SEO is not based on guesswork but on hard data. If you want to run a successful SEO campaign, you can improve your results by using a range of specialist tools.
Here are seven of the best tools you should be using from the start to maximise your optimisation strategy.
The first thing you should do as soon as you launch a new website is to set up Google Analytics. It’s free, it’s powerful and it will provide you with detailed information that can help you to make important decisions about various aspects of your marketing strategy, including your SEO.
Using Google Analytics, you can find out how much traffic you are generating, where it is coming from, how people behave on your site and, crucially, the keywords people are using to find your content in the search engines.
While Google Analytics is free, SEMrush is a tool that you’ll have to pay for. It is used by professional SEOs, and it is one of the best tools you can get for keyword research and researching your competitors.
It has many features, and you can use it to find out where you are ranking for certain keywords and then keep an eye on them as they change.
It can help significantly when you are targeting specific keywords, and you can use it to keep an eye on what your competition is ranking for and how they are doing it, such as which pages are linking to their pages.
nother free Google tool, the Keyword Planner is designed for PPC advertisers, but you can use it to get ideas for keywords to target in your SEO campaign as well as the search volume of each keyword.
It’s not particularly detailed, and the paid tools do a lot more, but as a place to start, it’s a great option and well worth using.
Long Tail Pro is another useful keyword research tool. It’s a paid tool that you can use to carry out competitor analysis and research keywords, so you can choose the right keywords to optimise for.
Simply plug in your keywords and get analysis on the top 10 results including info on where keywords are used, such as in the title and meta description, the number of backlinks, etc.
The Google Search Console a free tool from Google that, just like Google Analytics, should be something you sign up to as soon as you launch your site.
Use it to find out if anything is wrong with your site, keep an eye on Google’s latest announcements and get lots of data including things like the number of impressions, clicks, CTR and more.
SEOquake is a free tool that provides you with details on the search results as you are viewing them. It works as an extension in your browser, and it gives you instant information on the age of each domain, it’s authority, links and more.
It’s simple, it’s free and it’s one you should be using.
Ahrefs is one of the most popular tools for SEO professionals. It is excellent for SEO research and analysis, and it provides some useful tools like its site explorer and content explorer tool. You’ll have to pay for it, but a free trial is available so you can try it out for yourself.
Get Help with Your SEO
SEO is not something you can just start up without any kind of analysis. You need to know which keywords to choose. You need to know what your competitors are doing. You need to know what’s working.
These are some of the best tools to help you get off to a great start and continue to improve your SEO over time. Try them out yourself, and don’t rely on guesswork.
As a specialist digital marketing agency consisting of a number of highly experienced SEO consultants, Web Results Direct is expertly placed to support its clients with advanced, and strategic, digital marketing consulting services. To learn more contact us – call us now on 01483 429222.
