If you’re a newbie to the world of SEO, you might not know where to start. It’s easy to get sucked into different SEO scams, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of paying for essentially useless tools or SEO services from inexperienced ‘professionals’.
However, I understand that marketing budgets can be tight, especially when you’re just getting started. With this in mind, I decided to write this article to help you figure out whether or not you should be using SEO tools, and if so, which ones.
What Are SEO Tools?
To put it simply, an SEO tool is anything that is designed to help you increase the effectiveness of your SEO efforts or streamline otherwise time-consuming processes. There are hundreds, if not thousands of different SEO tools out there, but they certainly aren’t all useful.
But, there are certainly some high-quality, affordable tools available that I’d recommend using when you’re optimizing your website. I’ve covered some of the most popular below. But first, let’s have a quick look at some of the reasons why you should use at least a few SEO tools.
What Are The Benefits Of Using SEO Tools?
Basically, SEO tools are designed to streamline different business processes and make things easier for you. Some of the benefits associated with using high-quality SEO tools include:
- High quality tools will give you an insight into your competitors and the things that they’re doing. This will help inform your strategy, giving you information and knowledge that you can use to overtake them.
- Some tools also give you access to the backlink profiles of your competitors. This is a great way to identify potential backlink sources for your own website, especially when you’re just getting started.
- SEO tools generally include some sort of keyword generation tools. Often, they also include some measure of the competitiveness of certain keywords, which makes them very useful for selecting which keywords you’re going to use.
- Finally, some SEO tools are designed to help you with on-page SEO, optimising things like your meta descriptions and keyword placement.
As you can see, you should definitely be using at least some SEO tools. But, choosing the right ones can be hard.
What Are The Best SEO Tools?
I’ve put together a short list of my favourite SEO tools to help you get started. Some of these require a paid subscription, but most include at least some free features.
Yoast SEO – If you run a WordPress website, then Yoast SEO is an absolute must have. It’s designed to help you maximise the effectiveness of your on-page SEO efforts.
SEMrush – SEMrush is a premium SEO tool that’s great for generating keyword ideas and gaining an insight into your competitors. It comes with some decent free features too, so I’d recommend checking it out.
Google Keyword Planner – It goes without saying that Google’s SEO tools are an absolute must for serious website owners. The Google Keyword Planner provides great information about the type of keywords that your competitors are using and what they’re doing with them.
Final Word
In short, you should definitely be using some sort of SEO tools when you’re optimizing your website. In this article I’ve outlined a few of the reasons why, and given you a couple of examples of my favourite SEO tools.
Good luck!