14 Free SEO Tools to Help Boost Your rankings and be the Cynosure on Search Engines
Updated: Jan 21
SEO analysis and data collection are essential if you're a website owner looking for online success. The data collected helps with website performance and marketing, finding new opportunities for growth and your business's overall growth and development.
There are many SEO tools available. This article will list the 14 best online free SEO tools that I have used.
SEO tools help with analytics and technical SEO
SEO tools help with search engine optimization and how to increase organic traffic.
SEO Tools can be used for keyword research, technical SEO, on-page optimization, marketing analytics, and more.
All the data is collected and used in Analytics to determine how to improve your web presence.
Web analytics help you determine how to optimize social media, a website, blog, web page or overall web presence.
Why SEO?
SEO improves on-page and off-page aspects, leading to better organic search results.
SEO Helps With Marketing
Web analytics can be used as marketing analytics combining search traffic, volume, sales, and engagement to help determine marketing budget and strategy.
Marketing improvements can be achieved by collecting web analytics from SERPs to determine how best to optimize your website's content, design and structure to help increase search traffic.
The SEO tools mentioned in this article are free or have a free version that anyone can use to analyze their SEO and create an SEO strategy to increase search results.
The best thing about these free tools is that they are easy to use and provide valuable performance insights.
What is an SEO tool
Depending on the tool, it gives you web analytics data, SEO analytics data, a score, and recommendations to improve your search ranking.
SEO tools can crawl your website and its information, checking for readability, structure, content and use.
SEO tools can also scan SERP results, helping you format and analyze the data to help you make better-informed marketing, financial, product and service decisions.
Free SEO tools are more than enough.
Free tools are more than enough to help analyze your web pages, collect SERP data and get you on your way to creating your SEO strategy.
Free SEO tools are more than enough when starting your business or in your early growth stage. We can always move from the free version and scale down the line.
Why you should use an SEO tool
SEO tools will help automate your marketing, business growth and overall business health.
SEO is a lot of work, and it's hard to manually track and improve your website's search results.
Without an SEO tool, you would need to code, collect and analyze your data manually - that's where an SEO tool comes in handy!
An SEO tool can help you.
Collect search volume data
keep up to date on what's going on in the world of SEO and search engine optimization
Track your progress in terms of rankings and traffic (e.g., while some SEO tools only provide aggregate data, others will give you detailed information about individual keywords and SEO metrics)
Competitor keyword tracking tool
Keyword research tool
Rank tracking tool
Mobile-friendly and speed test
SEO analysis tool
keywords performance tool
Help you gather data to meet customer demands better
Give you ideas on expanding your product or service lines
Help you grow your business
I know what you're thinking enough already; give me the list of the free tools and links to sign up.
Here is a list and breakdown of free SEO tools with signup links - get ready to grow your business online.
Top 10 Free SEO Tools and Their Purpose in Your Life
Analytics tools
"Data is the new oil" - If you are not using data in your life or your business, then you don't know what you are missing; you don't understand the power of data.
The tools I list are great at collecting and summarizing SERP and SEO data.
These free web analysis tools are standard for anyone wanting to use SEO to improve their performance online.
Bing Webmaster tools
Bing Webmaster Tool is a free tool that lets you get your site indexed, crawled and discovered by Bings crawler and see your SEO performance on Bings SERP. It will give you analytics and help you find and review any SEO issues your site may have on the SERP.
Google is not the only search engine out there, so sign up for the Bing Webmaster tool and gain another source for web traffic.
It's completely free to sign up here -https://www.bing.com/webmasters/about.
Google Analytics
Source: GA4 Demo Dashboard
Like the Bing webmaster tool, Google Analytics is a free feature-rich SEO tool for customized measurement on websites, web and mobile apps, and internet-connected devices.
Google Analytics is the most widely used analytics service on the web.
It is user-oriented, providing data from Google's search and marketing platform related to user flow, how they arrive on your site and how they navigate it.
It is a great free tool to help understand how users got to our site and how they interact with it with many APIs, highly customizable dashboards and reporting tools.
Google Analytics focuses on user flow.
It Provides data on how customers find and traverse your site.
Understanding your customers' journey and how you can optimize and improve that experience is vital in making decisions on maximizing your marketing ROI.
Please get it here: https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/
Google search console
Source: Google Search Console Side menu
Another great free SEO tool. Google Search Console takes your data to a new level, giving you a deeper insight into your customers across all channels.
Google Search Console focuses more on technical information. You need to have already Google Analytics set up to use Search Console.
"it helps you understand and improve how Google sees your site."
Google's Search Console is a free tool that helps optimize your site's user experience.
It measures real-world user experience for the page's loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability.
It checks for mobile-friendliness, HTTPS, and stuff popping up during user interactions.
It provides insights and visibility into how well your information is displayed across the web and connected devices to help people find your site and understand your content.
Find out more here - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9133276
Neil Patel SEO analyzer
Source: https://neilpatel.com/seo-analyzer/
Neil Patel is a well-known authority on SEO. His Neil Patel SEO Analyzer report is an excellent resource for improving SEO rankings.
SEO analysis
SEO checker
Site Speed
SEO Audit Report
Backlink Checker
The Neil Patel SEO Analyzer report analyzes 150 pages on your website for free.
It provides recommendations on fixing errors that could be holding you back from higher rankings.
The Neil Patel SEO Analyzer is optimized for both Google and Bing. So if you follow the report's recommendations and implement them step-by-step, you should see your rankings improve on both search engines over time.
signup here - https://neilpatel.com/seo-analyzer/
Free Keyword Research Tools
Keywords are still the foundation of any successful SEO campaign.
By targeting the right keywords and tracking the performance of your content, you can create a campaign that targets the right audience. Keyword tools can help you do both of those things.
There are a variety of keyword tools available. Some tools give you a list of keywords, while others offer more in-depth information.
The best keyword tools will provide an SEO report on the number of searches for a particular keyword, keyword difficulty, and the average CPC. This information will help you determine the relative problem of ranking for these keywords and which keywords will most likely convert into sales.
In addition to data, you also need a keyword tool that advises improving your SEO campaign.
A good tool will give data on targeting your audience, tracking your progress, and optimizing your website for better results.
Keywords are still an essential part of any SEO campaign.
A keyword tool can help you target the right audience and track the performance of your content.
Here are my current favourite keyword research tools.
Google Trends
Source: https://trends.google.com/trends/
Google trends is a keyword tool that allows users to see the relative popularity of particular words or phrases over time.
This information can help you choose keywords for SEO purposes and understand general trends in online search behaviour.
Additionally, Google Trends offer a "map overlay" feature which shows how popular a word or phrase is in different parts of the world.
You can also use the data to determine whether or not a particular topic is worth blogging about or if it's already popular and, therefore, might be more challenging to break into.
Google Trends is valuable for understanding keyword popularity and developing targeted content marketing strategies.
free to use, no signup - https://trends.google.com/trends/
Google SERP
That's right; Google Search Engine Results Page can also be used as a Keyword Research Tool.
Google is a powerful search engine that can provide keywords from regular search results, but it also has other features to help with your research.
If you've ever used Google to search for something on the internet, you've likely noticed the results page that appears after you enter your query. Here is a collage of some sections returned after a search query.
This page, known as the Search Engine Results Page (SERP), displays a list of results that are relevant to your search. While the SERP may seem simple, it contains a wealth of information businesses can use to gain a competitive edge.
Each part of the Google SERP is a great SEO tool for keyword planning.
So next time you search on Google, take a closer look at the results page. You may be surprised at how much valuable information it contains!
Here is a list of features that can be returned once you make a Google search query. The results can vary based on perceived query intent, location, device, time of day, and even some personal data collected by Google.
Rich Answer
Related Keywords
Rich Results
Rich Card (Mobile)
Knowledge Card
Knowledge Graph
Knowledge Panel
Local 3-Pack (Map, list of three local businesses as rich results)
Image Packs
Video thumbnail
Sitelinks
Vertical Search
People Also Ask
News Pack
Twitter results
Top Stories
Featured Snippets
Paragraph
Numbered list
Bulleted list – information often pulled from listicle articles
Table Feature Snippet
Scholarly Articles
Related Searches
Google returns valuable information through its SERP
Businesses can use this information to gain a competitive edge and to identify customer needs and trends.
Free to use, you need a Google email account - Google.com
Keywords Everywhere
Keywords Everywhere is a browser add-on keyword research tool that provides a wealth of information about keyword difficulty:
On-page SEO difficulty
Off-page SEO difficulty
Trend data
Related Keywords
People also search for
Trending Keywords
Long-tail Keywords.
You can get regional or global data; it is easy to use and provides valuable insights for any website or blog.
It is feature-rich, even for the free version.
YouTube is the second-largest search engine
Optimizing your videos for the platform is essential.
Keywords Everywhere can help.
In addition to giving you keyword ideas, it also provides Search Volume, Top Channel, Maximum Views, Average Views, Average Age, Keywords in Title, Videos Added in the last 7 days, Videos Added in the last 6 weeks, and Total verified channels.
This information can help you understand your competition and your niche better.
The Keywords Everywhere tool also provides a list of the most used tags. The often-used tag feature helps improve your video ranking by helping you understand which tags are popular.
This fantastic keyword research tool is excellent for generating keyword ideas.
It provides valuable insights that can help you improve your website or blog content. I highly recommend this tool to anyone serious about improving their online presence.
If you're looking for a keyword planner tool that is easy to use and provides a wealth of information, then Keywords Everywhere is the right tool for you.
Get it here: https://keywordseverywhere.com/
Answer the Public
Answer the Public is an incredible keyword tool. It uses autocomplete data from search engines like Google to organize your query into a word cloud of potential long-tail and short-tailed keywords. It is an excellent tool for finding long-tail keywords.
The tool generates a word cloud of every useful phrase or question searchers ask about your keyword.
You can use the word cloud feature to get content, blog post ideas, and even to help make business decisions. In addition, you can use the related questions to create FAQs or answer common customer questions.
Answer the Public is excellent for generating new ideas
If you need data to help generate ideas for your business service offerings, improve your content marketing strategy, produce new content for your social media post, or better understand consumer demands, Answer the Public is worth checking out.
Did you know Neil Patel and NP Digital now owns Answer the Public? It should be interesting to see what new features and marketing will go into the app.
Get it here - https://answerthepublic.com/
What about Google keyword planner?
Those familiar with keyword research probably wonder why I didn't mention google keyword planner. It is a great tool with many features, but you need to be running Ads on the google Ad network to take advantage of this tool, so if you ever start running Ads, do not skip this tool.
Site Audit Tools
There are many benefits to conducting an audit. Perhaps the most crucial advantage is that it can help to identify areas where a website is underperforming. You can then use the audit information to make improvements that can boost traffic and conversions.
Audits can also track the progress of SEO and marketing campaigns over time, making it easier to measure the success of changes made on your website.
A website audit analysis a website for various factors that can impact its success on search engines. These factors can include design, content, coding, and more. Audits are performed manually or using automated tools.
Website owners should consider regular audits to ensure that their website performs at its best on search engines.
Best free website SEO audit tools
Detailed SEO Extension
The Detailed SEO Extension is a Chrome extension that is a great tool to help you optimize your website and is one of my favourite tools.
The Detailed SEO Extension for Chrome is a fantastic tool that can help you improve your web presence and grow your business.
It provides quick, easy-to-read information that can help you identify and fix problems with your website's SEO.
Additionally, when you click on one of the menu items, it gives you a further breakdown of your links, headings, images and schema for your site and social.
Overall, the Detailed SEO Extension is a great tool for anyone looking to improve their website's SEO, and it's a completely free SEO plugin.
please get it here: https://detailed.com/extension/
Ahrefs
A powerful tool that can help you quickly and easily assess the health of your web presence
One of the tool's key features is seeing all of the URLs that Ahrefs have crawled, and this allows you to quickly and easily pinpoint any issues affecting your website's display on search engines like Google.
You can dig deeper into any report and gain more detailed information. Ahrefs can even find duplicate content in the Ahrefs site audit report.
All this information is displayed in an easy-to-read format, making it easy to understand and use.
Whether you're a webmaster or SEO professional, the Ahrefs website audit tool is a valuable resource that can help you improve the health of your website -You can also sign up for automated emails of your Site Audit Report.
more information here: https://ahrefs.com/
Google Analytics
Google Analytics again, it is a powerful, feature-rich, multiple data points, data juggernaut tool that can show you what is and isn't working on your website.
Google Analytics can tell much about your visitors and how they interact with your website.
You could use this information for many purposes, such as improving site functionality or designing more engaging pages.
Knowing how users reach your site and interact with it is crucial when deciding when and how to audit your website.
Google Analytics should be the starting point of anyone's SEO journey.
Once your set up and have your reports defined, it becomes an even more powerful tool. The more skilled you are at using the information, the more powerful the software evolves.
Google Analytics can be used to find duplicate content, which website owners often neglect because it's tedious and time-consuming.
Use it to make informed decisions about where to focus your time and resources for the best results.
sign up at Google (you need a Gmail account to signup)
Google search console
Whether you're a business owner, SEO specialist, website administrator, or web developer Google Search Console can help you.
Google Search Console is a free service that offers more than analytics.
This service can help you monitor your website's traffic, optimize your ranking, resolve common errors, and make informed decisions about your site's appearance on Google search results.
One of the first things you need to do for SEO is hook up Search Console to your Google Analytics account.
Search Console is a free platform that allows you to monitor your website's traffic, optimize your ranking, and make informed decisions about the appearance of your site.
Find out more here: https://search.google.com/search-console/about
Free Website Speed Test Tools
A slow-loading page can make a visitor click away in frustration (increasing your bounce rate) and never return to your site again. To ensure that doesn't happen to you, read on.
The faster your site loads, the more likely people will stick around and engage with it.
"Page load time" or "time to first byte" is one of the most critical metrics for your website; it is part of Google's algorithm score.
Page speed and load size are essential factors in determining how mobile-friendly your site is.
A slow-loading or heavy mobile page will have a very negative impact on your rankings.
When you check your website's loading speed, you're testing how long it takes for your page to render in the browser. Your site's rendering time is vital because it can affect how easily search engines can crawl and index your site.
A few things can affect your page loading speed, but the most important is the page size. The larger your pages are, the longer they'll take to request and load in the browser. This is why keeping your pages as lean and clean as possible is essential.
Having a website return responses quickly and easily influences crawling.
With a slow-loading website, you may cause Google's bot not to have a complete indexing of your website, affecting how many pages and how often your website gets crawled, influencing your rankings.
Here are some website speed test tools that work well for me.
Google PageSpeed Insights
Google Page Speed Insights Tool is a great way to see how fast your website loads and if it's mobile-friendly. It measures the time a user enters a URL to when the site is rendered and ready to accept input.
Go to the website and enter the URL of the site you want to test, and it'll give you a health score for the performance of your website on Google.
Get it here: https://pagespeed.web.dev/
Webpagetest
Webpagetest is a free website page test tool that provides you with an in-depth analysis of how fast your site loads.
They have servers in different regions worldwide, so if you want to see how fast your web pages load for visitors in other countries, this tool is perfect for you.
Get it here: https://www.webpagetest.org/
Pingdom
The Pingdom Website Speed Test is another great free option for testing how quickly your web pages load on desktop and mobile devices, and it also gives you tips on how to make improvements.
Get it here: https://tools.pingdom.com/
Backlink Checker Tool
Link Building
The more referring domains you have towards your site and the higher quality these sites are, the more your website Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness (E-A-T) increase and the better your chance of ranking well on search engines.
As you may have guessed from their name, a Backlink Checker Tool checks your website's backlinks.
A backlink is an incoming hyperlink from a referring domain (Referring domains are the websites your backlinks are coming from).
Getting good backlinks is still essential for SEO in 2022. It's a process that involves getting other websites to link back to your website. The number of backlinks directly correlates to how high your website will rank in SERPs.
A good backlink is a referring domain that receives many visitors whose website content is related to yours, or you could potentially receive customers.
The number of backlinks you have helps with the authority of your website
The more quality links you have to your website, the more Google will feel that your site has valuable content to share, and the more your website authority will increase.
There are many ways to gain backlinks.
You can create helpful content that others will want to link
You can build tools users want to link to and use again
email outreach to other websites and influencers
Broken link building
Or get creative and do something no one else has thought of.
Backlinks are essential for SEO
I am new to backlink building at the time of writing this article, so I won't say much more on the subject for now, only that it is something that you should look into and make part of your SEO efforts.
It is still a key feature of increasing your Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness (E-A-T), thus your SERP ranking.
Best free All-In-One Tools
All-in-one SEO tools cover everything from keyword research and website analytics to link building and social media analysis and monitoring.
They're typically more affordable than purchasing multiple individual tools. So if you're looking for a one-stop shop for your digital marketing needs, all-in-one SEO tools are worth considering.
There's no shortage of SEO tools on the market these days
Knowing which is right for your business can be complicated with many options.
That's where all-in-one SEO tools come in. These tools provide everything you need to develop and implement a successful digital marketing strategy.
Here are some of the All-In-One SEO tools I have used over the years to create successful campaigns.
The free versions work well enough to get you started before you transition to the full versions.
SEMRush
With so many features, it's no wonder SEMrush is one of the most popular SEO tools on the market.
SEMrush is a powerful SEO tool that can give you an extensive look into your website and web presence on search engines.
In addition to SEO, SEMRUSH can be used for content marketing, market research, social media marketing, and search engine reputation management.
If you're looking to take your website to the next level, SEMrush is a great option.
Use it here: https://www.semrush.com/
Ahrefs
Everything you need to get started with SEO.
Ahrefs is a feature-rich suite of SEO tools suitable for the do-it-yourselfer or the SEO professional.
You have to sign up to use the tool. Once you're signed up, you have a lot of tools and analytics for a free software tool.
If you're not using this one yet, I recommend checking out their free version.
Signup here: https://ahrefs.com/site-audit - You will have to verify ownership of your site.
Moz
Moz offers a variety of features to help users track their progress and improve their web presence.
For example, MozBar ( Their chrome extension) allows users to see SEO data for each website they visit or search query results.
Moz is said to have the largest community of SEOs on the planet
It shows in the quality and amount of features their free SEO software contains. All the tools you need to find competitors, track keywords, find duplicate content and link-building.
Moz is a fantastic suite of free tools that includes a Competitive research explorer, Link Keyword explorer, Domain analysis feature, Moz Bar and more.
Get it here: https://moz.com/free-seo-tools
Conclusion
There are many more free SEO tools available online, and I have listed a few of the go-to tools I have used over the years to help my clients reach number one on Google and Bings SERP.
These fourteen free SEO tools have helped me automate client research, improve client search rankings, and craft a digital marketing plan that wins clients and drives sales.
Ultimately, the best free SEO tool for you depends on what you're trying to achieve and what areas of SEO you want to focus on. But with so many great options available, there's sure to be a tool that fits your needs perfectly!
And if you need help putting together a solid SEO or marketing strategy. Just let us know what you need - we'll help you take your business to the next level.