SEO for Beginners: Free Marketing Tools and Resources You Can Use to Enhance Your Website’s Health and Performance
By Dan Price
The digital marketing world is vast, multifaceted, and can be flat-out confusing to newcomers. In the SEO industry alone there are countless marketing tools, resources, and talking heads. Knowing where to start or what you are looking for can be challenging and hinder you from taking the actions needed now to help with the direction of your online presence.
If you are new to SEO, or “search engine optimization,” it’s the method of optimizing your site to become more visible on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. This is the most effective way to drive users to your website. Having a solid SEO strategy is crucial!
I’m going to share some handy FREE marketing tools and resources you can use to monitor your site’s performance and help drive strategy moving forward. Many of these are staples used by webmasters everywhere. Let’s get started!
Google Analytics
Understanding your search presence starts with analyzing the organic traffic coming to your website. Google Analytics is a web analytics tool that tracks and reports your website traffic. If you do not have Google Analytics already here’s a simple process to set up your account.
Once you’re in, access your organic traffic by navigating the left control panel to “Acquisition” -> “Channels” -> “Organic Search.” Then set the date range at the top right-hand corner to the timeframe you want to track. Now you will be able to see your overall organic search data and look at specific dimensions including keyword, source, and landing page.
If you want to get the most out of this diverse and complex tool, Google has a great analytics academy to help get you up to speed!
Google Search Console
Search Console is another amazing tool by Google used to check your site’s health in a few different ways. Here are a few to look at:
While Google is #1 and gets all the praise, Bing Webmaster Tools is also utilized by many for its great features. It is also worth checking out!
Google Keyword Planner
Okay, one last tool by Google. The Google Keyword Planner is a tool within Google Ads that help you find new keyword ideas and analyze metrics of keywords you are interested in targeting. This is a great starting point when you are doing keyword research for your SEO strategy.
While this tool is great, here’s a little insider information… Google doesn’t show you all the keywords you could potentially be targeting. When you are doing keyword research it is important to diversify your sources and do your due diligence to track down every valuable keyword within your niche.
Knowing that, here are ten more free keyword research tools that aren’t Google to help you with your research!
Keyword Ranking Tools
Keyword rankings are another important metric you will use to monitor the results of your SEO campaign. The keyword rankings is the tool you want to use will be based on whether you want to check local or national keyword rankings.
The first keyword rank checker is by ahrefs. This tool will show how your site ranks for a keyword nationally. If you are a local business looking to track regional keyword rankings there is not a reliable, easy-to-use free tool available right now. I would recommend getting a free 14-day trial to BrightLocal and utilize their rankings tool if you do not want to pay for this service.
Moz is the best when it comes to reporting on the latest industry best practices and helping webmasters achieve success. They have a ton of valuable, easy-to-digest information and free marketing tools available for you to take advantage of.
My Favorite Free Marketing Tools
Valuable Resources:
Other honorable mentions for the latest SEO and digital marketing news are Google’s webmaster central blog, search engine journal, search engine land, and search engine watch.
I hope this was everything you needed to get started on your journey into the SEO world! Whether you are a new webmaster getting their feet wet or a business owner trying to figure out how to get the most out of their website everything I shared here should steer you in the right direction.
If you are looking at this and saying this is not for me, this is just too time-consuming, or I don’t have the resources and capabilities to do this my last and most valuable suggestion would be to have someone who is experienced and well versed in this industry help. Hiring an agency means you are hiring a team of professional webmasters who collaborate every day to deliver the best results for you.
At ChoiceLocal, our goal is to provide a return on investment that not only reflects dollars earned but the time saved and convenience to your business. If you are interested in hiring a digital marketing agency our team at ChoiceLocal can be your best asset and resource. Contact our team today to see how we can help with your online presence!
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