This is another bunch of helpful tips that proves you don’t have to spend money to get more traffic!
There are tons of free SEO tools that can help you drive more traffic and this will definitely reinforce your hard work if you followed the guidance from our previous posts.
The free tools are broken into the following categories:
- Keyword Research
- Content Marketing
- Rank Tracking
- Link Building
- Technical SEO
Keyword Research
This free SEO tool will help you find more keywords for meta descriptions, onsite copywriting, blog writing, and PPC campaigns.
Answer The Public
Answer The Public utilizes Google Suggest to find all of the questions people may have related to any industry or keyword.
Just type in a keyword, and it will give you a complete list of questions people are searching for related to that keyword.
Extremely nice visuals on this one!
Google Keyword Planner
The behemoth search giant, Google, has its own keyword research tool.
Google Keyword Planner gives you suggestions as well as CPC (cost per click) data and clicks estimates.
Many other keyword tools provide CPC data, but chances are they are pulling it from Google Keyword Planner.
When using Keyword Planner, look for terms with a high CPC as they tend to convert well when you rank for them organically.
Content Marketing
Content is the one thing we all have to create if we want more search traffic. (There are some great blogs here to help you)
Google is the king of free content marketing tools to really drill down into your search traffic.
Google Analytics
If you’re not yet using Google Analytics, I recommend you start as soon as possible. There is no other data source that provides high-quality and detailed information like Google Analytics.
Search traffic is dominated by Google so we tailor our approach to their algorithms in most marketing efforts.
You can’t ignore Google Analytics for content marketing or SEO. Virtually all the actionable and important data about site visitors, traffic, etc., comes from this critical source.
Google Search Console
Most people use Google Search Console to see which keywords are driving them traffic and you should be no different! We have created a helpful video to get you started with Google Search Console.
Link Building
You used to have to pay for tools if you wanted link data, but that’s not the case anymore. Here are the free link tools you can use.
MozBar
This is probably the best link tool out there! Even though Google doesn’t use domain authority, in general, the higher the authority of a site that is linking to you, the better off you are.
MozBar shows you the domain authority and page authority of every page on the web.
If you are going to build links, focus on the sites with the highest authority.
Technical SEO
SEO has changed. You no longer can do just a few things and expect your site to rank well. You have to do everything if you expect to beat your competition.
And when I mean everything, that includes technical SEO.
Pagespeed Insights
Speed is everything. The faster your site loads, the better you will rank, especially regarding Google’s mobile index.
Pagespeed Insights tells you what you need to fix for your site to load fast on any device.
It doesn’t matter if you are optimizing for tablet devices, desktop, or mobile… it will tell you what to fix.
Website Penalty Checker
With over 3,200 algorithm updates each year to Google, how do you know if you have been affected by an update?
Is it related to a core update, your content, or link building?
Website Penalty Checker tells you that.
In a nice graph, you’ll see your traffic over time and if a Google update has caused your traffic to go up or down.
I strongly recommend starting with these free SEO tools and mastering all the above and a whole load more!