SEO tools you need to have

Marketing 13 October 2021

It’s a real jungle out there when it comes to SEO – search engine optimization and all the tools. We usually use several different tools in our ongoing work. Today we list some useful tools that we at Awave use in our daily work. First some reasonably priced tools and then we also review some useful free tools.

SEO tools at an affordable price

SEMrush

SEMrush is one of the most popular SEO tools on the market. The monthly cost for the lowest level is $ 119. The tool is used to analyze several aspects of SEO with all keyword data based on Google as search engine. SEMrush’s greatest strength is that you can analyze the competitors’ presence in the organic search and then analyze their shortcomings and do better.

What you can do with SEMrush:

  • See organic traffic
  • Find new keywords
  • See search volumes
  • Analyze the organic presence of competitors
  • Analyze a domain’s link profile

SEMrush has many simple features that make it easy for a new user to analyze useful data. One feature we normally use is “Keyword Gap”. With it, you can put your domain on against one or more competitors and see which similar keywords you are up against with your competitors in the SERP. This is a good way to get an overview of which keywords require more optimization.

All in all, SEMrush is obviously expensive for a small business looking for a solution for its search engine optimization. However, everything is relative and if you want a good tool and have time to make the improvements then we recommend it.

Ahrefs

An affordable tool for $ 99 a month. Many in the industry choose to use either Ahrefs or SEMrush, as both tools are based on the same functionality. You search for keywords, analyze domains’ organic placements, and check the link profile. However, there are some differences that are important to mention when it comes to Ahrefs. Unlike SEMrush, you can also see organic traffic for other search engines. Among others Bing, Youtube and Amazon.

Ahrefs also has a better interface when you want to analyze a domain’s link profile. Through “Batch analysis” you can fill in several domains and get an idea of ​​how much backlinks your domain has against your competitors.

If you just want to differentiate Ahrefs from SEMrush, we use Ahrefs for link strategy and analysis while SEMrush is the most optimal for analyzing keywords and competitors’ organic presence.

Free SEO tools

Although we strongly recommend that you acquire either SEMrush or Ahrefs, there are of course many useful tools that are free!

Google Search Console

Google generates huge amounts of advertising. This means that they rarely give clear recommendations from them on how you can optimize to appear better organically on Google. A small exception to this is their own tool Google Search Console.

Here you get the opportunity to analyze valuable information.

You can find this in the Google Search Console:

  • Organic traffic to your website
  • Searchword
  • CTR
  • Security issues and other penalties that Google may impose on your website

It is also through the Google Search Console that you upload the URL to your Sitemap.

Screaming Frog

Like much else, Screaming Frog is available as a paid version and also for free for smaller websites. The free version allows you to spin up to 500 URLs on a domain.

Screaming Frog’s great use comes to On Page SEO, where you can see the status of titles, headlines, meta descriptions, URL structures, duplicate content, canonicals. The list is huge with everything Screaming Frog can help you with. The tool makes it easy for you to get an overview of what problems your website as a whole has when it comes to content.

It is common to see that a website has worked with SEO but may have missed a certain part, e.g. Alt texts on its images. This is something that becomes very clear when you spin a website in the tool.

Duplicate content is something we often see through Screaming Frog. Copy titles or headlines making it difficult for Google to interpret which landing page is actually communicating the keyword you are trying to rank on.

Screaming Frog is a tool you rarely work on continuously but rather get a first indication of what needs to change on a website. It is therefore a reasonable price level with its $ 183 annually. The tool has a huge potential to make your website much more SEO-friendly and therefore gets my strong recommendation.

Google PageSpeed ​​Insights

Google has gone over and is now working on “mobile first” when it comes to organic placement. This means that mobile friendliness is always a priority when Google’s algorithm rotates your website and indicates your organic ranking. A big part of mobile friendliness is the charging time. If your website has a very poor mobile charging time, it will also affect the organic ranking accordingly.

PageSpeed ​​Insights is a web-based tool that allows you to enter the domain and get quick feedback on what can be changed to increase the speed of the website. Image formats, image sizes, unused code or any javascript are common points that can be improved. A simple tool to get a quick insight into possible simple solutions and improvements.

Keywords Everywhere Chrome Extension

Chrome has many useful extensions for its browser. One SEO tool I like to use is Keywords Everywhere. It follows you as you google around and helps you find related keywords, long tail as well as indicates the difficulty level of ranking on the keyword.

Most notable is the long hail feature. If you are searching for a keyword such as “Web agency” will be asked to find keywords with long hail, e.g. “Web agency in Stockholm“. Then you get a list of lots of useful keywords around web agency that others are searching for. It is a great inspiration when you fill out content and if you want to build a FAQ for your website.

Do you need help with your SEO? Don’t hesitate to contact us!