If your blog has a professional scope but you do not have the means to bring an expert in SEO for you, free tools to Boost Your Rankings & Search Engine Visibility, Seo Report Tool, you may want to find free SEO tools to optimize and track your SEO.
Independently. Today, there are lots of SEO tools and software that can help you to perform an audit of your site, to search for keywords or content ideas, identify major errors that you make maybe on SEO... and I decided to share with you those that I found particularly interesting.
SEO tools to Boost Your Rankings & Search Engine Visibility
Free SEO audit tool
1. Google Analytics
We will start with an obvious tool, so obvious that many webmasters forget how useful it can be to detect SEO problems: Google Analytics.
Identify pages that do not receive enough organic traffic, pages that have a particularly high bounce rate or output rate, detect problems with loading time or consultation on mobiles, see if the traffic you receive Since search engines is qualified, identify sites that make links to yours, etc.
There are even SEO dashboards that you can install on your Google Analytics account from the Dashboards library available for free (personalization topic > Custom Reports > Import from the gallery).
2. Google Search Console
Essential complement to Google Analytics, Google Search Console is much more focused SEO. It can help detect errors (error indexing, 404 error, content blocked whereby the search engine cannot access, piracy problem, errors in implementation of the WAP format or data structured, etc) but also to follow the links you receive, the clicks from Google and the keywords used to find your site.
You can also export very easily all these data to build a true history of your positioning and your performance over time.
Not to mention the possibility to submit a sitemap to Google listing all of the URLs of your pages to help search engine to index them. Feel free to read my detailed article on Search Console to go further!
3. Screaming Frog
This SEO software allows to crawl a site and highlight many technical problems: Title tags and meta description missing or not complying with standards, replicas of titles, pages that do not receive enough links Internal or which are difficult to access in the site tree, pages too poor in content, errors 404, poor management of multilingualism and a thousand other problems .
This is a free SEO spider tool up to 500 URL. If you have a small site, you will be able to carry out a complete technical audit for free and if you have a site that exceeds 500 URL, you can still identify some recurring problems. Indeed, if you make any "types" errors that can be traceable on a sample of 500 pages, you will know that they must be corrected on the rest of the site.
4. Xenu’s Link Sleuth
Xenu works on the same principle as screaming Frog: You give it the URL of a website and it will crawl this site by bringing out a number of weak points in architecture or SEO optimization. It is only available on Windows but it has the big advantage of being completely free without limit of the number of URLs studied.
5. GT Metrix
GT Metrix lets you know the speed of loading a Web page and identify the elements that cause slowness.
I advise you to create a free account that will allow you to benefit from more options than by going to the site as a simple visitor. For example, you can choose the server from which you are testing your site, follow the speed of connection from different browsers, with/without ad blocker, etc.
You have to test the pages individually but by taking a few standard pages on your site, you will find that you often find the same problems from one page to another and you can put in place global solutions that will benefit The whole site.
6. Pingdom Tools
Pingdom Tools is another free tool which allows you to test the speed of loading of a site. I find it much less complete than GT Metrix but if you are not comfortable with ergonomics or the functioning of GT Metrix, Pingdom Tools maybe favor you!
7. PageSpeed Insights
Still a tool to test the speed of loading its site but this time, it is more to see how much you respect good practices enacted by Google. Simply enter the URL of a page on the PageSpeed Insights, you will get the technical optimization tips to improve the load time on mobile and desktop.
It is a demanding tool that gives severe notes (the mere fact that a picture has a few tens of bytes too much can lower the score!) but at least you'll know where stand you!
8 .Google mobile Compatibility
Have a site available on mobile today is essential in terms of SEO and Google offers just a free SEO tool to test mobile compatibility of your site.
9. AMP format test
The AMP format allows to offer very clean versions of its pages for a more comfortable consultation on mobile. Google has there again set up a free tool to verify that your site has no AMP implementation errors.
10. Structured Data test
Today, more and more WordPress themes and blog use structured data. This is added information in the code of a site in order to help Google better understand your content. For example, a trader to use it to highlight the name of his shop, address, opening hours, etc.
Structured data can dramatically improve the rate of clicks in the search results, I see it regularly on my blog culture where my book reviews are more visible thanks to the presence of the small rating stars related to Structured data.
Google offers a free SEO tool to find out if the structured data is used on your site but also to test the accuracy of the code.
11. W3C Validation
In code, there are good practices and in the same way that can be done in french spelling mistakes, a developer can make mistakes when writing code. W3C sets standards of what is a well written code and you can test your site to watch if it contains a lot of mistakes or not.
Being realistic, it's been years that I haven't seen a site 100% valid W3C. Today, between the used CMS (WordPress, Prestashop, Magento), the plugins are added, the customizations that you bring, tracking tools or advertising, it is almost impossible to achieve perfection!
However, this type of tool can be useful to detect a theme really bad code, likely to affect the user experience.
12. Open Graph Debugger
The Open Graph tags were created by Facebook to make the shared URLs more appealing. Instead of seeing a simple text, we will be able to display an image, which makes the link a lot more aesthetic. In my opinion, it can promote the virality of a link and indirectly help a page to gain visibility. You can enter the address of a page on the Open Graph debugger to see how it appears when sharing on Facebook and identify errors.
In the same vein, Twitter offers a Twitter card validator.
My opinion on the issue is very subjective but I think an aesthetic link will more readily be shared, retweeted and therefore touch in fine more readers, likely to discover your site, create links to it, etc.
13. Test your SSL certificate with SSL Labs
Direction SSL Labs! If your site is in HTTPS, you can enter the URL on SSL Labs and get a free evaluation of the security level of your SSL certificate.
14. SEO tool to Markup Test Pages
The site Webrankinfo offers a free tool to test the hierarchy of the title tags (tags) on your pages. It's a good way to understand how to organize its content to highlight important information..
15. Open Site Explorer
Open Site Explorer is a SEO tool offered by Moz, that allows to get the domain authority of a site and page authority... a page (logic!).
They are between 0 and 100, indicators that take into account dozens of mainly dependent on factors of links that receives the site or page. They follow a logarithmic scale (so it is easier to spend 10 to 20 of 60 to 70).
16. SEO Quake
This free extension for Google Chrome allows you to analyze each page and get a quick diagnosis of the main points necessary for the optimization of your SEO as well as tips.
17. Redirect Path
Another free extension for Google Chrome, which allows you this time to view the redirections in place on a page
18. Broken Link Checker
Free up to 3000 pages, this online tool allows you to scan a site to identify broken links.
19. Copyscape
This online tool allows you to detect any plagiarism of your keys on the web items. The free Copyscape service is limited, but it can help you identify if your major items, receiving the most traffic, have been copied across without your knowledge.
20. Siteliner
After the external content duplicate, detectable via Copyscape, Siteliner allows you this time to detect the internal content duplicate (contents present several times on your own site to different URLs).
21. XML Sitemaps
The sitemap lists all the pages to index your site in a format that is easy for search engines to understand. You can submit to Google via Google Search Console and check that there is no major difference between the number of URLs indexed by Google and the number of these URLs in the sitemap.
The XML Sitemaps site allows you to create sitemaps up to 500 URLs for free. However, it is preferable, if your site allows, opt for a sitemap that is updated in real time, I use for my part Google XML Sitemaps.
22. Majestic
Majestic is a paying tool ... but its free version can give you two interesting indicators on your link profile: The Trust flow and the flow quotation. The quote Flow gives an idea of the propensity of your site to receive links from other sites. The trust Flow refers more to the fact of receiving links from trustworthy sites.
23. Web Developer Toolbar
Free Extension available in particular on Google Chrome, the Web developer Toolbar allows you to show code errors, image problems (broken links, bad resizing), to test the display of the site without Javascript, etc.
Free SEO tools to optimize and create content
An important part of the work of SEO is to write content in line with the expectations of users. Research keywords and ideas of content is therefore essential. It is also based on a list of keywords that you can study the evolution of its positioning.
So we continue the list with free SEO tools dedicated to content!
24. Yooda Insight en freemium
For content in French, Yooda Insight and its "Market Explorer" part is very rich in keyword suggestions and creating a free account, you will be able to access 25 suggestions, the monthly search volume associated with each suggestion on Google as well To an assessment of the degree of competition of the keyword.
25. Answer The Public
On Answer The Public, you choose the language in the drop-down menu, you enter a topic ... and the site will take you out a mindmap crammed with questions that the Internet users are asking and information they are looking for.
26. Ubersuggest
You enter a theme, choose the language that suits you ... and Ubersuggest you out a host of expressions that you can use in your articles. You can download them in order to reprocess all these proposals offline or to classify them to have future ideas of topics.
27. Keyword Shitter
Enter a Word,... get a shitload of keyword ideas. , it's title of this tool literally means "the pooper of keywords". To go to the toilet, it's there.
28. Google Suggest
This is stupid, it's free and it's great! You go to Google, you start typing the subject that inspires you... and Google Suggest will spontaneously offer you a list of ideas of content. If he manages to make them emerge, it is partly because they are subjects that interest users so they can also inspire you items!
29. KeywordTool.io
KeywordTool is a paid and quite expensive tool that I use in my work ... but its free version can give you a host of keyword ideas to use. The only restriction is that it will not give you the search volumes associated with each keyword ... but you can bypass that by combining several tools.
If you find a keyword that you think is relevant, just enter it on Yooda Insight to get the volume, for example!
30. Keyword Planner
I use less tool, accessible for free by registering on Google AdWords. Keyword Planner gives you suggestions for keywords from an expression that you enter as well as an estimate of the volume of research associate (there is that people who have active a campaign on Google AdWords which may have a more specific volume).
31. Google Trends
I like Google Trends because it allows you to identify the seasonal nature of the themes that you approach as well as their popularity over time. The operation is very simple: you enter a term, Google Trends gives you search on, trends by period and country (to provided, of course, that the term in question is enough search on Google).
For example, if I take a very seasonal topic such as "How to decorate his tree", one realizes that the peak of searches on Google begins early in the month of November. It means that if you want to deal with the matter, that the items are already prepared and indexed before this period!
Free SEO tools to go further
32. Serposcope
Almost all of the tools to follow its positioning on Google are paying... until the day I discovered Serposcope! Software free SEO, Serposcope to track SEO but also those of its competitors on a list of key words. It works on Windows, Mac, Linux, and can be installed on a computer on a server.
32. Splunk
A great trend in natural referencing, the analysis of logs allows to study the behavior of the search engine on a site, to locate the pages poorly crawled, to bring out the problems of the architecture of the contents, etc. Log analysis tools are often extremely expensive.
Splunk offers a free trial version up to 60 days of use and 500 MB of logs per day, which is ample enough to perform an overall analysis of a site at a time .
33. Wayback Machine
Wayback Machine is not the first tool that comes to mind when talking about natural referencing ... but it can have a very specific utility: go back into the memory of a site, whether it be yours or that of a third party. It can help to understand why a problem has arisen, to remember when a recast or a major change occurred on the site.
34. Gephi
This free tool can allow you to build visualizations of the internal mesh of a site (see for example this tutorial on the subject).
Clearly, it is not within the reach of a beginner and there are much more ergonomic paying tools (like Cocon.se) to do this work ... but if you do not wish to pay a penny.
A few extensions WordPress and WordPress useful SEO tools
Here are a few free extensions that can help you optimize your SEO on WordPress:
- Yoast SEO or all-in-One SEO Pack : two reference extensions to easily write titles and meta descriptions on your blog, manage the indexing of content, avoid duplication and more. I use for my Yoast SEO part, which I have proposed a detailed tutorial to well.
- Google XML Sitemaps: an extension of quality to create a sitemap.
- Udinra All Image Sitemap: Classic sitemaps extensions do not include images. If you have a blog that is very focused on the Visual, it may be useful to have a sitemap that is dedicated to images and this plugin does just that. Being realistic, Google Images sends almost no traffic when they changed their interface (the user is no longer required to come to your site to view a larger image).
- A cache plugin:
free, look on the side of W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache or even WP Fastest Cache, which are powerful and can help you improve the loading speed of your blog.
- Broken Link Checker:
to identify broken links anywhere on your blog – including in the comments, this extension will help you.
- Redirection or SEO Redirection:
you change the address of a page? A redirect plugin allows you to easily implement a permanent redirect to maximally preserve the positioning on search engines.
- ShortPixel:
this plugin to optimize the images helps your visuals to keep a reasonable weight in order not to hinder the loading of your pages, in respect best practices recommended by Google. I tell you more in an article dedicated to ShortPixel.
You can also test the security of your WordPress blog on this online tool set up by the digital Nature website: It can highlight the major security vulnerabilities of your WordPress installation. A hacked site can drop your income, deprive you of traffic from search engines because they display a warning that is hardly reassuring, as was the case here:
Don't forget search engines themselves !
The free SEO tools are numerous and I am far from having included in this article all those I use or who can serve more punctually to better understand the specific problems of a site. But there is one not to be neglected: the search engine.
The site: command, accessible both on Google and on Bing, can allow you to list the pages of a site indexed by the engine
The search engine can also help you flush out duplicate content, locate competitors on a given keyword, find content ideas by looking at how a topic is treated by sites that emerge on the front page on a specific term.
Consider using the "private browsing" mode in order to have more neutral search results: indeed, Google adjusts its results based on your browsing habits... and resorting to private browsing allows for more neutrality.
I hope that this list of free SEO tools will help you in your optimization approach. Realistically, if you're new to SEO, it is likely that this avalanche of tools is more disconcerting than anything else!
I see it every day in my job (just referencing!): what often makes the difference between a 'junior' profile, beginner, and a more experienced profile, is the ability to go beyond the data can get out any tool to provide a true analysis and determine a strategy.
It is also what makes the value of a professional: anyone can get the address of a site into a tool and get a score, a list of mistakes... but to be able to understand what is bad, what is less, which plays a lot or very little about SEO
Did you like this article ? Then share it with your friends by clicking on the buttons below:
No comments: