SEO tools exist in different forms and they serve different purposes. From keyword research tools, site auditing tools to backlink checking tools, there is an SEO tool out there to get the job done.
While some of them are free, most are premium tools that require that you pay to get the best of them. Scratch that, most SEO tools are actually premium tools that have free versions that provide lesser value.
But how less is the lesser value? Is it worth it to pay for SEO tools?
Well, it depends on what you want or intend to achieve. Most free SEO tools, however, have the basic features that can provide just about the right solution for your site perform better. Not forgetting that there are Google SEO tools that are 100% free too which can complement these free SEO tools.
You know, the further we look into this, the more reasons we find not to pay for SEO tools. But again, it depends on what you want and how much budget you have for marketing.
You don’t know these free SEO tools, do you? Well, that’s about to change now.
If you use WordPress then this a must-have starter pack. You can use it to optimize your content for both SEO and readability to mention but a few.
For free, this tool would show you your top 100 backlinks. You would also get to see your most common anchor texts, most linked-to web page and so on.
Put simply, this tool gives you a complete breakdown of your website data. Links, images, meta title and description among others. Just enter the URL and you will have it all.
A chrome browser extension, LinkMiner helps to check for broken links on your website.
The tool checks the responsiveness of a website across different screen sizes.
This is a free image optimization and compression tool. It’s a WordPress Plugin and using it goes a long way in improving your site load speed.
GTMetrix shows you the loading speed of your web page and proffers actionable recommendations to boost your site load speed.
As you may have guessed, Portents SERP Preview Tools shows you what your page looks like on Google Search results.
With this tool, you can generate a well-formatted robots.txt file. This a file that should be present on every web server as it contains information for search engine crawlers on their activities on the site i.e the page to crawl and the ones they shouldn’t.
HeadMasterSEO is a free tool which can use to bulk check the status codes for a list of URLs.
Merge Words is a free keyword research tool that helps you merge up to merge about three sets of keywords.
This free SEO tool helps you see your site exactly how Google sees it. It removes CSS and other styling so you know if Google bot is seeing your site the way you want it to.
You use Chrome browser yeah? Awesome. This tool is inbuilt with Chrome browser. You can use it to check and debug basic SEO issues such as web page rendering, page speed and so on.
Conclusion
These tools are all amazing and would get you great SEO boosts when you use them well. So, with them at your disposal, you may not necessarily need to pay for SEO tools in 2020.
However, you cannot underestimate the power of premium tools. The extra features and benefits are quite useful too. So, the recommended formula is to start with these free tools and upgrade to premium as you grow.