No SEO is Comfortable Without His or Her Favorite Tools
The quest for helpful tools and resources for SEO professionals is one that I suppose should never end. The faster things change these days, the more you need the best intelligence available in order to keep on top of things.
For this post, I wanted to give you a few essential tools that are the top in my field and resources that you should find useful for your SEO work. If some of these resources help you to expedite or automate your processes, all the better. Here are a few favourites you should think about looking at:
Keyword Research Tools
Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery both top the list for popular tools of the paid membership variety. Of course, they both have free versions to just take them for a spin.
Keyword Discovery has some pretty impressive data, and it’s fairly easy to use with a short learning curve. Access to the best data will cost you something.
Wordtracker has some significant advantages in the areas of finding user search behavior. We like to refer to this as keyword forensic research here at The Search Engine Academy. Wordtracker is very useful for discovering hot, topical trends. This tool comes at a pretty affordable membership (for everything it can do.)
Uber Suggest is a less powerful tool, but it has some uses. If you are not delving into competitive analysis or researching user behavior, this free tool may be of use.
Markup Tools
Schema.org creates rich snippets for your website html code. It allows Google to better understand what your site is for and rank it higher on a SERP. If you’re interested, a more detailed explanation of Schema can be found here.
Checking Your Web Page Download Speed
Google’s PageSpeed Insights Tool is a very quick and easy way to have your URL analyzed for the download speed. As you may know, a page that loads too slow – can hurt your SEO.
The PageSpeed Insights Tool gives you a quick list of things to consider fixing to improve your speed. The tool offers you the option to consider results for either Mobile or Desk Top. Plus it gives you a User Experience score. Free.
Back Links Analysis Tools
AHrefs allows you to identify common SEO related issues as well as monitor your online reputation. It gives you a detailed backlink profile for any URL.
Link Research Tools provides fresh, complete and accurate link data. Also, it offers competitor research, Website audits, and link quality checks. As a bonus, it supports Google penalty recovery with Link Detox.
The SEMRush SEO tool set is one of the top link analysis tools. It’s fully featured with all the bells and whistles. Use this tool to gain insights into your competitors’ strategies for organic SEO, paid search, link building and display advertising. The pro version starts at just $69.95 per month.
Properly Structured Data
When information is highly structured and predictable, then the search engines can more freely, organize and display it in the smartest ways.
Check Out Google’s Structured Data Guide a GREAT resource reference page from Google!