Free SEO tools for rankings monitoring, building backlinks, checking site authority and building social signals.
Essential tools for doing SEO
The following list of SEO tools will be updated when new software is released, or an existing adds more features. The record does not exhaust all the means in the market, offers some directions based on our experience. I do the following classifications: free, paid, and user skill level (novice, average, advanced user).
Before disclosing the list just a couple of notes. Each tool we use is a small indicator of what happens now or in the close past, like a photo of the website in question, and to what direction we should take to promote it. Other times, it is just built to ease our work. A trained eye is needed to comprehend the indicators and make the decisions on the right path to follow regarding marketing strategy. No tool out there can recreate how a skilled SEO acquires knowledge and reacts, equally, every professional should use the right tools. By no means, an amateur proprietor or user of any of the following programs can build the authority, quality and depth needed to a website just like a skilled SEO does, or worse take in and manage client projects. Most probably will harm his/her site or the client. That said, let us lay out the cards on the table.
*traffic tools at the end of this page
Google Analytics: Google Analytics provides a lot and detailed information about the traffic sources to your website as per unique visitors, referrals, paid or organic campaigns, keyword insights, etc. You can adjust it to your typical needs, add goals and more. It is the today's standard stats package. Free - Average User.
Clicky Web Analytics: Clicky is simple, user-friendly and free for one website and up to 3,000 daily pageviews, features that make it the ideal stats tool for small businesses. Paid (Free up to 3,000 daily pageviews) - All User Levels.
Bitly: Bitly is not a simple shortener as it provides analytics about the web pages or other URLs you have shortened. Free - All User Levels.
Youtube Analytics: Use the Analytics for your YouTube channel. Free - All User Levels.
Market Samurai: Market Samurai is a professional tool to monitor your rankings and research. Free/Paid - All User Levels.
Semalt: Semalt is a professional webmaster analytics tool that tracks your website and competitors' positions. Free/Paid - All User Levels.
Traffic Travis: Over 400.000 webmaster downloads, competition research, keyword rankings, keyword research, backlinks monitoring and more. Free/Paid - All User Levels.
SE Ranking: SE Ranking is an easy rank tracking tool that provides daily reports, competitor monitoring, backlink tracking, keyword suggestion and more stuff. Paid - All User Levels.
Rank Tracker (SEO Powersuite): It comes with frequent updates following every change in search engines algorithms, local search engines, de-personalized results, detailed private label reports, language criteria and more. We use it daily and has proven its wits all those years. Paid (Free Trial) - Advanced User.
Rank Checker (SEOBook.com): Firefox plugin. Its parameters can be adjusted but do not provide accuracy. I list it here as it is Free - Novice User.
Market Samurai: Market Samurai is a professional suite of tools for keyword and competition research, rankings and more. Free/Paid - All User Levels.
Traffic Travis: Over 400.000 webmaster downloads, competition research, keyword rankings, keyword research, backlinks monitoring and more. Free/Paid - All User Levels.
ΜΟΖ (πρώην SEOMOZ): Backlink analysis, competition analysis, website or page grading, keyword research, social signals and more. Paid - Advanced User.
Raven Tools: Social media marketing and monitoring, PPC Research, PPC Management, SEO Metrics. Paid (30 days Free Trial) - Advanced User.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider: A desktop website crawler and auditor which spiders websites’ links, images, CSS, script and apps like a search engine to evaluate onsite SEO. Paid - Advanced User.
OpenSIteExplorer (OSE): provided by ΜΟΖ tools. Paid - Advanced User.
Google Search Console: A fundamental tool as it provides information about the website status directly from Google. You can see your inbound backlinks, get average keyword positions and insights, URL crawling status and issues and more. Free - Advanced User.
SEOQuake Toolbar: It is a plugin working in Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. It provides info about Pagerank, Indexed Pages, Domain Age, Alexa Rank, Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook shares, Robots.txt and more. Free - Novice User.
ΜΟΖ Toolbar: Firefox and Chrome Plugin. It provides information on Domain/Page Authority, MOZ Rank, Backlinks, Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook shares, Robots.txt and more. Free - Advanced User.
SEO Powersuite: A whole suite of 4 powerful SEO tools that includes the Rank Tracker, Website Auditor, SEO Spyglass, Link Assistant. Paid (Free Trial) - Advanced User.
SEO Spyglass (SEO Powersuite): Backlink reports and analysis about your site or your competition. Shows Pagerank, Alexa Rank, IP address, anchor texts, link value and more. Paid (Free Trial) - Advanced User.
Website Auditor (SEO Powersuite): Analysis of every page of your website for broken links, code errors, duplicate content, 404 errors, titles and descriptions and more issues that could affect a web page's performance. Paid (Free Trial) - Advanced User.
Lighthouse: An open-source, automated tool that helps improving the quality of web pages. Runs against any web page, public or requiring authentication. Checks the performance, accessibility, progressive web apps, and more. Runs in Chrome DevTools, from the command line, or as a Node module. Free - Advanced User.
SEMRush.com: Competition analysis in organic and paid campaigns. Paid Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, country filters and more. Paid - Advanced User.
Pagerank: We offer a Pagerank tool in the above page along with a history of PR changes. Free - Novice User.
Monitor Backlinks: Track your backlinks, disavow them and discover what your competitors are doing right now. Paid (Free Trial) - Advanced User.
SE Ranking: SE Ranking is an easy rank tracking tool that provides daily reports, competitor monitoring, backlink tracking, keyword suggestion and more stuff. Paid - All User Levels.
No time to build links? Fill in this form picking the service you need. Paid - All User Levels.
GSA Search Engine Ranker: GSA builds backlinks 24 hours a day. Not based on a database of submission sites, it will find you new websites for you and submit your website. Paid - All User Levels.
TheHoth: offers packages for local or bulk backlinks. The Hoth is a large backlinks provider, and if someone uses the service, we would appreciate your review. Paid - All User Levels.
GSA SEO Indexer: Get your webpage into the major search engines within minutes where you previously needed to wait days or perhaps several weeks. Paid - All User Levels.
Building links, tracking search engine positions from your desktop or using any other web service that requires proxies you’ll need a VPN/Proxy.
Hide My Ass: Offers rotating proxies and is very handy when you set up a second computer running queries or other processes. Paid - All User Levels.GSA Proxy Scraper: A powerful, easy to use, proxy scraping software that can harvest and test thousands of proxies quickly and reliably with a few simple clicks. It has a powerful Port Scanner and other useful tools. Paid - All User Levels.
You need a Captcha breaker when you face repeated queries or submitting data to online forms, creating accounts, etc.
GSA Captcha Breaker: You won't need to type in captchas manually or pay others to solve them again. Paid - All User Levels..
Market Samurai: Market Samurai is a professional suite of tools for keyword research. Free/Paid - All User Levels.
KeywordXP: KeywordXP offers sources for building your keyword pool: related questions, competitor analysis, 801 variations of a seed keyword, cost per click, advertiser competition, keyword trends, long tail keywords, domain checker. Paid - All User Levels.
Traffic Travis: Over 400.000 webmaster downloads, competition research, keyword rankings, keyword research, backlinks monitoring and more. Free/Paid - All User Levels.
: Downloads your competitors′ most profitable keywords and ads for paid and organic search. Paid - Advanced User.
Google Ads Keyword Planner: A fundamental tool for keyword research and opportunities. It does not disclose the 'real' volumes of user research but provides approximate values or much lower than what you see in your stats. Needs extra caution and experience for not slipping into false conclusions. Free - All User Levels.
Google Trends: Useful when you need to assess how a keyword is behaving throughout the seasons. Free - Advanced User.
Treehouse: Learn web and mobile apps design from the comfort of your home (online learning tool). Paid - Novice User.
Copyscape: Checks plagiarism and how many people have copied your content. Free/Paid - All User Levels.
Google PageSpeed: the name Google says it all, an official tool to measure site speed and suggestions.
Webpagetest.org: Reliable metrics. Can test under different Geolocations and browser technology. Shows all speed issues, bottlenecks, and offers solutions. Suitable for getting metrics and assessment of following interventions in optimizing speed. Free - All User Levels.
Pingdom: Analyses page load time finds bottlenecks, check website performance, monitors uptime, etc. Paid - Advanced User.
GTMetrix: A handy tool that provides a breakdown of suggestions that serve to improve a page’s performance.
Ghostery: Shows what impact the tracking pixels have on the site speed.
XML-Sitemaps.com: Reliable tool for creating a sitemap. There is a limit of 500 pages. Free - Novice User.
Namecheap: Excellent support and cheap domain registration.
iPage: The cheapest hosting currently on the market. Paid - All User Levels.
WP Engine (WordPress Hosting): WP Engine (WordPress Hosting) for better performance (security, load time, scalability, CDN). Paid - All User Levels. WP Engine currently offers a coupon of 40% off annually on all plans. Click below.
For those that need immediate lead generation without doing SEO, there are always automated tools that one can test. Below a couple of them are listed without having them checked.
Visitor boost: It provides visitors at relatively low prices. Paid with Free Trial - All User Levels.
ineedhits: Starter Kit, Business Essentials, Mega Business Accelerator, Traffic Booster, Keyword Analysis, Code Optimization, Code Upload, Search Readiness Report, Easy Submit, Premium Submit, G-Boost, Y-Boost, M-Boost, Optimizer Kit PLUS, Easy PPC, Clicks4Sure, Traffic Trifecta, Top-Up Traffic, Newsletter Advertising, Banner Advertising & Design. Paid - Advanced User.
The following resources help those people who need to learn the basics of lead generation and make their first sales. They may include primary or advanced training, even over the shoulder How-Tos.
Audience Drill: This web-based product helps in creating a profit pulling ad that guarantees higher conversions over Facebook. Locates target audiences, delves into interests, and gives an inside look at your competitors' marketing. It offers three subscription packages. Paid - All User Levels.
John Thornhill's Inner Circle: John Thornhill offers training, support and joining his mastermind group. Paid - All User Levels.
The offers shown in this page do not guarantee immediate results or sales and must be taken as advertised on their sales pages.
We get a commission from all sales but cannot respond to buyers requests or refunds. Buyers can find all support and refund information on the individual sales pages.
Keeping some if not all, the guidelines and staying on the safe side with the link building tools, we manage not to harm our webpage.
Using automated tools could be counter-productive if you don't know how to control their impact.