Is SEO worth it? Can you do it yourself? Yes! Here are a few of the best SEO tools for small businesses; free and paid options.
Must-Have SEO Tools for Small Business
So, you have a business and a pretty fantastic website. Now, you’re ready to dive into the world of SEO, right?
Successful SEO campaigns for businesses don’t just happen. There’s a lot of research and tons of moving parts. Even the best SEOs in the world rely on tools to help them with keyword research, technical audits, link building and more.
Research, copywriting, rank tracking and other reporting tools are abundant! In fact, when you do a Google search for “SEO tools” you could easily be overwhelmed by the choices.
So, where do you start?
Well, let’s start with one of the first questions most small business owners ask themselves…
Is SEO Worth it for Small Businesses?
You know you’ve heard “you need to do SEO to succeed.”
So, you researched the best SEO tools for your business and you got stumped because there were simply too many to choose from!
Then you look at the prices of all these so-called must-have SEO tools and you really started to wonder if SEO was worth all that.
Let’s stop you right there!
We think the question you should ask yourself is “what happens if I don’t invest in SEO?”
The truth is, search engine optimization isn’t just a cost incurred by a business. It’s an investment in their organic growth potential. And with the billions of websites online these days, what does it cost you not to invest in SEO?
These two statistics from Backlinko speak volumes about the value of SEO and your position in search results:
- 27.6% of all clicks go to the #1 result in Google
- 0.63% of Google searchers clicked the results on the second page and beyond
Good SEO can bring in traffic and qualified leads. Done right, all of this can lead to increased sales.
So, if you don’t invest time or money into SEO, are you confident your share of the 0.78% of traffic your website may earn will lead to enough leads and conversions to run a successful business?
Without SEO, you’ll have to rely on word-of-mouth referrals and ever-changing social media algorithms that reduce your organic reach because they want you to pay for ads!
What are the Best SEO Tools for Small Business?
Hopefully you’re convinced that SEO is not only valuable but necessary.
So, where do you go from here?
Well, you can start with the necessities and some free tools!
Free SEO Tools
Google Analytics
The top dog in search engines, Google holds roughly 90% share in the search engine market. Despite this, Google does an excellent job of providing valuable data about your website traffic, tracking goals and more. Luckily, they also provide all this data for free!
In most cases, adding tracking code to your website from Google Analytics is pretty straightforward.
Bing Webmaster Tools
Similar to Google Analytics, you can check on the traffic coming to your site from Bing searches.
Although it makes sense to target your SEO efforts to the highest traffic potential, ignoring other search engines isn’t always the best strategy, especially if your small business is just starting to get online.
Google Search Console
Google offers another valuable (and free) tool called Google Search Console.
Connect this with your Google Analytics account and you’ll be able to see top-performing pages and for what search queries drive impressions and traffic to your website.
Once you’ve learned some SEO basics, you can start seeing trends in search queries or begin to determine if your pages are, in fact, targeting the appropriate terms. You may also be able to diagnose whether or not your pages are written to give your visitors the information they’re looking for based on the queries they came to your site for.
Google My Business
For local businesses, Google My Business provides benefits in your local SEO strategy that you simply shouldn’t ignore!
Google has made Google My Business the first “website” of sorts about local businesses by sharing as much information about a business as possible.
With a little bit of work to optimize your Google My Business profile and keeping current on posts and images, local SEO gets a boost here!
Honorable mentions: Bing Places and Apple Maps are additional local tools that help drive awareness and traffic to your local business!
Google Pagespeed Insights
Page speed is a ranking factor for both Google Search and Ads! And with more people performing mobile searches, your mobile page speed is even more important!
So, what do you do about it?
Get some data about the speed of your website for mobile and desktop. Then follow the recommendations or hire a developer to speed up your website if this is a trouble area for you!
Google, again, shines here with a free tool to check your website speed with PageSpeed Insights.
Once the analysis is complete (takes a few seconds) follow the recommendations to improve your website or hire a developer to speed up your website if this is a trouble area for you!
Screaming Frog
This tool can scan your website to help you identify areas of improvement in your SEO efforts.
For instance, you can check things like missing or duplicated H1s and meta descriptions, which are both important not to overlook in SEO. H1s help Google determine what a page is about, while meta descriptions are what display in search results.
Both should have keywords and be descriptive or compelling to drive searchers to click through to your website!
This tool can be rather easy for beginners to learn simple procedures but can also be used for advanced technical audits.
The free version of Screaming Frog allows you to scan 500 pages of a website and is most likely more than enough to get the job done for a small business website.
Paid SEO Tools
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a robust SEO tool that is used by many SEO professionals, and for good reason.
It automatically checks your website health, rank tracking, helps locate backlink opportunities and allows for keyword research, amongst so many other possibilities.
If you’re not ready for a paid version, Ahrefs introduced their free Webmaster Tools which will get you started. The difference is that the features are highly limited and you can’t track your keywords.
Honorable Mentions: SEMRush, MOZ
Answer the Public
Using Answer the Public, you can create content around keywords that people all over the internet are interested in.
From coming up with blog post ideas to frequently asked questions, results from Answer the Public are great ways to create or improve upon your website content.
You can research up to 2 topics per day for free. If you need more than that, you’ll need to invest in a paid plan.
Ubersuggest
There’s an inner battle going on here about whether or not to recommend this tool. SEO professionals don’t generally use it, but if you’re just starting out and need free or budget tools, this one can be useful.
This tool can be used for keyword and content creation ideas and tracking ranking on your website, although it is limited in functionality and not as robust as some of the other tools.
How Can I Do SEO for My Small Business?
There are tons of free resources for learning SEO online for your small business, just be sure to check for recency. Following old, outdated SEO recommendations can damage your website’s reputation and hurt your chances of ranking.
Keyword research and optimizing your web pages for highly targeted and relevant long-tail keywords is the best way to begin doing SEO for your small business.
If you’re a local business, utilize location-based terms in your titles and meta-descriptions and don’t forget to update your local directories with your name, address and phone number. Ensure that you’re utilizing Google My Business as well.
Finally, make sure your website copy isn’t written to impress Google. Stuffing keywords on the page just to make Google notice it will actually do the opposite of what you’re hoping for. Make your landing page copy useful, relevant and easy for your visitors to understand and get the information they need for the queries they’ve searched.
If your website visitors are happy, Google will take notice!
Don’t have time to learn all things SEO? Running a small business requires you to wear so many hats. If SEO is just another thing that prevents you from getting the job done and working on your passions, we’re here to help.
Contact us to see how we can help align SEO efforts to your business goals.
Passionate digital marketing expert with over 10 years of experience. Broad, hands-on marketing skillset, from web developer, SEO, PPC, Data Analytics & Tracking.