Search engine traffic can be an immensely profitable source of leads. 90% of web experiences start with a search engine. And the ability to rank successfully for high-traffic keywords is one of the most valuable marketing skills you can have in your company.
If you don’t already have an SEO strategy, you’re likely missing out on large quantities of leads and customers. And even if you do, you can still use various tools to streamline your current processes, save employee time, and drive an even greater return-on-investment.
In this post, we’re going to look at six of the top search-engine-optimization apps that you should be using. They’re inexpensive, easy-to-use, and, most importantly, incredibly effective at pinpointing unleveraged opportunities for driving traffic through Google and other search engines.
1.Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest provides a number of features for monitoring and growing your search rankings. You can use it to research new keywords, check keyword competitiveness, audit your site for SEO errors, track your rankings, “spy” on competitors, monitor your current positions, and more.
It’s one of the most competitively-priced solutions on the market and provides a lot of functionality that can only be found in enterprise-level apps. What’s more, it’s very easy to use, and getting set up is a straightforward process.
You can take advantage of a free plan, which allows you to track a limited number of search terms and site pages. While these restricted features likely won’t be sufficient in the long-term, it’s a great way to test the product before buying.
Top Features: Keyword tracking, competitor research, SEO auditing.
2.Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free tool. But it’s still absolutely essential from an SEO standpoint. You can use it to track and troubleshoot your site’s position in Google search results. In particular, webmasters can use it to check if there are any indexing problems related to their sites that might be hurting their rankings.
Along with checking that Google can crawl your site and there aren’t any indexing problems, Search Console also provides information about search traffic, backlinks to your website, usability, and more.
Getting set up is easy, and once you’re up and running, you’ll have a safeguard against any issues with Google.
Top Features: Alerts about indexing and crawl issues, backlink information, search traffic data.
3.Yoast
If you’re using WordPress, you need Yoast. It’s by far the most powerful, easy-to-use, and beginner-friendly SEO tool on the market. You can use it to ensure that everything from your meta titles to your site structure is up-to-scratch. Yoast also handles many time-consuming technical tasks automatically in the background, without any direct input from you.
Yoast has an excellent free version, but you should definitely consider the inexpensive paid version. Among the best features are the keyword optimization checklist, readability checker, internal linking suggestions, and the redirect manager. With a paid plan, you’ll also have access to a year of support.
The Yoast website provides extensive documentation and training materials, so setting up the plugin on your site should be a doddle.
Top Features: Keyword optimization, internal linking wizard, redirect manager.
4.SpyFu
Spyfu specializes in competitor research. Having access to competitor data like rankings, backlinks, and target keywords can be useful when forming your own campaigns, especially if a competing site doesn’t have the same authority as your own. You can also use Spyfu to track changes in competitor rankings over time and learn about emerging companies.
If your business is in a highly competitive space, then Spyfu is an essential SEO tool. All of the plans allow for unlimited searches and data exports, along with the option to track thousands of keywords. The enterprise plan also has numerous client-focused features, including custom reporting.
Top Features: Competitor keyword, backlink, and rank monitoring.
5.BuzzStream
BuzzStream is best described as a link-building tool. Link-building is still one of the cornerstones of successful search engine optimization strategies. But sending vast quantities of outreach emails to generate backlinks to your site is a time-consuming process.
Buzzstream allows you to automate and streamline vast swathes of the link-building process, including prospecting, outreach, follow-up, and more. You can also monitor your link profile and test different email templates to see which ones generate the highest number of positive responses. What’s more, it is an excellent tool for agencies, with the option to set staff permissions and create multiple independent projects.
A Chrome extension also allows you to automatically gather contact details if you land on a site that you think would be a good match.
Top Features: Link prospecting, outreach tools, and automated follow-up.
6.ExplodingTopics
Exploding Topics is the brainchild of Brian Dean, search-engine-optimization expert and founder of the popular blog Backlinko. In essence, the idea behind the platform is a simple one: track keywords with fast-growing search volumes to pinpoint “exploding topics” and then publish this data for businesses.
The tool is useful for finding trending topics and markets before they become saturated to take advantage of low-competition keywords that will likely drive significant amounts of traffic. A lot of the data is offered for free, but a “Pro” version has some excellent benefits, including early access to topics, members-only data, and in-depth analysis of new markets and high-growth keyword terms.
