7 SEO Tools to Give You a Competitive Advantage and Win Traffic

7 SEO Tools to Give You a Competitive Advantage and Win Traffic. Did you know you can achieve great results in-house with the help of some cutting-edge SEO tools? Struggling to achieve Search Engine Optimization success? Failing to rank for your target terms?

This article will take you through some of the top SEO tools to help you improve your strategy. On top of bettering your website and driving traffic to your site.

The Challenge With SEO

Without the use of SEO tools, the problem we face is the following. No matter how much research we do, we can never truly understand everything Google requires us to do to outrank competitors.

But this is for good reason. In the early days of SEO, marketers were seen to be loading their websites with long lists of pointless keywords. Or even hiding keywords in white text. In some cases, people were including less relevant keywords just so they could win traffic for the most searched terms.

As you may remember from your searches in the early 2000s, all of this led to some dodgy and low-quality web content. Surprisingly in Google’s first search results pages. Google needs to keep abreast of new strategies people find to dupe their algorithm into preferences low-quality pages.

Great SEO Tools to Use

Nowadays, Google is extra careful to only encourage high-quality content. This means keeping its secrets when it comes to the specifics of how its search engine’s algorithms work.

Luckily, it´s still possible to get a good idea of what strategies will work. All by thinking about what is considered high-quality content. For example:

A mix of content types with videos
Easy-to-read text broken up with short sentences and headings
Links with strong, relevant websites

Naturally include the most relevant keywords.

As SEO has become more essential, there have been many tools created to help us get it right. In this article, we will outline some of the best tools. Which have been created and adapted in line with the latest SEO research to ensure their accuracy and the success of their users.

SEMrush: A Far-Reaching Solution For SEO Pros

With a free version that allows you to try many of its long list of great features, SEMrush is one of the most popular SEO tools on the market.

This one-stop solution will help you with almost all aspects of your SEO strategy. Covering everything from keyword research and content marketing to visitor and link analytics.

Additionally, you can use it to delve deep into your competitor’s strategies. Giving you a huge advantage that could give you the insights to outrank even the best-resourced opponents.

Despite the obvious advantages explained above, SEMrush also has some cons such as:

Only one user can access the tool at the same time.
Beginners may struggle with the complexity of the tool.
Users report some inaccuracies, including on their ad spend data.

Too many unnecessary warnings. (1)

Ahrefs: The SEO Audit Solution

One of this tool’s stand-out features is its ability to help you carry out a comprehensive SEO audit on your website. This alone makes it a great choice for those first starting their SEO strategy. Since the SEO audit is always a vital first step.

The tools’ Site Explorer and Rank Tracker elements mean you quickly gain a strong understanding of your site’s keyword rankings. And monitor progress as your SEO efforts take effect.

These tools will also help you select the best keywords for you to target when creating your keyword strategy. Or when re-evaluating and pivoting your existing strategy. Also, Ahrefs gives you a detailed look at your competitor’s strategies in a similar way to SEMrush.

You need to pay to unlock all the features. But you can still get a good understanding of the platform and how it helps you with the free version.

It has also some cons too:

Steep learning curve and no integrated help guides. So, it takes a while to get to grips with the tools especially if you´re an SEO beginner.
Doesn´t cover all elements of SEO, lacks a content optimization solution.

PPC tracking features are not very strong or accurate.
Poor integration with other tools and services. (2)

Moz Pro: Automatically Find Technical Website Issues

Similar to SEMrush and Ahrefs, Moz Pro is a comprehensive, all-in-one SEO tool. Its features include an accurate keyword explorer to inform your keyword strategy. And a page rank tracker for monitoring progress and identifying unsuccessful keyword tracking.

Moz Pro’s other, more unique, feature is a crawler program. This is a program that can automatically work through your websites and identify technical issues for you to fix. Problems that can quickly have a hugely positive impact on your SEO. These technical issues may include elements like metadata, tagging, and broken links.

In addition, Moz Pro will give you expert suggestions on how to boost your on-page SEO. And overcome your website’s specific problems.

Moz has a few shortcomings that users have noted:

The charts and graphs could be clearer and more aesthetically pleasing.

The navigation is not very user-friendly, you find yourself going back and forth between the tools a lot.
The keyword tools can often give results that are either too broad or too specific to be useful.
It can be difficult to set up custom reports.
It´s hard to uncover everything Moz can do and how each tool can be useful. (3)

Google PageSpeed Insights

We all know the pain of waiting for a page to load. And a slow loading page means increased bounces. A study by Deloitte has revealed that just a 0.1-second increase in page loading can boost conversions by 8%. (4)

With this in mind, it should come as no surprise that Google has revealed page loading speeds to be a vital part of SEO. After all, how can you consider a site to be high quality if it is too slow to load?

To help you monitor and improve your page loading times, Google has released a handy, free tool. So you check your current page loading speeds and get some useful advice on how to improve them. Straight from the experts themselves.

Although this PageSpeed Insights tool is from Google, that doesn´t necessarily mean it´s perfect:

Google may hold some information back, as some elements of its algorithm are kept secret.
Interface is designed with technical users in mind so it may be a bit confusing for novice webmasters and marketers.
There can be some discrepancies in the data, with different results when analyzing the same URL more than once.
It´s impossible to test stats from different locations across the world. (5)

Google Keyword Planner: Keyword Insights from The World’s Biggest Search Engine

Google Keyword Planner is one of the most important tools at your disposal. And, like Google PageSpeed Insights, it is also completely free to use. Allowing you to conduct detailed keyword research easily and identify a long list of top targets for your business.

Simply enter your URL and you will receive thousands of recommendations for keywords you could target. Alternatively, enter the keywords you have already identified to get recommendations on their variations.

The tool provides information on average monthly searches and bids on Google AdWords. That way you can get an idea of the competition for each phrase. From there, you can pick a few search terms and start creating relevant content to draw in more traffic.

Although this Keyword Planner tool is from Google, that doesn´t necessarily mean it´s perfect:

Google may hold some information back, as some elements of its algorithm are kept secret.
Google has been known to remove some of the insights and features from time to time.
It doesn´t provide the exact number of monthly searches for each keyword but rather a range. So it can be hard to know which keywords will be better to target for your business.

It doesn´t always provide long-tail keyword recommendations. (6)

Google Rich Results Test: Schema Evaluation

Schema Markup is a code that informs search engines of what content you´re including on your website. Adding schema to your site means that your website data is presented in a more structured way. Everything so that search engines can more easily understand your content. In this way, it will help you appear higher in relevant Google searches.

The scheme comes in various forms, including:

– Featured snippets.

– Knowledge graphs.

– People also ask for data.

– Shared vocabulary.

To help evaluate the use of schema on your website, you can use Google’s Rich Results Test. This free tool will tell if your schema is eligible for rich results and highlight any schema issues for you to fix.

Although the Google Rich Results Test is created by Google, that doesn´t necessarily mean it´s perfect. Google may hold some information back, as some elements of its algorithm are kept secret.

Google Trends: Topics and Keyword Targeting

At first glance, you may not consider Google Trends as a tool that is helpful for SEO. But it can be vital for creating a decent keyword strategy.

Simply search for your keywords and you will be presented with some trending topics related to them. You will also be able to see the statistics on each keyword. Concerning their interest over time and learn what topics are currently trending. This will all help you create a content plan to target those keywords.

Although Google Trends is created by Google, that doesn´t necessarily mean it´s perfect:

Google may hold some information back, as some elements of its algorithm are kept secret.
The accuracy is poor if you have low search traffic.
The related topics don´t always seem very related to the current search.

There is no option for exporting data for external reporting and analysis. (7)

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many SEO tools available to help you analyze, track and improve your websites’ strategy.

With so many SEO tools, many with free versions and features, you can try them out for yourself. And find which works for your specific purposes. With some trial and error, you can create an SEO strategy that drives relevant visitors to your site.

Thanks to tools like those above, you can avoid poor SEO practices. Leaving this vital work to the creator of these tools will mean you can focus on creating high-quality content. That will help your page ranks continually improve.