It’s easy to find long lists of quality SEO tools that are free on the web – but most of the lists are created by paid advertisers trying to manipulate you with their five-star ratings. Or worse, there will be paywalls and sketchy suggestions.
Here are some of the very best ones that marketers can avail of absolutely free, in alphabetical order:
Ahrefs
This one is already quite known, but it’s worth mentioning. In fact, it’s practically a classic. Their full audit of a website costs under $10. The information it returns is easy to digest and explain. This means action can be taken quickly and considerably.
Wait, you must be thinking, isn’t this a list for the best SEO tools that are free? Well, yes. The free version of Ahrefs is just as good! It provides:
- Backlinks
- Monthly page updates
- New keywords
- Referring pages
Their interface is also very easy to navigate, even for someone that may just be starting out.
No, no, this is not a fluke. Running a search on the engine of a keyword (or keywords) you’re researching will yield very helpful results. Aside from the SERPs (search engine results pages), it will also give a clear indication as to whether or not the keyword holds relevance to content you’re planning.
Google’s Page Speed Insights
Page speed is an increasingly important search engine optimization (SEO) indicator, so this is a good factor to keep in mind when optimizing your website. One of the easiest ways to improve your page speed score is to use Google’s Page Speed Insights tool, which provides a comprehensive report on key indicators like First Contentful Paint or Time to Interactive.
Page Speed Insights is traffic-lighted, making it relatively easy to read and understand the results of your tests. It also provides suggested actions that might help improve your scores.
Screaming Frog
Site crawls using this tool yield a lot of helpful red flags that can show touchpoints to be addressed:
- 404 pages
- Images that don’t have alt text
- Missing H2 tags in active pages
Competitors ranking higher than you can actually be crawled by this tool as well. By doing so, you can peek at their H1 tags and H2 tags. Both of those can unlock content topics and keywords that you may have missed out on initially.
Semrush
Keyword analytics is the name of the game with this tool. Their results also have ‘Keyword Intent’ included as well. They’re actually the very first platform to take this into account. Definitely making waves as a clear leader in the industry, amongst other strong players.
Free tools coverage includes, but is not limited to, site crawls and backlinks. There’s even means for a single keyword to trigger blog content structure around it!
Conclusion
SEO is a major boost that is downright necessary for any website hoping to bring business leads or straight-up customers. Contrary to popular belief, many of the best tools are available for free to marketers! Use the likes of Semrush, Google’s Page Speed Insights and the free version of Ahrefs.
Looking for SEO solutions in Canada? Contact Marvel Marketing today! We’ve got you covered in SEO, Google Ads, web design and digital marketing.
