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There are many things I’m thankful for this Thanksgiving, and one of them is not having to be an expert at SEO. Becoming a master of SEO is not an easy task, especially for beginners. It involves figuring out which keywords to include in your content, deciding where to market your product, studying analytic reports, and more. Thankfully there are tools out there to aid in all these processes; many of them are free, but all of them work great in 2018! Unfortunately there isn’t a “one size fits all” tool that will meet all your SEO needs, but no fear; we’ve compiled a list of the year’s best SEO tools to help your business end up at the top of the search results page.
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This tool is free for everyone with a website. All you have to do is verify your website by adding code or by utilizing Google Analytics, and your site is available for indexing. You’re not required to have an account through Google Search Console, but if you do you have more control over the specifics of your site. Google Search Console allows you to see how users and search engines view your website so that you can evaluate your site and make any changes needed to make sure your website is optimized for SEO.
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Moz is one of the most well known, and most widely used, SEO tools available. They have a free toolbar that you can download which allows you to see your store’s metrics on any page. They also offer keyword recommendations and other advice on how to improve your site. People especially like the chat feature which allows you to get answers to almost any SEO-related question. Finally, it’s been said that Moz is always up to date despite Google’s many algorithm changes, so when you use this tool you never have to worry that your site isn’t optimized.
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Hopefully by now you’ve realized that your site needs to be optimized for mobile, considering mobile is the preferred platform for searches by most users. Ensuring that your website is mobile friendly will give you the peace of mind that your site will perform well across all devices. In comes Google’s Mobile Friendly Test. After they changed their algorithm to Mobile First Indexing, they released this tool for users to see how their websites look and perform on mobile devices. All you have to do is go to the site, enter in your website’s URL, and the test will analyze your site to determine how mobile-friendly it is. I ran a search on one of my favorite clothing sites, and as you can see from the screenshot above, it’s optimized for mobile (which I already knew, just judging by how many outfits I buy from my phone on a daily basis). If for some reason your website is NOT optimized for mobile, the test will give you recommendations on how to improve your code so that Google’s mobile crawler can find and index your site.
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Ahrefs is a popular research and analysis tool that many small business owners use to improve their SEO. There is a paid option for $99 a month, but if that’s not in your budget you can also sign up for a free account (with limitations, of course). Ahrefs offers a content explorer tool which searches the web for the most popular content based on a specific keyword or topic, as well as a site explorer that’s known as one of the best backlink analysis tools available. In addition to these 2 tools, they also have a keyword explorer tool that gives you the search volume for any keyword, related keyword ideas, position history, difficulty level, and SERP overview.
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This tool was originally developed in 2008, but it’s worth taking a look at it in 2018 because this year the project received $40 million dollars in funding so that it can expand into platforms such as Ebay, Amazon, and other big name companies. This tool comes with an extensive dashboard that may be overwhelming to some inexperienced users, but that contains pretty much all the information you need to get ahead in SEO. There’s a keyword research tool, a backlink analysis tool, traffic analytics, and a domain overview, among other options. All these things can help you compare your performance to that of your competition, in terms of session duration, bounce rates, and more. As long as you aren’t intimidated by some of their technical jargon, this tool might be the only one you need.
These highly effective and popular SEO tools are guaranteed to give you the results you’re looking for, and just in time for the new year. New Year= New SEO Rankings. What’s not to love?
What tools are you thankful for this Thanksgiving? Do you know of any that definitely need to be added to this list? Comment in the section below!
Image 1: search.google.com
Image 2: moz.com
Image 3: search.google.com
Image 4: ahrefs.com
Image 5: google.com