The Ultimate Guide to SEO: Free Tools and Strategies for Ranking Higher on Google

Best Free SEO Tool: 20 Services Tested and Reviewed

Looking to rank higher but don't want to pay? Perhaps you'll find luck in some of the best free SEO tools on the market. They say there's no such thing as a free lunch. We partially disagree. Complimentary SEO software might not be as capable as paid options. However, the tools presented below still offer plenty of reasons to be excited. From keyword and domain analysis to rank tracking, site audits, and even keyword suggestions. Best of all, you don't have to pay a single dollar or provide credit card information. Let's dive right in without wasting another second. Best Free SEO Tools of 2024: Our Selection As some of these free SEO software lacks certain features, we recommend combining them to get the best effect. However, in our testing, all of them displayed glaring qualities that we wanted to highlight. In the meantime, you can take a detour to our paid SEO tools selection. These tools offer way more and put no restrictions on their features. If you can't pay or don't want to spend anything, here are the top 20 free SEO tools that you can enjoy instead. 1. Semrush Semrush is a state-of-the-art complimentary SEO tool you can use without hassle. A premium tool by default, Semrush offers a dedicated free plan with limited features. However, these features are still numerous and varied for a great experience. Free users can use its Keyword Magic tool for better keyword optimization and hundreds of suggestions. We also appreciate its Site Audit tool that works in the non-paid plan. Moreover, Semrush can analyze domains and perform competitive analysis. Try Semrush for free This is key to overtaking your competition and boosting your ranking in SERPs. Semrush's capabilities don't end there. There's a splendid link-building tool that lets you reach out directly to websites and ask for a backlink or a guest post. Semrush comes with content marketing, social media, and local SEO features to cover every aspect of search engine optimization. Of course, free users will be limited to a few requests daily and some data won't be available. But if you want, you can test its premium plan for free. SE Ranking is one of the best all-around free SEO tools. Again, you'll be enjoying an array of diverse features, like keyword research, domain analysis, rank tracking, and on-page SEO. SE Ranking sticks out thanks to a beautiful interface and impeccable information delivery. This non-paid SEO tool comes with valuable data, such as keyword search intent, volumes, and traffic estimation. We also appreciate its daily rank-tracking updates, helping you stay on top of the game and correct your SEO strategy if needed. SE Ranking's website audits are excellent, as they detect urgent issues and advise solutions to eliminate them. The tool also comes with content marketing tools, one of which is its Content Editor which improves your writing quality tremendously. Try SE Ranking for free Now, SE Ranking isn't free but offers a 14-day free trial that you can use without a credit card. Simply sign up and get going. In addition, it's pretty cheap, so if you decide to leap to this side, you'll pay a measly $44/mo (Semrush is $117/mo in comparison). Bear in mind that SE Ranking comes with many quality free SEO tools that you can use without registering. They include CMS Checker, Website Speed Checker, Word Counter, IP Lookup, and at least ten more. Check the SE Ranking review for our opinion on it. 3. Mangools Mangools is easily one of our favorite free software to improve your SEO. It consists of 5 separate tools, including: As you can see, this free SEO tool covers everything you need. In our experience, Mangools has always performed well, being extremely easy to use. It's not as generous as Semrush and SE Ranking but its free version is good enough for basic needs. Try Mangools for free Better yet, it has an amazing 10-day free trial that gives you a glimpse of its premium offers. You'll be able to analyze keywords, track your ranking, and examine your backlink profile while paying nothing. To clarify things, you can also use it for free forever. The main appeal, at least for us, is its dirt-cheap premium plans. The Entry plan is just $19.90 a month and it's more than enough for above-basic needs. If you decide you want to pay no more, well... simply use a 48-hour money-back guarantee and get a refund. 4. Ahrefs Ahrefs is another beast in the world of search engine optimization. With a litany of features that include keyword research, domain overview, and site audits, it's way above the competition. Sadly, most of its stand-out features are locked behind the paywall. If you opt for its free options, Ahrefs includes a handful of free SEO tools that you can use without registering. We like its keyword generator that comes up with keywords based on the seed keyword you provide. The difficult checker is also here. Simply enter the keyword and see how difficult it is to rank for it. Our team loves its support for other search engines. For instance, it displays keyword suggestions for YouTube, Bing, and Amazon to diversify your presence on the internet. More impressively, there's the backlink checker to examine your backlink profile with this free SEO tool. Ahrefs includes many more solutions but we won't go over all of them here. Some of our favorites, apart from those above, are: If you want a taste of its premium plan, you'll have to pay immediately. Ahrefs has no free trial, which is a cardinal mistake in our book. 5. MozBar Moz offers a free version that'll shower you with limits in terms of keyword research, link research, and other features. Its MozBar is different. This is a free SEO tool for Chrome that you can set up and start using in a minute. What type of info you'll be getting? Well, things like the domain authority and ranking keywords of the website you're on. The extension also lets you perform other analyses and add filters like the search engine, region, country, or city. Its MozBar includes the option to export all data to CSV. Furthermore, MozBar is great for keyword-related SEO tasks. You can analyze keywords and get data about their volume and difficulty. You'll also get content advice that you can use to craft new articles and improve your ranking. Interested in Moz Pro? Well, you can use it as free SEO software too. There's a whopping 30-day free trial to help with that. MozBar, however, is really free but it can be used only as a browser extension on Chrome, Edge, and Brave. Download it and test it out - it's awesome. 6. SEO Spider SEO Spider is a dedicated free SEO app that you can install on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It's not the best-looking but still works well for website crawling, auditing, and detecting broken links. Its free version is rather basic, so don't expect miracles. In our test, SEO Spider audited 500 URLs and detected a few issues that we resolved momentarily. Its interface is a bit cluttered and somewhat intimidating at first, however. SEO Spider is more of a "raw data" type of software, with no graphs and aesthetics of SE Ranking. If you want its paid version, you can get it for $259 a year and crawl unlimited URLs. The paid version includes third-party integrations, report scheduling, segmentation, and many more options. We don't recommend it because it doesn't offer other SEO tools like our top 3 picks. 7. Google Search Console Google Search Console is a perfect tool to analyze your Google position. You're directly asking the search engine you're on for more information - imagine the accuracy you're getting! GSC displays your current ranking once you provide your domain address. Things like impressions, number of clicks, and most visited pages will be displayed. In addition, Google Search Console shows you the devices used to visit your site and even the demographics and geolocation of visitors for a more in-depth analysis. Apart from that, you can analyze pages separately and see how they perform. GSC is useful for plenty of cases. For instance, you can check if your website is mobile-friendly or get more information about core web vitals to evaluate the website's performance. Google Search Console doesn't have a premium plan. You get everything without paying or commitment. However, to analyze the domain, you have to be the owner and go through the verification process to prove it, so it can analyze only your domains, not competitors. 8. Keyword Tool If you struggle with keyword optimizations, Keyword Tool is for you. To ensure you get it, this tool's domain is keywordtool.io because there are similar tools. The one we're referring to is basic. It gives you keyword suggestions based on the seed keyword. That's all? No. Being one of the top free tools for SEO, Keyword Tool easily finds long-tail keywords as well. We also like its vast support for search engines. You can use it to check for keywords on Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon, eBay, X, Pinterest, and many more. Keyword Tool relies on Google Autocomplete for better accuracy. You can also select from hundreds of locations and dozens of languages. Once the keyword is provided, press the Magnifying Glass icon, and voila - you get your suggestions in seconds! You don't have to register or pay a dollar, mind you. Of course, if you're after more suggestions, you'll shell out some cash. Albeit, that's unnecessary when you can use Semrush or SE Ranking instead. They surpass Keyword Tool and offer even more SEO features. 9. Grammarly Wait a second, how is Grammarly a free SEO tool? Because it's amazing at improving your content and making it sound more cohesive! It works on all devices and can be integrated with browsers or Microsoft Word. Granted, Grammarly won't improve your SEO directly. However, better content leads to more visitors and more visitors lead to better ranking eventually! Grammarly is effective at removing grammar errors and rephrasing your sentences. As a free solution, it'll also remove redundancies and clarify your text. Its AI-driven features are amazing. Users can choose the type of audience they're targeting, ensuring the article sounds and feels appropriate. More information like delivery, engagement, and clarity are also there, similar to Semrush's SEO Writing Assistant. Grammarly is really free and can be used like that forever with an account. Its premium plans are pricier if you're seeking maximum improvements and corrections. However, we found its free plan sufficient for all our writing and editing needs. 10. AlsoAsked AlsoAsked is very intuitive and simple to use. It helps you discover popular questions related to the subject you provide. Simply open the website, provide the keyword and press Search. Now, you'll get a nice-looking diagram of frequently asked questions. Apart from questions, you'll get sub-questions that you can further explore and cover in your articles. AlsoAsked doesn't offer any other free SEO tools, so don't expect it to bring drastic SEO improvements to the table. It's more useful for obtaining content ideas. 11. SEOquake SEOquake is a nifty little browser extension with a few free SEO tools. It displays crucial information about the page you're on, such as internal links, external links, and keywords. Its backlink analysis is excellent too and tells you plenty about the backlink profile of the site. We like that SEOquake is simple to use and completely free. Simply download it, sign in, and you're all set. After that, you can analyze things like keyword density, repeats, and prominence. You can also discover if the page has been indexed by Google. Interestingly, SEOquake includes the Semrush ranking metric, which explains how relevant this tool is. SEOquake doesn't have a premium plan. That said, don't expect advanced features like content marketing, AI writer options, and so forth. 12. Yoast SEO WordPress users prefer Yoast SEO as a free tool for search engine optimization. It comes with a heap of information about your content structure and improvement advice. For instance, it shows issues with outbound links, meta description, text length, and SEO title words. If the paragraph is over 300 words long, it'll warn you to reduce its size and make the article more readable. Yoast SEO also warns you of little things like passive voice, sentence length, and image-related issues to further optimize your article. In our book, the free version is sufficient and will serve you well. The premium option is viable and it unlocks even more optimization features to maximize your writing and SEO potential. Bear in mind that Yoast SEO works only in WordPress and Shopify. 13. WordStream Free Keyword Tool WordStream Free Keyword Tool is worth mentioning if you want to prioritize keyword optimization. It couldn't be simpler either. You need to provide a keyword, select the niche, and choose the country. After you confirm your choice, the keywords appear. You don't need an account, so no complex registration process will transpire. Free Keyword Tool displays dozens of keyword suggestions with their search volume, low and high-range top-of-page bids, and competition. After testing it, we noticed it usually displays low-competition keywords. To discover more, you have to provide your email address and register. To be honest, we prefer Keyword Tool (keywordtool.io) but this one is pretty good for basic needs. 14. Google Analytics Google Analytics is often mentioned as a respectable free SEO tool. After all, it comes from Google's kitchen, promising accurate and authentic information. You can access Google Analytics through your website and gather real-time ranking data. For instance, you'll discover the number of new visitors, average engagement time, and your total revenue. Google Analytics also showcases your website performance and visibility, telling you if your performance is improving over time. There's one more curiosity. Google Analytics shows you which keywords led visitors to your domain. In addition, things like monetization, retention, bounce rate, and demographics are all available. As said, this is a 100% free SEO tool, so you'll face no payments or subscriptions. 15. Ubersuggest Ubersuggest comes from Neil Patel, a famous entrepreneur and SEO expert. It's a paid tool by default but you won't go wrong with the free plan. Alas, it's limited and you won't get the full experience. Ubersuggest offers only 3 keyword searches daily. However, the information you get includes difficulty, search volume, paid difficulty, CPC, and a bit of historical data. Users can also obtain keyword suggestions and plan their content accordingly. This, in turn, helps to rank higher on a myriad of search engines. Ubersuggest includes a few other tools. You'll find the domain overview handy for analyzing domain-related parameters. Discovering top-ranking pages and backlink data is intuitive and will cost nothing. Not to mention daily rank tracking that Ahrefs' paid version doesn't have. We'll quickly mention a few of its premium incentives. Ubersuggest has a 7-day trial and amazing Lifetime plans if you need more features. Just bear in mind it's still not better than Semrush, SE Ranking, and Mangools. 16. GTmetrix GTmetrix gives you information about your website's loading speed. It's a great free SEO tool in 2024 if performance optimization is your #1 goal. Open the website, provide the URL, and click "Test Now." GTmetrix will spew an array of insights. Things like the website structure, page loading, overall performance, and a few others will be there. From here, you can decide on the next steps, see what you can do, and rank better on Google or any other search engine you aim for. GTmetrix isn't impressive, though. After using Semrush's site audits, we must admit they're faster and more thorough. GTmetrix is for basic performance improvements, after all. Oh, and while it's free, it does require an account and can't be used as is, unlike Ahrefs' free tools, for example. 17. BrightLocal Local SEO takes an extra effort to boost but with BrightLocal, that can be simplified. It can analyze keywords locally with its SERP Checker, helping you rank higher. Free users can also enjoy its RankFlux, which is handy for monitoring algorithms and ranking changes daily. BrightLocal doesn't look too modern and is, in fact, a bit outdated. We think it's not an issue given its snappiness and efficient local SEO rank tracking. BrightLocal's premium version includes much more, from site audits to listing management, and other features. If you're willing to give it a shot, a 14-day free trial without a credit card sounds exciting. However, BrightLocal is only for local SEO. If you're aiming to rank higher elsewhere, Semrush and SE Ranking remain smarter choices. 18. Google Keyword Planner Another great free SEO tool in 2024 comes from Google. Its powerful Keyword Planner lets you meticulously find new keywords to target in your content. Best of all, it's simple to set up. Provide the seed keyword, select the location, and you're done. Google Keyword Planner will list the suggested keywords with average monthly searches, competition, YoY change, CPC, and other data. Google Keyword Planner also discovers long-tail keywords that can be used to improve overall ranking for more specific terms. It's identical to Google Search Console price-wise. As expected, it's a non-paid SEO tool that needs no registration or upfront payments. Information-wise, it's about on par with other average options, so it doesn't quite match up to the top 3 free SEO software listed above. 19. Can I Rank Can you? Well, now you have someone to ask. Can I Rank or "CanIRank" answer this burning question once you provide the keyword. Type in the keyword and find its keyword difficulty immediately telling you if you can rank for it. We like how straightforward this software is. Each keyword analysis includes difficulty, volume, CPC, and number of searches. You'll also receive a few keyword suggestions to help you rank for the given term - if you can, that is. 20. Animalz Revive At number 20, we have the last free SEO tool for today. Animalz Revive isn't a clinic for bringing back animals to life. Instead, it's made for updating obsolete content and improving the ranking of the pages that lose traffic and visitors. You have to provide a URL first. Now, Animalz Revive crawls the website to find the worst-performing pages. It then displays the traffic loss, the lost visitors, and the pages you should work on first. This basic information might not be enough for everyone but after all, it's free. At least you can think about optimizing the lacking pages or using a Semrush coupon to get a discount and fully improve these pages in no time. Animalz Revive at least helps you revive something, even if we're talking about a few pages on your website. Conclusion This extensive list of the best free SEO tools has all you need to start working on your ranking. Our favorite options are Semrush, SE Ranking, and Mangools. With their diverse tools that cover many SEO aspects, they'll surely offer the most value. Ahrefs and MozBar are close as well, especially Ahrefs whose 10+ free SEO tools offer a heap of valuable data. Other options on this list are more limited and usually revolve around single aspects like keywords, site crawling, keyword suggestions, and so on. The good thing is that most of our tools don't need registration to be used, so you can dive right in. Remember that Semrush, SE Ranking, and Mangools offer free plans and free trials for testing, and with the most tools on offer, we think they're worth a shot. Will you lose anything? Like a minute of your time. Will you gain something? The opportunity to boost your website SEO and let Google know you're working your butt off. Don't wait. Try these free SEO tools and boost your online presence.

How to Rank Higher on Google: 14 Strategies That Work

Improving your SEO generally means ranking higher on Google. Let's face it: Google is the daddy of search engines, and securing your presence there sets you up for success. However, this is quite challenging for most people, which is why many seek tips. So, how to improve your Google search ranking? Our SEO experts will tackle that question in this guide. We have profound knowledge of its complex algorithms and trend changes that greatly influence how you should "behave" to achieve this effect. Consider this a definitive guide to improving your Google ranking in 2024. With the 14 tips we left for you, we have zero doubts you'll overcome many obstacles and skyrocket your ranking. If you're interested, here is a guide on how to improve overall SEO as well. How to Rank Higher on Google in 14 Simple Steps Let's make haste and lose no time. Our SEO experts have tested multiple strategies, some with great success, and some with less. This experience allows us to develop tips to get higher search engine rankings and tackle your competition more effectively. They include: 1. Improve the Website's On-Page SEO SEO is a broad term for various quality-of-life improvements applied to the website. Simultaneously, it's the #1 factor to rank higher on Google. Each page should have impeccable optimization, which means several things. First, the article structure. Your blog posts and pages should follow a strict structure with H1 to H6 titles. We discovered that Google also recommends this for better readability. People often overlook the importance of their SEO titles, meta descriptions, and H1 titles. They should all include the main keyword. Moreover, the main keyword should appear at the very start of the page. Look above and you'll see that the first sentence of this Google ranking improvement guide contains the targeted keywords. Clever, huh? If you need additional help, we recommend using some of the best SEO tools. Semrush and SE Ranking include an on-page SEO checker to better your Google ranking for each page individually. Visit Semrush Simply provide the URL of the page and get valuable information. Semrush and SE Ranking will inform you if you need to include an alt title, improve/change your SEO title, compress the images on the page, and so forth. Such a tool can perfect your page's SEO, resulting in its Google ranking increase in a short period. 2. Increase the Level of Website Performance The key feature of all high-ranking websites on Google is performance. They're buttery-smooth and provide an exceptional experience. So, how to rank higher on Google in this case? How to improve the website performance? Think about loading times. Google HATES slow-loading sites and will almost always rank them lower. Understandably, if your site takes ages to load, the bounce rate will increase, and people will eventually give up on it. You can do a few things to improve loading times. Using the Site Audit tool from SE Ranking or Semrush will provide insightful data. In particular, you'll see your core web vitals that signify how the site is "behaving." Improving these factors is all about focusing on the technical aspects of your site. The Site Audit tool highlights the issues that need to be fixed. Optimizing images and videos on your site is one of the steps. Furthermore, you'll likely need to decrease CSS and JS files on the page. Our team also found browser caching to be handy for ranking higher on Google. To explain it better, it's when the website's static elements are stored on the user's device. Next time the user visits the website, these elements are instantly loaded, ensuring the entire website boots up quicker and starts working right away. The website should load in no more than 1-3 seconds. Researchers have shown that a loading time of above 4-5 seconds is detrimental and will likely cause a surge in bounce rate. You can optimize your website as much as you want but if the base isn't there, it's all in vain. The base of every good-performing website is a reliable hosting provider. Besides, a hosting provider hosts your website and provides the required resources for it to work. This, in turn, means you shouldn't try to save on things like CPU resources, RAM, and fast storage. Our team assembled a list of the best web hosting services for you. We mentioned there that Hostinger is our #1 choice as the fastest and most reliable option in 2024. It starts at just $2.99 a month. This plan (named "Premium") lets you host up to 100 websites per account and provides 100 GB of SSD storage and unlimited bandwidth. If your website grows and you're getting more traffic, you can also consider different types of hosting. For example, VPS and cloud hosting are excellent for larger websites in need of more resources. Hostinger offers flexible hosting plans all of which have free website migration if you're looking to boost the website performance and achieve a high Google ranking. Keyword research is a mandatory feature of almost all SEO tools in the world. Why is that? Because Google ranking is directly influenced by your keyword optimization! Having a terrific keyword optimization is more important than tiny technical stuff people obsess with. Thankfully, researching keywords is dead simple and everyone can do it. Semrush, SE Ranking, or even Mangools offer this tool. Mangools KWFinder is the simplest. Type in the keyword, select the language and country you want to rank in, and press Search. This software immediately displays data like keyword difficulty, search volume, trends, CPC, and so forth. We also found that SE Ranking and Semrush work well, displaying even more information and keyword suggestions to help you get going. All this information is important for keyword optimization. If it's too difficult to rank for, you'll need more options to improve your Google ranking. These tools also let you discover long-tail keywords. These are more specific and easier to rank for, which helps newer websites. Once you "conquer" the lower-ranking portion, you can aim for bigger players and try to take them down. When researching keywords, it's good to take note of search volume. If it's high, great. If it's extremely low, then it's likely not worth putting effort in. Mangools and Semrush also show the keyword trend, which explains how the keyword's popularity altered over time. Finally, we must recommend Semrush Keyword Magic Tool as the #1 option for this purpose. It's an all-around tool for in-depth keyword analysis. With a wealth of suggestions and keyword information, it'll help you rank higher on Google simply by including more valuable keywords in your posts. Find out more about it in our Semrush review. 4. Optimize Your Website for Mobile Devices Google's recent algorithm update started prioritizing mobile performance among many other factors. It's not strange given these somewhat shocking statistics from Explodingtopics.com. Namely, over 60% of all website traffic originates from mobile devices. What's more, 92.3% of all internet users access the internet from their mobile phones! We should also point out another thing - there are over 4.32 billion active mobile internet users. That's pretty much about 50% of the entire world's population. Google has the right to request extraordinary mobile optimization and you, as a website owner, must comply. Thankfully, your website's mobile optimization isn't too hard to work on. You can use Semrush and analyze your website's technical aspects to see which needs to be improved. We use a simple trick, however. We simply grab our phones and go to the website. By doing that, we can evaluate our website and see how it performs first-hand. If we're dissatisfied, we'll improve the things that plague the experience. Another method is to check if your website is mobile-friendly using Google's proprietary platform. It'll tell you if you need to reduce/increase font size, improve loading times, alter the UI, and so forth. Improving this factor alone will boost your search rankings tremendously. 5. Improve Your Writing Quality Quality over quantity should be your motto when discussing how to rank higher on Google. Google appreciates well-written content that's easy to read and grasp. This means removing fluff and confusing or irrelevant sentences that artificially extend the article. To get a better overview of what you should do, you can refer to Semrush's SEO Writing Assistant. Analyze your page with it and it'll tell you what you did good and wrong. It's like Grammarly but with more insights regarding optimization and article structure. For instance, it'll display the readability rate, advise the keywords to use, and even highlight the tone of voice that might need to be improved. Writing quality also has to do with keyword optimization, which must be natural. Keyword stuffing is a big no-no for Google. We also recommend shortening your sentences. They're easier to read and provide more direct information about the subject. Semrush also includes the SEO Content Template tool that we found helpful in many cases when preparing to write new content. It comes up with semantically related keywords and text lengths you need to aim for. This tool also displays the average readability score of your competitors for the target keyword. As a result, it lets you improve your readability score and stick out from the average. SEO Content Template and SEO Writing Assistant from Semrush are handy for improving your writing quality, and therefore, getting higher search engine rankings. If you're interested, check out SE Ranking which also offers its AI Writer to help you in the same way. A high bounce rate is one of the worst things you can do for your Google ranking. As explained, the bounce rate refers to the percentage of your website visitors that bounce back to the search results quickly after visiting your site. Why does this happen? There are many factors, one of which we discussed - loading times. Improving them will directly improve the bounce rate because users won't wait for an eternity to access the website. Another, maybe even greater factor is that people don't find what they want. In today's times, it's all about finding what you need FAST. That said, your pages need to be, as they say, "skimmable." Check out our page about getting a UK IP address. As you can see, we explained this simple process right away and gave our readers a direct answer. This is one way of reducing the bounce rate. We think you should focus on answering the reader's questions as soon as possible on your page. At the very least, try to include the table of contents for easier navigation so that the user can quickly get what he/she wants. 7. Use LSI Keywords LSI keywords aren't paramount to get higher Google search rankings but they're pretty important. LSI stands for Latent Semantic Indexing. To better describe them, we'll say these keywords are closely related to the main keyword you're trying to cover. They are semantically related to the main key phrase. If this sounds familiar, you've likely read one of our previous Google ranking improvement steps where we mentioned SEO Content Template from Semrush. Exactly. This tool discovers semantically related keywords based on the provided main keyword. These keywords better describe what the topic is about and help Google understand what you're trying to cover more effectively. Semantically related keywords to "SEO tools" are: Do you see the connection? SEO tools help with all that! LSI keywords will usually be included naturally as you write but most people tend to overlook them and focus only on the main keyword with little to no variety. Well, that's not what Google wants. Google wants LSI keywords and thorough explanations of your topics. With LSI keywords, you'll tell Google that you're an expert in your field and that you've covered the subject properly, allowing it to skyrocket your page in SERPs and rank it higher. 8. Build a Quality Backlink Profile Building your backlinks is easier said than done. It's one of those things that come over time and is why many fail to rank better on Google. Worse yet, Google deems the backlink profile quality one of the most important factors for better ranking. What can you do? The best thing, in the long run, is to provide quality and informational content. You also need decent SEO and plenty of organic visitors to make your website eligible for a backlink. Now, you can implement additional tools like the link-building tool from Semrush. Find backlink opportunities with Semrush It allows you to directly get in touch with other websites and request a backlink, guest post, or product review. It's indeed great to rank a site on Google more efficiently but as said, you must ensure your website is worthy of a backlink or guest post. That's because low-quality backlinks negatively influence your Google ranking and no one wants a backlink from pesky websites. The more backlinks you have from respectable sites, the more your ranking goes up. We advise using the backlink gap tool, as well. It's found in Semrush and SE Ranking and displays which websites link to your competitors but not to your website. You can then use the link-building tool above to get in touch with them and try to get these backlinks. This is the step that requires the most time, sadly. However, if you're persistent and do everything in your power to make your website worthy of backlinks, progress is unavoidable. 9. Diversify Your Pages With Visuals Reading a wall of text already makes us feel the tedium. Whether it's your home page or a blog post, we think adding visuals is a great way to attract your readers, keep their attention, and prevent the bounce rate from increasing. In a way, they also influence the site's feeling. Great visuals like tables, graphs, and charts will enrich every page. Coupled with images and possibly videos to complement your posts, visuals will surely make your website more professional. This is handy to build trust among your readers and get better Google rankings. Another perk is information delivery. Neatly placed visuals can highlight the most important information from the article. A simple comparison chart will display all the information the reader needs, making him or her satisfied with his or her visit to your website. Our experience shows that implementing visuals can make the reader explore your site further. If the article the reader stumbled upon looks this great, how amazing are the other articles and pages? Well, the reader would surely be prompted to explore further. 10. Update Your Pages As Needed A cardinal mistake when working on your Google search ranking is not keeping your pages fresh. Pages with outdated information tend to rank worse because they're obsolete. We want you to go to Google and type in the search query. Check out the best-ranking pages. You'll see the dates next to each page. They have one thing in common - all dates are pretty close to today's date. This tells us that all of the highest-ranking pages saw frequent updates to keep their information accurate at the time of searching. We found that updating our reviews and analyses of VPNs, hosting providers, and SEO tools was quite beneficial. If a VPN offers 10,000 servers but your review still says it has 6,500 of them, guess what? Your review is inaccurate and Google will immediately notice it. When updating your pages, make sure you set the according date in WordPress. If the update is done on the 15th of July, for example, select the exact date and time in WordPress and apply it to let Google know the page is updated. 11. Use Plenty of Internal Links Internal links lead to other pages on your site compared to external links that lead to other websites. Having an excellent internal link profile comes in handy when boosting your ranking in Google Search results. There's the known PageRank algorithm. It uses the number of quality links to the page to rank it in SERPs. Simply put, you'll need plenty of links to the page to rank it higher on Google. We prefer linking the most to our most important pages to boost them and make them appear in higher search results. If your website is about VPNs, the most important pages will likely be VPN reviews, the best VPNs for different purposes, free VPNs, and so forth. Linking to these pages predominantly can rank them on Google higher and ensure higher authority scores. Internal linking is also about using proper anchors. You can use the Keyword Magic Tool from Semrush to get information about competitive keywords that can be used in internal linking. We also want to state the importance of broken links and their removal. Try Semrush Now Semrush and SE Ranking can detect them and let you get rid of them promptly. A link that leads to nowhere is of no use to Google. It's another factor decreasing your ranking because you weren't diligent enough to remove it and it just plagues the website experience. 12. Track Your Google Ranking Frequently How would you know if you're getting higher search engine rankings without tracking them somehow? You can't do this manually and it's always smart to use a dedicated SEO tool for rank tracking, such as SE Ranking or Semrush. The question is how they work. Simply. You provide a few or more keywords and get information on how your ranking changes daily. SE Ranking and Semrush can track 500 keywords with their cheapest plans, making them excellent to keep in touch with ranking fluctuations. Unlike Ahrefs, these tools update your ranking info daily and even inform you by email about changes. A higher ranking means you're doing something well and vice versa. If it's the opposite, you can still capitalize on other tools from Semrush or SE Ranking to improve it. Track your pages' ranking with SE Ranking Other tools like backlink audit, site audit, keyword research, and on-page SEO checker can help identify pressing issues and resolve them in minutes. 13. Focus on Long-Form Content Long-form content is better for obtaining backlinks and including internal links than short-form content. Now, long-form content won't be suitable for every situation, especially when the topic is simple and doesn't require thousands of words to explain it. However, some subjects, like buyer's guides, top lists, and sometimes definitions and explanations indeed require longer pages and posts. According to Backlinko, long-form content gets 77.2% more links than short articles, making it great to get backlinks. Generally speaking, long-form content is usually more than 3,000 words but no definition would perfectly describe it. Our experience shows that blog posts with over 3,000 words indeed do better as long as they're written sensically and without fluff. This article, for instance, is well over 3,000 words but it's filled with information on how to rank higher on Google. Such a complex and broad subject must be covered thoroughly. 14. Prevent Keyword Cannibalization Keyword cannibalization is when multiple pages on your website rank for the same keyword. The definition alone tells you that something isn't right because such an occurrence would harm the Google ranking of these pages. You want every page to rank for a different keyword. Now, the question is how to avoid and prevent keyword cannibalization. Well, you can use Google Search Console to analyze your website and see if multiple URLs rank for the same search query. You can also do it manually by searching for a query on Google. Just type in your domain and then the keyword you're looking for. If multiple pages align with the same search intent, it could be an issue of cannibalization. After all, you can do it much more easily by using Semrush and its bespoke cannibalization reports. Once you open a cannibalization report, find the issues, and resolve them. Cannibalization can be fixed in many ways but the most important is to improve your keyword optimization and replace the keywords you mention throughout one or more articles. Summary This guide taught us that increasing your Google ranking in 2024 is easy with our 14 insightful tips. We can't say which tip is the most important because all of them combined are necessary to produce the best results. However, some stick out. Keyword research, quality backlinks, and top-tier content are some of them. We also shouldn't forget about technical SEO, mobile optimization, and impeccable internal linking. We must stress that ranking your site on Google will be time-consuming. However, a perfect implementation of our tested strategies and tactics will greatly reduce the time it takes to see improvements. You can also use our recommended free SEO tools for this purpose but we recommend their premium counterparts to get the best results. This article isn't about pushing SEO tools, though. But at least 95% of all the SEO analyses can't be done without them. Using Semrush, SE Ranking, or Mangools will help you with this cause with accurate information needed to beat your competition in search results ranking. Best of all, they're completely free for 14 days, thanks to a free trial. Test them and follow the 14 great tips our team crafted for you.

8 Best Link Building Tools in 2024 (Tested and Compared)

Link building tools play a staggering role in improving your website ranking. Many newbies refer to keywords as the primary factor for ranking higher. Unfortunately, they don't realize that backlinks are essentially recommendations from other websites. Building a quality backlink profile takes time and immense effort. However, the best link building tools can ease up the process and make it a tad easier. The most impressive thing about backlink software is its versatility; you're getting much more than that. Our favorite tools of 2024 include features like keyword research, site audits, domain research, and plenty more. Gizmodo's team of experts tested dozens of them but we found 8 that fit the bill perfectly. Keep reading to find out more about them. Best Link Building Software: Our 8 Favorites In our guide on improving SEO, we explained the importance of backlinks. Your website must be eligible for backlinks based on overall quality, optimization, and user experience. With all these factors in place, obtaining external links should come swiftly. That's even truer with our selection of tried-and-tested backlinking tools. They include: 1. Semrush Semrush is a staple in our link-building process. It's an all-arounder with a vast offer of SEO tools that no other service offers. In terms of link building, it's easily the #1 option. That's because of its dedicated link building tool for finding backlink opportunities. You need to provide your domain address, and the CRM-like interface hits you with hundreds if not thousands of possible opportunities. This backlink software lets you get in touch with the website directly and communicate with the owner to make a deal. For instance, it lets you ask for a backlink, guest post, or even a product review. Semrush also includes the backlink analysis tool, which analyzes each domain's backlink profile. Moreover, the backlink gap displays which websites like to your competitors but not to your site. You can use this information to get in touch with these websites and ask for a "recommendation", so to speak. A crucial parameter in successful backlinking is the removal of toxic links. Well, Semrush lets you discover and get rid of them in seconds with a site audit. If you thought this was your ordinary SEO tool, you're wrong. Semrush's keyword research is very useful to gather more info on high-ranking keywords. Its Position Tracking tool is also great for keeping an eye on your website ranking and following your progress. Semrush's link builder tool is immensely useful and the only option on this list that allows for a direct reach-out to different sites. Best of all, it's free for 14 days thanks to a trial, plus, it has a free link building tool as part of its non-paid but limited plan. Analyzing your backlink profile with SE Ranking is easier done than said - that's not a typo. This software's intuitiveness makes all SEO research a breeze. Its Backlink Checker displays referring domains, domain trust, the number of backlinks, and more critical data. As one of the best link building software in 2024, SE Ranking's information is accurate enough. For instance, we found its detection of toxic backlinks crucial in preventing our SEO rankings from dwindling. Like Semrush, it packs a backlink gap tool. This one lets you compare your domain with up to 4 competitors to see how you stack against them. We don't like that SE Ranking has no dedicated link building tool like Semrush. This means there's no option to manually contact the websites you want. Don't fret - it's not the end of the world. SE Ranking's other tools are impressive on their own. We often found its rank tracker as good as Semrush's equivalent. SE Ranking can be used to improve your content with its AI Writer which enhances the overall writing quality. This can, in turn, make your site more backlink-potent. SE Ranking comes with a site audit function that discovers various issues preventing your website from achieving its full potential. It also allows you to directly work on them through its witty advice. If you appreciate affordable SEO tools with great value, this amazing backlink tool is for you. It starts at $52 a month, offering full backlink research capabilities, 500 keywords to track, and a 14-day credit-card-free trial. Check it out below or read our SE Ranking review beforehand. Mangools consists of five amazing SEO tools, one of which is LinkMiner. As the name suggests, it's a link building tool, or rather a backlink analysis solution. You won't get a Semrush-like experience here but the amount of data you can gather with one search is staggering. Once you enter the domain address, Mangools LinkMiner displays information about the domain authority, follow/nofollow links, new/lost backlinks, and many more. LinkMiner also divulges data about referring domains and active backlinks if you deem them relevant. We also like its WPR parameter, which stands for World Popularity Ranking. It highlights the backlink strength, which helps determine the backlink profile of a domain. Mangools LinkMiner isn't brimming with features and this is pretty much all you get. However, its appeal lies in other options besides its amazing link building software. For instance, KWFinder is excellent at discovering keyword suggestions and overall keyword research. We also appreciate its SERPWatcher which works well with LinkMiner. It's a straightforward rank tracker that lets you keep a close watch on your website's performance. As said, Mangools includes five SEO tools, helping you cover every aspect of your website's search engine optimization. It's simultaneously a free link building tool. That's because of its free, albeit limited variant, which is only for modest users. Mangools aims to satisfy less demanding users in general, so its price is far more affordable. It starts at $19.90/mo, supporting 25,000 backlinks you can retrieve with LinkMiner monthly. It's hard to find a better backlink tool at this price point, as even its more expensive plans cost half as much as Semrush. Ahrefs offers some of the best link building tools you can use in 2024. It comes with a site explorer that lets you explore the backlinks of your competitors and evaluate their backlink profiles. Ahrefs' backlink software also contains the content explorer function. We love this feature because it lets you discover new content ideas and implement them into your existing content. Above all, this feature lets you find link opportunities! It's pretty similar to Semrush's link-building tool but without the possibility to get in touch. After testing it, Ahrefs displays the websites that would be great backlink sources. This is a neat touch but after all, we had to use Semrush as an alternative to Ahrefs to contact these websites. Ahrefs has a huge backlink database, so every related research is impeccable. You'll also like how efficient this SEO tool is in other aspects. Its site audit function can also be used to fix your broken backlinks and other SEO problems. Ahrefs lacks the on-page audit tool from, let's say, Semrush and SE Ranking but offers plenty more. We love its keywords explorer tool. It divulges hundreds of nifty little keyword suggestions with important metrics like volume, difficulty, share of voice, and competition. Ahrefs' cardinal sin is a poorly designed rank tracker with weekly, instead of daily rank updates. Admittedly, while being one of the most appreciated backlinking tools, Ahrefs is also expensive. That can be attributed to its credit system and overall pricey plans, requiring you to pay at least $100/mo for daily rank-tracking updates. There's no free trial either. 5. Moz Pro Moz Pro is a comprehensive suite of SEO tools for all purposes. Its Link Explorer is the highlight of today's discussion given its link building capabilities. To make it clear, we're not huge fans of Moz Pro because of its evident lack of innovation compared to Semrush. However, we'll give credit where it's due. This Link Explorer works well thanks to Moz Pro's 44 trillion backlink database. You can discover referring domains and backlinks in seconds, along with data like domain authority, backlink types, and so on. What about direct link building? Well, you won't find anything similar here. Moz Pro is SEO backlink software whose premise is mostly research. Therefore, you'll find competitors' backlinks and the URLs that link to them which can be used to your advantage. You can, for instance, contact the website linking to the competitor but only if you use Semrush. Either way, Moz Pro offers another handy tool for backlinking - Link Intersect. It's a backlink gap tool that compares your domain to nine other competitors. That's more than Semrush and SE Ranking. Using Moz Pro doesn't mean you'll limit yourself to link building. Its keyword research is phenomenal and the rank tracker offers daily updates with incredible accuracy. Moz Pro also supports on-demand crawls. It detects on-page issues and lets you resolve them in seconds. Moz Pro is one of the most generous backlink tools in 2024. It has a respectable 30-day free trial plus a free plan but with limited features and only 10 daily searches in the Link Explorer. Not generous, aight. 6. BuzzSumo BuzzSumo comes in handy for analyzing your content's potential and seeing how much interest would it garner among influencers. It can be used to cherry-pick the influencers enticed by your content who might want to promote it by, let's say, linking to it. This link building tool works differently than Semrush, SE Ranking, and others. You'll first need to ensure your content meets high standards. After that, BuzzSumo can show you the influencers that share and link to the content of your competitors. It comes with an integrated Google Alerts function in the Brand Mentions tool, giving you alerts when someone mentions your website. We love the function to add a list of keywords and be notified whenever someone mentions any of them. Handy stuff. Interestingly, BuzzSumo can detect backlink opportunities for you. It displays factors like total engagement, X shares, Pinterest shares, and others to help you determine if the backlink source is credible for you. BuzzSumo's plans are unlimited in searches. This means you can analyze backlink opportunities to your heart's contempt. It's overall a pretty simple platform without quibble. The Content Creation plan starts at $159/mo and already includes unlimited searches, content analyzer, trending feeds, and a lot more. Users who want more can opt for any other 3 other plans. BuzzSumo advertises its Suite plan as the most popular, alas, at a hefty $399/mo. It's made for 10 users and offers a great Chrome extension, YouTube Analyzer, and tons of other link building tools. 7. Respona You might not have heard of Respona but this underrated backlink tool deserves more attention. It's specifically made for outreach, which means you can get in touch with backlink sources and get what you want! Before you can do that, you'll need to work on your SEO. Free SEO tools might help with that, too. Regardless, Respona finds backlink opportunities for your website, and from here, you can select the type of campaign you're aiming for. You can pick from a podcast outreach, product review, guest post, and dozens more. If you select, let's say, a product review, you'll find the websites that accept product reviews. It also offers this Skyscraper Technique feature, allowing you to detect the websites that link to your competitors but not your website. A bit like the backlink gap tool. We love that Respona is direct and lets you quickly get in contact with the website you want to connect with. Additionally, the entire process can be automated so that Respona finds backlink opportunities AND contacts them for your convenience. Being so full of features, Respona even includes a powerful AI for personalizing your emails and automating a few more tasks. If you want a dedicated backlink builder software that excels in this category, Respona's 14-day trial will surely fire up your excitement. It also offers a free personalized demo for 30 minutes. After the trial expires, know that Respona isn't the most pocket-friendly. It starts at $399/mo,- far more than Semrush or even the notoriously expensive Ahrefs. That says volumes about the relevancy of backlinks. 8. Connectively (Formerly HARO) If you go to Google and type in HARO, you'll notice that this website evaporated overnight. Well, HARO is no more in 2024 but the entire platform migrated to the website called Connectively. Thankfully, the premise is the same and is ideal for backlink opportunities. So, let us remind you how it works. Connectively is a platform for connecting journalists and content creators, providing many collaboration and brand growth opportunities. Unlike the old-school HARO, Connectively offers a few paid plans to enhance the experience. More about that in a second. Connectively lets you become either a journalist or content creator and seek the "opposite" side for various purposes. Content creators will seek journalists interested in their content who would link to it and promote it. They'll send the so-called "pitches" to journalists who would respond to them. Connectively lets you send 10 pitches in the free plan but buying Core, Pro, or Premier plans bumps them up to 150 and includes multiple user profiles to maximize your performance. Connectively isn't a "direct" link building tool but it can be extremely useful if you find like-minded people who share your opinions. Bear in mind that Connectively isn't as capable as the other best-rated link building software because it's limited. As said, you won't get tools like keyword research, website audits, and other tools from Semrush, SE Ranking, and Mangools. However, it's free and the cheapest Core plan at $19/mo isn't too expensive for what you get. Test it out and see how you like it. How to Choose the Best Link Building Tool for You? Our extensive list has come to an end but if you're unsure how to pick the right tool for you, these considerations might help. Summary Okay, so let's summarize our comprehensive guide on the best backlinking tools of 2024. You'll undoubtedly be satisfied with Semrush, SE Ranking, and Mangools as the most reliable and insightful software. Ahrefs and Moz Pro are more than respectable. In particular, we appreciate Ahrefs' data delivery and other SEO tools that make it a stand-out option compared to Moz Pro. BuzzSumo is excellent for discovering backlink opportunities, while Respona offers a nifty outreach function for added convenience. We left Connectively for the end because it's an incomplete SEO tool. While it's suitable for discovering opportunities, it doesn't function like supreme options such as Semrush, SE Ranking, Mangools, or Ahrefs. We think this guide should end here. You have 8 reputable choices and some things to consider when selecting one of them. What are you waiting for? It's time to decide - no one's going to do your backlinking tasks for you!