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Five of the best free SEO tools

At Front Page, people often ask us about the best SEO tools to use in their digital marketing campaigns. So here’s an overview of some which you may find useful.

The ones we’ve listed here are free, although paid-for alternatives are also available. Equally, some, such as SEO Spider, have both a paying version and a free option providing some of the more basic features.

Try out a few for size, and let us know how you get on:

  • Google AdWords keyword planner

When creating web copy, you need to know the best keywords to target. This free tool from Google is easy enough to use: just enter your URL in the relevant box, and then you can review the keywords proposed.

However, be aware that the numbers supplied are estimated figures and not hard stats, and are intended to be a guide rather than providing precise real-time search volume.

  • SEOQuake

This popular toolbar extension lets you save and compare search information in some detail. For instance, you can see how many visitors your site has had, the country where they are and your own site’s traffic history on a graph, plus Facebook likes, backlinks, and a lot more besides. Meanwhile, a nifty cheatsheet provides an overview of potential problems affecting a particular website or page.

  • Ahrefs backlink checker

If you have a handle on those backlinks which link to your website, you can get your head around the link opportunities you could be missing.

This tool has access to one of the biggest live backlink indexes around, with trillions of known links, and scores of millions of root domains. The backlink checker element of Ahrefs is free of charge, giving you a useful snapshot covering your domain rating, top 100 backlinks, plus best five anchors and pages.

  • Google Optimise

This free service focuses on testing your site’s content, from straightforward assessing of a couple of different pages to contrasting a whole range of things on any single page. There are also some personalisation features. To run some of the more complex tests, you need enough time and traffic to make the results actionable, just as you do with Analytics.

  • Live keyword analysis

This user-friendly tool means you just input your keywords and paste in your web text for an immediate analysis of your keyword density. (As ever, you’ll also need to proof and edit your copy for maximum readability.) Again, there’s no need to register or pay a penny.

Here to help

Talk to us about which SEO tools you may find most useful for your organisation. Remember, we’re always at the end of the phone to offer advice, tips and suggestions.