Having a good search engine ranking can boost visibility, traffic, and sales.
But improving your SEO can be expensive.
SEO tools can cost hundreds of dollars every month. As a startup, you have limited funds and time. You need a fast, affordable, and sustainable path to increase signups.
But here’s the good news.
There are plenty of high-quality SEO tools on the market that are free… In fact, I use these free SEO tools often, especially when it comes to discovering keywords and link building opportunities.
So if you want to use these free and affordable SEO tools, make sure you continue reading below.
1. Google Analytics
Google Analytics can show you everything you need to know when it comes to your website’s data.
For example, Google Analytics can track every action you make on your website and show you how these actions affect traffic and conversions.
I highly recommend Google Analytics when it comes to tracking downloads, clicks, email signups, conversions, and keywords.
2. Google PageSpeed
Did you know that page speed is a direct ranking factor? The faster your webpage loads, the better your ranks can be.
Google PageSpeed is a fantastic tool to measure your website speed on both mobile and desktop. It also suggests improvements based on Google Webmaster Guidelines.
3. Google Keyword Planner
With the Google Keyword Planner is a free tool that you can use when you sign up for a Google Ads account, you can discover highly searched terms or easy-to-rank keywords.
Google can also give you suggested keywords based on your keywords. These suggested keywords also come with key metrics as well!
4. Google Search Console
Google Search Console (previously Google Webmaster Tools) allows you to measure your website’s traffic, performance, and fix any issues when it comes to Google Search results.
For example, Google Search Console can use the Crawl Errors tool to find broken URLs that will show up negatively on Google.
It can also give you a complete breakdown of your backlink profile as well.
You can also see how your website is performing under Search Analytics. Here, you can track the total number of impressions in your SERPs, your average ranking position, and the click-through rate.
You can also find out which page is ranking for which keywords as well.
While Google Search Console is not exactly an SEO tool, the data from Google Search Console, can help you make better-informed decisions.
5. SEO PowerSuite
The SEO PowerSuite is an all-in-one SEO software that covers every step in an SEO campaign. While the SEO PowerSuite has a paid version, the free version remains one of the most effective SEO site suites available.
With the SEO Powersuite (Free Version), you can:
- Track keyword searches, improve your rankings, & steal traffic from your competitors
- Perform SEO audits & optimize your site
- Discover over 100k competitor backlinks & construct your link building strategy
- Manage your links, build new partnerships, & find guest blogging opportunities
6. Screaming Frog
Screaming Frog is a fantastic website crawler that analyses and audits on-site SEO for you (or your competitor’s) site URL.
Here, you can find broken links, errors, and redirects, analyze page titles and metadata, review meta robots and directives, discover duplicate pages, and generate XML sitemaps.
While the Screaming Frog has both paid and free versions, the free version is available for up to 500 URLs.
7. GTmetrix
If you’re keen to boost your page’s speed, you should try GTmetrix. GTmetrix is a Page Speed tool that gives you more in-depth and thorough information about your site’s speed than Google Page Speed Insights.
GTmetrix gives you an overall site speed score, with a breakdown of what’s good and bad about your site.
GTmetrix also ranks your site speed problems in order of priority. The ranking system can help you can focus on the most important page speed factors first.
Furthermore, GTmetrix also explains problems in detail by outlining why, what, and how you can fix the problem.
While GTmetrix has both paid and free versions, the free version lets you monitor up to 3 URLs and save up to 20 URLs.
8. Ubersuggest
Knowing which keywords are the best for your site is hard. But Ubersuggest is a handy little tool. Ubersuggest is a free keyword tool that can give you suggestions based on keyword ideas.
For example, if you want to rank for an article in the travel niche on Berlin Walking tours, you can hop on Ubersuggest, select the country and database you want to rank in and type in a keyword.
Ubersuggest will give you a list of alternate keywords people search for around the keyword you entered. Here, you can view search by toggling volume, cost per click, and competition for each result.
It’s a great way to build up a list of keywords for your website.
9. Check My Links
Did you know that broken links can hurt your SEO? Instead of manually checking your links, you can use Check My Links to crawl your entire site to find broken links.
This way, you can quickly identify and repair these broken links and improve your SEO almost immediately.
For example, Check My Links will highlight valid links in green.
It’ll list warning links in yellow, and broken links you need to fix, in red.
10. Open Link Profiler
One of the best ways to boost your SEO is to build links. With Open Link Profiler’s browser, you gain incredible data about your backlink profile. All you need to do is go to their website and enter your URL.
You’ll then gain access to your Backlink Profile.
You can also access a list that breaks down all the links to your website. You can access their quality and see where the link is from.
You can export up to 1000 links from OpenLinkProfiler for free.
11. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is one of the most expensive tools in the market. Ahref’s Lite plan begins at $99 per month, while the most popular standard plan is $179 per month.
Thankfully, Ahrefs offers a $7 for 7 days trial for both the Lite and Standard Option.
12. SEMRush
SEMRush is another popular, premium, and well-known SEO tool. SEMRush’s Pro plan is $99.95 per month, while the most popular Guru option is $199.95 per month.
With SEMRush, you can sign up for a 7-day free trial for both the Pro and Guru plans.
I personally use SEMRush to find out what my competitors are doing so I can replicate their successes with my site.
Although premium SEO tools are expensive, most tools offer a free trial or a discounted sign-up rate. While they offer a limited time-frame (e.g 7 days, 2 weeks, or 1 month), you can plan what you need from these tools in advance so you can use the trial period effectively.
Conclusion
You don’t always have to use expensive SEO tools to rank well.
This group of free SEO tools is a great place to start.
They can help you audit your site, improve site speed, analyze data, improve ranks, fix broken links, and assist with other digital marketing efforts. Plus, they’re pretty easy to learn and use.
What are you waiting for?
Get started today!
Editor’s Note: The article is part of the blog series Grow Your Business brought to you by the marketing team at UniTel Voice, the virtual phone system priced and designed for startups and small business owners.
