SEO Quake
SEO Quake is basically a free browser plugin which enables you to have a quick and precise insight into your website’s metrics. In fact, it will provide you with basic metrics for any website, including your competitors. Quite conveniently, you can use an SEO bar, navigate to pages and get instant data pulled from other metrics such as Facebook likes, Google Index, SEMrush Ranking data, Alexa Rank, and several more. You will be able to analyze your competition from the Search Engine Result page, and you will never again have to get involved in any guessing nor step-by-step analyses yourself.
Google My Business
Google My Business is not a typical SEO tool in the sense that it is not made to help you analyze keywords nor provide metrics. Despite this fact, it is essential for your SEO efforts, particularly the local ones. Every reputable small business should use this tool as it helps businesses rank higher on SERP with the tool’s preferential treatment. Apart from that, it also helps integrate testimonials, contact details and the local listings for Google Maps. It is of a unique value for those small business owners who run a brick-and-mortar business.
Google Analytics
Now, speaking of Google, there is no way to avoid mentioning Google Analytics. Seeing that it is intended for SEO and that it comes from the biggest search engine itself, this is another must-have tool. This is an online service which helps you get an insight into the most important metrics for increasing your organic traffic. It is, of course, compatible with other Google tools such as Google AdWords and AdSense which enable you to do split testing and track conversion rates.
Site Guru
Rather than allowing you to have an insight into general metrics, Site Guru enables you to set up the right foundation for your SEO race, starting with the basics - your website. You can use it to establish the reputation of your website by keeping it “healthy”. It will remind you of every feature your website should have and look at every criterium taken into account for SEO. It will determine whether there is a right meta description for each of your pages, are all images tagged, if you have duplicate content, whether there is a sitemap.XML, the semantic structure etc.
Bing Webmaster Tools
We often forget that SEO does not only include Google, though it largely revolves around Google. Even though it has a small share of traffic compared to Google, Bing is the second largest search engine. This is why you should use the advantage of the smaller competition and try to get as much as you can from it. You will get the tools to research keywords, analyze trends, your inbound links, and overall boost your ranking.
RankTank
RankTank is a specialized SEO tool dealing with all your keyword-related needs. It will help you analyze your competitors’’ keywords, get inspired to establish your own and see how well you can do with them. It will also help you with keyword positions, as well as on-site SEO including keywords and meta descriptions. Apart from helping you select and position the keywords, one of the most prominent features is that it checks your backlinks for you.
SEMrush
When talking about keywords and competitor research, not mentioning SEMrush would be withholding information. They are the top-notch tool when it comes to competitor research and they do it in more than 20 ways. There is very little info you cannot find out about your competition with this tool. It will help you establish what you are perhaps doing wrong and find out how they got to be where they are. You will be able to look into their most efficient keywords, backlinks, content, and monitor PPC and all paid traffic.
HARO (Help a Reporter Out)
Now HARO is by no mean a standard SEO tool. You will get nothing regarding metrics, keywords, rankings etc. However, you will get a resource for one of the greatest SEO achievements, which is user engagement. HARO provides the ways for reporters to get to the hottest topics. In terms of SEO, to you, this means hot backlinks. This is a free service and you get three emails a day with opportunities for the hottest topics.
Open Site Explorer
Open Site Explorer specializes in the link building field of SEO. It will help you identify the best opportunities for getting quality backlinks. It also analyzes anchor text and identifies most prominent pages. It will help you boost your rankings by showing you hot to link to the best of the best.
SEO Tools Centre
It only makes sense to finish off with an all-inclusive service provided by the website SEOToolsCentre.com. You will get a full package of tools used for SEO. Apart from giving you the insight into the “health” of your website by reporting, this website also allows you to find the right keywords. You can use it for creating content, with their article spinner, and check the grammar for it. While this is not the most recommended technique for creating content for your website, it only shows that people behind this website understand how hard it is to run a small business. They effectively save time with their tools designed for a single person website management and SEO.
Being a small business owner takes a lot of time and skill. Seeing how important digital presence is for businesses nowadays, it is only natural that businesses do their best to work on their online branding. However, this takes up a lot of resources and incurs expenses, which is exactly why these simple, user-friendly tools are essential for small business owners.