10 SEO tools that won’t cost you a penny

Having access to such a high number of SEO tools is all well and good but if you’ve got a low budget it’s also reassuring to know that there are high-performing free SEO tools as well. Here’s my list of free SEO tools that provide you with the data you need for your website optimization.

1. keywordtool.io
Every search is done using a keyword.

Now as much as the website itself isn’t as eye-catching as others, that’s not to say keywordtool isn’t high-performing. This keyword suggestion tool will provide you with over 750 long-tail keywords and you don’t even have to create an account to get access to these. Another great thing about this tool is that it uses the Google Autocomplete feature. Google Autocomplete looks at how often people search for a particular term so you can be reassured that the keywords suggested to you are up-to-date with the latest search trends. It’s worth testing out since it’s the closest tool to Google’s tools but you just don’t need an AdWords account with this one .

2. Google Keyword Planner
Reach the right customers with the right keywords.

We can’t deny the fact that Google has some pretty good tools to help us with our SEO and their Keyword Planner is one of them. Type in one keyword or ten keywords, this tool will provide you with all the information you need for free! Search volume, CPC (cost-per-click), keyword impressions, future performance, this tool really does it all. The Keyword Planner is more designed for PPC (pay-per-click) advertising and the downside is that you do need a Google AdWords account to access it, but with such detailed information given to you and the possibility to download your keyword plan, it will help you plan your SEO work.

3. SERPs Rank Checker
Help SEOs understand, measure, test and prove their strategies.

SERPs Rank Checker is another popular free keyword rank tracking tool among the SEO’ers. You can track 250 keywords for free over two search engines (Google and Yahoo) and search for an exact location by typing in the post code of the location you want. It’s a quick tool and gives you metrics to see if keywords are valuable or not for organic and paid search. SERPs Rank Checker is particular good if you do searches that are based on countries, for example it’s a local rank checker but also has 100 country supports.

4. Google
Search the world’s information.

There are all the SEO tools in the world but you might be forgetting the one tool that is staring you in the face every time you search online…GOOGLE! Now Google is a bit of an incognito here because we don’t realize how useful this search engine can be. If you’re looking for keywords to try and rank upon, Google’s autocomplete function will provide you with a list of the latest related terms searchers are using. Let’s say your company makes leather satchels, type that into Google and you’ll get a list of other terms people are using when searching for this product. The next step is to press enter and see who is already positioning on this keyword. This will give you a good idea of how competitive the keyword is. Google can also be your friend you know .

5. Ubersuggest 
Do you want more traffic?

Ubersuggest is a collection of free SEO tools developed by Neil Patel, a digital marketing influencer that I’m sure you’ve all heard of . Having recently launched a new version of Ubersuggest it’s probably a good time to test it out. For the moment there are three features to use: keyword overview which looks at the trends and search volume of a keyword, keyword ideas and a SERP analysis of your chosen keyword. One aspect I particularly like is the filter for negative keywords in the keyword suggestion tool which can be very helpful for PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns. News on the block is that there are more features to come such as a traffic analyzer report and a report showcasing top pages of any website with the keywords those pages are ranking for.

6. Google Search Console 
Make your site shine in Google Search results.

Google Search Console is a tool developed by Google to check your website’s indexation status, optimize its online visibility and measure its incoming traffic. This tool analyzes your website pages to identify any issues that could affect your performance in the search results. Once you’ve fixed any issues you can tell Google through this tool so that their robots have the freshest view of your site. It’s one of the more technical SEO tools out there because any issues found tend to be for webmasters to correct. However even if you’re not an expert in the technical side of SEO you’ll still be able to get the results to be passed onto the person who manages that side of your website.

7. Small SEO Tools
We build Small SEO Tools to help make the internet a better place.

Small SEO Tools is a (now not so small) collection of website optimization tools. Having understood that not everyone can afford the cost of SEO tools, the team behind this company decided it was time to develop tools that don’t cost a penny. You can find tools to optimize your keywords (tracking, suggestions, competition), website score checker (SEO audit of your pages), a backlinks checker and it doesn’t even stop at SEO. They also offer tools for creating PDF files, password security and image optimization. They really have created a treasure chest of quality tools all grouped into categories so you can easily find the perfect tool for you.

8. Varvy
See how well a page follows the Google guidelines.

Now Varvy is one of the lesser-known SEO tools out there, well for me anyway as I only recently tested it out from discovering the tool in an article. Varvy is a free website test audit that focuses on analyzing a website for any indexation issues, checking the page speed performance of a site and checking a web page for mobile SEO issues (remember that keyword positions aren’t the same on desktop and mobile ). You get instant results with what is done well and any aspects that are missing on your site. Varvy also provides little articles explaining the technical and non-technical aspects of a website analysis…perfect for understanding your results as you go along!

9. Structured Data Testing Tool
Build, test and release your Structured data.

I’m going to put it out there straight away, this tool is one for the technical SEO experts. The Structured Data Testing Tool is for testing your structure data markup of your website’s pages. Structure Data Markup is classifying specific content within a page so that Google understands 100% what a specific text is. For example if you have your business address on one of your pages, you use this markup to tell Google that it’s not just a bunch of random words but a real address. This tool helps Google understand your page better and therefore improve your site’s online visibility in the search engines.

10. Google Analytics 
Get to know your customers.

You may be thinking, well this isn’t an SEO tool like the others…but Google Analytics is a really useful tool in understanding how to boost your SEO rankings and for some it’s the only tool they use for their SEO! Bargain! It shows you how much organic traffic is coming towards your site aka traffic coming for search engines. It also shows you your top performing landing pages so you can see which page is driving in the most organic traffic. This means you can work on the lower performing pages by improving the copy to increase the organic traffic towards those pages. There are so many things you can do with Google Analytics. It may take a little bit of time setting up and getting to understand what you can do but it’s one of the best free tracking tools available.

Conclusion

SEO doesn’t have to be expensive and money can be saved in using these free SEO tools. This is just a small collection that I picked out of the free tools currently available but are worth testing out if you don’t feel the need to pay for an SEO tool.