Getting the Most out of Free Organic Search Engine Optimization Tools

Search engine optimization is a difficult field to keep up with. Search engines are constantly improving their algorithms and users are always changing search patterns, so we must constantly change tactics to keep up. To make matters worse, our competitors are becoming more savvy, or hiring someone who is, so results pages are becoming more crowded and difficult to crack. Between keyword and competitor research, content strategy and referral building, it’s no wonder we fall behind. Here are a few free tools that will help maximize your research and streamline your process for a more effective campaign.

Google Adwords Keyword Research Tool
Google provides some of the most comprehensive organic search engine optimization tools available. Do yourself a favor and check them out. When choosing which keywords to target with your next initiative or blog article, do a little research into the words and phrasing people search for and incorporate them into your language. Find keywords and phrases that many people are searching for but don’t have much competition from other sites. You’ll start to see a huge difference in no time.

Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is a tool for quickly brainstorming a large, diverse list of keywords to include in your research. These are the words and phrases that you will put into Google’s keyword research tool to find the most effective keywords. Ubersuggest uses Google Suggest to generate a list of keyword phrase suggestions by adding a letter or digit after your search term. You can then click any of those terms to generate the same list for that term. Very simple, but great for digging up long tail keywords.

Google Trends
Surprise! Google shows up twice in a list of free organic search engine optimization tools! Trends is a great tool for getting the ‘big picture’ when it comes to particular search topics and terms. Type your keyword into the blank and you’ll get an overview of how many searches for that term per month, regional interest for the term and a list of other related terms searched by those users. It will also give you a good idea of how notable news headlines affected searches for that term, which can give a great view of social context.

Feed the Bot
Feedthebot.com is a great free SEO resource that has a good deal of information, as well as a handy SEO toolbox. While much of the info and tools will be too techy for many, there are several useful tools for SEO practitioners of all levels. The most notable is probably the Spider Simulator, which will quickly show you what a search engine crawler sees when they crawl your page for data. This can be invaluable in determining why your SEO initiatives aren’t working and figuring out how to improve them.

Moz Free Search Tools
Moz, previously SEOMoz, offers a comprehensive and distinctly un-free set of tools for SEO and other aspects of your digital strategy. Luckily, they also offer a couple of free organic search engine optimization tools as well. The most useful of them is probably Open Site Explorer, which shows the most authoritative backlinks to any site, allowing you to compare with competitors’ sites. There’s also getlisted.org, which will help make sure you’re included in all local search engine listings. Do yourself a favor and spend a little time on their blog while you’re at it. They offer tons of great advice for improving your SEO initiatives and integrating the pieces of your digital strategy.

While not an exhaustive list by any means, these few free search engine optimization tools should help you take your SEO to the next level. While saving you time, effort and money in the process. What tools are you using to streamline or improve your SEO tactics?