I\u2019m personally a huge fan of Ahrefs<\/a> and it is the go-to SEO software for a lot of our research and performance monitoring. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It isn\u2019t cheap, and I wouldn\u2019t use it for non-revenue generating websites, but it is packed with powerful features and useful tools. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I much prefer the UI and UX of ahrefs to the likes of SEMRush and Moz, which I\u2019ve both used and have never felt as comfortable interacting with the data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The reports we use a lot include: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Keyword research<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ahrefs keyword research tool is one of the most advanced out there, with loads of options to expand the data or drill down further. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As you can see below, web hosting<\/a> is incredibly competitive with a very high difficulty score (Keyword Difficulty gives an estimate of how hard it is to rank in the top 10 organic search results for a keyword on a 100-point scale). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, \u2018web hosting uk\u2019 is a more popular search term than \u2018uk web hosting\u2019:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Site Audit<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ahrefs will crawl all the pages on your website and flag any SEO issues it finds, as well as recommendations on how to fix them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The reports cover issues related to: <\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve set up a daily report to make sure any issues that may crop up are identified and fixed asap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Backlinks<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n How many new links have we gained in the past x days? <\/p>\n\n\n\n A lot of these links come naturally, but we do occasionally conduct a bit of outreach, especially when we publish something meaty like the web designer survey<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This report let\u2019s us know how successful that has been. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Although proprietary and totally unconnected to Google\u2019s ranking algorithm, the \u2018Domain Rating\u2019 metric is useful to gauge how much \u2018authority\u2019 a linking domain has, the higher the better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This report isn\u2019t limited to your own site. It can also be used to track competitors\u2019 links and identify opportunities for your brand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Best pages by incoming links<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n This report is great for identifying your top pages by external links (do more content like that) as well as other sites\u2019 links. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With this information you can apply a few well-trodden tactics to acquire some of those links yourself (skyscraper technique<\/a> anyone?). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Limitations<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Although ahrefs is an important part of our SEO tool set, it isn\u2019t perfect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The biggest downer is the frequency of updates for your tracked keywords\u2019 SERP rankings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At best you\u2019ll get updates every 3 days on the agency plan, which is a whopping $999 per month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To plug that gap, we use SERanking for daily updates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n SERanking<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n We use SERanking<\/a> to monitor how our target keywords are performing in Google\u2019s SERPs daily. Are there any unwelcome drops we need to investigate or are there are increases thanks to changes we\u2019ve made? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Getting set up is easy, and the interface is clean and easy to use. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unable to insert the picture<\/p>\n\n\n\n It also comes with website audit, backlink checker and social media management tools, but we don\u2019t use those. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Other keyword research tools<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s always good to get second opinion, so sometimes we make use of SEMrush<\/a>, AnswerThePublic<\/a>, and AlsoAsked<\/a>. These all present results in different ways \u2013 for example, some of these concentrate on questions \u2013 but they can help to widen your scope. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Alongside the site audit and keyword research tools listed above, there are a handful of other great, free tools which can help you to improve your SEO efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n SSL certificate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If you look at your own site and discover that HTTP is still the default, you should get an SSL certificate installed. Most hosting providers can provide an SSL certificate for free. Having a secure, HTTPS website isn\u2019t so much a ranking factor today, as a standard requirement for building any sort of trust from users or search engines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Check My Links<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ensuring that your links resolve correctly is key to ensuring that your website is crawlable, usable, and passes authority between pages effectively. Check my links<\/a> is a great, free browser add on which quickly scans all of the links on a page, and highlights them based on a 200 success response, redirects, or errors, making them easy to identify and fix. <\/p>\n\n\n\n View Rendered Source<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re using frameworks such as Angular, React.js or Vue.js on your website, then a tool like this one is particularly important. Many people fall into the trap of using Javascript to serve certain parts of their page and then having them missing from search engine crawls. View rendered source<\/a> is a free browser add on which shows you the raw source code in comparison with the browser rendered version. Crucially it highlights the differences, so you can see anything which is missing from the rendered version and ensure that no SEO crucial elements are being left out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Clarity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A UX tool at heart, Microsoft Clarity can actually be a great SEO tool too. In a world where Navboost & Chrome click stream data are big parts of how Google ranks a page, ensuring that users are interacting with your content is more important than ever. The user recording and heat map functions of Clarity provide great insight into whether your pages are serving their purpose, and highlights any roadblocks which could be forcing users off of your website prematurely. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Schema markup tools<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n We have developed our own Schema generator<\/a> which can be used for free by anyone and it\u2019s the only one that includes entity and website hierarchy markup. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With just a few clicks and inputs it will spit out valid schema markup for you to add to your site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n SEOReviewTools.com<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Like the above, SEO Review Tools<\/a> includes lots of free online tools. It\u2019s useful for \u2018filling in the gaps\u2019 in our toolset. For example, they offer a useful keyword density<\/a> checker to make sure that we\u2019re not over-optimising to the point of getting spammy! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Google\u2019s tools<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Google Search Console<\/a> (GSC) provides us with insight in to how successfully Google is crawling our content along with how we are performing against the market (search impressions and clicks). <\/p>\n\n\n\n We tend to use GSC to identify the areas where we could improve, such as Core Web Vitals, schema and mobile usability. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We use Lighthouse to test page speed \u2013 more information about that tool here.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n For diagnosing Cumulative Layout Shift, we use web.dev\u2019s CLS debugger<\/a>. This is really useful for our developers to narrow-down the source of a poor CLS score. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Screaming Frog<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n This site crawler \u2013 or \u2018SEO spider<\/a>\u2018 \u2013 offers great bulk metrics about our website, for example, if we want to know PageSpeed Insights scores of all our pages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s most well known for being able to find broken links on sites. This is useful for looking for link opportunities. It has a bunch of other features \u2013 too many to list here! It\u2019s available in both free and paid versions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 20i Website Acceleration Suite<\/strong> Pagespeed is a key part of SEO, and a large part of this is underpinned by the size of your web pages and avoiding bloat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As such, we created our very own 20i Website Acceleration Suite \u2013 a tool which is included for free in all of our hosting <\/p>\n\n\n\n The website acceleration suite improves website load times by automatically implementing web performance best practices to a website. This includes optimising images, JavaScript minification and combining CSS \u2013 all to improve website load times and the Google PageSpeed Score. This in turn positively impacts SEO and helps you develop high-performing websites at scale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n SEO Pro<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n SEO Pro<\/a> is a simple Chrome extension, which can be used to quickly and easily to check the basics of a page, such as headings, alt-text and schema. <\/p>\n\n\n\n SEO blogs we read<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Because we\u2019re huge marketing nerds (and because it is our job) we regularly check in with top SEO blogs\/news sites to get the latest news and ideas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are countless SEO blogs out there, so here are the ones we\u2019d recommend checking out: <\/p>\n\n\n\n SEO Blogs<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Newsletters and the other sources above are a good way to keep up to date with the recent chatter in the SEO community. But for diving deeper into the nitty-gritty of a topic, blogs offer often a more detailed view and analysis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n First is the blog from Olaf Kopp \u2013 https:\/\/www.kopp-online-marketing.com\/blog<\/a>. Olaf is well known in the German SEO scene and recently started publishing his content in English \u2013 it\u2019s really worth reading. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Go Fish \u2013 https:\/\/gofishdigital.com\/gfd-blog\/<\/a> \u2013 this blog covers a lot topics in digital marketing and publishes content from various experts in the industry. One of them was Bill Slawski, who was the founder of SEO by the Sea, where another good blog can be found \u2013 https:\/\/www.seobythesea.com\/<\/a> . <\/p>\n\n\n\n You shouldn\u2019t miss out on reading the blog of Amsive Digital \u2013 https:\/\/www.amsivedigital.com\/insights\/<\/a> \u2013 insights into to the changes in SEO by Lily Ray and her team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n SEOs on Social Media \u2013 who to follow<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some SEOs and publications have big followings across social media, often sharing tips, case studies, opinions, and other golden nuggets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are the ones we love following: <\/p>\n\n\n\n SEO Newsletter that are worth reading:<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Aleyda Solis: #SEOFOMO<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Aleyda Solis has won several awards over the past years and has established herself as one of the most respected experts in the world of SEO. Her weekly newsletter #SEOFOMO is one of the few that doesn\u2019t pitch her own service and delivers useful insights and tools: <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Ahrefs-Keyword-Explorer.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"ahrefs](\"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ahrefs-website-audit-nasa.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/domain-rating-screenshot.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/image.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nOther free SEO tools for small & medium businesses<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/20i-schema-generation-tool.jpeg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\n
\n