You probably want to rank number one on Google, don’t you? But you definitely want to make sure you have at your disposal the right tools and tactics that will guarantee you to achieve that position. And especially if you don't have a ton of money or you can't hire an agency, what can you do? So, get ready because in this article, we’re going to share with you 7 free SEO tools that truly work and will help you rank number one on Google.
Hi there, and welcome back to Serendipity Marketing. We're a digital marketing agency with a mission to help small businesses grow by applying psychology to their marketing strategies.
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So, here we go!
1. Google Search Console
The first free tool we recommend you is Google Search Console. Most people use Google Search Console just to see what keywords they're ranking for. You can do that, but it isn’t that effective.
The reason you want to use Google Search Console, especially if you want a rank number one is for this specific tactic.
When you log in to a Google Search Console, it'll show you all the keywords that you're ranking for that are driving the majority of your traffic.
Look at what pages those keywords are driving traffic to. Take the title tag of that page and the meta description and make sure you include the keyword, and optimize that title tag to be more appealing and persuasive.
If you're not sure how to optimize the title tag, take a look at a magazine. Magazines have amazing headlines. For example: “10 ways to lose weight in 30 days”, “how to shed five pounds in the next week”, “seven ways to do yoga as a beginner”.
These are just a few examples. They may not all be the best, but there are a few things you can do. You can take the inspiration from magazines and try to craft your own headline.
By creating your own headline, title tag, or meta description that's more appealing as well as including the keyword, you're more likely to get clicks.
See, if you do a search on Google (as well as another thousand people) and you guys all searched for the same term, and everyone clicks on the second listing instead of the first listing, what do you think Google is going to do? They're going to take the second listing and move it up to number one.
And by optimizing your title tag to be more appealing, you're going to get more clicks.
One simple way you can also do this is by evoking curiosity: “The seven benefits of green tea, number five is going to shock you!” We'd be like: “Hold on! We know green is amazing, but what's number five? Let’s check out this article”.
This is why this kind of titles gets you more clicks.
2. Ubersuggest
So, you have Google Search Console and it already showed you what keywords you're getting traffic for.
Now, it’s time for you to take those keywords and go plug them into Ubersuggest. There are different types offered by different websites. The one that we recommend is the Neil Patel one which has of course free insights and it’s very easy to use.
So, once you type the keywords into Ubersuggest, this will show you all the longtail variations of those keywords.
If you already rank for the head terms, it's really easy to rank for the longtail terms. You don't have to build any links, you don't have to do a ton of on-page optimization. It's super simple.
You take the keywords it gives you, for example, let's say you rank for “digital marketing” on page one, you type in that keyword to Ubersuggest, you see all the other keyword variations that it gives you, and see if you can take those keywords and integrate them within your site. Within that page, that's already ranking for that term like digital marketing.
By doing that, within 30 days you'll find that you'll get more search traffic to that page. But here's a trick, you can't just take those keywords and add them to the page. You got to integrate them within your content.
This means you may have to add the keywords and also expand upon your content so that way it flows and it all makes sense. If it doesn't, you're going to have a hard time ranking for all those terms because people are going to read your content and feel like it doesn't make sense. And this will make them bounce away. You need to adjust your content and sometimes that means rewriting it.
You also may want to take some of the suggested keywords and put them in the title tag and meta description. By doing that, it'll also help you rank for those longer tail terms.
The cool part about Ubersuggest is, it ranks all those keywords by popularity and how easy it is to rank from. That's called Search Difficulty.
So, there's an SD number, that number, the higher it is, the more competitive. The lower the number, the easier it is to a ranking for that term.
Alright, now before we move on with the next eCommerce marketing strategy tip, have you ever thought about how much you should invest in marketing to generate constant business growth? Click the button below to calculate the ideal marketing budget you should allocate for higher visibility, engagement, and profit.
How much should you invest in Digital Marketing?
3. Yoast SEO plugin
Most of you guys are running SEO on WordPress. It isn't that easy, is it? But what if we told you that one plugin will make your on-page SEO so much simpler?
The Yoast SEO plugin will help you optimise your code, your title tags, your meta description, heck, it'll even help you create XML sitemap that you can just plugin into Google Search Console.
This way, when you release new content, it pings Goggle and lets them know through the sitemap so that they can index that content, grab it and rank it.
4. Websiteresponsivetest.com
The reason you want to go to this website is your site needs to be mobile compatible. Google has a mobile-first index. And putting your URL on this site, it'll tell you if your website is responsive and mobile-friendly.
And trust us when we say that you want a mobile-friendly website.
The more mobile-friendly it is, the higher you're going to rank on Google's mobile-first index. If your site doesn't look good on a mobile device, do you think you're going to get a ton of rankings? Of course, not.
This is why you need to ensure that your site looks great on a mobile phone. Not just your mobile phone but all the other ones out there. Because there are iPhone, Android, the list keeps going on and on, and this site will help make sure that your website is compatible with all of them.
5. Google Trends
Google has moved into brand signals. They've had this for years, but now they're more impactful than they ever were before.
In other words, Google wants to rank brands higher than non-branded sites. Because there are all these people creating fake news and fake information out there, and Google doesn't want to rank any of them.
By creating a brand, you're going to do better.
Google Trends shows you how your brand is doing compared to other people. The higher the line or the graph for your brand off your competition, the better off you are.
You want the bigger brand and Google Trends will show this. If we're trying to figure out how to get a better brand, it's by leveraging the omnichannel approach.
The more people that see you, the better off you're going to be – meaning, if you do content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, you're out there more times, you're going to be following what's called the rule of seven.
When someone sees your brand seven times, they're much more likely to resonate, keep coming back to your site, and that will help you get higher rankings in the long run.
We know it sounds crazy but trust us, brand signals is huge.
6. Google Page Speed Insights
How many of you guys think that page speed impacts SEO? If you do, leave a comment with yes. If you don't, leave a comment with no.
Here's the thing, it does! More people use Google on their mobile phones than they do on their desktop computers. That's why speed is so important.
Google has an index just for mobile sites. You want to ensure that your website loads as fast as possible. So, use Google Page Speed Insights because it'll tell you how Google looks at your site from the load time perspective, and they'll tell you what you need to change to make it load faster.
7. Keywords Everywhere
Whenever you're performing a Google search, you'll find that in many cases you're performing a Google search for other keywords related to your space or your own industry.
Keywords everywhere will show you how many people are searching for those terms and other related keywords as you're using Google right there on the screen.
The reason this is important as you're just using Google as a normal user is that it'll give you more keyword ideas as you can see the search volume and how good some of these keywords are as well as other variations.
When you're trying to optimise your website, you want to think about SEO day-in and day-out. We know that can be hard but Keywords Everywhere will help you because as you're doing searches on Google, it will remind you of the popular keywords. This way you can see if it’s related to your site and maybe consider creating content around it.
That's why you want to use it.
By using these 7 free SEO tools, you can really boost your SEO work and rank number one on Google for keywords that are relevant to your business and drive higher qualified traffic to your web pages.
And, that’s it! If you need help with your SEO and digital marketing to grow your business in terms of visibility, engagement, and profit, contact us today and speak with one of our digital marketing experts to see how we can build the bridge between the point you’re standing at right now and your goals.
