What are the best free/low cost tools you use for SEO?
-
Hello!
I will be giving a talk next month about free/low cost SEO tools and apps and I would like to hear what your favorite/most useful tools are.
I know this question has been discussed here before, but this is a topic that is constantly evolving and I am interested in knowing what people currently find to be the best.
I'd like to hear about things you really use on a regular basis--there are a lot of things out there that sound cool, but end up not being used.
So, what are your go-to free SEO tools?
Thank-you,
Linda -
It is a very nice rundown of what's out there. Thanks again.
-
Thanks
I didn't intend it to be that long, but at the same time, didn't want to leave anything out!
-
Wow, that's a great answer! I totally agree about Screaming Frog--I'd feel blind without it.
-
- Screaming frog! All day long
I love SF, it's amazing. I have the paid version (as I use it a lot) but their free too is good too. For smaller sites, the free tool is absolutely fine. It's not som crappy demo that has most features blocked or anything, it's very usable. Their paid version
Their paid version I'd put under 'low cost' for what you get too. Love the fact you can ingore robots.txt, great for testing dev sites.
One thing I REALLY like about SF (vs SaaS based online tools), is the ability to edit my hosts file & add a dev domain, then run SF on the site, even though it's on localhost - A benefit of desktop tools).
Then there's:
-
**Google Analytics **- I like to create custom dashboards for various things, such as segmenting mobile vs desktop, PPC dashboards, social dashboards etc. I think as SEOs we forget how many clients either don't realise custom dashboard exist, or don't realise how useful they can be
-
Search Console / WMT (can't get out of the habit of calling it WMT!)
-
Deep Crawl - Very handy. I use this, Moz's crawl and Screaming Frog for all my crawl testing needs
-
Various free page-speed checks (GTmetrix, Google page speed insights, Yslow, testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com, Pingdom page speed tool also)
-
OSE & Moz (not free but for what you get, I think it's low cost)
-
Moz's keyword explorer (AMAZING tool. Not just saying that as this is on Moz, I genuinely think it's awesome)
-
Chrome & Firefox inspectors
-
Firebug
-
GA plugin for Chrome
-
GA debugger for Chrome (handy for testing GA events in Chrome console!)
-
Check my links Chrome extension (for when you don't need a full crawl and just want to check for broken links on a page quickly in the browser)
-
Google Alerts - Great for finding unlinked mentions as they happen, keeping tabs on competitors mentions & press, or even being alerted to related topics etc.
-
Excel or Google Sheets - Great for a multitude of data analsys!
-
access_log file - I possibly saved one of the best till last! The access_log file is great for parsing out stuff like Googlebot visits. Pop the data into a (paid) tool like Screaming Frog log file analyser, or (as I like to do) insert the data into a MySQL database and run some queries... You can find a WEALTH of tasty info, like:
-
What pages get the most Googlebot activity
-
Group pages together (e.g. all posts within a category, or pages under a URL folder) and calculate what % of Googlebot crawls they got
-
Identify any important pages that are not getting crawlled much
-
Cross-check your sitemap (in MySQL I like to select all pages from the sitemap - which I store in a MySQL table, then do a JOIN with the access_log table in the same MySQL database, then pull off a count how many times the sitemap pages were crawled, according to the access_log table. Of course the access_log needs to be for a decent time period).
These are not strictly for SEO, but useful for SEOs I think:
- **Awesome Screenshot **for Chrome - good for taking quick screenshots & annotating screenies, for devs/staff/clients etc
- Pocket - Brilliant for 'bookmarking' articles to read later... Helps me stay on-track when I'm head-down working but spot an SEO related article I want to read later... Add to pocket & close tab
- Onetab - For the times when the number of open tabs makes my mac sound like a Boeing 747
Closes all open tabs, saves them in a list for later - Can export to a file too. Handy!
Argh! That's a long list, sorry!
- Screaming frog! All day long
-
Google analytics , search console, keyword planner, chrome developer tools
-
Thanks so much for the responses so far! Thumbs up for everyone.
-
Screaming Frog is a great tool that has a free version. 500 url limit (suitable for most small sites).
-
Here is a few:
- Pagespeed Insights (Google)
- Keywordtool.io
- Xenu (link checker)
- GTmetrix
As you know, may tools have a free demo, or limited functionality for free. Good luck!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Best blog practices for website
For my Insurance website blog, I use MOZ to help me find high DA authoritative sites, then either generate ideas from them, or rewrite the copy. If I rewrite the copy, I tend to pull from 2 - 3 top authoritative sites. Just so I don't get in trouble, but still offer the most concision information. _My question is, Is this ok to do? _ Secondly, I just read that on some .Gov sites the information is public, and that you can use it as long as you give credit. _My questions is, how do I tell which information is public? _ Thank you in advance 🙂
Moz Pro | | MissThumann0 -
Local SEO does not rank well
Hello everybody, before 3 months i began seo in gialia.net.gr. Its an eshop based on symfony framework. We started with on-page seo optimization and after making links in directories, forums and article directories. After 2 months we saw rankings for niche keywords (γυαλια ηλιου, γυαλια ηλιου προσφορες) at 5th and 8th page of google.gr. Now, the rankings does down and i cannot unserstand the reason. I checked old backlinks with opensite explorer, and found some spam backlinks links (3/10). Is this the reason that seo not going well? I am very dissapointed and i would like to tell me you opinion about what is going wrong with that site. My customer owns one more domain, fotispapoulias.gr and i am thinking to move all the site that is running on gialia.net.gr to fotispapoulias.gr (301 redirect to all links). The fotispapoulias.gr ranks better in the same niche keywords without seo. Is it good idea? Will achieve better rankings or not? Thanks
Moz Pro | | simplewebsol0 -
SEO best practices and online store?
Hey guys, I'm just starting a company and had a few questions regarding how we should structure our online store. The store is currently selling skins for consoles, phones - and we have wall decals too, as well as fridge wraps. I was wondering if anyone had advice on the best structure of things? Should I, for instance, have a single "Xbox One Wrap" product page with multiple variations as an option? Or should I have individual product pages for each different style? I feel like putting all the weight on a single Xbox One Wrap page is great, but I also feel like having more content out there for each product probably isn't terrible either? Suggestions? The site is www.FapWrap.com so you can check it out - it's original photos we are taking of adult stars, but eventually will be for "Sexy" people in general. Heh.
Moz Pro | | JohnnyRoq0 -
What are the best practices for improving follower count on twitter?
Keen to improve our follow count on Twitter but its not all about the numbers we are also interested in getting the right followers, followers that fit our customer persona... Any tips or articles to read would be hugely appreciated!
Moz Pro | | MarkPerera0 -
I need country specific ranking reports for our Google/Yahoo/Bing positions
Hi Guys, Using the ranking reports given here at SeoMoz I cannot select various countries as it seems to only provide US Google/Yahoo/Bing results. I need ranking reports specifically for Thailand, UK, States, Australia, India, Hong Kong. Does anyone know of any such tools? Many thanks in advance.
Moz Pro | | ewanTHH0 -
Best Online Branding Strategies?
Hi all, The CEO of my company wants me to start branding the company, basically from the ground up. I've been doing a bunch of reading on how to properly do this and only got so far as to be reiterated the same exact jargon everywhere I go: -"Put your logo everywhere" -"Have a clear company motto" -"Use branded keywords in backlinks" -"Include your logo and social links in company-wide email signatures" -"Make sure your brochures match your website, etc. etc. etc." I've not yet seen something I feel is worthy to report back to big boss as far as an good SEO strategy that is impressively branding central. Can anyone refer me to some GREAT articles with a to b instructions on exactly how to implement these branding strategies? The more creative the better. I'd be forever appreciative! Derek
Moz Pro | | DerekM880 -
Site rank checking tool
Is there a tool where I can enter a URL and it will tell me all the terms a site ranks for? Basically I recently put up a new website and I want to know what terms I rank in the top 50 for in Google
Moz Pro | | KevinPatrick0