7 Best Free SEO Tools

Keyword Hero is a robust keyword research tool that collects data from Google Analytics and Google Search Console. It can tell you which organic keywords bring users to your pages so you can make smart, data-driven changes to your content and SEO strategy. In addition to keywords, it will help you measure other metrics, including average time spent on pages, bounce rates, conversion and more.

The tool will also send you a weekly SEO performance report so you know where you stand. The report will share whether your organic traffic has grown or declined, which keywords grew the most for mobile and desktop devices and more.

Who should use it:

If keyword research is your top priority and your website is already set up with Google Analytics, Keyword Hero should be on your radar.

AnswerThePublic is an SEO platform with a focus on keyword research and content ideas. It uses searches from Google and Bing to visualize search questions and offer ideas on what type of long-tail keywords to target. You can export this information to a CSV format and use it to come up with relevant content ideas for your pages, blog posts and other marketing materials.

All you have to do is enter a topic, brand, keyword or product related to your business. If you notice any irrelevant keyword suggestions, you can always hide them. The free plan has a limit of three searches per day but can come in handy if you’re just getting started with your SEO strategy.

Who should use it:

AnswerThePublic is ideal if you’re looking for ways to improve the SEO content on your pages and blogs.

As its name suggests, Localo is specifically designed for local SEO. With the free plan, you can constantly monitor how your Google business profile and its competitors rank on Google. You may use this information to determine how to improve your profile and in turn improve your local SEO efforts.

The platform also protects your profile from unauthorized changes. This means that you can easily prevent a competitor or someone else from marking your business permanently closed or changing your name, location or opening hours.

Who should use it:

If you’d like to improve your Google business profile and local SEO, Localo is your best bet.

Powered by Semrush, SEOquake is a free SEO browser extension that is compatible with Safari, Chrome, Firefox and other popular browsers. The SEO dashbard offers details about your domain, page and backlinks to give you a bird’s-eye view of how you’re doing. You’ll also have easy access to an internal and external link analysis, keyword density report and social media metrics.

Once you click on “Diagnosis,” SEOquake will run a quick SEO audit, which includes a page analysis, site compliance and mobile compliance. You’ll notice green check marks that indicate what you’re doing right and red warning signs that show what you can improve.

Who should use it:

SEOquake is a solid choice if you’d like to quickly perform SEO audits on the pages of your website.

Screaming Frog is known as an “SEO spider tool.” It “crawls” the pages on your website to look for technical issues that can hinder its rankings. With the free plan, it can crawl up to 500 URLs and inform you of broken links, duplicate pages, redirect errors and other common back-end SEO problems.

You can also count on the tool to generate XML sitemaps so you can help Google find your pages and, hopefully, rank them. In addition, Screaming Frog will show you where you need to optimize your website’s speed as slow loading times can also impair your SEO efforts.

“The free version has all of the features that a small business owner would need, especially if their site is under 500 URLs. If there are any paid features that they feel like they’re missing out on, I can confirm that there are other free SEO tools out there to help fill in the gaps. The tool is updated very frequently and their customer support is well-liked. I’ve used Screaming Frog since the beginning of my SEO career and couldn’t recommend it more,” says Lauren Galvez, an SEO consultant.

Who should use it:

If technical SEO is your top priority, Screaming Frog’s crawling tool is your best bet.

Yoast is an extension with a focus on on-page SEO for WordPress websites. With the free version, you can see how your pages will appear in search results. This will help you optimize your titles and meta descriptions to ensure they are the right length. Yoast will also use a variety of SEO best practices to analyze your content and give it a score. In addition, you may add up to eight different social media platforms so Google can associate them with your website.

“The free version of the Yoast plugin is great for small businesses. Not only does it allow you to add in all the relevant SEO information to every page of your website, it gives a red, amber and green visual indicator of how well your page is optimized,” says Alexander Bentley-Sutherland, CEO at More Profitable Marketing, an agency that specializes in SEO and digital marketing.

Who should use it:

If you have a WordPress website and would like to improve its on-page SEO, Yoast may be worthwhile.

Hotjar is an SEO tool that revolves around web analytics and feedback. There’s a generous free plan that allows you to track your users’ behaviors and gain insights from heatmaps, session recordings, visitor polls and form analytics.

“Hotjar makes it easy to visually see how users interact with your website. It offers heatmaps to find out where people are clicking to identify if those clicks are on things that don’t do anything (for example, a logo that isn’t linked to the home page) or what the most popular links on a page are. This helps you see if there are things that could be improved on the site in terms of on-site engagement,” says Mika Lepisto, a digital marketing consultant at BackOps Marketing.

If you’re wondering about the performance of specific sections of your website, the visitor recordings feature will also be beneficial. It will allow you to record your site visitors as they engage with your site to reveal where they’re clicking, how long they’re spending on CTA forms and more.

Who should use it:

If you’d like meaningful analytics on your SEO and content initiatives, Hotjar can help.