Category: SEO

How to Effectively Improve your Website’s Domain Authority

Search engine optimization involves hundreds of different ranking factors which all contribute to how a site would appear in the the results page. Perhaps one of the crucial, but less talked about is domain authority. The higher a site’s domain authority is, the higher the chances that it will be in a good position in searches.

What is the domain authority of a website?

Domain authority, a metric developed by Moz, refers to a score from 0 to 100 as an evaluation of a site’s quality. It more specifically measures a site’s SEO quality. With that, the higher the domain authority is, the more likely that a site will rank higher.

Domain authority tries to simulate Google’s ranking algorithm which has as much as 200 criteria at play. But since this Google’s actual algorithm is not public information, Moz’ domain authority is just an estimate – but a lot of marketers find it as a reliable measure.

Domain authority uses a couple of criteria to assess websites which include the following:

  • The number and quality of backlinks to the site
  • The quality of content
  • Social media popularity
  • The quality of organic search engine optimization

These are some of the key factors that affect a site’s ranking, and performing well in these areas allow a website to have better chances of being the top result to relevant queries.

Domain Authority versus Page Authority

Moz also has another metric similar to domain authority called page authority. The latter refers to an individual page’s likelihood to rank, as compared to domain authority which concerns a whole web domain. Both of them are excellent tools to use to help assess a site’s performance and then make relevant actions after.

With the proper understanding of what domain authority is, and how it can help a site, it is now time to discuss strategies that can help improve your domain authority. The following are effective ways on how you will be able to accomplish that:

Work to build your brand’s off-page SEO

Off-page search engine optimization is a term that refers to the set of SEO activities that you conduct outside your site. Generally, this includes link building and social media marketing, both of which are crucial criteria for domain authority.

First, domain authority quantifies the number of inbound links your site has. But again, it’s not just about quantity, but also about the quality of these inbound backlinks. To maximize your score on backlinks, you should be able to earn links to sites that have the following characteristics:

  • The site should be concerned about the same subject as your site
  • The site should earn backlinks from sites that themselves have high authority
  • The site should link to many different websites
  • There should also be no bad links

You should also work on your site’s popularity in the social media. While Google has made it clear that social media plays no part in its ranking algorithm, studies have proven a direct relationship between a site’s social media popularity and its ranking in Google searches. It’s probably because a site that’s popular on social media is more likely to have been a great website in itself. It is therefore essential that you craft ways to improve your social media presence, and one of the best ways to do that is to improve your social shares.

Publish quality content

Another crucial criterion for domain authority that is relevant to a site’s total SEO performance is its content. A website should be home to a number of quality content. Aside from being an avenue for SEO in itself, the regular posting of great content helps you earn backlinks which can aid the previous criterion.

When crafting content, you should always put in mind that it should be significant enough for readers to want to share them with others, and thus improving social sharing as well.

With all these, make sure that you give content the necessary attention and effort for you to be able to boost your domain authority, and ultimately, your site’s actual ranking.

Optimize your site’s On-page SEO

You should also put a lot of work in the SEO efforts within the bounds of your site. This involves many items of your site which include the following:

  • Titles and meta descriptions
  • Your site’s URL
  • Weight and optimization of media files
  • The use of keywords
  • Internal linking
  • Design
  • Loading speed
  • Navigation

Basically, you need to make sure that your site is pleasing to the eye, has substance, and very functional. By doing this, it would not be difficult for your site to rank high. But of course, it is easy to enumerate these, but it requires dedication and hard work to pull off.

Ensure to implement your technical SEO

Aside from SEO efforts on the forefront, you should put technical search engine optimization at play. This involves complying with technical requirements set by search engines.

Some of the most important aspects of technical SEO are the following:

  • Submitting an XML sitemap of your website
  • Setting up your site on Bing Webmaster tools and Google Search Console
  • Testing your robots.txt file for web crawlers
  • Using security measures such as SSL certificate
  • Making use of structured data for your content

Make your website mobile-friendly

Among the most significant SEO moves in 2018 is the focus on mobile. This will continue to be relevant moving forward as it is anticipated that mobile technology would continue to develop, and would be responsible for an even more significant share in searches. With that in mind, make sure that your site adheres to mobile compatibility standards. Perhaps the easiest way for you to achieve this is by adopting a responsive web design which allows your website to automatically adjust to the screen for which your site will be accessed from.

Speed up your pages

Lastly, make sure that you put a lot of effort in improving your site’s speed. While this has already been mentioned as part of on-page optimization, it is worth to put a lot of emphasis on it because of its grave importance. Your site’s speed can affect your SEO in a lot of ways. For example, a slow-loading page will lead to substantial bounce rates, which will send a negative signal to search engines about your site. So make sure that you work on your site’s speed as to improve the total user experience that your site has to offer.

Boost your website’s domain authority today!

Your site’s domain authority can tell a lot about how likely your site will make it in the real world. By adhering to its criteria, you will most likely be able to fare well on the search engines’ ranking algorithms. So take note of the above tips and do your best to practice them.

Author Bio

John Vuong is the sole owner of Local SEO Search Inc., a Full Service SEO Agency. John’s mission is to help local business owners improve their online influence so they can dominate their industry. With his business acumen and innate understanding of the local business landscape, John writes blogs that delve on how to customize SEO campaigns based on client needs.

YouTube Marketing: How can Video Advertising Help your Business?

2017 was taken over by the world of videos and called “ The Year of Video Marketing”!

Undoubtedly, what Youtube (for Video Watching) is today, Google (for Search) used to be years ago!

Truly, the content watched on your HD TV takes a back seat as a YouTube application in your smartphone offers much more variety of content in the same high definition.

Launched back in 2005, YouTube at present is the second largest search engine for videos where around 18 billion registered users check it regularly to watch 5 billion videos.

Amazing! Isn’t it?

After Facebook, this particular platform stands second in the list of customer acquisition strategy of the Big Businesses (Google, Amazon, etc.) to advertise their latest products and services to outreach the world.

So, don’t you think it becomes crucial to undergo a Social Media Training Course for all businesses, new or established, to get better insights about what all it takes to stand out from others and be ahead of the rat race?

Some Jaw-Dropping and Funny Facts About YouTube

  • YouTube possess 149 million monthly users existing worldwide
  • More than 50% of view’s count comes from mobile devices
  • YouTube’s top video ‘Despacito’ crosses 5.12 billion user views (and counting)
  • The platform attracts 1/3rd of the Internet crowd
  • By reaching 2025, its predicted that majority (more than 50%) of individuals under the age of 32 would not subscribe to paid TV
  • 20% of the YouTube viewers discard a video if it doesn’t hook them up within 10 seconds
  • YouTube’s video counter, was literally broken up by Gangnam Style
  • People watch around 150 million hours of YouTube videos every day.
  • Considered to be the most important mobile app among individuals of age 18-34.

No Doubt its Popular, But Does Marketing with YouTube Derive Expected Results?

The channel that stands second after Google in search don’t you think it has tremendous potential to attract the targeted audience towards your brand?

To visually get enlightened and find solutions to the problems, people tune in to videos and tutorials that are deluded on YouTube on a daily basis to address the pain points of the masses.

Added profile feature, television-style content, online/offline mode of view, along with these many more upgrades are expected to be witnessed in the coming years. And this surely will benefit companies to incorporate it into their social media and video marketing strategies.

“Benefits to reap”

With the ability to create promotional videos and content to allure the audience, Video Marketing techniques bring the following series of advantages for you:

  • Helps attract clients and customers with effective scripts and audio/video methods of film and TV
  • Enables you to spread your proposals globally in an original and entertaining mode
  • Allows you to directly reach the pre-defined audience directly making use of useful keywords, attractive themes or even by using demographic criteria, say ‘Girls under 18’.
  • YouTube Analytics helps you measure the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns by generating real-time data.
  • Video advertisement increases the probability of user interaction, thereby raising the count of your views.
  • Adding a product’s video on your homepage pulls traffic and grows conversions.
  • Mobile video consumption rises 100% every year that closely appeals to mobile users.
  • Video marketing can explain everything via explainer videos, GIFs, stories, etc.
  • YouTube is the second most popular social network that can help you enhance your social shares.

The list is never-ending, rather ever growing. If you think it’s just a matter of words then implementing video marketing inside your business strategy will definitely prove you wrong as it will provide you semantic end-results.

Run an Effective YouTube Marketing Campaign

We know now that video advertising works well but is it doing well on your YouTube channel? This is the primary concern which when dealt effectively, can accelerate your growth and give you a ‘Sustainable success.’

1. Create Great Content

Don’t dig deep into the ways of creating content.

Just be genuine, informative, funny, personal, and above all unique which is more than enough to not let your attempts go in vain.

Make a head-start creating useful pieces of information that represents your brand name and attracts public interest.

“Remember, when you put your feet in any channel of marketing, Content will always  be the King dominating all other campaigning ways.”

2. Well Optimize your Business’s presence

A few simple steps to take and you’ll get going!

Create a dedicated YouTube channel, optimize videos for SEO ranking, add compelling CTAs, stay active in communities, be updated and that’s all which will pay you positively.

“If you are able to fix your presence via YouTube, certainly you will make huge profits discovering great numbers of prospects turning into opportunities, and finally converting to valuable customers.”

3. Add up Videos on your Website

Extend the life of your YouTube videos by showcasing them on your site. This will help enhance the time spent on your website and also favors customer-engagement.

To get as expected in the foreseeable future, every company must possess a separate section for publishing updated video content.

“The primary objective is to fulfill the intent of a user delivering the best knowledge and information entertainingly.”

 

Final Considerations

How much success you gain through video promotion depends on how well you define your campaigning strategies and tactics.

Like any other content, the information offered by videos must be forged keeping a strong idea about a customer’s journey that will help you delight and satisfy them.

After all, whatever we do today must make someone happy be it our family, friends or our customers which in turn will make you surprise giving their vote of trust and loyalty.

It’s merely a give and takes relationship followed at last!

5 Best Free WordPress Cache Plugins

We have recently published a post regarding “5 Best Free WordPress SEO Plugins“, in that blog we have told about WordPress Cache Plugins that makes Site fast, so have thought that publish a new blog regarding “5 Best Free WordPress Cache Plugins“. Cache plugins are normally used to save cache for a site, when any user come to your site then your site will be load faster.

We are suggesting you top 5 best Free WordPress cache plugins:

1. WP Super Cache –

This plugin works on a special code who generate a static HTML file for your website after an HTML file generated web server will serve your site extremely fast.

 

99% of your visitor will serve that static HTML file, who generated by WP Super Cache. this plugin serves 3 types of static HTML cache files.

  1. Expert    2. Simple    3. WP-Cache caching.

If you don’t want to change PHP files then you can use Simple mode and it is also very easy and fast to set up. With this plugin, you can generate cache files for your posts, page and for your all of content.

Read More

2. W3 Total Cache –

W3 Total Cache is a very nice plugin by its performance. it manages your sites caches and also improves your sites SEO.

Improve your site experience for your visitors, without change your theme or any plugin. you will see many benefits after installing it like :

  • It will improve your sites SEO ranking.
  • Instant caching for any browser.
  • Reduce page load time and the visitor will view more pages.
  • It will save bandwidth up to 70-80%.
  • It will minify your Post and pages to load fast.

Read More

3. Wp Fastest Cache –

Set up of WP Fastest Cache is very easy. you dont need to make changes in your htaccess file, it will be automatically modified by the plugin.

This plugin is also working on static HTML files. PHP and MySQL are used when a page is presented. Therefore, the system requires RAM and CPU, If many visitors come to the site, then the system uses a lot of RAM and CPU, so the page takes time to load. W3 cache plugin generates a static cache file so your server will not us RAM and CPU again and again.

Read More

4. Autoptimize –

Optimize your site in a really easy way with autoptimize. it can minify your CSS and scripts.

Autoptimize store caches for your site it also injects your alls CSS into the page header and JS scripts into the page footer so your page will load really fast. it can really improve your site to load very fast.

Read More

5. LiteSpeed Cache –

LiteSpeed cache is an All-in-one plugin for your site acceleration.

 

It Includes a special server-level cache and a collection of customization features. It is compatible will all plugins and it also supports multisite. LiteSpeed Cache is also very easy in use anyone can use it.

Read More

These all 5 plugins are best to optimization and caches, please use the best plugin that will you find easy and suitable for your sites.

Thanks for reading our post, hope it will be helpful for all of you.

 

5 Best Free WordPress SEO Plugins

If you are a website owner and you want that “your site’s content, posts, pages, and products” will appear in the higher ranking when someone search for related content of your site then you need a good SEO plugin and we are introducing to you guys 5 best free WordPress SEO plugins.

What is the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Plugin?

SEO Plugins are specially coded to give the boost your site ranking in search engine. You dont need an SEO specialist, it is very easy for new and old website owners, you need just install any of them and follow the instructions of the plugin. If anyone tries to find content and that is related to your site then search Engine shows your content on the first page.

We suggesting you use any of the plugins for your site’s SEO from these 5 Best Free WordPress SEO Plugins.

1. Yoast SEO

The Yoast SEO is the #1 WordPress SEO plugin, It has 5 million users according to WordPress information.

The Yoast SEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin from Since 2018 and Many professionals web developer are like to use it. You will get an easy toolset that helps you to increase your site SEO ranking. You can see the power of Yoast SEO in below points:

  • Powerful and advanced XML functionality.
  • Full control over site breadcrumbs.
  • Avoid duplicate content of URLs.
  • Title and meta description for better relevant in the search results.
  • A valuable tools to write SEO-friendly texts.
  • You can create great content.
Read More

2. All in One SEO Pack

All in One SEO Pack is the second best WordPress Plugin who have downloaded 5,00,00,000 times from since 2007.

Download and use it then see why All in One SEO pack is the most downloaded plugin. Use it to optimize your site for SEO, it is very easy for beginners and it also has an advanced API feature for developers. You can see below special features of All in One SEO Pack:

  • XML Sitemap support – submit your sitemap to Google and Bing and improve your SEO.
  • Google AMP support (Accelerated Mobile Pages).
  • Google Analytics support.
  • Automatically notifies search engines like Google and Bing about changes to your site.
  • For beginners, you don’t even have to look at the options, it works out-of-the-box. Just install.
  • Compatibility with many other plugins.

Read More

3. The SEO Framework

The SEO Framework is the third best SEO plugin on WordPress, Its very easy and Lightning fast also it is an unnamed plugin.

This plugin gives you best use of the default WordPress interface because this plugin is unnamed, means they didn’t register the name (The SEO Framework) within the WordPress interface so this plugin looks like a part of WordPress. Nobody can know which plugin used on your website. This plugin provides many features you can see below:

  • It provides a suitable starting point for most websites.
  • Helps in optimize metadata.
  • Allows adjusting SEO through global options.
  • Supports custom post Types like Woo-commerce, bb-press and all type of post types.
  • Helps to share pages more beautifully with your social accounts.
  • Respect your privacy truly.

Read More

4. Squirrly SEO

Squirrly SEO Is the fourth position on WordPress, it is also a very nice plugin for SEO. It helps you place your pages in top positions on search engines like Goolge, Yahoo, and Bing.

Squirlly SEO Plugin assists you to find a parking spot for your post and pages on the top. we all are in the race to get the best position in the search engine ranking and you need the best driver to take the best position, you can trust on Squirrly SEO because its good in its work, you see below how good it in work:

  • It Shows you how popular a topic.
  • Allows you to know Which Keywords and Topics are mostly searched.
  • Gives you direction for a topic is heading or not.
  • Real-time SEO tips
  • It optimizes post and clears it.
  • Helps to identify repetitions.

Read More

5. SmartCrawl SEO

Meet the 5th best SEO plugin, that is the SmartCrawl SEO. SmartCrawl is also a nice plugin to boost your site ranking.

SmartCrawl SEO very easy for beginners you dont need to change settings, again and again, it gives you a very easy one-click setup way. SmartCrawl SEO scan your site and show you also issue then you can easily solve them and increase your ranking according to below points:

  • One-click smart setup.
  • Smart Page Analyze.
  • Quick import export setup.
  • Smart page analyzer.
  • Leverage Social Media.
  • SEO Audit & Crawl.

Read More

It is very important to choose a good SEO plugin for your site then you can increase your site ranking on search engines. it is also very important to load your site fast, if your site not loading fast then you need a good cache plugin, there are many free cache plugins on WordPress.

Thanks for reading our post, hope it will be helpful for all of you.

5 Top Most Tips To Increase Your Blog Traffic

Nowadays everything is possible when you have enough money in your hand. But this cannot turn out good if you get paid traffic on your blogs. This may work for you in the short run but definitely not in long run monetarily. Well, there are some of the most amazing ways or you can say expert tips for increasing your blog traffic for free if you are undecided about engaging an SEO Agency

Many of the times when people publish their blogs, they expect a lot of comments and sharing but when you have the worst time or you have low traffic on your blogs, it turns out very depressing for a blogger. You just need to make use of some start tactic which can bring in a significant effect on your blogs.

All it requires a lot of dedication, hard work, and passion for making your blog a popular one and successful. There are some tips which can definitely help you and can make things simpler and better for you. These tips can help you in grabbing organic web traffic on your blogs for free.

Follow These 5 Top Most Tips To Increase Your Blog Traffic today

#Tip 1: Define your target audience for your blog promotion

As you can see in the above picture, you need to select one or a few of your target audience on which you need to focus a lot. In case you are running a beauty blog, then your target audience can generally be girls, women, college going girls, working class, graduates and others.

On the other hand, if you are running an educational blog, then your targeted audience can be graduates or students. Thus, defining your target audience is essential for all. Similarly, you need to publish some of the stories which these audiences can relate to. You must talk about the benefits of good and services which can be helpful for them.

This can largely help you in grabbing the attention of your target audience in less time.

#Tip 2: Improvement of your blog designs

The designing of your blog really matters. If you will have a clear and fine designing pattern, people will surely appreciate it and will keep on turning to your blog site every time.
Similarly, you can also get a chance to be mentioned on people’s websites or blogs as a great example for right blog designing.

You don’t have to be an efficient developer or web designer to get an improved blog site, you can make use of different themes as per your blog posts to get the great attention of every visitor. In the image above, you can find four different themes which a blogger has used.

Similarly, if you are using WordPress, then you are lucky enough as you can find lots of impressive paid and free themes. All of them are fantastic and can generate high-end web traffic to your blogs.

For more information, you can also read a complete guide to install aneeq free website theme.

#Tip 3: Short, entertaining and fancy headline

The above picture is completely true. It fits well to the statement that one must have a short, crisp and attractive headline to get attention. People usually don’t have much time to read whole blog post until and unless they find an alluring headline which can convince them to read more.

Out of 10 people, only 8 will read the blog headline and they will immediately decide as for whether they need to continue reading your post or should skip. If you will write a boring and irrelevant headline, then it will degrade your goodwill and will not assist you in getting good web traffic.

Thus, one must spend their good time writing of blog headlines. Work on better understanding all your readers. Come out with a worthy headline for making your article worth reading. You must make use of incredible, fun and unique adjectives; make use of facts, lessons and tactics posts some benefits related headline because this will only convince them to read your full post.

#Tip 4: High-end quality of content

A major reason why top notch blog sites get high-end web traffic is only that of their quality rated content. Yes, if you will also start writing the articles which are helpful to your readers and can engage your audience, then they will start enjoying your posted content and will wait for your future updates.

Most of the search engines like Google is also after the high quality of content and it places quality articles on top of SEO results for maximum visibility. This is the reason, quality is the foremost thing which you must keep it in your mind while jotting down your articles.

Similarly, defining keywords for search engine optimization can also help in generating good traffic for your blogs. You need to pin down all the ideas and for getting the high-end value of your blog content, you must target few keywords which customers around generally search. Look out for the questions or phrases they use most of the times.

As you can see in the above image, the long tail keywords hold the high conversion probability as compared to the head terms or torso terms. The long tail keywords are one which includes 4+ keywords and this can improve your chances of better web traffic. You must perform a keyword research before selection of the final one.

Understand what your target audience look out for and make sure that you are completely focused towards it only. Having right keywords can naturally boost up your blog post in terms of SEO as well.

#Tip 5: Keep on sharing your content

There are some of the popular experts that largely suggest all the bloggers to keep on sharing the posts after a short interval of time. This can improve your chances of great visibility one or the other time. It is suggested to share your content on different social media sites to get it maximum attention from people around.

As you can view in the image above, it is requesting to share post again and on a different platform which includes Facebook, messenger, twitter, emails, Pinterest and others. In one way or the other, your posts will get the visibility and sharing will never let your target audience forget about your existence.

Publish anything on your blog and then share the same on all your social media channels immediately. The ones, who miss your first communication, share it again after a short span of time. Posting content multiple numbers of times can double your amount of traffic.

All these tips are handy and you don’t have to be a professional to gain maximum visibility on your blog site. Even if you are a beginner, you can grab a great amount of web traffic on your site and can mark your existence in the digital world. Try out these expert favorite tips today and enjoy high-end visibility.

Author

Derek Luise is working as a content writer and blogger with Ranking By SEO for last six years. He can be seen blogging about digital marketing, SEO, SMO, PPC, etc.

Best Tricks to Implement LSI Keywords To Rev Up Your SEO

The question that how Google relates, compares and searches different terms must have triggered your mind ever. LSI also referred to as latent semantic indexing, plays a considerable role in it. It is a method that guides Google and other big search engines to evaluate terms and establishes relationships between them. Businesses use these keywords to establish better visibility, attain higher ranking and good traffic toward their websites.

Defining LSI Keywords

LSI keywords are generally those phrases and words that have been highlighted in the description occurring at search results. These are the closest words to original keywords.

On the basis of the main keywords, Google returns these related keywords in the search query.

These keywords are the expanded results of original terms and phrases. These allow search engines to offer a better amount of results in the search query.

Older content is revived, relevant results are yielded and one can expect higher search ranking. Apart from this, these can be used in multiple ways to boost SEO ranking.

LSI Keywords Working Description

We use Google to search term such as “custom made chocolates”. In return, Google shows relevant keywords and phrases. And, it will also show pages that are similar and related to that specific term. These related and relevant words are defined as LSI keywords. For example, you searched for custom made chocolates, so the search can be:

Custom homemade chocolate
Custom chocolates at the best price
Custom chocolates of different flavors

Injecting LSI Keywords in Description

Well-targeted meta descriptions play a key role in SEO. It is good to insert prime keyword and Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords in your description as it encourages Google to prioritize your content. This will improve your search results as well as ranking. If you use LSI, Google’s algorithm will provide a better rating on your content.

The strategy of Implementing LSI

It is a good practice to inject two semantic keywords along with the main keywords in your content.

LSI supplements the prime keywords without replacing them. It acts as the helper.

Make sure you do not disturb your main keywords as it will not result in higher ranking. LSI works wonderfully in conjunction with the prime keywords.

Limit LSI keywords to two, do not go beyond that otherwise it will lead to keywords stuffing. This will help in two ways. First, it allows you to stay away from Google penalty of keyword stuffing. Second, it also helps you get recovered if you are already under Google’s penalty. Without overdoing it, you can yield desired results.

For more ravishing results, you can optimize an image. In case, you have been using an older image, again and again, rename it with LSI keyword to reap better results.

Benefits of implementing LSI Keywords

  • Higher Ranking

With long tail latent semantic indexing keywords, you can enjoy a higher position in search engine results. Semantic optimization strategy owns a great relevance and you can stand ahead of your competitors by utilizing it in the best manner.

  • Reduced Spamming

LSI lessens the likelihood of getting your content spam label by search engines. This process helps you optimize your content in a way that search engine can identify that your content is for human readers than the search engines.

  • Increased Conversions

You target keywords that are more specific and people find them easily. This allows you to enjoy a higher conversion rate. It enables you to run the short split test for the landing pages as you can own a better sample size along with a low volume of high converting traffic.

  • Lesser Bounce Rate

The users are able to get more accurate content, so the bounce rate will lessen automatically. If they search for something, the results are according to their specific needs.

Final Words

Thus, learn the ways to use LSI in your anchor text, Alt tags, headers, etc and improve your search results. Wherever you incorporate latent semantic indexing, make sure it has a context over there. Do not be a business that uses LSI without context. It may lead to bad instead of good. So, be wise, use it correctly and enjoy the desired results.

Author Bio

Tom Hardy is a digital marketing expert associated with Sparx IT Solutions, a renowned online marketing company in India. Having a flair for writing, he keeps sharing different marketing tips through his write-ups.

Top 10 Online SEO Tools 2018 To Help You Succeed

If nobody created tools for us we’d never get anything done. And if we did, it would take 100x longer than it would with the right toolset.

When it comes to SEO, this couldn’t be any truer.

As online marketers, bloggers, and small business owners, SEO is important. Some may even call it critical. A make or break type of thing.

Which brings us to this post.

In this post, we’ll be looking at 10 SEO tools that are either for keyword research, competitor research, rank tracking, and link building.

Best SEO Tip For 2018

Before we get to the top SEO tools, let’s start with a hot tip for search engine optimization this year – a purely white hat link building tactic that is both affordable and provides a higher ROI than any other form of link building, including guest blogger outreach.

A very best new link building tactic is not from a search engine optimization tool nor from a link building service or link building tool?

Podcast guest, or getting booked as a guest on established podcast shows is one of the SEO industry’s best-kept secrets.

You can get multiple links from the host’s site for a lower cost than most link building sites charge per link.   Since the shows are about you (the guest) there are tons of additional benefits like personal brand building and accumulating influence and niche authority.  The show host also often promote you in the social media channel and sometimes even email newsletters.

Best SEO Tools for 2018

There are many SEO tools out there. We have 10 that are worth trying first.

#1: Ahrefs

Used for: Research and Analysis

Pricing: Freemium

Out of all the SEO tools out there, thousands of online marketers, small business owners, and SEO’s prefer to use Ahrefs to help them improve their search rankings.

Their Site Explorer is the best among backlink analysis tools.

They also have the Content Explorer, which searches the web for the most popular content for any topic or keyword.

And if you ask me, it’s just as good as Buzzsumo.

Ahrefs have one more tool, the Keyword Explorer 2.0.

This gives you a keyword’s search volume (global or country), SERP overview and position history, related keyword ideas, and the difficulty level.

The pricing starts at $99 per month with annual options. But you’re allowed to have a free account with limitations.

They also offer free trials for all plans.

#2: Seobility

Used for: SEO Audit

Pricing: Free/Paid

Seobility is all about showing you how good or bad your website’s overall SEO optimization is.

They have 4 major tools/features:

  1. SEO Check – which will test your website and give you tips for better search engine optimization.
  2. Keyword Check – which will show how well your page is optimized for your target keyword(s).
  3. SEO Compare – which compares 2 pages for a keyword term.
  4. Ranking Check – which checks your page’s rankings for any keyword.

They offer a free plan. But it only allows usage for one domain. Premium plans start at $40 per month with a 30-day free trial.

#3: Long Tail Pro

Used for: Keyword Research

Pricing: Paid

Long Tail Pro recently went through an ownership change.

And you know what that means? The new ownership team is hungry for success. They saw potential in Long Tail Pro and are determined to make the product even bigger.

Since their change, LTP has moved from being a downloaded application to being cloud-based (meaning you can now use it in your browser.)

Before going cloud, LTP was already one of the most popular keyword research tools in the SEO field. This will only make it 10x faster and 10x easier.

#4: SEM Rush

Used for: Keyword + Competitor Research

Pricing: Freemium

SEM Rush really made a name for themselves over the past couple of years. They basically took competitor research to a whole other level.

The best part about SEM Rush is there are more than 20 ways to research your competition. Robbie Richards calls them stealth tactics.

You can find their best backlinks, their best keywords, their best content, and more. It’s even great for paid traffic and PPC.

#5: Pitchbox

Used for: Outreach

Pricing: Paid

Pitchbox isn’t exactly an SEO tool. But when you are link building, there’s usually a lot of outreach involved. A lot.

Pitchbox makes your overall outreach efforts 10x easier than it would manually. Their email sequence feature lets you set up follow-up emails automatically.

Here’s a little example of what they can do:

First, I entered a few keywords related to my blog (ex: blogging tips).

Pitchbox, then rounded up some of the best sites for me to reach out to and connect with. Prospects.

After just 2 minutes, Pitchbox gave me 316 potential connections.

They even have a couple of SEO features, such as link monitoring.

Their plans allow multiple users. So if you’re working with a team, this will come in handy.

Plans start at $195 per month, with a 15-day free trial so you can get your feet wet.

#6: SEOquake

Used for: Competitor Research

Pricing: Free

SEOquake is a free browser extension. It’s like the MozBar. Except it pulls up more of the page’s data.

Some of the page data or metrics it shows are:

  • The number of (external) links.
  • Google index.
  • SEM Rush rank.
  • Alexa rank.
  • Web archive age (domain age).
  • And more.

When you’re researching your competitors or finding link opportunities, the SEOquake toolbar will come in very handy.

#7: Seed Keywords

Used for: Keyword Research

Pricing: Free

Seed Keywords is pretty cool. Here’s how it works:

First, you’re going to create a scenario. Basically, you’ll be asking a question.

Example: “If you were looking for shoes, what would you search for?”

Second, you’re going to take the unique URL they give you and share it with as many people as you can. They can be your friends, social followers, or your email subscribers. Basically any of your contacts.

Then, you wait.

When you get enough people answering your question, you’ll have a list of legit search terms from real-life internet users.

The best part about it is it’s 100% free.

#8: SEOptimer

Used for: SEO Audit

Pricing: Free

When it comes to SEO, it’s great to know how well your overall SEO is. Knowing it’s bad tells you to work on things. Knowing it’s great tells you to keep doing what you’re doing.

SEOptimer will help you know your website’s SEO.

It’ll show you yours on page metrics, such as keyword usage and user experience (ex: speed and mobile responsive).

It’ll also show you off page metrics, such as your backlink profile and Domain Authority (a Moz metric).

When it completes the audit, SEOptimer will grade your website and even give you recommendations.

#9: LinkMiner

Used for: Link Building

Pricing: Free

Broken link building on steroids. LinkMiner takes it to the next level.

Before LinkMiner, the Check My Links extension was the go-to tool for checking a page’s links.

Yes, it’s still very useful.

But the difference between the 2 is LinkMiner gives you more about the broken link. Check My Links simply finds out if the link works or not.

Some of the data LinkMiner pulls up are Facebook Likes, DA and PA, backlink numbers from Moz, Ahrefs, or Majestic, and more.

The reason it’s useful is that you get to know how popular the broken link is. And if it has a good amount of links from authority blogs, you can get your broken link building on.

You can download the extension here.

#10: Authority Labs

Used for: Rank Tracking

Pricing: Paid

Authority Labs is a rank tracking and SERP monitoring tool that gives you the ability to track results by country, city, or even postal code (which has rarely been done before).

The tool gives you your whole keywords, their rank positions, and their search volume.

Authority Labs also gives you the ability to track your competitors’ search rankings. This has its advantages. Knowing your competitor’s highest rankings and best keywords allow you to battle them for a top spot on page 1.

Some other great features include mobile rank tracking, weekly and monthly reports, and more.

Plans start at $99 per month with a 30-day free trial.

Conclusion

Whether you like it or not, SEO is a big part of your online business. It’s the largest source of free organic traffic, leads, and customers.

The 10 SEO tools we shared above will help achieve high rankings in 2017. Your year. Your business’s time to shine.

So go out there and make it yours.