Common Tools and Software For SEO
Software tools are essential for success with search engine optimization. These tools save you hours of your time, and some tasks are impossible to do without these tools. Certain common tools should be in every search engine optimizer’s arsenal.
Why You Need Tools for SEO
The nature of search engine optimization means that software tools are a fundamental part of your success. You cannot do certain tasks without having access to some expensive tools. You also have to factor in the reality that your competitors will have those tools, which means you will need them too.
Many tools are also useful because of the predictive capabilities they have. For example, you have tools to give you detailed insights about what your competition has done in the past. That allows you to see how the Google algorithm evolves.
Research SEO Tools
Before you can start any SEO campaign, you have to do the research first. These research tools are integral in helping you find the right keywords and niches to target. This is usually the first step in every campaign, and these tools take what can be a weeklong task and make it into only a few hours.
Some research tools will also contain millions of keywords in their database to allow you to see historical averages as well.
- Ahrefs – This is the only tool you should have if you can only choose one. It contains a lot of powerful smaller tools combined into one. Its research tools allow you to explore the more than 1 billion keywords in its database. This will enable you to see which websites have ranked overtime for these keywords. It gives you a head start in figuring out what to target.
- SEMrush – The first tool in the industry that had a large database of keywords was SEMrush. You can easily search for a keyword and see all the websites that have ranked over time. You can also see how search trends have changed, so you can decide if a keyword is worth the effort or not.
On Page Automation Tools
On-page SEO is an often overlooked part of the process. However, you can never do well at ranking your website if your pages aren’t optimized. Screaming Frog SEO is the most commonly used tool for on-page search engine optimization.
The main benefit of using this tool is that it analyzes all the pages on your website and then tells you what you need to do to optimize them. The licensing is also exceptionally flexible, as it is not a subscription model.
Recon Tools
Majestic and Ahrefs are the two most common reconnaissance tools. These tools allow you to see your competition’s backlink profile, which is one of the most important things you can do to get rankings. It is also one of the easiest ways to go into a new market without researching too much.
You can also correlate the backlink profile of your competition and the keywords they rank for. This will allow you to get an insight into how Google ranks websites.
Tracking Tools
Tracking tools are also important to see how your rankings change over time. They give you a periodic snapshot to allow you to figure out whether you are doing the right things or not. Ahrefs provides a great rank tracker that will keep you up-to-date quite easily.
However, many other rank tracking tools aren’t as expensive as Ahrefs. Rank tracking is one of the most overlooked parts of the optimization process because many people don’t care about what they are doing until they are in the top 10.
You need different tools for every phase of the search engine optimization process. The tools listed above help you automate all aspects so that you can rank quickly and more efficiently.