SEO
The Complete Guide for Advanced Users (with Checklist)
If you’re running a website, it’s important to make sure that you’re doing everything you can to optimize it for search engines. Technical SEO is one of the most important aspects of this process, and it can be tricky to get right.
In this follow-up to our Learn SEO: The Complete Guide for Beginners, we will walk you through everything you need to know about technical SEO. We’ll cover topics like crawlability, indexing, and page speed optimization. We’ll also provide tips on how to troubleshoot common issues and fix them.
What is technical SEO?
Technical SEO is the process of optimizing your website for the technical aspects that search engines use to crawl and index it, with the end goal of increasing rankings.
This includes things like your site’s structure, code, and page speed. By improving these technical factors, you can make your site more visible and easier to find in search results.
Why is technical SEO important?
You can have awesome content, but if your website has technical errors, that awesome content you worked hard on will be difficult to find. This is why technical SEO is important.
For one, it can help improve your site’s visibility in search results. If your site is well-optimized, it will be easier for search engines to find and index it. This can lead to higher rankings and more traffic over time.
Additionally, technical SEO can help improve your site’s user experience. Faster loading times and an easy-to-use interface can make a big difference for your visitors.
Is technical SEO difficult?
Technical SEO can seem daunting at first, but it’s actually not that difficult once you get the hang of it.
The most important thing to remember is that technical SEO is all about making your website as easy to find and index as possible.
That means ensuring that your pages are well-structured and free of errors, and providing clear and concise metadata.
It also means taking steps to improve your site’s speed and performance.
While this may sound like a lot of work, the payoff is worth it—technical SEO can help you attract more organic traffic and improve your search engine rankings.
Is it possible to rank a website properly without technical SEO?
In order for a website to rank on the search engines, technical SEO must be implemented.
This means that:
- The website must be designed in such a way that it can be easily found and indexed by the search engine crawlers.
- The website must also have fast loading times and be free of errors.
- The website’s structure and hierarchy should be easy to understand.
So without optimizing the technical factors in your website, it won’t rank in the search engines.
Technical SEO vs on-page SEO
One common misconception is that technical SEO and on-page SEO are the same thing. But there is a big difference between the two.
On-page SEO refers to the optimization of individual pages on your website. This includes things like title tags, meta descriptions, and keyword research.
Technical SEO, on the other hand, refers to the technical aspects of your site that affect its crawlability and indexation. This includes things like site structure, code, and page speed.
So if you’re looking to improve your website’s visibility in search results, be sure to focus on both technical and on-page SEO, and not just one or the other.
Glossary of terms
Before we move forward, here are some terms for quick reference.
Crawling
Search engines detect new and updated content by sending search spiders, which crawl and store information from websites for indexing and retrieval.
Indexing
Search engines index content they find during crawling and store it. As soon as a page is indexed, it is eligible to appear when relevant to a user’s search query.
Retrieval
Search engines search their index database for results relevant to the search query, then retrieve those results and rank them according to what looks to be the most useful to the user.
XML sitemap
An XML sitemap is used to help search engines understand the structure of a website. It’s basically a map that shows search engines what pages are on a site and how they’re related.
This can be especially helpful if a website has a lot of content or if it’s regularly updated.
Robots.txt
The robots.txt is a file used to control which files search engine spiders can access on your website. The file is located in the root directory of your website.
Structured data
Structured data is a specific format for organizing information on a website. This format can be used by search engines to understand the contents of a page, and provide more relevant results to users.
Structured data also makes the SERPs more informative by triggering knowledge panels, featured snippets, and event snippets.
Technical SEO audit tools
Here is a list of the tools you can use for your audit.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider
We covered Screaming Frog extensively in our Learn SEO guide. Basically, it crawls your links and gives you an overview of what’s going on in your website: Your 404s, duplicates, missing metadata, and more.
Download: Learn SEO: The Complete Guide for Beginners
SE Ranking
A paid tool I’ve found to be useful as well for auditing is SE Ranking. The best part for me about this tool is that the report interface is so clean and intuitive. You can check out our review for SE Ranking’s website audit feature here.
Semrush
Semrush has a site audit functionality as well which you can use to check orphan pages, core web vitals, and more.
Further reading: Semrush Core Web Vitals Report Review
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is an indispensable tool for technical SEO. This is where you check and verify URLs, submit your sitemap, and more.
PageSpeed Insights
It’s important that you know how fast your website is and what’s causing it to slow down. PageSpeed Insights is the tool you need for that.
No matter how good your content is, if people just leave your website because of technical issues like slowness, your traffic and engagement will remain low.
How to perform a technical SEO audit (with checklist)
One of the most important aspects of technical SEO is auditing your website. This helps you identify any potential issues that could be holding your site back from ranking higher in search results.
How often should I do a technical SEO audit?
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. The frequency of your technical SEO audits will depend on the size and complexity of your website, as well as how quickly things change on your site.
That being said, we recommend doing even just a short technical SEO audit once a month, and a more in-depth audit every quarter. This will give you a chance to identify and fix any technical issues before they have a chance to hurt your site’s performance.
Let’s begin.
Review your site structure
Tools to use: Screaming Frog, Semrush
One of the most important things you can do to improve your website’s SEO is to review its structure. This will help you identify any potential issues that could be hindering your site’s performance in search engines.
Website structure includes things like your site’s hierarchy, URL structure, and internal linking.
For businesses with new sites, planning your website’s structure is the first and most important thing to do.
You have to make sure that both visitors and search engines can easily navigate through your website.
A poorly designed site structure can make things confusing for developers, leaving behind orphan pages. And when this happens, you will have to take the extra time and effort to look for these orphan pages and link to them.
To plan your website structure, you can create a simple chart or outline like this example below:
Go as simple with your site structure as you can, so visitors and search engines can easily navigate between your web pages.
There are articles that argue that the most important information on a website should only be a couple of clicks deep (see: the 3-click rule), while the Nielsen Norman Group argued that it’s an arbitrary rule not backed by data.
But in 2018, Google’s John Mueller discussed that it does matter—so a good rule of thumb would be to ensure that the most important information is accessible from the homepage.
Look for orphan pages
As mentioned earlier, you will have to look for orphan pages as part of your audit.
Orphan pages are pages of a website that is not internally linked or has zero links from other pages of your website. This makes it difficult for search engine bots to crawl and index these pages.
Orphan pages may occur for different reasons. It could be old blog posts, old products that are not being sold anymore, old services pages that are not being offered anymore.
While there are some pages that are purposely left out such as testing pages and tags pages, it is critical that you check if there are orphan pages that are still relevant for the users.
Does it affect my SEO?
The answer is both yes and no. The effect of orphan pages in a website’s rankings depends on how you look at it. If a page that is orphan was created to be shown to users and has content that is important to users, it hurts your SEO because crawlers can’t see this page thus it won’t appear in the search results. Users won’t be able to see them either.
However, if a page that is orphan was created for other purposes not related to users such as testing functionalities or testing a new website design, then you can leave these pages as it is.
How to find orphan pages using Screaming Frog
To find orphan pages using Screaming Frog, you have to first make sure that your Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts are connected.
To do that, under Configuration, scroll down to API access and connect Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
Once you got them connected, make sure that under the General tab of the API window, you select Crawl New URLs Discovered in Google Analytics.
After connecting your GA and GSC accounts, under Configuration, go to Spider, and check Crawl Linked XML Sitemaps. Then check the option Crawl These Sitemaps: and input the URL of your website’s sitemap.
After setting everything up, you could now start crawling your website. Once it’s finished crawling, under Crawl Analysis, click on configure and check the box beside Sitemaps. It will start analyzing the crawl log of your website and will allow you to see the orphan pages.
After the analysis, in the Overview under Sitemaps, you can now see all orphan pages that were crawled by Screaming Frog.
How to find orphan pages using Semrush
You could also find orphan pages by setting up Site Audit in Semrush. If you don’t have a website set up, create a new project first and let Semrush crawl your website.
Once the set up of the project is complete, go to the Site Audit of your website then go to Issues. Under the Notices tab, scroll down to check if orphan pages report is enabled.
If it hasn’t been enabled yet, connect your Google Analytics account in the Site Audit Settings. The process is similar to Screaming Frog. It will prompt you to log in with your Google Account, select the Profile, Property, and View of your selected Website and click Save.
Once you complete the setup, Semrush will automatically collect data from Google Analytics. Unlike Screaming Frog, you don’t have to connect Google Search Console to get orphan pages data in Semrush.
After a few minutes, refresh your browser and check the Issues tab again. Click the drop down menu Select an Issue and you will find Orphaned Pages (Google Analytics) under Notices.
Optimize or scrap?
Once you collected all orphan pages, it is now up to you what to do with these. You could place them inside a Google Sheet.
- If a page is still relevant, label them as ‘optimize’ and find possible pages to link to this page.
- If a page was relevant but now irrelevant such as old products or old services, you could delete them and leave them as 404. No need to redirect these as they don’t carry any link value at all.
- If a page is purposely left out, you could leave them as it is.
Here’s a sample template that you could use:
While orphan pages can be harmless to your website’s overall rankings and SEO value, it could be a critical issue when important pages are left out. Include monitoring of orphan pages in your regular website maintenance audit. Make sure that your website has a healthy site structure and good flow of link juice by internally linking pages to each other.
Fix 404 pages
The 404 error is an HTTP status code that is sent by a website server to the browser if it is unable to find the webpage a user wants to access. It usually displays a message “Page Not Found” to users.
To find them, open your Screaming Frog and input your website URL, then start the crawl.
Then click Client Error (4xx) to see the status codes.
You can opt to compile these and send them over to your team’s web developers. You can also redirect the URLs (301) you believe are still useful to the new pages created to replace them.
Secure your website
Switch to HTTPS by using a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). SSL encrypts the link between a web server and a browser.
If you’re building a website from scratch, you can add this to your purchase for free depending on the hosting you’re using.
If not, you can ask the web developers assigned to your website to purchase the SSL and activate it. You can also see how to do it by yourself through this in-depth guide by HubSpot.
Generate and submit an XML sitemap
Tools to use: Google Search Console
You can check if your website has a sitemap by entering in the search bar: www.[website]/sitemap.xml.
If your website doesn’t have one yet, you can use a plugin such as the Google Sitemap Generator Plugin by Arne Brachhold. You can also use https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ to generate your sitemap.
After you generate your sitemap, you need to submit it. To do that, you need to open Google Search Console, then click Sitemaps. You can then add your sitemap URL and submit.
Further reading: Ultimate Sitemap SEO Guide
Check your robots.txt
To verify your website’s robots.txt, you can type in the search bar: www.[website]/robots.txt.
If you don’t have one yet, open your Notepad and copy-paste the following:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
Sitemap: https://www.[website]/sitemap.xml
This is the default directive found in a basic robots.txt file.
You can add other rules based on your needs.
Once you’re done, save it as a .txt file and upload it to the root directory of your website. You can ask the web developers to do so or you can contact your web hosting service provider to help you out.
Further reading: The Complete Guide to Robots.txt and Noindex Meta Tag
Tools to use: Screaming Frog
Robots meta tags pieces of code used to instruct search engines what to follow, what not to follow, what to index, and what not to index. It is found in the <head> section of your webpage.
They usually look like this:
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”>
You can opt to press CTRL+U on an individual page to view the page source and check for the meta tag, or you can use Screaming Frog to check the directives in your website.
For example, /category/marketing/ has a directive of noindex, follow. Let’s look at it through the page source:
There you go.
Further reading: What Meta Robots Tag Are For
Optimize URL slugs
Next, optimize your URL slugs.
When you create a slug, make sure that it contains your keyword, and that it’s as short yet descriptive as possible.
So instead of using /seo-in-the-philippines/ as our slug, we just use /seo-philippines/.
It’s much easier to understand and remember. It’s also a good web accessibility practice.
If the webpage already exists, you can still change the URL—but make sure to redirect the old URL to the new one. In our case, we use the 301 Redirects plugin, so our redirect settings look like this:
Provide clear and concise metadata
Meta tags are snippets of information that describe a page content—they appear in the source code, not on the page. Meta tags are essentially little content descriptors that help tell search engines what a web page is about.
According to WordStream, “The “meta” stands for “metadata,” which is the kind of data these tags provide—data about the data on your page.”
To optimize your meta tags, you can opt to change your title tags and meta descriptions—and of course, include your keyword.
A rule of thumb for title tags is to keep them between 50-60 characters.
For meta descriptions, keep them under 155 characters.
When you have a compelling and informative title tag and description, the likelihood that users will click on your page will increase.
And when Google notices you’re getting more clicks through your page, it will tag you as a relevant site, thus making you rank higher.
Further reading: INFOGRAPH: 5 Steps to Create the Perfect Meta Description
Optimize site speed and performance
Tools to use: PageSpeed Insights (you can also choose Google Lighthouse (Chrome Extension) or Test My Site)
Another important aspect of technical SEO is page speed optimization. Site speed is a ranking factor for both desktop and mobile searches, so it’s important to make sure your pages load quickly.
Do take note that some websites use site speed and page speed interchangeably.
However, some websites say that site speed is different from page speed.
Nevertheless, it’s important that the content on your webpage loads faster. This is to prevent your site visitors from leaving your website and going to your competitors.
Optimizing images
If you use a large image size, it will greatly affect your site speed. In this case, you need to reduce your image size.
The trouble with reducing your image size though is that it also reduces its quality. The good news is that there are plugins or scripts that let you decrease the size of your file without reducing its quality.
To reduce your image size without compromising its quality, simply choose the right combination of your file format and compression type you will use. Ideally, your image’s file format should be in PNG and at a medium compression rate.
You can use the following tools when optimizing images for your webpage:
- Adobe Photoshop
- Gimp
- FileOptimizer
- ImageResizer.com
ImageResizer.com dashboard
Enabling browser caching
The concept of browser caching is straightforward: it takes whatever files you define as files that don’t change often (such as your company logo and website menu) and downloads them once to the visitor’s browser.
This way, they don’t have to be redownloaded every single time they visit your website, making your webpages load much faster.
There are three ways to go about this:
Ask your web hosting provider
You can contact your web hosting provider and have them edit your site’s .htaccess file. That way, you don’t have to touch anything in your website.
Edit the .htaccess file yourself
The header says it all. I wouldn’t recommend this unless you have knowledge on how to troubleshoot in case you make a mistake. If you’re using Yoast, here’s their guide.
Use a plugin
There are various plugins you can choose from that you’ll just download and activate. Quick and easy as pie. Just check with your web developers to confirm if they won’t be causing any issues with other plugins.
Enable Gzip Compression
When a browser loads your website, it requires downloading all the relevant files stored on your server. If your files like HTML, PHP, CSS, and Javascript are too large to load, chances are it will affect your site speed as well.
This is where Gzip comes into play. What it does is that it compresses or reduces the size of your file by up to 30% or less than its original size so your webpage loads faster.
You can use the Gzip Compression Test tool to check if Gzip is enabled on your website, or if you simply want to check your website’s Gzip compression rate.
A word of caution. When you use Gzip, you’re only meant to compress files, not images—or you’ll end up with low-quality, pixelated images on your webpage.
There are many other aspects you need to check when it comes to optimizing your site speed. I’ve only included three in this post. For our in-depth guide to site-speed optimization, check out:
Further reading: Ultimate Guide to Site-Speed Optimization
Also, keep in mind that consistency is key when it comes to site speed optimization. An optimized site speed requires adding scripts or plugins on occasion, so it’s best to always do a site audit every month to keep site downtime from happening.
Fix content issues
If you’re having trouble with technical SEO, there are a few common issues that could be to blame.
One of the most common is duplicate content. This can happen if you have multiple pages with similar or identical content.
To fix this, you’ll need to either apply a 301 redirect or add rel=”canonical” tags to your pages.
Another common issue is thin content. This happens when a page has very little useful content.
Different websites have their own opinions on how long content should be—Yoast recommends >300 words for regular posts or pages, while HubSpot claims that your content length shouldn’t go lower than 2,100 words.
Which one should you follow? I would argue that it’s not exactly a matter of word count, but of content quality.
- Does your blog post go in-depth and answer what your target audience needs to know about the topic?
- Does it match search intent?
I suggest focusing on those instead of word vomiting irrelevant content just to “fix” thin content.
Further reading: How TO NOT Screw up Your Canonical Tags and Search Intent SEO for Beginners
Implement structured data
According to Yoast,
“Where Schema is the language in which you present your content, structured data is the actual data you provide. It describes the content on your page and what actions site visitors can perform with this content. This is the input you give search engines to get a better understanding of your pages.”
Simply put, it helps make your page more understandable for search engines and users.
To implement structured data, there are a number of things you can do, but I would suggest using a plugin like Yoast or WPSSO Core.
It gives you the option to select entity types and automatically applies the schema for you instead of you having to manually choose a template and inputting data.
Further reading: How to Create Structured Data Markup for Rich Snippets
Prioritize mobile-friendliness
Source: BroadbandSearch
The mobile friendliness of a website can be measured by how well it is designed and optimized for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.
Just looking at the graph above, we can confidently say it’s integral to optimize for mobile.
Install an AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) plugin to your website
Instead of having to manually work on optimizing your site for mobile, we recommend installing the AMP for WordPress plugin.
This is what we use here in SEO Hacker, and it’s made our job a lot easier when it comes to optimizing for mobile.
- Install the AMP WordPress plugin.
- Activate the plugin—what it will do is append /amp on all your pages but it won’t redirect visitors to them.
- Edit your .htaccess file—you could use an FTP program to do this. I personally use Filezilla.
- (Optional) Just in case you want to check if your AMP pages are working across the board—in your .htaccess file, paste this code:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/amp$ [NC]RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (android|blackberry|googlebot-mobile|iemobile|iphone|ipod|#opera mobile|palmos|webos) [NC]RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9-]+)([/]*)$ https://website.com/$1/amp [L,R=302]
Note that you have to change website.com to your site’s domain name. I explicitly made the redirect into a 302 because we don’t want all the link equity to be passed on to your /amp pages since it’s merely an accelerated mobile page version.
- Edit the CSS to make your Accelerated Mobile Pages look and feel more like your site. You can edit the CSS using FTP by going to your wp-content > plugins > AMP > template.php
- Use rel=”canonical” tags to your original pages. Just to be sure to keep anything Panda-related off your back.
That’s it!
You could see that SEO Hacker’s mobile version still look and feel like our desktop page design—without all the fluff.
How can I make AMP work for my non-WordPress site?
You will have to go to the AMP Project’s site and learn how to integrate it via hard-code, hands-on.
If you want to know more about AMP, Moz’s Whiteboard Friday does a swell job on explaining it further:
Verifying your AMP pages on Google Search Console
Once you’ve set up AMP on your website, Google will start crawling and indexing them. In a few days, you should now see that there is an AMP section under Enhancements in your Google Search Console.
Google Search Console will notify you if there are any errors in your AMP pages. Just like any other coverage errors, it is divided into 3; Errors, Valid with Warnings, and Valid. When you first apply AMP on your website, there is a high chance that most of your pages will fall under Valid with Warnings.
Don’t worry, your AMP pages will still be available to users. It’s just that there are missing data that could further enhance your AMP pages such as structured data or image sizes.
Structured Data on AMP pages
Aside from loading speeds and user experience on mobile, adding structured data on your AMP pages also makes them eligible for Rich Results.
If you’re using WordPress, there are plugins that enable structured data on AMP pages. Google highly recommends having structured data on both the original page and the AMP version.
Further reading: The SEO Hacker Mobile Optimization Checklist
How do I know if my technical SEO is working?
There are a number of metrics you can measure to gauge the effectiveness of your technical SEO.
Organic traffic
This measures the number of visitors coming to your site from search engines. If you’re seeing an increase in organic traffic, it’s likely that your technical SEO is working.
Click-through rate (CTR) from SERPs
This measures the percentage of people who click on your listing when it appears in search results. A high CTR indicates that your listing is relevant and appealing to users, and that your technical SEO is working.
You can also check if you’re showing up on the Knowledge Panels and other snippets.
Loading times
If you’ve optimized for page speed correctly, you will notice that your site is a lot faster and smoother than before.
Troubleshooting common technical SEO issues
I asked some folks over at Reddit what they wanted to know about technical SEO, and some of them gave me questions that I wanted to include here.
How to fix unused CSS/Javascripts in WordPress
Unused code can make your website load slower, but thankfully there is a way to at least reduce this issue.
Use WP Rocket
WP Rocket is a plugin you can use to remove unused CSS and delay JavaScript execution.
You can check out and follow this really good tutorial from WPBeginner.
How to fix XML sitemap errors
An XML sitemap is a file that lists all the important pages of your website. They ensure that Google is able to crawl and index your web pages.
XML sitemaps also help search engines understand your site structure.
Essentially, a good XML sitemap tool will greatly benefit your website. However, if it’s not done correctly, you might increase your risk of not getting recognized by Google.
Here are some pitfalls that you need to avoid with XML sitemap:
Submitted URL has crawl issues
This is one of the most common XML sitemap issues you will come across in Google Search Console.
This means that your sitemap has listed a page with a known crawl error, but Google will not tell you exactly what kind of error it was.
You will need to reanalyze your sitemap for any error that is undetected. The most common crawl issue errors are:
- Robots.txt blocking crawlers
- Error pages other than 404, such as “403” forbidden and 401
- Javascript or CSS blocked by search engines
You can address these crawl issues with the 11 steps I outlined earlier.
Then go to Google Search Console and resubmit your sitemap.
Sitemap size error
As we discussed in this post earlier, size matters in SEO. Your sitemap size must NOT:
- Be longer than 50MB
- Contain no more than 1,000 images per URL
- Contain no more than 50,000 URLs
If you have a simple site, your sitemap’s size shouldn’t be an issue.
However, if you have (for example) an eCommerce website that’s growing fast, it’s best that you create separate sitemaps for every 10,000 URLs you have.
Fewer URLs mean fewer crawl issues for you.
I suggest that you take a look at Common XML sitemap errors by Yoast and Polishing a sitemap: fixing errors, weeding out trash pages, and finding hidden gems by SE Ranking for a more in-depth treatment of this issue.
How to handle multiple connected websites
The Redditor who asked this question works as a software developer who put their apps under different <appname.>app websites.
It’s generally not recommended to have multiple domains or websites for the following reasons:
- They can compete for the same keywords.
- They can be expensive.
- It can take a while for you to rank the websites because you’ll be doing a full SEO strategy for each of them.
I recommend to figure out first what the purpose is of your website. For example, is it to showcase your work as a software developer?
In that case, you can put your apps under one domain, then create subdirectories in your website for the various apps you want to feature.
This works especially if your apps are connected to one another, or they generally fall under a specific theme (e.g., productivity tools}.
For example, under HubSpot you have various software you can check out—and they’re all under HubSpot.com
If they are completely different and you want to market them as such (and you have the time and energy to SEO each of them), then you can go ahead and put them in different websites.
Key takeaway
Technical SEO is one of the most important aspects of ranking your website properly. It covers all the behind-the-scenes elements that are necessary for Google and other search engines to understand your site correctly.
Without proper technical SEO, it’s difficult to rank at all, let alone achieve high SERP positions. That’s why we created this guide—to help you audit and troubleshoot any issues on your own website and improve your rankings with these 11 steps.
If you want us to take care of your technical SEO for you, check out our SEO Services Package or contact us today for a free consultation.
SEO
128 Top SEO Tools That Are 100% Free
Software makes the SEO world go round. From analyzing your website data to performing research, effective SEO relies on a series of tools to assist humans in decision-making.
Paid subscription tools can be highly effective and usually come with support. But if you don’t have a large monthly budget, they might be out of the question.
The good news is that there are plenty of free tools. With a bit of time and know-how, you can create a free stack of software that helps you achieve your SEO goals.
What Are SEO Tools?
Think of SEO tools as your digital magnifying glass and toolkit for your website. They’re not just about providing numbers and graphs; they’re about offering insights and strategies to enhance your website’s visibility and performance.
These tools are the compass and map for navigating the vast world of search engine optimization, helping you pinpoint exactly where you stand and what steps you need to take to improve and boost visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Each SEO tool has a unique function, just like how a hammer is distinct from a screwdriver in a traditional toolbox. They offer specialized assistance in various aspects of SEO:
- Analytics – Understand your website traffic and user behavior.
- Keyword Research – Discover what your audience is searching for.
- Links – Analyze your backlink profile and build quality links.
- Local SEO – Optimize your site for local search results.
- Mobile SEO – Ensure your site is optimized for mobile users.
- On-page SEO – Improve the content and structure of your website pages.
- Research – Dive deep into market trends and competitor strategies.
- Rank Checking – Monitor where your pages stand in search results.
- Site Speed – Enhance the loading speed of your pages.
- WordPress SEO – Optimize your WordPress site specifically for SEO.
SEO tools are incredibly useful, but you must understand how to use them to get the most out of them.
There are even a few toolsets that can help you in more than the areas we just mentioned, giving you more of an all-at-once glance at your SEO performance.
Do You Need SEO Tools?
The short answer is yes, you need SEO tools.
Imagine trying to build a table using only your hands.
You wouldn’t get very far, would you? No.
You will need tools – saws, a measuring tape, a drill, and screwdrivers, to name a few.
Similarly, while you can certainly create a website with basic knowledge and intuition, truly optimizing and understanding its performance requires the right tools.
Without them, you’re essentially playing a guessing game.
Without SEO tools, you’re missing out on:
- The volume of traffic reaching your site.
- Alerts on sudden drops in website visits.
- Identifying and fixing HTML errors.
- Tracking the quantity and quality of your backlinks.
- Discovering potential keywords to drive more traffic.
- And much, much more.
So, while it’s theoretically possible to manage a website without SEO tools, if you’re serious about maximizing its potential and reaching your audience effectively, leveraging these tools isn’t just recommended – it’s essential.
What Are The Best Free SEO Tools?
If you’re looking to get started with SEO or want to achieve better results for the low cost of $0, here are 110 of the best free SEO tools you should be using.
Free SEO Analytics Tools
1. Google Analytics 4
Google Analytics 4 is an invaluable resource that is virtually indispensable to any digital marketer serious about SEO.
It provides plenty of handy data about websites, such as the number of site visits, traffic sources, and location demographics.
With the detailed information from Google Analytics, digital marketers can tweak their content strategy and figure out what works and what doesn’t.
Google Analytics 4 is one of the best free SEO tools that every digital marketer should be using.
2. Looker Studio (Formerly Data Studio)
Google Looker Studio lets you merge data from varying sources, such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics, and create sharable visualizations.
If you’re just getting started with it, this beginner’s guide to Data Studio will be helpful.
More advanced users can learn how to use CASE statements for better Data Studio segments here.
3. Keyword Hero
Missing keyword data? Leave it to Keyword Hero, which uses advanced math and machine learning to fill in the blanks.
This service is free for up to 2,000 sessions per month. Keyword Hero also provides a 14-day free trial of any of its plans.
4. Mozcast
Mozcast tracks changes big and small to Google’s search algorithm.
With Google making hundreds of changes every year, keeping abreast of the latest developments helps you ensure you’re doing everything to have the best SERPs.
5. Panguin Tool
The Panguin Tool, provided by Barracuda Digital, lines up your search traffic with known changes to the Google search algorithm.
If you see a drop that lines up with an update, you’ve likely found the culprit and can work on fixing it!
6. Google Search Console Enhancer
A Chrome extension that beefs up your Google Search Console (GSC) with additional features and insights. Google Search Console Enhancer is like putting a turbocharger on your Console, providing you with more detailed data to fine-tune your SEO approach.
7. Better Regex In Search Console
This nifty Chrome extension amps up your Google Search Console experience.
If you’re into the nitty-gritty of SEO data, this tool helps you create more sophisticated search patterns to dive deeper into your website’s search query data.
8. Lost Impressions Index Check
This tool from TameTheBots helps you uncover potential SEO opportunities by identifying where you might be losing visibility in search results.
Free Crawling & Indexing Tools
9. Redirect Path
Screenshot from Redirect Path, March 2024The Redirect Path Chrome extension will flag 301, 302, 404, and 500 HTTP Status Codes.
Additionally, client-side redirects like meta and JavaScript redirects will also be flagged, ensuring any redirect issue can be uncovered immediately.
HTTP Headers, such as server types and caching headers, as well as the server IP address, can also be displayed with the click of a button.
Furthermore, all of these details can be copied to your clipboard for easy sharing or addition to a technical audit document.
10. Link Redirect Trace
Use this Chrome plugin to make sure all your link redirects are directing people and crawlers to where you want them to go.
11. Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Crawl your website for SEO errors.
Discover HTTP header errors, JavaScript rendering hiccups, excess HTML, crawl mistakes, duplicate content, and more with Screaming Frog SEO Spider.
12. Screaming Frog Log File Analyzer
Upload your log files to Screaming Frog’s Log File Analyzer to confirm search engine bots, check which URLs have been crawled, and study search bot data.
13. SEOlyzer
Another SEO log analysis tool that provides data in real-time and page categorization.
14. Xenu
One of the original free SEO tools, Xenu is a crawler that provides basic site audits, looks for broken links, and the other usual suspects.
15. Where Goes?
Track where redirection URLs and shortened links go with Where Goes?
16. Check My Links
Screenshot from Check My Links, May 2024Check My Links is a nifty Chrome Extension that crawls through your webpage and identifies the status code for each link on the page – including broken links.
Each status code is color-coded with 200 status codes returning dark green, 300 status codes returning light green, and 400 status codes returning red.
Once identified, you can copy all bad links to your clipboard with one click.
17. Robots.txt Generator
Create a correct robots.txt file instantly so search engines know how to crawl your website.
Advanced users can customize their files with Robots.txt Generator as well.
18. HEADMaster SEO
Checks URLs in bulk for status code, redirect status, response time, response headers, and HTTP header fields with HEADMaster SEO.
Get results in real-time, sort and study your findings, and export your work to CSV.
19. Keep-Alive Validation SEO Tool
Check URLs in bulk – or one by one – to see if their servers support persistent connection, which makes your website load faster.
Check what version of HTTP your server is on and whether there are any external connections on your URL with this tool.
20. Hreflang Tag Generator
Generate hreflang tags so that Google knows which language particular pages on your website are in.
This will allow Google to search those pages in that language.
21. XML Sitemaps
Create a site map of up to 500 pages for free without registration.
Download your sitemap as an XML file or get it via email.
22. SERP Checker
Determine the potential ranking difficulty of a keyword with Ahrefs’ free SERP Checker tool.
You can check the top 10 search ranking results from any location without using proxies or location-specific IP addresses.
23. SFAIK Screaming Frog Analyzer
A robust visualization of Screaming Frog crawl data using Google Data Studio.
24. SEOWL Google Title Rewrite Checker
This Google Title Rewrite Checker will allow you to check if Google is rewriting the title of a list of pages, allowing for deeper Title Tag structure analysis.
Free Keyword Research Tools
25. AnswerThePublic
Screenshot from AnswerThePublic, May 2024AnswerThePublic is a nifty tool that provides content marketers with valuable data about the questions people ask online.
Once you input a keyword, it fetches popular queries based on that keyword and generates a cool graphic with the questions and phrases people use when they search for that keyword.
This data gives content creators insight into potential customers’ concerns and desires, and enables them to craft highly targeted content that addresses those needs.
AnswerThePublic also provides keyword suggestions using prepositions such as “versus,” “like,” and “with.”
It is an excellent research tool that can help you create better content that people will enjoy and be more likely to share.
26. Keyword Explorer
This keyword research tool will give you up to 1,000 keyword suggestions, a keyword difficulty score, a click-through rate date, and SERP analysis.
You get three free searches per day.
27. Keyword Planner
Google’s Keyword Planner is designed for ad campaigns, but you can use it for keyword research by seeing how keywords perform in ads.
28. Keyword Sheeter
Get keyword volume, cost per click, and competition data with this free keyword tool.
29. Keywords Everywhere
Screenshot from Keywords Everywhere, May 2024Keywords Everywhere is a must-use keyword research tool due to the massive list of sites that it provides free search volume, CPC, and competition data for:
- Google Search.
- Google Trends.
- eBay.
- AnswerThePublic.
- Google Keyword Planner.
- Bing.
- Etsy.
- Soovle.
- Google Search Console.
- YouTube.
- Ubersuggest.
- Majestic.
- Google Analytics 4.
- Amazon.
- Keyword Sheeter.
- Moz Open Site Explorer.
It’s available for Chrome and Firefox.
30. Ahrefs Keyword Difficulty
This tool lets you discover how difficult it will be to rank in the top 10 search results for any keyword.
Simply enter your term and choose your location, and Ahrefs will give you a score, with 0 being easy and 100 being extremely difficult.
31. Also Asked
Find out what questions people are asking about particular keywords so that you can write content that answers those questions with Also Asked.
Conduct searches by country and in different languages. You can claim three free searches to start.
32. Google Trends
With Google Trends, you can see the interest in a particular term from as recently as an hour to as far back as 2004.
Sort by categories, country, and type of search. See related topics, popularity by region, latest most frequently searched-for terms, and compare to other terms.
33. Glimpse – Google Trends Search Extension
This Chrome extension brings Google Trends right to your browser, offering instant insights into trending topics.
It’s a goldmine for SEO strategists looking to tap into current interests and emerging searches.
34. Keyword Surfer
This Chrome extension shows you the search volume in your Google search results. You can also see the word count and the number of keywords for top-ranking pages.
35. CanIRank
Screenshot by author, March 2024As the name implies, CanIRank helps you determine if you can rank on the first page of search engines for a particular keyword.
Unlike other tools that merely provide data about how competitive keywords are, CanIRank lets you know the probability that you’ll rank for a search term and uses AI to give you suggestions on how to better target keywords.
CanIRank provides great competitive analysis data and actionable steps to get your site ranking higher with better SEO.
36. Seed Keywords
Come up with a question or topic you want to research, send it to your contacts, and have them select the keywords they would search for to get the information you want with Seed Keywords.
37. Exploding Topics
Similar to Google Trends, Exploding Topics will help uncover topics that are about to become popularly searched before they become popularly searched!
38. Ubersuggest
Screenshot by Ubersuggest, May 2024Ubersuggest is a simple keyword research tool that scrapes data from Google’s Keyword Planner for keyword ideas based on a keyword you provide.
The tool also returns handy data for each keyword, including the search volume, CPC, and level of competition.
An excellent feature of Ubersuggest is its ability to filter out keywords you’re not interested in from search results.
The tool has recently added a feature where you can type in a competitor’s domain to get better keyword ideas.
39. Keys4Up
Get the related keywords, also known as semantically linked keywords, for any search with Keys4Up.
40. Wordtracker Scout
Wordtracker Scout will help discover what keywords people search for when they’re ready to make a purchase.
41. KWFinder
With KWFinder, you can discover long-tail keywords – those more specific, less frequently used keywords that yield higher results because of how specific they are.
42. Keywords People Use
Get into the minds of your audience by discovering the exact phrases and questions they use.
This tool helps you align your content with real user searches, making your site more visible and relevant.
Free Link Tools
43. Disavow Tool
Use Google’s Disavow Tool to free yourself from toxic backlinks.
44. Moz Link Explorer
See the backlink profile and domain authority of any URL with Link Explorer.
45. Link Miner
Discover if a given URL has any broken links and discover the metrics of those links, including both search and social data with the Link Miner extension.
46. Backlink Checker
Use this Backlink Checker to discover all the backlink data about a particular URL.
See the number of referring domains, the number of backlinks, the domain and URL rating, and its Ahrefs Rank, a domain’s position in Ahrefs’s list of most powerful sites.
47. The Anchor Text Suggestion Tool By Outreach Labs
Discover the best anchor text to use for any URL with this Anchor Text Suggestion Tool.
48. SendPulse
SendPulse allows for the configuration of chains of emails, notifications, and SMS messages based on user actions, variables, or events.
49. Scraper
This Chrome extension lets you scrape data from any URL and export the info into a spreadsheet.
50. Help A Reporter (HARO)
Help A Reporter is a resource that connects journalists and experts who act as sources for stories.
51. Streak
Convert your Gmail inbox into customer relationship management (CRM) software with this free extension.
Local SEO
52. Google Business Profile
Connect with customers across Google Search and Google Maps using a free Google Business Profile.
53. Whitespark Google Review Link Generator
Use this tool to find your Google Review listing and generate a shortened link to your page.
54. Local Search Results Checker
Conduct local searches using Google Search or Google Maps with Brightlocal’s Local Search Results Checker.
55. Moz Local Check Business Listing
Confirm that your company’s details appear correctly on various directories with Moz’s Local Business Checker.
56. Whitespark Local Citation Finder
Track your citations, discover new opportunities, and get the citations your competitors have with this Local Citation Finder.
57. Review Handout Generator
Print instructions on how to leave a Google review via desktop or mobile device for your business with Whitespark’s Review Handout Generator.
58. Fakespot Review Checker
This Chrome extension lets you know if the product you’re about to buy comes from a reputable seller and, if not, provides an alternative.
59. Mobile SERP Test
See your local SERPS on various mobile devices with Mobile SERP Test from Mobile Moxie.
Mobile SEO Tools
60. WebPageTest
Screenshot by author, March 2024Get visual insights for Core Web Vitals, including the primary image responsible for low LCP scores, scripts responsible for render-blocking, and .gif examples of cumulative layout shifts from the WebPageTest.
61. Merkle Mobile-First Index Checker
See how your website stacks up relative to SEO best practices, depending on whether it’s your desktop or mobile version, with Mobile-First Index Checker.
62. Google Page Speed Insights
Test your website’s mobile-friendliness with Google’s Page Speed Insights tool.
63. GTMetrix
See how quickly your website loads with GTMetrix.
Discover what’s keeping it from loading as fast as possible, and see what steps to take to optimize load speed.
64. Cloudflare
A free content delivery network (CDN) is a network of servers that speeds up content loading by using the server closest to the person doing the loading.
65. Reddico SERP Speed Test
Reddico’s SERP Speed Test tool allows you to compare your page speed at keyword level with the rest of the pages ranking on page 1.
The best part? Most countries are supported – simply choose your local from the drop-down.
Free Multi-Tools
66. Semrush Free Account
Screenshot from Semrush, March 2024Semrush is an excellent keyword research SEO tool that, among other things, makes it easy to find out what keywords any page on the web is ranking for.
It provides detailed information about those keywords, including their position in SERPs, the URLs to which they drive traffic, and the traffic trends over the past 12 months.
With this feature-packed tool, you can easily find out what keywords your competitors are ranking for and craft great content around those terms and phrases.
Semrush also offers more features and unlimited access with various paid plans.
While they’re not cheap, you can get started with a 14-day free trial to test the premium features. Or follow the company’s guide on how to use features with a free account.
67. Chrome DevTools
Edit pages in real-time using tools that are built into Google Chrome DevTools.
Diagnose problems as you encounter them.
68. Marketing Miner
Get SERP data, ranking, tool reports, and competitive analysis all in the form of convenient reports with Marketing Miner.
69. MozBar
Screenshot from Mozbar, March 2024MozBar is a free SEO toolbar that works with the Chrome browser. It provides easy access to advanced metrics on webpages and SERPs.
With MozBar and a free Moz account, you can easily access the Page and Domain Authority scores of any page or site.
The Page Analysis feature lets you explore elements on any page (e.g., markup, page title, general attributes, link metrics).
You can find keywords on the page you’re viewing, highlight and differentiate links, and compare the link metrics of different sites in SERPs.
If you need to do detailed SEO research on the go, MozBar is one of the best options.
You can unlock even more advanced features, such as Page Optimization and Keyword Difficulty, with a MozPro subscription.
70. SEO Minion
Conduct on-page SEO analysis, check for broken links, get a SERP preview, and more with this Chrome extension.
71. SEOquake
See SEO metrics and conduct an SEO audit with this Chrome extension.
72. Sheets For Marketers
Learn how to automate tasks in Google Sheets and discover the best automation templates and tools via this curated list.
73. Sheet Consolidator
Create workbooks using CSV exports with a table of contents and enabled hyperlinks using this simple Excel Sheet Consolidator tool.
74. Google Search Console
Screenshot by author, May 2022This list wouldn’t be complete without a mention of Google Search Console.
Aside from the fact that the data comes from Google, Google Search Console is rich with insights related to:
- Keyword and URL performance.
- Indexation issues.
- Mobile usability.
- Sitemap status.
- And much more!
75. Small SEO Tools
A suite of tools to make it easier to create content, including a plagiarism checker, article rewriter, grammar check, word counter, spell checker, paraphrasing tool, and more.
76. Internet Marketing Ninjas
From social tools and schema generator tools to webmaster tools and web design tools, check out the free suite of tools from Internet Marketing Ninjas.
77. Ahref’s SEO Toolbar
Get SEO metrics and SERP details from Ahrefs free Chrome or Firefox extension.
78. Bing Webmaster Tools
Featuring keyword reports, keyword research, crawling dates, and more.
Unlike Google Analytics, Bing Webmaster Tools only focuses on organic search. It’s a must-have for anyone who wants to be ranked on Bing.
79. Woorank
Screenshot by author, May 2022Woorank is a handy website analyzer that provides useful insights that can help you improve your site’s SEO.
It generates an SEO score for your site and an actionable “Marketing Checklist,” which outlines steps you can take to fix any problems with your site’s SEO.
Another cool feature of this free tool is the social shareability pane. This section provides social network data such as the number of likes, shares, comments, backlinks, and bookmarks across popular social networks.
Woorank also has a great mobile section where you can find information on how your pages render on mobile devices and how quickly they load.
80. SEObility
Find a suite of SEO tools that includes a site auditor, a SERP tracker, a backlink tracker, and more with SEObility.
81. Dareboost
This tool will provide you with an audit of your technical SEO, content, and website’s popularity.
You can also find out which keywords you should add to your pages.
82. Siteliner
Discover duplicate content, broken links, and page authority, and get both an XML sitemap and a detailed report of key site information with Siteliner.
83. InLinks
InLinks is about enhancing your content’s SEO by understanding and optimizing for the context of your topics, not just keywords.
It’s like having an SEO coach who helps you make your content more relevant and engaging through internal linking recommendations, AI content generation, content brief automation, and more.
On-Page SEO
84. Named Entities Indexing Checker
Part of InLinks, this indexing checker tool checks how well search engines understand the named entities (people, places, things) in your content.
Ensuring your content’s context is spot-on for better SEO performance is crucial.
85. JSON Crack
While more technical, this online JSON tool can help SEO professionals work with JSON, a common data format, making it easier to analyze and utilize structured data for SEO purposes.
86. Counting Characters Google SERP Tool
Screenshot by author, May 2024While counting characters has been a long-standing approach to evaluating meta description and title tag length, the reality is Google doesn’t count the meta title and description in the number of characters. It uses pixels instead.
The Counting Characters tool will provide both the character count and the pixel count to ensure you are creating meta tags that are not cut off by an ellipsis – represented by (…).
87. Natural Language API Demo
Use machine learning to determine the sentiment of text with the Natural Language API Demo.
New customers get $300 in free credits to spend on Natural Language. Use this data to improve your product or site design.
88. Rich Results Test
The Rich Results Test will discover if your website can support rich results, which is when your Google result includes non-textual elements like images.
89. Structured Markup Validator
Google’s structured data tool no longer exists. The Schema Markup Validator is the recommended alternative.
90. Ryte Structured Data Helper
The Ryte Structured Data Helper will provide you with a handy overview, showing you how to quickly and clearly validate your page’s Schema markup.
91. Google Tag Manager
Google Tag Manager allows you to manage your website tags without editing any code!
92. View Rendered Source
See how your browser renders a page with this Chrome extension, including modifications made by JavaScript.
Differences between raw and rendered versions are shown line-by-line.
93. Higher Visibility Google SERP Snippet Optimization Tool
Find out what your SERP snippet will look like with Higher Visibility’s Google SERP Snippet Optimization Tool.
94. Merkle’s Schema Markup Generator
Merkle’s Schema Markup Generator tool will help create JSON-LD markups for articles, breadcrumbs, events, FAQ pages, and how-to guides.
95. Animalz Revive
Find out which of your pages needs an update or an upgrade with Animalz Revive.
You can see the traffic for your pages, including the percentage of traffic your page lost since its peak.
96. Copyscape Free Comparison Tool
Copyscape’s Comparison Tool will help you check the percentage of shared text between two different pages to weed out plagiarism.
97. Internal Linking Tool
An internal linking tool to help you weave a web of internal links on your website, boosting your SEO by making your site more navigable and interconnected. Think of it as laying down a network of roads within your website, guiding visitors and search engines alike.
SEO Research Tools
98. Hunter
Hunter will help find all the important email addresses associated with a given domain.
99. SimilarWeb
Conduct competitor analysis with SimilarWeb that shows you a given domain’s traffic, top pages, engagement, marketing channels, and more.
100. Wappalyzer
Wappalyzer will help you determine if a given website is using a CMS, CRM, ecommerce platform, advertising networks, marketing tools, or analytics.
101. Wayback Machine
See a website throughout time, including pages that are no longer on the web with the Wayback Machine.
Bonus* check out the Compare tool to visualize how a page has changed based on specific timestamps.
Screenshot by author, March 2024102. SEO Explorer
SEO Explorer is a free tool for keyword and link research.
103. RedditInsights.ai
This is a cool tool for peering into the vast world of Reddit to uncover trends and topics.
Understanding what’s buzzing on Reddit can guide content creation, helping you tap into what your audience is interested in to inform your keyword and content strategy.
104. Thruuu Page Comparison Tool
Dive into side-by-side SEO comparisons of different web pages with the Thruuu Page Comparison Tool.
You can use this to help you understand how to optimize your own content.
Free Rank Checking Tools
105. Ahref’s SERP Checker
See the domains that place in the top 10 for any given keyword in 243 countries, and get robust analytics from Ahref’s SERP Checker.
106. SERPROBOT
Find a dedicated SERP tracking tool with the appropriately named SERPROBOT.
Set up automatic alerts, choose the frequency with which your SERP is checked, and get visual representations of changes.
107. Bulk Google Rank Checker
See your website’s SERPs for various keywords en mass with the Bulk Google Rank Checker.
Free Site Speed Tools
108. Lighthouse
This is Google’s open-source site speed utility. Lighthouse provides audits of performance, accessibility, web apps, SEO, and more.
109. WebpageTest
WebpageTest conducts site speed tests from different locations using different browsers.
110. Web Vitals
This GitHub extension measures Core Web Vitals, providing instant feedback on loading, interactivity, and layout shift metrics.
Here is an additional list of plugins to improve site speed.
WordPress SEO Tools
WordPress is a robust SEO-friendly CMS platform with numerous plugin options available to improve SEO.
While this post isn’t a WordPress-specific list of plugins, it is worth mentioning a handful of key plugins worth considering.
111. RankMath
A newer SEO suite for WordPress, RankMath has 15 modules and provides SEO guidance using 30 different types of improvements.
112. Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is the most installed SEO suite for WordPress, with regular updates and new tools.
113. Ahrefs WordPress SEO Plugin
The Ahrefs WordPress SEO plugin will provide you with content audits, backlink checking, and tools to monitor and grow your organic traffic.
Here are additional lists of Google Analytics plugins and plugins to improve site speed.
Free AI SEO Tools
Last but not least, we cannot ignore AI.
For better or worse, artificial intelligence has completely shaken up the digital world. While it should never replace your current SEO activities, it can certainly enhance them.
Here are some free AI SEO tools; we’ll also explain how to use them.
114. OpenAI Chat (ChatGPT)
Screenshot by author, March 2024Perhaps the most famous AI tool out there, ChatGPT can be a great help in your SEO efforts.
You can ask for advice, generate content ideas, and even get help with keyword research. It’s like having an SEO buddy you can brainstorm with anytime.
While the Premium ChatGPT, i.e., ChatGPT 4, is paid, ChatGPT 3.5 is free of charge.
115. AIRPM for ChatGPT
Think of AIPRM as your personal assistant to supercharge ChatGPT’s capabilities.
It helps you craft prompts that get straight to the point, whether you’re looking for keyword suggestions, content ideas, or SEO strategies, making your interactions with ChatGPT even more fruitful.
116. SEO.AI
This innovative tool leverages AI to analyze your content’s alignment with SEO best practices and offers suggestions for improvement.
It can provide insights into keyword optimization, readability, and other on-page SEO factors, helping you refine your content to better match search engine algorithms and user expectations.
You can get 10 content audits free!
Time to Take Your SEO Efforts To New Heights
In today’s digital landscape, standing out is not just about having a great website; it’s about making sure it’s seen.
With well over 100 free SEO tools at your disposal, the power to elevate your online presence is literally at your fingertips.
We’ll leave you with some parting tips to help you while using these free SEO tools:
- Start with a goal – Have a clear objective before diving into the sea of tools. Are you looking to increase traffic, enhance user engagement, or improve your search engine rankings? Knowing your goal will help you select the right tools and focus your efforts effectively.
- Experiment and explore – Don’t hesitate to try different tools to see which ones resonate with your workflow and provide the most valuable insights. What works for one site might not work for another, so exploration is key.
- Integrate SEO into your routine – Make SEO a regular part of your content creation and website maintenance routine. It’s not a one-off task but a continuous effort that pays dividends over time.
- Stay updated – The world of SEO is dynamic, with search engines constantly updating their algorithms. Keep abreast of the latest trends and adjust your strategies accordingly to maintain and enhance your site’s visibility.
- Use data wisely – Leverage the data and insights from these tools to make informed decisions. But remember, data is most powerful when combined with creativity and a deep understanding of your audience.
- Patience is key – SEO results don’t happen overnight. Be patient, keep refining your strategies, and the results will come.
So, whether you’re a seasoned SEO strategist or just starting, the wealth of free tools available means there’s no excuse not to optimize your site.
Dive in, explore, and watch as your website climbs the ranks, attracting more visitors and turning clicks into customers.
More Resources:
Featured Image: EtiAmmos/Shutterstock
SEO
What Is Social Listening And How To Get Started
Most marketers now understand the value of social media as a marketing tool – and countless companies have now established their own presence across a variety of social platforms.
But while the importance of creating content and building an audience is well understood, many organizations are lacking when it comes to another key strength of social media: social listening.
Social listening is a strategic approach that can help your brand tap into the incredible breadth and depth of social media to hone in on what your target audience is saying and feeling – and why.
By investing in social listening, you can gain a deeper understanding of conversations happening around not just your brand but your broader industry, and extract meaningful insights to inform multiple areas of your business.
In this article, we’ll explore what social listening is, why it’s crucial for businesses today, and the tools that exist to help you do it before diving into tips for getting started with your social listening strategy.
Let’s get started.
What Is Social Listening?
Social listening is the practice of tracking conversations on social media that are related to your brand, analyzing them, and extracting insights to help inform your future marketing efforts.
These conversations can include anything from direct mentions of your brand or product to discussions around your industry, competitors, relevant keywords, or other topics that might be tangential to your business.
The idea of social listening is that you’re really getting to know your audience by sitting back and listening in to what they talk about – what their gripes are, what they’re interested in, what’s getting them excited right now, and much more.
Gathering this data and then examining it can help you in a number of ways, from uncovering useful product development insights to inspiring new content ideas or better ways to serve your customers.
Here are some of the things you can achieve through social listening:
- Tracking mentions of your brand, products, or services across social platforms.
- Evaluating public perception and sentiment towards your brand by assessing whether mentions are positive, negative, or neutral.
- Spotting trends that are emerging among your target market by noting common themes, topics, or keywords in conversations.
- Gaining a better understanding of your audience, including who they are, where they spend time online, what they want, and how your brand can connect with them.
As such, social listening isn’t just a powerful tool for marketing, but can also be leveraged to improve customer engagement and service, product development, and other areas of your business.
What’s The Difference Between Social Listening And Social Monitoring?
If you’re finding yourself a little confused about the difference between social listening and social monitoring, you’re not alone! The terms are often used interchangeably – when, in reality, they have different scopes and objectives.
Generally speaking, social monitoring is narrower and more focused on your brand specifically, while social listening takes more of a big-picture approach to gaining insights.
If social monitoring is about seeking out brand mentions and conversations to hear what people are saying, social listening is diving even deeper to understand why they’re saying those things.
Social monitoring typically involves tracking social activity directly related to your brand so that you can stay abreast of what’s happening at the moment and tackle any pressing issues.
In this regard, it’s often leveraged as a component of a company’s customer support program to help respond to queries, answer questions, and remedy complaints in a timely manner.
It can also help to identify trending topics or industry moments that might apply to your brand. Basically, social monitoring is all about being aware of what’s happening around your brand on social media so you can respond quickly.
Social listening does all of this, but also takes things a few steps further, expanding the scope of what you’re tracking and focusing on obtaining insights to help with brand strategy, content planning, and decision-making.
Where social monitoring might focus on mentions of your brand, social listening goes beyond that to explore broader consumer behavior and emerging industry trends, and make qualitative analyses of the conversations that are happening in those areas.
One analogy I’ve encountered that I find helpful for understanding the difference between the two: If social monitoring is akin to tending your own backyard, social listening is like taking a walk through your neighborhood and eavesdropping on conversations to better understand what your neighbors are interested in and concerned about.
While we are focused on social listening in this particular article, both social monitoring and social listening are important parts of an effective marketing strategy.
Why Is Social Listening Important?
As we’ve touched on, successful social listening can benefit many areas of your business – from your marketing to your product and your customer support. And all of this means it can have a big impact on your bottom line.
Let’s look closer at just some of the reasons why social listening is an important tool in your business’s arsenal.
Reputation Management
Social listening can help you get a sense of how your audience – and the general public – feels about your brand, products, messaging, or services.
By understanding both the positive and negative sentiments around your brand and where they come from, you can work to fill the gaps and improve perceptions of your company.
Understanding Your Audience
On that note, social listening is a great way to learn more about your audience – from your current customers to your prospects and beyond.
It offers a looking glass into what your target consumer is thinking about, their opinions, pain points, desires, etc. With this information, you have the power to customize your content, message, and products to serve their needs better.
Market Analysis
Social listening is a powerful tool for unearthing insights into your industry – trends, consumer behaviors, opportunities, etc. This is the kind of information that you can use to get ahead of your competitors and deliver the ultimate customer experience.
Competitive Insights
Speaking of competitors, social listening enables you to keep a watchful eye on your competitors and learn from their successes and failures.
You can use active listening to determine how your target market perceives your competitors and apply your findings to differentiate yourself from the pack.
Crisis Management
Let’s face it: Crises happen, no matter what your business or industry. But social listening can help you identify crises before they hit a boiling point, and address them in a timely manner.
Content Strategy
Want to know what content types and formats resonate best with your audience? Try social listening! Once you have the necessary insights, you’ll be able to create more engaging content.
Lead Generation
Social listening can drive lead generation in a number of ways.
You can use it as a tool to discover prospects who are interested in your industry, product niche, or topics related to your business.
Beyond this, by improving your content strategy, reputation, products, customer experience, and more using your social listening insights, you will ultimately boost more leads to your business.
Social Listening Tools
Given that social listening requires pulling data from millions of posts across social media and analyzing it, we would recommend using a tool to help with your efforts.
Here are a few popular social listening tools.
Hootsuite
Known for its social management features, Hootsuite also offers a comprehensive suite of capabilities to help with your social listening efforts.
The platform allows you to create custom streams to track hashtags, keywords, or mentions across a range of social platforms. You can use these to spot conversations in real-time and engage with them.
Using some of Hootsuite’s tools and integrations, you can also do things like track brand sentiment, listen into Reddit conversations, access consumer research, and more.
Pricing:
- 30-day free trial.
- Paid plans start at $99/month for the Professional tier and 249/month for the Team tier (billed annually).
- Hootsuite offers an Enterprise tier with custom pricing.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is another leader in the social media management space that is super useful for social listening.
With Sprout Social’s Smart Inbox, you can pull all your mentions, comments, and DMs from across your social platforms into one single feed – helping you keep on top of what’s happening.
Other key features include audience analysis, campaign analysis, crisis management, competitor comparison, influencer recognition, sentiment research, and much more.
Pricing:
- 30-day free trial.
- Paid plans start at $249/month for the Standard tier, $399/month for the Professional tier, and $499/month for the Advanced tier (billed annually).
- Sprout Social offers an Enterprise tier with custom pricing.
Brandwatch
Brandwatch is a strong social listening and analytics platform that can help you track and analyze conversations online. It pulls data from 100 million sources, ensuring you’re not missing anything.
The Brandwatch tool will sift through brand mentions in real-time to analyze sentiment and perception, saving you a ton of time and manual effort.
Other key features include AI alerts for unusual mentions activity, conversation translation across multiple languages, tons of historical data, and more.
Pricing:
- Book a meeting with the Brandwatch team to learn more about pricing.
Meltwater
Meltwater’s social listening tool monitors data from a ton of different feeds, from Facebook to Instagram, Twitch, Reddit, YouTube, and many more. It can even recognize when your brand is talked about in a podcast!
Key features include topic and conversation trends analysis, custom dashboard and report building, consumer segmentation and behavior analysis, crisis management, and more.
Pricing:
- Contact the Meltwater team for pricing details.
Talkwalker
Another top name in the social listening space, Talkwalker monitors 150 million websites and 10+ social networks to power your real-time listening experience.
It offers AI-powered sentiment analysis in over 127 languages, notifications for any atypical activity, issue detection, conversation clustering, and much more.
Pricing:
- Contact the Talkwalker team for pricing.
6 Tips For Building A Social Listening Strategy
Now that you understand what social listening is and why it’s important – as well as a few of the tools you can use to power your social listening program – it’s time to start considering your strategy.
Here are six steps we recommend when building out your social listening strategy.
1. Define Your Goals & Objectives
As with any big project, your first step before starting should be to set clear goals for what you want to achieve.
Why are you doing this, and what is the desired result? Sit down with your team and talk through these points in order to align with your objectives.
You might have one key objective or several. Some potential options could be:
- Improve your company’s customer service and support.
- Gain insights to help inform product development and enhance product offerings.
- Track brand sentiment across current and potential customers.
- Develop a deeper understanding of the competitive landscape in your industry, and how your competitors are performing with social audiences.
- Stay on top of industry events and trends so you can spot content gaps and opportunities ahead of time.
Whatever your goals are, make sure you have them set from the beginning so you have clarity as you move forward.
2. Pick Your Tool Of Choice
While social listening can technically be done manually, it will never be as comprehensive as what you can get from leveraging a tool or platform.
Social media listening tools, like the ones we highlighted above, are able to synthesize data from millions of sources at once – not to mention their abilities to analyze sentiment, identify trends, spot activity, and more.
So, while they typically come with a price tag, the good ones are worth their weight in gold.
Do your research and choose a tool that aligns with your objectives and your team’s budget.
Look for something that monitors many different touchpoints, offers comprehensive analytics, is customizable, and integrates with your existing tech stack (if necessary).
3. Identify Target Keywords And Topics
This step is crucial: Take the time to define the keywords, topics, and hashtags that you want to “listen in” to – as these will provide the basis for your listening efforts.
Be sure to include keywords and themes that are relevant to your brand but also your industry, so that you get information that’s most useful to you. You could also discuss any keywords or topics you might want to exclude and why.
These might evolve or change over time, and that’s okay – this is about setting up a well-considered and focused foundation based on what matters most right now, and what will help you achieve your goals.
4. Decide On Your Workflow
Who will be responsible for monitoring your social listening data? Who should be responding to relevant mentions? Whose job is it to analyze the data and report on learnings and progress?
These are all things you should consider early on so that you can develop a clear workflow that outlines responsibilities.
By establishing the process early on, you’ll make sure that your efforts are not in vain and that you’re able to really put your data to use.
One recommendation: Make sure that somebody is regularly monitoring conversations and engaging where necessary. You should be keeping a keen eye on your listening activity – and automated alerts can be very helpful here.
5. Adapt As Needed
As part of the workflow we just discussed, somebody (or several people) should be responsible for routinely analyzing the data you’re collecting – as, unfortunately, it won’t analyze itself.
Set up a consistent process for diving into your data, extracting insights, and then acting on them.
There’s no point in allocating resources to a social listening program if you’re not using the learnings to benefit your business.
So, be sure to adapt your content strategy, marketing efforts, customer service, and so on based on what the insights are telling you.
6. Don’t Forget Measurement
We all know the importance of social media measurement – and this extends to your social listening efforts.
As time goes on, continue to measure the success of your efforts against the goals and objectives you set out for yourself.
This will help you evaluate the impact of your social listening, and whether there are areas you should pivot or refine based on the data you’re seeing.
You can also track social engagement metrics over time to see if your learnings have provided a boost in your social performance as a whole.
In Conclusion
With millions of conversations happening all around us on social media, any brand that isn’t engaging in social listening is missing a major opportunity.
By taking the time to proactively (and attentively) listen to your audience and target consumers, understand them better, and put their feedback to use, you can drive considerable success for your business.
So, take some of the advice we’ve shared here and start building out your social listening strategy today!
More resources:
Featured Image: batjaket/Shutterstock
FAQ
What is the significance of social listening for modern businesses?
Social listening plays a pivotal role for modern businesses by offering critical insights into audience behavior, industry trends, and brand perception. By analyzing conversations on social media related to their brand or market, companies can adequately respond to customer feedback, adapt their marketing strategies, and anticipate consumer needs. It not only aids in shaping product development and content strategy but also enhances customer service, reputation management, and competitive analysis. This strategic approach empowers businesses to make informed decisions based on the direct sentiments and unfiltered conversations of their target audience.
Can you differentiate between social monitoring and social listening?
Social monitoring and social listening are distinct yet complementary components of a comprehensive social media strategy. Social monitoring is more tactical, focusing on tracking and responding to direct brand mentions, queries, and specific conversations related to immediate issues. Its objective is to maintain awareness of what’s currently being said about a brand and to participate in these conversations promptly. Social listening, on the other hand, employs a broader, more strategic approach. It goes beyond mere tracking, analyzing the underlying sentiments, causes, and implications of social discourse to extract actionable insights. This process not only involves engagement but also a deep analysis of consumer behavior patterns and industry trends for a long-term strategy formulation.
Which social listening tools are recommended for businesses to utilize?
For businesses looking to execute an effective social listening strategy, a variety of tools are available that can help streamline the process. These include:
- Hootsuite: Offers custom streams to monitor social conversations and sentiment, alongside integrations for broader consumer research.
- Sprout Social: Features a Smart Inbox to consolidate social interactions for monitoring. It also provides tools for audience and competitor analysis.
- Brandwatch: Analyzes brand mentions from an extensive range of sources, offering AI-powered sentiment analysis and trend spotting.
- Meltwater: Monitors various feeds, from mainstream social media to Reddit and podcasts, enabling comprehensive analysis.
- Talkwalker: Provides monitoring and analytical capabilities over a broad spectrum of online platforms, backed by AI sentiment analysis.
Businesses should select a tool that aligns with their specific needs and objectives, focusing on features like comprehensive analytics, broad monitoring capabilities, and the ability to integrate with existing technological infrastructure.
SEO
Google Performance Max For Marketplaces: Advertise Without A Website
Google has launched a new advertising program called Performance Max for Marketplaces, making it easier for sellers on major e-commerce platforms to promote their products across Google’s advertising channels.
The key draw? Sellers no longer need a website or a Google Merchant Center account to start.
The official Google Ads Help documentation states:
“Performance Max for Marketplaces helps you reach more customers and drive more sales of your products using a marketplace. After you connect your Google Ads account to the marketplace, you can create Performance Max campaigns that send shoppers to your products there.”
The move acknowledges the growing importance of online marketplaces like Amazon in product discovery.
For sellers already listing products on marketplaces, Google is providing a way to tap into its advertising ecosystem, including Search, Shopping, YouTube, Gmail, and more.
As ecommerce marketer Mike Ryan pointed out on LinkedIn:
“Polls vary, but a recent single-choice survey showed that 50% of consumers start product searches on Amazon, while a multiple-choice survey showed that 66% of consumers start on Amazon.”
The source for his data is a 2023 report by PowerReviews.
Getting Started
To use Performance Max for Marketplaces, sellers need an active account on a participating marketplace platform and a Google Ads account.
Google has yet to disclose which marketplaces are included. We contacted Google to request a list and will update this article when we receive it.
Once the accounts are linked, sellers can launch Performance Max campaigns, drawing product data directly from the marketplace’s catalog.
Google’s documentation states:
“You don’t need to have your own website or Google Merchant Center account.
And:
“You can use your existing marketplace product data to create ads with product information, prices, and images.”
Conversion tracking for sales is handled by the marketplace, with sales of the advertiser’s products being attributed to their Google campaigns.
While details on Performance Max For Marketplaces are still emerging, Google is providing information when asked directly.
Navah Hopkins states on LinkedIn she received these additional details:
“I finally got a straight answer from Google that we DO need a Merchant Center for this, we just don’t need one to start with.”
Differences From Standard Performance Max
These are the key differences from regular Performance Max campaigns:
- No URL expansion, automatically-created assets, or video assets
- No cross-account conversion tracking or new customer acquisition modeling
- No audience segmentation reporting
Why SEJ Cares
Performance Max for Marketplaces represents a new way to use Google advertising while operating on third-party platforms.
Getting products displayed across Google’s ecosystem without the overhead of a standalone ecommerce presence is a significant opportunity.
How This Can Help You
Through Google’s ecosystem, merchants have new ways to connect with customers.
Performance Max for Marketplaces is a potential difference maker for smaller retailers that have struggled to gain traction through Google’s standard shopping campaigns.
Established merchants invested in Google Ads may find the program opens new merchandising opportunities. By making an entire marketplace catalog available for ad serving, sellers could uncover previously undiscovered pockets of demand.
The success of Performance Max for Marketplaces will depend on its execution and adoption by major players like Amazon and Walmart.
Featured Image: Tada Images/Shutterstock
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 29, 2024
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 30, 2024
How To Develop a Great Creative Brief and Get On-Target Content
Google’s John Mueller On Website Recovery After Core Updates
Why Big Companies Make Bad Content
13 Best Fun WordPress Plugins You’re Missing Out On
How To Drive Pipeline With A Silo-Free Strategy
OpenAI To Show Content & Links In Response To Queries
Generative Engine Optimization Framework Introduced in New Research
Power up your Demand Gen campaigns with new AI features
-
SEARCHENGINES6 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 29, 2024
-
SEARCHENGINES5 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 30, 2024
-
MARKETING5 days agoHow To Develop a Great Creative Brief and Get On-Target Content
-
SEO6 days agoGoogle’s John Mueller On Website Recovery After Core Updates
-
SEO5 days agoWhy Big Companies Make Bad Content
-
WORDPRESS5 days ago13 Best Fun WordPress Plugins You’re Missing Out On
-
SEO5 days agoHow To Drive Pipeline With A Silo-Free Strategy
-
SEO6 days agoOpenAI To Show Content & Links In Response To Queries
You must be logged in to post a comment Login