Today, we’re gonna look at twelve easy-to-use SEO tools for beginners.
Now, if you’re new to SEO, you might be wondering why you need tools in the first place.
I mean, SEO is hard enough to learn in the first place, right? Why make things harder by having to learn about some new tools?
Well, to be fair, you might be able to get some okay results with SEO without having to use these tools.
But…You can really only do that once you have a strong understanding of how SEO works.
I mean, if I told you right now to figure out how competitive a keyword is, without using any tools — could you do it?
It’d probably be quite difficult, right? Sure, once you’re an SEO pro, you can probably do this without too much trouble, and it could be like a little party trick.
But, if you’re a beginner, you probably can’t do this, and that’s why you’ll need to invest in SEO tools.
Of course, SEO being SEO, there are literally HUNDREDS of tools to choose from. And pretty much everyone has their own opinions on what the best SEO tools are.
Some people are pretty passionate about this too. And I’d bet some SEO person out there would be willing to fight me over my selection of tools. If you’re that person — please don’t take my opinions personally!
Anyway, because of this, you’ll probably see some different tools mentioned when checking out similar videos on this topic. For me, though, the tools in this video are pretty much the best ones I’ve encountered after going through a ton of them.
Some of these tools are ‘paid’ tools and some of them are free. I’ve tried to include a good balance here so that you can get results, even if you’re on a budget.
For example, the selection of tools I cover in section two are actually really useful for people that are trying to keep costs low.
After all, SEO is supposed to be one of the best marketing tactics for people on a budget, so it’d be a shame if that was undone by having to invest tons of cash into tools.
USEFUL: Free Enterprise SEO ROI Calculator
#Section 1 — Ahrefs
Okay, so the first tool we’re gonna cover here is something called Ahrefs. Now, if you’ve seen some of my other videos, you’ve probably heard me talk about this tool before.
I really love this tool, for two key reasons.
#1. They have tons of data
When it comes to SEO tools, having access to tons of data really is the name of the game.
Why?
Because, really, when you’re doing SEO research, you’re really just combing through tons of data, trying to identify opportunities.
Generally, the tools with the most data will provide you with the most reliable insights, and Ahrefs has tons of high-quality data that is trusted by millions of SEO people around the world.
Now, is the data perfect — of course not!
After all, the only ‘perfect’ data would be the actual data that comes directly from Google.
Now, of course, it’s true that Google does have some tools that provide internal data (we’ll touch on this later). But this data isn’t like super precise data. It’s kinda just like approximations to give people a general idea of what is going on.
Ahrefs, on the other hand, does provide data that is somewhat more detailed than the data offered by Google’s free tools.
Because of this, it’s kinda like the next best thing to having access to Google’s internal data that would actually tell you what’s really going on.
#2 — They provide a ton of features
Another reason I love Ahrefs is that this one product provides lots of different SEO tools in one location.
In fact, there are so many useful tools within the Ahrefs suite, that you could really just get away with spending money on this product, and this product alone.
For example, if you invest in Ahrefs, you can do keyword research, backlink research, website authority research, and tons of other stuff as well.
Plus, another good thing here is that there’s lots of documentation for all of these tools. This means it’s really easy to learn how everything works. And this is great if you’re new to SEO, or just SEO tools in general.
So, when you combine those two reasons, it’s easy to see why Ahrefs is a great tool and one of my favorites.
#2 — Google’s Free Tools
Right, so earlier we mentioned Google has some free tools that you can take advantage of.
We’re gonna basically bundle these tools together in this section, just because they’re all directly associated with Google.
Anyway, let’s check out what these tools are, and how they can help you when it comes to SEO.
#1. Google AdWords Keyword Planner
This tool is for people that wanna figure out which keywords they should target when running AdWords campaigns. But, even though it’s for AdWords, it’s actually pretty good for SEO keyword research.
That’s because if you put a keyword into this tool. It’ll provide you with keyword variations/suggestions as well as search volume data. For instance, here’s an example based on the keyword “how to build a pool.”
As you can see, there are tons of different suggestions here based on this one keyword. Each of these suggestions can be used to generate more ideas, or even just as an idea for content.
One of the really good things about this tool (aside from the fact it’s free) is that it tells you about CPC data. This is basically how much people are bidding in order to target a certain keyword on AdWords.
This is really helpful, because the higher the CPC is, the more likely it is that a keyword will return a high ROI.
After all, people wouldn’t be willing to spend so much on ads that target a certain keyword, if the keyword didn’t produce good results.
With that in mind, if you use this tool, it’s really easy to identify promising keywords. If you rank for these keywords, you can achieve great results, without having to spend money on ads.
#2. PageSpeed Insights
Google really cares about user experience. And if your pages load slowly, they might actually penalize you and lower your rankings.
Luckily, you can get ahead of this problem by using a free tool from Google called Pagespeed Insights.
If you give this tool your website URL, it’ll run some checks on your site to see how fast it is.
Once the test is over, it’ll provide you with a score. And also some suggestions on how you can make things better.
Remember, Google really cares about page speed. So don’t ignore this tool just so that you can focus on some of the more exciting ones in this video.
You can also check out this article where I discuss page speed optimization.
#3. Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test
Google also cares a lot if your website is mobile-friendly. If it isn’t, your rankings are gonna suffer.
Again, luckily for us, they have a tool that will check if your website is mobile-friendly.
This tool’s pretty easy to use, and it works just like the Pagespeed insights tool.
So just put in your URL, and it’ll run some checks and provide some suggestions. Easy!
#4. Google Search Console
Google search console is kinda like a tool that’ll provide you with some insight into how your website is performing on Google.
It’ll tell you which keywords you’re appearing for, as well as the kinds of keywords that lead to actual clicks to your website.
You’ll also get data based on where these searches are actually taking place, around the world.
This tool will also run a few basic usability/technical checks on your website to ensure it meets Google’s webmaster guidelines.
Now, this tool isn’t that exciting if you’re dealing with a brand new website.
But once your website is attracting some traffic, this tool will throw off some really interesting insights that will help you optimize your SEO campaigns.
So, yeah, definitely check it out!
#5. Google Trends
The last free tool we’re gonna look at from Google, is Google Trends.
Now, if you’re like a lot of people, you might’ve messed around with this tool just for fun. But while it can be a fun tool to check out for general stuff, it can actually be really useful for SEO stuff too.
Why?
Well, if you type in a keyword related to your niche, you can potentially identify new keywords/topics that people are searching for.
If you create content around these keywords/topics, you might be able to get in front of these people before your competitors do! This is really helpful if you’re in a competitive niche, and you’re trying to build a solid presence.
Suggestion #3 — Frase.IO
The next tool we’re gonna look at is called Frase, from Frase.io
This tool basically checks over your content and helps you optimize it so that it scores highly when it comes to on-page SEO.
It does this by highlighting some of the words/topics that you should include when writing a blog post about a certain thing.
For example, if you check out this graphic, you can see an example of how Frase recommends the use of certain words when writing about a particular topic.
If you follow these suggestions your article will then be more relevant, and this will help it rank.
This tool is also starting to help people write AI content.
This is really helpful for people that want to quickly build out their articles so that they can hit the word quota suggested by Frase. It can also help you quickly cover some of the suggested topics provided by Frase.
By the way, if you wanna learn more about how AI has impacted SEO content creation, check out this video of mine. I’ve also given a more in-depth Frase Review on one of my article.
Anyhow, if you do a good job in relation to the quotas and suggested topics, your odds of ranking for a certain topic/term will be much higher — assuming you’ve taken care of the other aspects of SEO.
What — you thought it’d be easy? 🙂 If only SEO didn’t have so many moving parts, things definitely would be easier, right?
But then again, what if there’s a tool you can use to manage all of these moving parts? That would make things easier, right?
Well, luckily, there is, and that’s what we’re gonna cover next!
Suggestion #4 — Trello
The next tool we’re gonna look at is Trello. This tool can help you manage all of the little moving parts associated with managing an SEO campaign.
It’s brilliant if you ever want to get a quick snapshot of where your entire SEO campaign, or even just a certain part of your campaign, stands.
So how does Trello work?
Basically, with Trello, you’re able to create a number of boards.
On these boards, you create tasks, and once you complete a task, you move it to the next board.
You can also assign these tasks to people if you have a team.
So, if you have a board for content, there might be one section for ideas, another for drafts, and another for published posts.
You’d then move items across depending on how things are progressing. For example, once an article idea is approved, you’d move its card to the drafts stage.
Here’s a good example of a Trello content board that sort of resembles what I’m talking about here.
You can also just use your boards as a “checklist” to help you track all the different tasks associated with a project.
For example, this SEO board gives a good overview of what needs to be done to make sure a site is SEO-ready.
If someone uses a checklist like this they can quickly figure out where their website stands in relation to its “SEO readiness.”
If you ever need some inspiration, just Google ‘Trello SEO board templates’ and someone wonderful out there will have a template you can borrow and implement into your own campaign.
Suggestion #5 — Hunter
SEO involves a lot of outreach, and this can be tricky to manage and track.
Hunter is a tool that makes this task a lot easier.
One of the really good things about this tool is that it can help you find people’s email addresses.
In most cases, you just provide the domain. And then Hunter will list some of the emails associated with that domain:
You can then go through that list to find an email that’s relevant to you.
This is really helpful if you’re trying to build links and you need to find the email addresses of editors/website owners.
In fact, without this tool, I think it would’ve been really hard to help my client in this one particular campaign, where we built seven high DR backlinks each month.
This campaign involved a ton of outreach because it was based on the Skyscraper method. A big part of this method involves reaching out to people so that you can make them aware of your content, and eventually request a link.
Well, using a tool like Hunter, we were able to find relevant “working” emails of website owners/editors that would be interested in our content. This then allowed us to secure the links we’re talking about here.
By the way, if you’d like us to help with this kind of thing. You can book a free consultation call with us at juliangoldie.com.
Suggestion #6 — Google Sheets
Finally, the last tool we’re gonna talk about here is Google Sheets.
This sounds like a basic tool, and you’re probably thinking — “what, one of your favorite tools is basically a spreadsheet?”
Yes, sadly it is — But let me tell you, without Google Sheets, I don’t think I’d be able to achieve a lot in SEO.
Why?
Well, because Google Sheets helps me keep track of certain key data points.
For example, using Google Sheets, I can track the keywords that might be worth going after.
I can also use it to note down websites that might be good targets for guest posting campaigns or link requests.
Without this, all my data would just be all over the place, in random tools/notes, and maybe even just on a piece of paper if I’m desperate.
So, yes — Google Sheets is kinda boring. But it’s also kinda important, and because of that, I’d be willing to defend the fact that it’s a vital SEO tool.
Conclusion
If you use these tools, you should basically be able to do pretty much everything you want to do when it comes to SEO.
Of course, as said earlier, some people may disagree and say there are better versions of the tools I mentioned here.
Ultimately, this is all up for debate, and it’s a bit of a personal thing.
Because of this, you should definitely check out a wide variety of tools to figure out what you like best.
Of course, after trying everything out, you’ll probably eventually just realize you’ve wasted a bunch of time because I was right with my choices here!
Just kidding! — Please check out all the tools you can, and use all of the free trials on offer. There isn’t a one size fits all answer here. So you’ll probably prefer some tools more than others and that’s perfectly fine.
Anyhow, thanks for watching, and remember to like our videos. Also, take a moment to become a subscriber so that it’s easier for you to find future content!
