SEO tools are a dime a dozen with new ones launching all the time, but a tool is only as good as the person using it. Just in the last week I have learned about new rank tracking, crawling, and reporting software that all claim to make your life easier. But when I’ve gotten under the hood of these tools, they just provide the same service as the existing and dominant tools on the market just with a prettier CSS file (that makes the tool look beautiful).
Because of this and the frequent questions I (John) get about what tools to use as a consultant, I want to open up to all of you and tell you exactly the tools I use that make my life as a professional SEO and digital marketer easier. I don’t use a million of them, but the ones I use I get my money’s worth.
Robust SEO Tools
Moz Pro
If you’re in the SEO space, you know Moz. From their active blog to their well-loved MozCon conference, Moz is a leader in the digital marketing space. Their main app, Moz Pro, allows you to set up campaigns to track keywords and crawl data against your competitors weekly. You also get access to other tools in their toolbox like Keyword Explorer, which is quickly becoming a go-to tool for many digital marketers for keyword research as Google continues to tighten the net on free keyword data.
Screaming Frog Crawler and Log Analyzer
In my consulting work, I have to do a lot of technical analyzing of websites. Because of current level of clients I do not need as robust of a tool as DeepCrawl or Botify (though those are amazing for big accounts with big budgets). Therefore I use ScreamingFrog’s SEO Spider and newly their Log File Analyser (written with an S because they are British :-)).
After leaving my last job where I had an enterprise-level budget and we used Splunk to plumb log file data, I have felt at times that I was flying blind when doing technical SEO because I had very little idea what the search engines were actually finding and where would make the biggest difference. The Log File Analyser solves that problem for SMBs and anyone without an agency or enterprise budget.
Both are available for a 99 GBP license, separately. Well worth the money.
SEMrush
SEMrush is, hands down, my favorite SEO tool right now. I think I severely underestimated the amazing power of this tool for way too long. It’s incredible for keyword research (especially competitor keyword research!), keyword tracking, competitor analysis, and historical data to reverse engineer competitor strategies. It’s hard to even write this description because it’s so useful for so many things.
If you want a great idea of what’s possible, SEER Interactive has you covered.
It starts at $70 a month and goes up from there. I happily pay this subscription each month.
Majestic
Everyone has their link tool of choice. While I definitely make use of Moz’s OpenSiteExplorer for quick analysis, when I need a true spread and comprehensive list of links I go to Majestic. Last year I did a big link cleanup project for a client who came to me with a manual penalty for widget links that violated Google’s link guidelines. Because of previous failed attempts before I came onto the project, I had to have a complete list otherwise Google wouldn’t accept it and lift the penalty.
I used many of the link tools and combined all the data, but Majestic had the largest percentage with the others finding only a few each. From that point on, they’ve earned my trust as the most complete link index online.
Majestic starts at $49.99 a month.
Chrome Extensions
I also use a smattering of Chrome extensions that make life easier because they are directly in my Chrome browser and allow for quick analysis, which often leads to using one of the above tools to go deeper.
Ayima’s Redirect Checker
First up is Ayima’s Redirect Path checker. While LinkResearchTools’s Redirect Trace also deserves a mention and they are actively developing it, Ayima’s tool has served me well for years and has not yet been supplanted. Pro tip – if you are an agency this is a great one to teach your sales people to use so that they can do some quick analysis on their own while selling a project!
MozBar
Moz’s MozBar is another tried and true tool that I have used for years. While I usually just leave it on DA mode in the top right of my screen, it can also be great for analyzing a specific SERP or while link prospecting.
Web Developer Toolbar
As a technical SEO, I love this extension for browsing the Internet without JavaScript, removing cookies that may be unnecessarily affecting my analysis, disabling styles, removing images (especially useful with ad-heavy penalties), and so much more. If you work in SEO, you need to use the power of this tool.
User Agent Switcher
The User Agent Switcher is simple – it lets you spoof your User Agent as Googlebot/Bingbot or even Safari, Kindle, or any of the web browsers. This is especially useful when looking for cloaking or what Googlebot/Bingbot are actually able to see on your page.
Linkclump
This one hearkens back to my link builder days, but LinkClump allows you to click and drag your cursor over a set of links, either opening them in new tabs or saving them to your clipboard to then paste into Excel. It’s great for copying lists to prospect or opening big lists in tabs to manually vet. It’s simple, but oh so useful.
What SEO tools should I have mentioned? The main one that I have not yet incorporated into my workflow is OnPage.org, but I’ll save that for another post.
The post The SEO Tools We Couldn’t Work Without appeared first on Credo.