9 Free SEO Tools Business Owners Need to Know About

If you are the owner of a small business, every ounce of money and time is crucial to you. It is vital for your business to continue growing, and with limited resources, it makes perfect sense to take advantage of all the free SEO tools you can use.
 
I mean, come on! Free is free! And it's no secret that content marketing and SEO for local businesses can get pretty expensive.


 
If you want to be one of the top pages on Google and find the best keywords on a budget, here are the absolute best SEO tools that you can get for free! Whether you are an advanced user or learning the Google algorithm for the first time, here's how to check your rank without spending a single dime.
 
Get your bookmark bar ready for some fresh links. Let's get this SEO party started!
 
 

1. Ahrefs Backlink Checker

Ahrefs Webmaster Tools provides a free external link-building tool called "Ahrefs Backlink Checker". This free tool displays the leading 100 or so backlinks to any website. It also shows the domain rating, the URL rating, a list of referring domains, and all of the total backlinks.
 
Certainly, this free link-building tool is an effective way to keep an eye on your competitor's websites and locate potential opportunities when link-building. In addition, Ahrefs Backlink Checker can offer you these helpful benefits:
 

• A thorough report that shows each individual web page that's currently linked to your website
   
• See estimated analytics on organic traffic to each page actively linked web page
   
• An SEO keyword generator for long-tail keyword research

 

2. Keywords Everywhere

You can't have a free SEO tools list without mentioning Keywords Everywhere. Easily available on Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, Keywords Everywhere is another great free keyword research tool for conducting quick SEO research. It’s can be downloaded as a browser extension, showing monthly search volume, cost per click, and other API information.
 
All in one virtual package, Keywords Everywhere also provides the following awesome benefits:
 

• Download any of your keywords lists in Excel, CSV, or PDF file formats
   
• Search by country and other demographics to narrow your results
   
• The ability to pick different languages on the fly
   
• Available on 16 platforms like Google Data Studio, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Google Trends, Google Keyword Planner, Bing, YouTube, YouTube Tags, and more!
   
• View monthly reports of traffic and the top keywords on any URL
   
• Conduct competitor gap analysis for when you need inspiration
   
• View the Spam Score for your page
   
• Take a closer look at DA Trends
   
• Monitor Backlinks with Moz Link Metrics

 

3. Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog SEO Spider is the secret crawling tool professionals use to audit a website. Its primary purpose is to help onsite SEO by carefully extracting data and auditing the said data for popular SEO issues. Screaming Frog's spider bots are designed to mimic the way Google bots crawl, providing helpful insights on how Google sees your website and presents search data.
 
Aside from that, Screaming Frog has a lot to brag about. Here are some of the incredible features included:
 

• It checks for overlooked issues like redirected pages or duplicate page issues. 
   
• The capability to detect whether your website has broken links
   
• Tools for creating adequate page titles, metadata, and hreflang tags
   
• The ability to develop XML sitemaps
   
• This is also another tool you can integrate with Google Analytics and Google Search Console
   
• One of the few tools that can effectively crawl JavaScript websites
   
• This app scrapes SERPs better than most free tools on the market

 

4. AnswerThePublic

AnswerthePublic is a web app that can help marketers guess user intent by looking at autocomplete data from important search engines, related questions, and phrases commonly searched on specific keywords. SEO strategists can customize your marketing plan, content, and ads around these questions.

This tool is unique because it provides a visual diagram of related keyword phrases. For instance, the image below was produced by using the phrase Phoenix SEO Company.
   
 

5. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a robust SEO tool and it's used for exactly what it sounds like, analytics. Google Analytics will help you zone in on what marketing strategy (whether it be ads, content writing, link buying, etc.) pushes the most traffic to your website.
 
On that note, the tool can also assist small business owners in producing a high-quality website for their users and customers after gathering all of the required information. Google Analytics also comes packed with the following benefits:
 

• Accurate tracking of online traffic
   
• Easy to use sales conversion report
   
• Google Analytics conversion tracking

Note: Google is transitioning into Google Analytics 4, and there has been a tremendous backlash in the Web community about the changes in this version.
 
 

6. Google Search Console

When it comes to free SEO tools, Google Search Console is top-tier and an essential industry standard. After setting up your account and logging in with an authorized email address, the software will send google alerts to you if any errors are discovered on your website. Also, when you use Google Search Console, you can link it to Google Analytics for more in-depth reporting.
 
When you combine these two tools, you’ll be able to check out important stats like clicks per keyword, detailed keyword ranking data, and impressions. It also provides a click-through rate for when your website is actually appearing in search results. In addition to that, Google Search Console is jam-packed with the following advantages:
 

• Tools to ensure that the SEO title, URL, HTTP headers, meta description, and site links are all set up correctly without having to right-click and check source code
   
• The ability to learn Google’s Index and remove any unwanted URLs from being indexed
   
• The ability to accurately crawl your website
   
• It can be used for SEO research, especially when selecting new keywords to track 

We've highlighted some of the SEO reporting you can get from Google Search Console in our SEO Results page.
 
 

7. SEMRush Site Audit Tool

Oh, SEMRush. What would we do without you?
In all seriousness, SEMRush may be hands down the best SEO software for small businesses available. It's the software platform we use for our own SEO work at BANG!

SEMrush’s site audit tool is designed to actively find and repair on-page SEO errors.
 
The site audit tool monitors and detects any SEO errors and throws the results into easy-to-understand reports. Under the hood of SEMRush is much more than just site auditing:
 

• You can schedule weekly technical SEO Audits
   
• Monitor other factors that affect your website’s health
   
• Have the ability to create, monitor, and export keyword lists
   
• Most importantly, you can check your website’s position with a position-tracking tool

 

8. Ubersuggest

Neil Patel's Ubersuggest is a valuable tool that specializes in developing new keyword ideas. It lets you gather insight into competitor strategies that you can adapt and make your own. Overall all, the primary use of this free SEO tool is to help you enhance your position on search results, uncover great keywords, develop content ideas, and analyze backlinks. Ubersuggest is a useful tool in so many other ways as well:
 

• Suggestions for long-tail keywords
   
• Expert keyword data, including monthly search volume, average cost-per-click, and PPC
   
• See useful backlink data

Note: While we love the concept, we've struggled while using it. It seems to suffer from some strange "hangs" when it simply stops providing results. YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary).
 
 

9. Yoast WordPress Plugin

Yoast SEO is a WordPress SEO Plugin that helps optimize your site’s content and has one of the most user-friendly platforms compared to the rest on the list. Once installed and applied to your WordPress site, the Yoast SEO plugin will appear at the bottom of every new page or post you create moving forward.
 
What else does the Yoast WordPress Plugin offer? Let's take a look:
 

• Select your keyword focus for your webpage when writing content
   
• A user-friendly approach to editing your SEO Titles and Meta Descriptions
   
• Accurate content readability scores that check for hard-to-read sentences and excessive use of passive voice

 

The Best Free SEO Tools: The List Goes On and On

The list doesn't end here. There are several free SEO tools at your disposal at any given time online. Whether you are setting up Google ads, using a link explorer, or want to find a better way to build your title tags, there are tools out there for the job at zero cost.
 
 

Get Started Today With A Monthly SEO Campaign

Starting your SEO journey can become quite a challenge with all the planning involved and the learning curve required for all of the tools. One of the most effective ways to successfully use a keyword explorer and build a content delivery network is to hire the pros for the task.
 
BANG! offers organic SEO services for any website or business, no matter how big or small. Check out our blog for more useful articles on web design, web development, and SEO Services, or get in touch with us today to schedule a free consultation.