Select Page
SEO Optimization: 8 SEO Tools You Need For a Next-Gen Strategy
Bob Sabra
December 7, 2021
The Big Cheese at Hovi, Bob wants to evolve the digital marketing landscape and drive sales for his clients. He's a big MMA fan and spoils himself with some homemade carbonara when he can. Always at the forefront, he'll guide you through the digital landscape.

SEO Optimization is a big part of any effective digital marketing strategy. SEO provides 20 times more traffic opportunities than PPC. That’s true on both mobile and desktop.

This shows how crucial it is to learn proper SEO to rise above your competitors’ websites. When you get to the number one spot, you’re helping yourself to 32.5% of traffic share. That’s what the first search result gets on average.

You need to study keywords, content marketing, and such. But what else can you do to boost your efforts?

You can take advantage of these 8 SEO optimization tools to make this journey a little easier. Take a look below to see what tools you should be using.

 

1. Google Search Console

This is one of the most basic but most important SEO optimization tool out there. It lets you identify how many visitors you get and how they found your pages. It also lets you see which pages are popular and whether people view your site on a mobile device more than a desktop computer.

You’ll need to register a Search Console account and then add your site. This process notifies Google and helps authorize you as the official owner of your website. You then need to verify your site; fortunately, the tool offers multiple means of accomplishing this.

From there, you can also link your Search Console account to Google Analytics.

2. Moz Link Explorer

Moz Link Explorer is a free SEO optimization tool. However, it has some limitations regarding how many websites you can search in a month. It’s also a part of Moz Pro, a suite of SEO tools, that’s available with a free trial.

Its main purpose is to give you a full analysis of the links in the website entered. This tool lists some basic but useful information about the website: its domain authority, number of inbound links, and the number of ranking keywords.

It gives you a quick look at how your link-building efforts are going via a visual presentation. Also, it can show you discovered and lost linking domains.

You can use it to look for link-building opportunities or to look at your competitor’s backlinks. It also allows you to download all these.

 

3. SEMRush

You should launch SEMRush at the beginning of your SEO campaign. Some argue you should use this tool during the design phase of your website. This is because it can run an in-depth SEO audit of your whole site, pointing out errors like broken links.

This tool also helps you identify back-linking opportunities and allows you to study your competition. You get to analyze their keyword plan and which keyword phrases help them find success. Of course, it also works as a bona fide keyword research tool.

You can use SEMRush for free but you get more tools out of the premium version.

 

4. Ahrefs

In many ways, Ahrefs functions similarly to SEMRush and Moz Link Explorer. However, it does offer a few other capabilities you might find useful. One of these tools is its Content Explorer.

This tool can help you to discover trending topics. You can discover which ones get shared the most on social media and which topics people actively engage in.

This is a powerful tool if you’re looking to enhance your content strategy, simplifying your some aspects of your topic research and helps identify relevant keywords for you to focus on with your content.

5. GTMetrix

Google’s algorithm also considers your site’s performance. The slower your pages load, the lower your ranking will become. People want faster pages and if you can’t keep up, they’ll leave. This high bounce rate indicates your site isn’t the authority or important hotspot people go to for a certain niche. A slow website is a major handicap for SEO Optimization.

Fix this with GTMetrix. This tool runs an in-depth audit of your site and then lists down all the possible ways you can improve performance.

Is this tool free? There is a free version but the paid subscriptions grant you a developer toolkit, monitoring from remote locations, and priority access to your audit reports.

 

6. Yoast

Yoast is perhaps one of the most crucial plugins for a site run on WordPress. This tool can help you check keyword density in a blog post and run an SEO audit on your meta tags and titles. In a nutshell, this tool works to help you bring out the highest-quality content to your visitors.

It’s also quite easy to use. Yoast features a color-coded alert system to notify you about certain SEO criteria. Red means there’s a serious concern you have to fix, yellow indicates minor issues, and green signifies a highly-optimized portion.

How much is it?

The most affordable subscription is $16 a month. The more expensive subscriptions grant you far more tools and these can cost from $49 to more than $300, depending on what SEO packages you want.

 

7. Google Keyword Planner

This one is another comprehensive keyword research tool, which you can use in conjunction with the above. If you run a PPC campaign, the Google Keyword Planner can give you information that will help that.

If the above tool gives you suggestions, this tool gives you details about each keyword, such as traffic estimates.

The tool also shows you the AdWords price, allowing you to gauge its competitiveness. It can even give you some related terms, from which you can find other keywords you may not have considered.

It also gives you detailed reports for free, and it’s good that it’s a part of the Google ecosystem.

 

8. Copyscape

Do not plagiarize content! Search engines can identify duplicated content and will penalize your pages for this! You’ll also lose the trust of your visitors — why would they go to you when they can go to the site you copied – a more reliable source?

The problem is people might create duplicate content without realizing it. You might paraphrase something out of memory but there’s the possibility that search engines will still mark that as plagiarism.

You can avoid this problem with Copyscape. This is a premium plagiarism checker that not only spots copied content but also notes down which sites have similar content. Make it a habit to run your content on Copyscape before posting on your site!

Use the Right SEO Optimization Tools for You

These SEO optimization tools help you further boost your SEO campaigns. What’s good is that you can use them together to get the results you want.

However, you must be well-versed about your SEO requirements to know what you’re looking for in the first place.

The SEO world can be hard to navigate, that’s why you need to know how to choose the right SEO company before committing.

Contact us if you need any help with your digital marketing strategies.

SEO Optimization is a big part of any effective digital marketing strategy. SEO provides 20 times more traffic opportunities than PPC. That’s true on both mobile and desktop.

This shows how crucial it is to learn proper SEO to rise above your competitors’ websites. When you get to the number one spot, you’re helping yourself to 32.5% of traffic share. That’s what the first search result gets on average.

You need to study keywords, content marketing, and such. But what else can you do to boost your efforts?

You can take advantage of these 8 SEO optimization tools to make this journey a little easier. Take a look below to see what tools you should be using.

 

1. Google Search Console

This is one of the most basic but most important SEO optimization tool out there. It lets you identify how many visitors you get and how they found your pages. It also lets you see which pages are popular and whether people view your site on a mobile device more than a desktop computer.

You’ll need to register a Search Console account and then add your site. This process notifies Google and helps authorize you as the official owner of your website. You then need to verify your site; fortunately, the tool offers multiple means of accomplishing this.

From there, you can also link your Search Console account to Google Analytics.

2. Moz Link Explorer

Moz Link Explorer is a free SEO optimization tool. However, it has some limitations regarding how many websites you can search in a month. It’s also a part of Moz Pro, a suite of SEO tools, that’s available with a free trial.

Its main purpose is to give you a full analysis of the links in the website entered. This tool lists some basic but useful information about the website: its domain authority, number of inbound links, and the number of ranking keywords.

It gives you a quick look at how your link-building efforts are going via a visual presentation. Also, it can show you discovered and lost linking domains.

You can use it to look for link-building opportunities or to look at your competitor’s backlinks. It also allows you to download all these.

 

3. SEMRush

You should launch SEMRush at the beginning of your SEO campaign. Some argue you should use this tool during the design phase of your website. This is because it can run an in-depth SEO audit of your whole site, pointing out errors like broken links.

This tool also helps you identify back-linking opportunities and allows you to study your competition. You get to analyze their keyword plan and which keyword phrases help them find success. Of course, it also works as a bona fide keyword research tool.

You can use SEMRush for free but you get more tools out of the premium version.

 

4. Ahrefs

In many ways, Ahrefs functions similarly to SEMRush and Moz Link Explorer. However, it does offer a few other capabilities you might find useful. One of these tools is its Content Explorer.

This tool can help you to discover trending topics. You can discover which ones get shared the most on social media and which topics people actively engage in.

This is a powerful tool if you’re looking to enhance your content strategy, simplifying your some aspects of your topic research and helps identify relevant keywords for you to focus on with your content.

5. GTMetrix

Google’s algorithm also considers your site’s performance. The slower your pages load, the lower your ranking will become. People want faster pages and if you can’t keep up, they’ll leave. This high bounce rate indicates your site isn’t the authority or important hotspot people go to for a certain niche. A slow website is a major handicap for SEO Optimization.

Fix this with GTMetrix. This tool runs an in-depth audit of your site and then lists down all the possible ways you can improve performance.

Is this tool free? There is a free version but the paid subscriptions grant you a developer toolkit, monitoring from remote locations, and priority access to your audit reports.

 

6. Yoast

Yoast is perhaps one of the most crucial plugins for a site run on WordPress. This tool can help you check keyword density in a blog post and run an SEO audit on your meta tags and titles. In a nutshell, this tool works to help you bring out the highest-quality content to your visitors.

It’s also quite easy to use. Yoast features a color-coded alert system to notify you about certain SEO criteria. Red means there’s a serious concern you have to fix, yellow indicates minor issues, and green signifies a highly-optimized portion.

How much is it?

The most affordable subscription is $16 a month. The more expensive subscriptions grant you far more tools and these can cost from $49 to more than $300, depending on what SEO packages you want.

 

7. Google Keyword Planner

This one is another comprehensive keyword research tool, which you can use in conjunction with the above. If you run a PPC campaign, the Google Keyword Planner can give you information that will help that.

If the above tool gives you suggestions, this tool gives you details about each keyword, such as traffic estimates.

The tool also shows you the AdWords price, allowing you to gauge its competitiveness. It can even give you some related terms, from which you can find other keywords you may not have considered.

It also gives you detailed reports for free, and it’s good that it’s a part of the Google ecosystem.

 

8. Copyscape

Do not plagiarize content! Search engines can identify duplicated content and will penalize your pages for this! You’ll also lose the trust of your visitors — why would they go to you when they can go to the site you copied – a more reliable source?

The problem is people might create duplicate content without realizing it. You might paraphrase something out of memory but there’s the possibility that search engines will still mark that as plagiarism.

You can avoid this problem with Copyscape. This is a premium plagiarism checker that not only spots copied content but also notes down which sites have similar content. Make it a habit to run your content on Copyscape before posting on your site!

Use the Right SEO Optimization Tools for You

These SEO optimization tools help you further boost your SEO campaigns. What’s good is that you can use them together to get the results you want.

However, you must be well-versed about your SEO requirements to know what you’re looking for in the first place.

The SEO world can be hard to navigate, that’s why you need to know how to choose the right SEO company before committing.

Contact us if you need any help with your digital marketing strategies.

Get the latest blog content straight to your inbox!

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Contribute to our blog

Get Started With Us and Start Evolving Today!

 

Hovi Digital Marketing Services