According to a poll conducted by Backlinko, small businesses spend an average of $497 per month on SEO.
In general, the more comprehensive your budget, the more satisfied you will be with your SEO results. However, what if we were to tell you that there are a number of Google tools that are absolutely free, that can significantly boost your SEO efforts?
Coming first in SEO is not always about the biggest budget. It's about how you use your budget to get maximized results.
If you have yet to leverage these free Google tools, you are missing out. By taking advantage of them, you can make your SEO budget go further. If you offer SEO services, you might be able to reduce tool expenditure.
Read on to discover some of the best free Google tools that can be used for SEO.
Google Ads is not a free service. However, what is free is Google Ads data and the tools that you can access within your Google Ads account.
These include the Google Ads keyword planner, traffic estimator, contextual targeting, and keyword placement tool.
The Google Ads keyword planner functions similarly to its publisher counterpart, the Adsense keyword planner. With this tool, you can conduct keyword research that is customized to your site, and your Google Ads account.
With the Google traffic estimator, you can see the estimated impression, cost, and click metrics for keywords.
The contextual targeting tool allows you to get theme ideas, which can be used on single pages, or for content types.
The Google placement tool is designed to assist you in running comprehensive display campaigns. However, you can also use it as a useful link prospecting option.
Optimizing page speed is one of the top rank boosting SEO tactics. Page speed stats show that 38% of visitors will leave a website that takes longer than 5 seconds to load.
Data like this proves it's imperative to monitor your page speed and take steps to increase it as much as possible. What's more, Google itself vets websites based on their loading time.
Google's PageSpeed Insights is an ideal way to monitor page speed for free. With this tool, you can check speed across all device types. It will also provide you with speed optimization recommendations, as well as a list of optimizations already found.
If you want to have your figure on the pulse when it comes to search trends, Google Trends is your friend. Free and easy to use, Google Trends allows you to pinpoint new breakout trends. It also offers the facility to compare trends and keywords.
For these reasons, Google Trends is a useful resource for uncovering new high volume keywords to target.
One of the most basic ways to improve your website rankings is by optimizing for mobile. With roughly 60% of searches conducted from mobile devices, any marketer who ignores this organic ranking factor is shooting themselves in the foot.
While mobile visitors themselves are likely to leave sites that don't display correctly, Google also indexes pages based on their mobile readiness.
A great way to check what Google thinks of your level of mobile optimization is by using the Google Mobile-Friendly Test. Simply enter your URL, and Google will analyze it and report it to be either mobile-friendly or not.
Local SEO has become increasingly powerful, and "near me" searches have surged over the past few years.
One way to cement your local SEO strategy is to create a Google My Business listing. You can enter your business hours, contact info, website, and company information, and add images.
In Google's eyes, this establishes you as a brick and motor business. If someone nearby searches for your services or business name, Google will display this listing to them.
A Google My Business listing is not advantageous for virtual operations, but it is an integral step to good local SEO for physically-based businesses.
Besides Google Trends, another useful and free Google tool for keyword prospecting is Google Correlate.
This tool allows you to dig up correlations between search terms and real-world events. It also throws up keywords that are generally searched in conjunction with each other.
This can be extremely useful for discovering relevant and well-ranking longtail keywords.
Want to know what Google thinks of your SEO quickly? If so, you might want to try out the Google Chrome SEO & Website Analysis extension.
All you need to do is install the extension, and it will pull reports at will for any website you select. This means that you can check the SEO status of your site, as well as your competition, to see how you stack up.
Speaking of spying on the competition, do you do this often? Hot tip: you should be
If so, you will be interested to know how Google Alerts can help you keep up.
By placing a Google Alert on a competitor's name, you can enable notifications to go off whenever this name is mentioned across the web.
Now how does this help you? Well, firstly, it keeps you up to date with what they are up to. Secondly, it allows you to target the same type of coverage they are receiving.
By taking note of what outlets cover other businesses in your industry, you can create a list of ones you can pitch your company to.
It's safe to say there's not a site in this world that doesn't want to rank on the first page of Google. However, good SEO strategies generally come with an outlay for tools and expertise.
Although you shouldn't shrink at paying for SEO, it doesn't hurt to take advantage of the free and effective tools that are available.
If you wish to come first in SEO, besides leveraging Google's zero-cost tools, you can also look into investing in cost-effective SEO services. To do so, check out our SEO marketplace.
If you are an SEO pro, we encourage you to take a look at how to sell your services on our platform!
