MWC 2019: The best free SEO tools of the year

  The web is flooded with SEO tools and resources, but it is wise to first do your background work and then selects your kit carefully. In the search marketing industry just like the practitioners within, there's the good the bad and the ugly. Enhance your traffic without bifurcating all your money.

Here is the list of six of the best free tools today.

THE BEST FREE SEO TOOLS

1. Google Search Console

Even if you're not keen on SEO, whatever the size of your site or blog, Google's laudable Search Console formerly known as Webmaster Central and the myriad user-friendly tools should be your first choice. The suite of tools gives you important information about your site at a glance: it can assess your site's performance and observe potential problems to troubleshoot negative spammy links. It will help you to ensure your site is Google-friendly and monitor Google's indexing of your site. 

You can also report spam and request reconsideration in case your site has incurred a penalty. In addition, if you don't refer to their Webmaster Guidelines, if you go wrong, you've only yourself to blame. Search Console is continuously updated, and new features are on the way, such as new URL inspection tool or the new sitemaps report.

2. SEOQuake

SEMRush’s SEOQuake is one of the most popular toolbar extension highly thought of by millions. It allows you to view multiple search engine parameters on the fly and save and compare them with the results obtained for other projects. Though the icons and numbers that SEOQuake give in might be unintelligible to the unaware user, skilled optimisers will appreciate the wealth of detail this add-on offers. 

Gauge details about the number of visitors and their country, get a site's traffic history trended on a graph, and much more. The toolbar includes buttons for a site's Google index update, backlinks, SEMRush ranking, Facebook likes, Bing index, Alexa ranks, web archive age and a link to the Whois page. There’s also a helpful cheat sheet and diagnostics page to have a bird’s view of potential issues (or opportunities) affecting a particular page or site.

3. Google AdWords keyword planner

To target knowing the right keywords to is all-important when priming your web copy. Part of Adwords, Google's free keyword tool couldn't be easier to use. Just plug your website URL into the box, start analyzing the suggested keywords and off you go. Jill Whalen, CEO of HighRankings.com is a fan and offers advice to those new to keyword optimisation: "make sure you use those keywords within the content of your website. 

It's really a matter of being descriptive as keyword phrases usually describe what you offer. Think about the reality that you're trying to answer someone's question at the other end of the search engine. They're normally searching Google because they need an answer to the question or a problem to solve. Make your website answer those questions and solve those problems and it will be the one to show in the search results."

4. Google Optimise

On the SEO tool list, there is another Google tool. Optimise is not for the faint-hearted and will make uncomfortable even seasoned SEO experts. SEO isn't all about rankings and without the right balance of content that engages with your visitors and drives conversions, you're earnest optimization could be wasted.  

Google’s free service helps take the guesswork out of the game, allowing you to test your site's content: from simple A/B testing of two different pages to comparing a whole combination of elements on any given page. To spice things up a bit personalization features are also available. To be noted that in order to run some of the more complicated multivariate testings; you will need adequate traffic and time to make the results actionable, just as you do with Analytics.

 5. Live Keyword Analysis

Any seasoned SEO specialist will tell you keywords matter, and while simply clawing keywords into your text arbitrarily can do more harm than good, it's good to be ensuring that you have the right balance. Live Keyword Analysis is a breeze to use: simply type in your keywords and then paste in your text and your keyword density analysis will be done on the fly. For optimum readability don't forget to proof and edit your text accordingly. A must for website copywriters in particular as you don’t need to register or pay for anything.

6. Ahrefs

Google's Pagerank algorithm underpins most of what makes the current world wide web work the way it does. Understanding the backlinks, the sites linking to you allows website owners and publishers to understand what link opportunities they might be missing out on. Enter Ahrefs, possibly one of the most powerful players out there.

Currently, they maintain one of the largest live backlink indexes available with 16 trillion known links, covering 200 million root domains. While Ahrefs isn't free, the backlink checker feature is which gives a useful snapshot that includes your domain rating, the top 100 backlinks, top 5 anchors and top 5 pages, the strict minimum to provide with a feel of what Ahrefs has to offer.