10 SEO Marketing Tools to Add to Your Toolbox

Search engine optimization is the foundation of any digital marketing strategy, but you wouldn’t try to build a house with your bare hands, right? So why would you set up your SEO without the proper tools?Thankfully, there is no shortage of tools to add to your SEO toolbox. However, it’s crucial to recognize which tools are worth your time and attention and which ones you should hang up for good. The team at PBJ Marketing identified the following tools as the best in the trade to bulk up your future SEO efforts.

‍For Content... According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing generates more than three times the leads of outbound marketing efforts, and these tools can really help out:

• EpicBeat is powered by user data and highlights content trends from across the Internet. Not only does it shed light on the number of shares each post receives, but also the number of comments generated.
• BuzzSumo lets you view what content is most commonly shared on social media and even offers advice on topics and angles to increase engagement.

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For Keywords... Keyword quality is much more important than keyword quantity, and you need tools to identify targeted keywords and phrases to reach the right audience:

• Searchmetrics offers a suite of tools that provide ranking and search volume information as well as demand and competition for specific keywords.
• SEMrush offers numerous packages ranging from $69.96 to $549.95 per month but provides insight and detailed analytics of your competitor’s top keywords as well as pages receiving the most organic traffic.

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For Links... Some experts say that external linking is the single most important part of any SEO strategy, and there are a few tools that can help you capture the best ones:

• Majestic highlights which websites are linking back to your site as well as your competitors, making is much easier to identify link-building opportunities.
• BuzzStream simplifies locating link-building possibilities by analyzing publisher and influencer metrics.

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For Ranking... SEO is all about knowing your strengths and weaknesses, and to improve your organic rankings, knowing them is paramount:

• Google Search Console contains an entire suite of tools to measure your website’s performance, and even though keyword data is somewhat limited, it’s easy to view which keywords and phrases you’re currently ranking on.

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For Audits... Auditing your strategy is probably the least fun part of search engine optimization, but it arguably the most important. An audit analyzes your site’s many components, from content to functionality and helps pinpoint any glaring issues:

• Screamingfrog offers a streamlined site review that examines everything from links to images (similar to a web crawler). The only downside is that the free version has a crawl limit of 500 URLs.

SEO is a great way to make a personal connection with your customers. After all, SEO provides direct insight into what they’re searching for and the content they want to see. PBJ Marketing has tons of experience building SEO strategies from the ground up. Think it’s time to take a good hard look at yours?