Other interesting features are Campaign Parament tracking allowing you to see the performance of your campaign. And Goal Tracking that lets you track your conversions. One of the most interesting things about Google Analytics is that all this data is collected by Google. This means you can rely on it, unlike other analytics tools that collect data from unreliable sources.
2. Bing Webmaster Tools
Although Google is the most used search engine, other search engines like Bing also get a decent amount of attention. So, in the quest of using the best, you shouldn’t forget about other channels that can also play a significant role in improving your SEO. Bing Webmaster Tools are some of the best free SEO tools that can positively impact your SEO and the overall ranking of your website.
This tool also offers an intuitive dashboard. With other features like diagnostic tools to address the weakness of your SEO strategy, easy report configuration that lets you track your SEO results over time. It also has a notification system that is easily configurable that will keep a track of your Bing account in real-time. This tool is the perfect alternative for Google Search Console.
3. Google PageSpeed Insights
This is an easy-to-use tool that lets you check the speed and performance of your website. Using this tool is extremely easy too.
To use this, just enter the URL of your website and it will check your site’s speed and performance for both the desktop and mobile versions. This tool then grades the performance of your website from 0 to 100. This tool will tell you the exact speed of your website and how long it takes to load using different metrics. It also suggests you measure what you can take to improve your website’s health, performance, speed, along with detailed diagnostics.
The only limitation of this tool is that it doesn’t provide the speed index for different locations, and the GPS fares are a bit limited with this tool, meaning without a waterfall view it can’t offer you the best data. If your website is slow, then you should have a look at our article 20 Ways To Speed Up Your Website to optimize it and make it faster.
4. Google Search Console
Google search console is one of the many tools that Google offers for free, and it is also the reason why Google has become the king of search. Digital marketing professionals can do a lot with these tools, and although it may take some time to get the hang of these, once they get to use these tools, they can offer numerous benefits through their many functions.
This unique tool allows you to monitor the performance of your website in Google search. Just like the Bing webmaster tool. You can even troubleshoot your website in case you have missed something during the audit. With this tool, you can find additional resources to boost the performance of your website and gain success with Google SEO.
This tool not only helps you confirm if Google has indexed or crawled your web pages. But also lets you find any indexing issues within your website. This tool lets you request re-indexing of your web pages and sees other important data like which sites link to yours, and which search terms lead the users to your website.
Google Search Console can also help you with structured data which is a huge advantage for webmasters. This tool shows you where your site needs improvement and even allows you to test your data live. Google Search Console also sends out HTML improvements that highlight the issues of your website like non-indexable content, inadequate meta tags, and descriptions, etc.
This tool also assists you in getting your site links displayed just below the search result. It is a huge benefit when you are optimizing your website for Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). You can get multiple benefits by using Google Search Console, like robots.txt tester, index status, crawl stats and errors, sitemaps, mobile usability, blocked resources, thorough search analytics reports, security issues, data links to your site, international targeting, content keywords, etc.
There are a number of other areas where Google Search Console can offer valuable functions, insights, and suggestions for improvement. With Google, you also get a convenient mobile-friendly test which is an online tool that is a part of Google Search Console. This tool ensures that your web pages look crisp and aligned on different screen sizes.
5. Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is by far the most used tool for SEO planning. Most digital marketing experts use this tool in combination with other Google tools. But if you want you can use this as a standalone tool. Google Keyword Planner will seamlessly integrate within your suite of applications. And allow you to develop stronger keyword settings for free.
This tool can be used for learning about keyword research and getting it right. It is one of the primary reasons why this tool has become essential among many free SEO tools. Keyword planners have received some backlash when people didn’t know that this tool can be used for free. This tool can be run without an ad campaign. This tool shows an approximation of the search volume rather than the exact number.
Using this tool is very simple. Once you have set up your account, you can perform two functions, either find keywords or get search volume and forecasts. You can use this tool for either of them.
If you opt for finding keywords, the tool will let you put a phrase or a term and offer you some keyword suggestions. These can be used within your content. You will also get stats other information like high and low range for the top search result, statistics about the competition in this keyword, and average monthly searches of the said keyword.
If you want to use this tool for forecasts or search volume, you must have a list of your keywords. Just put it in and it will show you the estimated number of clicks costs, impressions, and even CTR and CPC for your desired keyword.
6. Google Data Studio
Google Data Studio is another addition to the free SEO tools by Google. It is known for helping SEO experts and digital marketing professionals by generating reports with data. This data gathered from multiple different and reliable sources. The tool merges the data from 17 Google-owned products, and it also works with several partners like Amazon Seller, Linked In, Bing Ads, etc. Google products that are used to collect are (Google Sheets, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Google Ad Manager, Google Ads, BigQuery, etc.) Although this tool cannot offer any insights on its own. It lets you process your marketing data and present them in an efficient and understandable manner.
7. Google Disavow Tool
Removing harmful or suspicious URLs from your website is essential. You need to take that link down from Google’s indexing. So, it doesn’t harm the performance of your website or your overall SEO score. With Google’s Disavow Tool you can accurately take any suspicious or harmful links down. This tool lets you disavow that link quickly preventing any SEO mishaps or penalties from Google.
8. Moz Free Tools
Moz has become an SEO giant in the current market. They have pushed the boundaries of the SEO landscape and have made it easier for all digital marketers to use the full potential of SEO in taking their website to the top. Moz offers several solutions and tools to up your SEO game, but not all of them come for free. Even though their best tools are paid, you can still find some free SEO tools to optimize your SEO practices and make your website rank higher.
Moz Bar
It is an all-in-one SEO toolbar offered by the SEO giant. This tool allows you to build custom searches and easily find some highlighted keywords on the page. You can even differentiate between follow and no follow internal and external links, attributes, markups, see the elements of the page, and do so much more with this one tool.
It is another beneficial tool that can be used for analyzing links. The best part about this tool is that it not only lets you analyze your own links but the links of your competitors as well. The link explorer also allows you to monitor inbound links which can be an advantage. You can easily trace where your competitors are getting their links, find any spammy or broken links, get the Domain Authority and Page authority score, and even analyze anchor text. If you are looking for an alternative to the link explorer, you can check out Ahrefs Backlink Checker.
Moz Keyword Explorer
You can use Moz Keyword Explorer to find the lists of keywords, analyze them by their search volume, check the difficulty of these keywords, review and sort the SERP details and other predictive keyword metrics, and also perform competitive keyword analysis to choose the best one for your website.
This free tool is reliable and is offered by the best SEO agency. With this tool, you can analyze your and your competitor’s website and find building opportunities for your site.
9. SimilarWeb
SimilarWeb is a sought-after handy tool. This service is used for web analytics that is designed to help businesses in particular. This tool offers insights and data on competitors and client’s websites, including referrals and traffic. This tool also analyzes other essential information of the website like bounce rate, keyword page views, etc.
Users can find SimilarWeb as both free and paid tools. However, the free version only has a few limited features and can only offer few results. With the free version users only get five results per metric, three months of web traffic data, and one month of mobile app data.
The paid version is a bit advanced. It gives users unlimited results per metric, up to 28 months of mobile app data, keyword analysis, up to three years of web traffic data, desktop-mobile split, and other useful advanced features.
10. GT Metrix
GT Metrix is not necessarily an SEO tool, but a solution that can be used with other SEO and analytical tools. This tool displays the speed at which the pages are loading. GT Metrix also offers ideas and suggestions that can be used to make the web pages faster and more optimized.
This tool monitors the web pages and sends out performance reports. And allows the user to set up certain alerts for when the page triggers a specific condition (like page load, page values, and total size of the page, etc.). These tests are conducted for multiple regions of the website, and it also analyzes for mobile.
Despite not being a primarily SEO tool, GT Metrix is a vital addition to every entrepreneur’s tool kit. This tool helps the marketers manage the speed of the website and prevent Google from ranking down the slow-loading sites.
This tool is unpaid, but you can get a premium version of GTMetrix with richer options and advanced features that will definitely be beneficial for streamlining your SEO game.
11. Google My Business
Local SEO is vital for every business, and you should understand the importance of local SEO. Using the Google Adwords platform is not enough if you don’t take advantage of free SEO tools like Google My Business. This tool has a lot to offer. With Google My Business you can claim your Google Search business listing, interact with users directly through this platform, and even edit and update your listing information in real-time You need to claim a Google business profile that will allow you to perform several other functions. With this tool, you can strengthen the SEO campaign and get results in real-time.
12. NitroPack
NitroPack is an optimization and caching plugin, this tool aims to improve the speed of your website. NitroPack can be used with any type of website, but this tool works best with WordPress websites. This plugin can boost the Google PageSpeed score substantially by working on different aspects of a WordPress website. Speed has become an important aspect, especially now that web vitals have become a ranking factor. Ever since Google announced that web vitals will affect the ranking of the website, tools assisting in speed optimization have become all the more important.
NitroPack is a WordPress plugin with several beneficial features. The most notable of these are HTML compression and minification, JS compression, Amazon CloudFront Integration, CSS minification. This tool also offers features like lazy loading and browser-aware caching. The results provided by the plugin are no short of amazing. Since this plugin is one of the easiest to install and use, this is used by several marketers.
Also, if you are running a WooCommerce store, NitroPack is compatible. You can get this plugin for free and use them on smaller websites that are up to 200 pages. However, if you are looking to use this WordPress plugin on big websites, the plans start from $19 per month.
13. Ahrefs Free Keyword Generator
This keyword generator is a free tool offered by Ahrefs. This tool allows the users to generate over 150 keyword ideas for any search term. Along with the keyword ideas. This tool also gives you insights like keyword difficulty or KD. This refers to the estimated difficulty calculated by the updated algorithm of Ahrefs. This tool also offers search volume insights, which range from 1 to 100 (the lower the number, the easier it is to rank using that keyword).
What sets this tool apart is that users can search keyword ideas not only on Google but on other platforms as well, like Bing, Amazon, Youtube, etc. The keyword generator lets the users search keywords on all English-speaking markets, not only in the US and UK. You can choose from over 170 countries from the menu that is provided in the tool.
14. Answer The Public
Answer The Public stands out because of its new and hip qualities. This tool has a quirky interface and a brilliant concept. This SEO tool has become famous in the market. Answer The Public works by tapping into the autocomplete results of search engines like Google and Bing. They then offer an insight to the user on what motivates each query. The results displayed are underused keyword research. The tool divides these searches into various lists, and the results are presented in an innovative and user-friendly manner.
Answer The Public organizes these accumulated results into related keywords, prepositions, comparisons, questions, and even in alphabetical order. Users can download this data for processing. You can also get a paid version of this tool. The Premium version offers high-resolution images, unlimited searches, report saving, and so on. When working on a new project or with a brand new website. This tool can offer you quick and easy keyword ideas.
15. Yoast
Yoast is one of the most popular free SEO tools for WordPress. Yoast plugin can integrate seamlessly with your WordPress website’s admin. This tool can be used easily by anyone whether they are expert marketers or content creators.
This plugin is not just simple to set up, but it is extremely easy to use as well. Once the users have provided the focus keyword or keyphrase, this plugin analyzes the page or the post to inform you if the keyword has been used enough times. This plugin can also inform you if you have skipped any essential steps like meta tags, meta description, images, etc.
Users can generate an XML map with this plugin and it makes it easier for the search engines to crawl your content. Yoast can also help you with keeping your content reader-friendly by giving you a readability score. This will allow you to improve the quality of your content.
This plugin can be found in both free and paid versions. The paid version comes with several advanced features. However, you can get all the essential and usable features within the free version.
16. Headline Analyzer from IsItWP
The headline is an important factor in describing whether the visitor can be converted into a customer, a subscriber, or a buyer. This factor has the potential to influence the decision of the reader. Getting great headlines that will make the reader click can be a bit of work. How do you know, if your headline has what it takes? The Headline Analyzer from IsItWP is one of the best free SEO tools that are simple to use and can offer you some much-need insights.
This tool will break your headlines, and analyze them from more than one angle. The most important factor this tool analyzes is the readability of the headline, its sentimental effect, and its SEO value. Once it has analyzed your headline, you will get to see a visual representation of the headline and a score assigned by the tool.
This analysis takes several aspects into consideration and the score ranges from 1 to 100. Any good headline will be scored 70 or above. Using this tool you can break your headline and analyze its language word count and how likely it is going to affect the reader. The tool checks for “power words” and “emotional words” which make a headline more clickable.
This tool also shows you areas for improvement if your headline is not up to the mark. The search preview shows you how your headline will appear in the search result to ensure it doesn’t get cut off.
17. Rank Math
This is one of the newest additions to the existing free SEO tools in the market. Rank Math is a WordPress plugin, with over 200,000 active installations. This tool is giving some serious competition to other plugins like Yoast. The best part about this tool is that it is absolutely free, and includes a ton of amazing features that normally come with free SEO plugins and tools.
When compared to other SEO tools, Rank Math sets itself apart because of its rich snippets. You can find around 14 different snippet types with this tool. RankMath gives you some internal linking suggestions, a chance to fix your robots.txt files, and keyword ranking insights that can make all the difference.
With a modular interface and tons of features, this tool allows you to set everything as you want. You can optimize your workflow and your website with Rank Math.
18. SERProbot
This tool is often used to check the ranking position of websites on search engines. SERProbot is a free tool that lets you check the ranking of your own website or even your competitor’s. You can check up to five keywords at the same time with this tool. Although you may not be able to get detailed information about the rankings, this tool is a great option for conducting simple checks and insights. The best part is anyone can use this tool without registering.
19. SEMRush
SEMRush tool comes with both free and premium versions. This tool has been trusted by many SEO experts, marketers, and site specialists. Users who are managing only a single website, and want to keep a track of their SEO practices in an all-in-one intuitive platform, shouldn’t ignore SEMRush. The free version of this tool allows the users to perform basic site functions like site auditing, domain reporting, keyword reporting, etc. However, if you want some advanced features, you will have to go for the paid version.
20. Broken Link Checker
Linking to other sources in the content sure seems like a good way to increase credibility and authority, but catching up with broken links can have a negative impact on your readers. So, what do you do to sniff out the broken links and update them as you go?
The Broken Link Checker allows you to check the health of your website and update or remove the broken links in a timely manner. This tool scans your website and blog for broken or dead links. It validates both internal and external URLs and offers the complement report of all the errors and linking issues it discovered while scanning.
You get an embedded validation tool that makes it easier for the user to identify and fix these broken links quickly. With this tool, you can fix the dead links before they can affect your rankings, and diminish your search results.
21. WooRank
WooRank is another freemium tool that can help you with your SERP rankings. The free version of this tool allows the users to track up to 15 keywords, and the site crawl tool can offer crawl data for up to 50 pages. With the free version, you can also check one of your competitor’s websites and compare your results with theirs to find pitfalls and areas for improvement.
Users can also integrate this tool with Google Search Console and Google Analytics, which makes this tool all the more powerful and you can get credible data using all three of them combined. You can also find unique features like automatic uptime notifications, in case your website is down. This feature is not seen in many free SEO tools.
You can use the WooRank browser extension for quick insights. The extension works on both Firefox and Google Chrome, allowing you to do a quick SEO analysis of any website you want.
Final Words
With all the free SEO tools, you can scan your website and strengthen your SEO campaigns. These tools all have some unique features that can add merit to your website, and SEO practices. Depending on your requirement and website, you can find tools that work for you, and allow you to manage your website more optimally.
SEO has become fundamental in getting your website in front of the right audience, and these tools provide assistance in the long quest of ranking. Some of these tools may directly help your website rank higher, while others help you optimize other areas like content and images which help you in creating authority.
No matter what their role, these tools are sure to assist you in your SEO practices, and if you need you can also get outside help in managing the SEO of your website.