For some reason, a lot of people are under the impression that you have to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a SEO tool if you want to get any results. While it is true in some cases that you will have to pay for more advanced features, you can easily get by with free tools you can find online as well. And there’s always the option to upgrade to the premium version in many cases if you feel the tool limits you in what you’re trying to do. Here are some of the top free SEO tools you should consider adding to your toolbox in 2019. Also consider these.
Google PageSpeed Insights
This free tool by Google will enable you to gauge your site’s user experience and make modifications if needed. All you have to do is enter your site’s URL, click on “analyze”, and the tool will run a full analysis of your site’s overall UX and performance. You need at least a green score to pass, which will be 85 or better.
However, if you’re in the orange or red category, this means that you’ll need to make some changes. What’s great about this tool is that it will also give you some recommendations on how you could improve your site, like leveraging browser caching or optimizing images for instance.
Mobile-Friendly Test
With Google introducing their mobile first index last year and clearly taking a turn towards a better mobile experience in general, making sure that your site performs optimally across all platforms is essential if you want to get visibility on the search engines.
The Mobile-Friendly test works similarly to the PageSpeed Insights tool. All you have to do is enter your site’s URL and run the test. The tool will be able to tell you in a few seconds whether your site is mobile friendly or needs improvement. And even if it passes the test, the tool might still give you a few suggestions on how to make it even better. This could include things like switching to bigger fonts or sizing tap targets correctly.
Open Site Explorer
Knowing your link profile is very important if you want to be able to check on your link building results and disavow any bad links that could actually hurt your rankings. Open Site Explorer is a complete link analysis tool that will give you a full profile of active backlinks to your site and includes important metrics like page and domain authority. You’ll also be able to check link types and exact sources as well.
XML Sitemap Generator
If you want your site to be highly indexable and easier to crawl for search engine bots, creating an XML sitemap is essential. Tools like XML Sitemap Generator enable you to create a full XML sitemap in seconds. All you have to do is input the complete http(s):// URL of your website and the tool will create both a HTML and XML sitemap instantly.
The results will include things like broken links, number of pages, XML file content and a sitemap link as well. The free version will allow you to index up to 500 pages in total; you’ll have to pay for the premium version for more. The premium version costs $19.99 but comes with unlimited updates for life. So, if you have a very large site, this might be a good option.
SEOQuake
SEOQuake is one of the top all in one SEO solutions you’ll find online. It’s an extension that enables you to get a quick SEO snapshot of any page you visit through a SERP overlay or a toolbar. It can show you things like social shares, internal links, total indexed pages and domain age among other things.
But what makes this tool so valuable is how fluid it is. Instead of having to run each website using a standalone tool, you can get information in real time while browsing. SEOQuake also has a completely free audit tool that will enable you to check if there are any issues with your website along with some recommendations to fix them as well.
SERPs Rank Checker
If you want to monitor your SEO efforts, you have to know exactly how well your pages are performing with search engine results on specific keywords. And this is exactly what SERP Rank Checker will enable you to do. You can run a search based on keywords only or both keywords and domain name. You can check both Yahoo and Google results and also check the rankings based on different devices.
This tool also has a Google Location Changer and a keyword research database as well. The keyword database will give you some keyword recommendations and the Location Changer will be particularly helpful if you want to rank internationally and see how you perform worldwide.
Siteliner
Duplicate content can be disastrous for your SEO results, so it’s important that you make sure that you don’t have any duplicate content on your site. The tool is very simple and easy to use. All you have to do is enter the URL of your site and click “go”. From there, you’ll be able to quickly see pages that have unique, common and duplicate content. The tool will also help you to identify any broken links.
However, the free version does come with some limitations. For one, you’ll only be able to run one free check every 30 days. But you’ll be able to analyze up to 250 pages per check. If you switch to the premium version, you’ll be able to run unlimited checks and test up to 25,000 pages at once. Using the premium version will cost you one cent for every page scanned.
Conclusion
All these tools are not only free, but will enable you to improve your site’s performance and visibility with the search engines as well. So, if you have a limited budget and want to start your website on solid SEO foundations, you should definitely give these tools a try.