Free SEO Tools: 50+ SEO Tools To Boost Your Rankings
SEO can sometimes feel like a time-consuming and costly investment. But who says generating organic traffic needs to be expensive? There are loads of free SEO tools to try and experiment with before you invest in a pricey subscription.
In fact, if you’re just starting out in SEO, you’ll probably find that you can create and execute a top-notch strategy with the help of these free SEO tools.
Some are 100% free and some fall within the freemium category, all in all, we hope you find our list of the best free SEO tools helpful in your optimization endeavours.
Free Keyword Research Tools
All of these free SEO tools will help you generate more keywords. Some are more focused on just generating keywords while others are more focused on topical relevance and user search queries.
1. AnswerThePublic
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For creating a list of ultra-relevant keywords and topics, AnswerThePublic is one of the best keyword research tools around.
Answer The Public shows you the actual search terms and queries that users enter into Google and Bing search engines.
Once you know a few of these questions and topics, you can create content that addresses what users actually want to read about.
If you want some quick inspiration for what topics and questions your content should be including, this is a great tool to keep all of your content efforts super focused and relevant.
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2. Keyword Explorer (MOZ)
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With 500 million keyword suggestions Keyword Explorer is an excellent option for highly in-depth keyword research.
Moz is known for their own in-house Keyword Difficulty metric, making it easier for you to select which keywords to target. You can also view CTR data and super accurate volume ranges.
Each query will pull up around 1000 keyword suggestions along with SERP analysis. The only downside is that the free version only allows up to 10 queries a month.
3. Keywords Everywhere
A browser extension for both Chrome and Firefox, install Keywords Everywhere to view keyword suggestions with volume metrics while you browse the internet.
Given its format, Keywords Everywhere is interesting to use when you’re snooping on competing sites’ pages to find out what keywords they’re using and what their metrics are like. This is a great tool for keyword inspiration while you’re on the go.
4. Ubersuggest
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Ubersuggest is a great keyword research tool if you’re looking for a user-friendly platform that provides some extra guidance.
When browsing keyword suggestions, Ubersuggest selects keywords that will help drive your site’s rankings and organic traffic. The keywords tab finds which keywords have less competition and also shows a few demonstrated uses of each keyword.
The visual layout of the platform that displays keywords as a word cloud is great for helping you clearly see each suggestion.
5. Google Adwords Keyword Planner
Designed for users looking to buy ads, Google’s keyword research tool is still super helpful for keyword planning for organic search results.
Using Google’s own data, it’s highly accurate since everything is pulled from its own servers without any interfering third-party tools or algorithms.
Enter a seed keyword and a list of up to 300 suggested keywords will pop up. View important metrics like the average number of monthly searches, and competition for each keyword to help you select which keywords to target.
The best thing about this keyword research tool is that it’s completely free and unlimited to use.
6. Keyword Shitter
Yep, you read that for real - we’re not kidding when it comes to the name of this keyword research tool!
Enter a seed keyword, hit enter and - boom - the tool will suggest piles of keywords. View metrics like cost per click, keyword volume and competition data with this free keyword research tool.
7. Also Asked
Another keyword research tool focused on responding to users’ questions, Also Asked is great for producing highly relevant content that users want to read.
Keeping your site’s content relevant and focused is key to ensuring high dwell time and boosting your rankings in search results.
You can also perform searches by country and different languages.
8. Keyworddit
Keyworddit is another handy keyword research tool if you’re looking to create more niche content and attract a specific audience.
Enter a subreddit and a few relevant keywords will pop up as well as the monthly search volume for each keyword in the U.S.
This is a highly insightful tool if you’re looking to target specific interests and groups of people.
Free Link Building Tools
A solid backlink strategy is key to boosting your site’s rankings. While you might think that the best backlink checkers all come with a premium price tag, there are several free tools that’ll help you analyse your current profile as well as develop a link building strategy.
9. Link Miner (Backlinko)
Download the free chrome extension and identify broken links on any page, and see link metrics while searching on Google.
While the Chrome extension is free, you’ll have to pay if you want full access to Link Miner’s backlink checker.
10. Link Explorer (Moz)
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With a massive link database of over 35 trillion links, Link Explorer is arguably the largest and most accurate backlink checker and database on the market right now.
View the backlink profile and domain authority of any link you enter into the tool.
With a free account, perform up to 10 search queries with 50 rows of data per month.
11. Backlink Checker (Ahrefs)
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Ahrefs, often considered the gold standard of SEO platforms, truly excels at backlink checking.
The best part of this is that it’s free with some limitations. With the second most active web crawler after Google, Ahrefs’ database is home to a massive 22 trillion backlinks.
Enter the URL of any site, yours or a competitor’s and see all the backlinks that link to that specific site. With a list of the backlinks, view metrics like domain authority and the exact location of the referring website.
The Ahrefs designed ‘Domain Rating’ shows you the value of each site that is linking to you or a competitor.
Without a paid subscription, you’re limited to discovering the top 100 backlinks for any web page or site. Ahrefs free backlink checker is great for a quick search of yours or the competing sites’ top backlinks.
12. Disavow Tool
When it comes to link building, it’s not a case of any link is a good link. Spammy backlinks or links from low authority web pages will actually cause your site to fall in rankings.
Any negative backlink should be removed as soon as possible. There’s a simple way to do this with Google’s Disavow Tool.
Simply follow the tool’s detailed guidelines and you’ll be able to request that Google frees you from any particular link that is harming your rankings.
13. Detailed
A unique free link research tool, Detailed shows you what’s driving links to some of the most popular corners of the web. Filtering by category, it’s easy to find out which links drive the most traffic and boost rankings.
Detailed also has a handy Chrome SEO extension, providing detailed overviews of any page’s SEO status.
14. Linkio’s Anchor Text Suggestion Tool
If you find yourself getting stuck on what anchor text you should be using to ensure your links are frequently clicked on, try Linkio’s free tool.
Enter the URL and the platform will suggest the best anchor text to use for that specific page.
Free On - Page SEO Tools
On-page SEO tools act as real-time SEO assistants, optimising your pages and copy there and then, helping you to achieve top results.
15. Rich Results Test
This free SEO tool will tell you if your site can support rich results. What are rich results you may be asking? It’s essentially when Google displays non-textual elements like images in search results which can be key to boosting your rankings.
Rich Results Test renders both mobile and desktop versions so you can be sure that your content can be included by Google in search result snippets.
16. SERPSim
A SERP that appears in full without being prematurely cut off is key to helping users know what your content is about and essential to ensure high click-through rates.
Instead of using a character counter like most other SERP snippet generators, SERPSim counts the pixels in your snippet which is what Google uses when deciding how much of your snippet to display.
17. Animalz Revive
Identify which pages on your site need an update to boost organic traffic. Animalz Revive finds those pages that are steadily losing organic traffic over time.
Instead of always focusing on creating new content, it’s just as important to refresh and update older content to prevent content decay.
18. Natural Language API Demo
Using Machine Learning, this free SEO tool determines the meaning of the text in your content.
Analyse the text of one page at a time and see how a search engine would view the syntax, categorization, sentiment analysis and entities.
You can then use this data to make any necessary adjustments to the content.
19. Structured Data Testing Tool
Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool is highly useful for solving any problems related to your site’s structured data. Or if you prefer, you can use the tool for analysing your competitors’ structured data.
Once you’ve got an idea of how your site is doing, you can then edit code from within the platform for resulting valid code.
Free Technical SEO Tools
You could have the most relevant content, a strong backlink strategy, and have successfully optimised your site however, all of these components aren’t enough for your site to top search engine results.
Use these free technical SEO tools to ensure the finer technical elements of your site aren’t holding you back in rankings.
20. Netpeak Spider
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Netpeak Spider provides impressively detailed website crawling to uncover SEO issues that could harm your search engine optimization efforts.
Finding out missing meta tags, page descriptions, and page titles, content duplication, broken links, mistakes in URLs as well as images that are too large.
Performing such a solid website crawl is essential for a good website audit. Using the free version, crawl an unlimited number of URLs but without PRO features.
If a free version isn't enough for your SEO task, use our GrowHackScale25 discount code to get 25% off for the first payment.
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21. Screaming Frog
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Screaming Frog carries out impressively in-depth website crawls to uncover technical issues that could be detrimental to your SEO efforts.
Identify missing meta page descriptions, page titles, errors in URLs as well as images that are too large.
Performing such a solid website crawl is essential for a good website audit. Using the free version, crawl up to 500 URLs.
22. Chrome DevTools
This free SEO tool is Chrome’s built-in web page debugging tool. Using the platform, improve web page rendering performance, page speed issues and many other technical glitches.
It’s an essential technical SEO tool to add to your regular rotation.
23. Link Redirect Trace
Another free Chrome extension, Link Redirect Trace is known as an all in one redirect path analyser. Uncover information about robots.txt, HTTP headers, rel-canonicals and basic link metrics.
Basically, the tool tells you if your link redirects are SEO technically sound and if they come with any additional link juice.
24. Keep-Alive Validation SEO Tool
This free SEO tool shows you if persistent connections are enabled or disabled across your site.
Ensuring persistent connections are active is a key part of making sure your site is user-friendly and up to speed. If there are persistent connections, it means the user only needs to connect to the server once.
25. Google Search Console
Another free Google SEO tool, Google Search Console is perhaps the best all-around platform from their popular toolkit.
Performing in-depth analysis of blockers that prevent your site’s properties from ranking well in search results, the tool identifies any sitemap or indexing issues.
Google Search Console is also great for monitoring the exact phrases users enter into Google to locate your site. View analytics for the queries people use to land on your web pages.
Free Site Speed Tools
A site that loads quickly, isn’t sluggish and works well on both mobile and desktop browsers is key to ensuring top performance in search engine results.
26. PageSpeed Insights
Use Google PageSpeed Insights either within your web browser or as a Chrome or Firefox browser extension.
All you need to do is enter your web pages’ URLs and the platform tests both your pages’ loading times and performance on desktop and mobile. The tool will then give you suggestions for speeding up your web pages and provide recommendations for overall performance improvement.
The mobile results also offer handy hints on user experience including things like font size and CTA buttons.
27. Lighthouse
Use this free SEO tool to test and improve your overall page experience.
Since site speed is very different for each user, it’s important to check how different users will experience your page. While some people might only have access to unreliable slow 3g connections, other users might have the latest super-fast 5g at their disposal.
Lighthouse audits five different components including accessibility, performance, progressive web apps and SEO.
The results of these audits will give you a reliable picture of the overall performance of your desktop or mobile site or web app.
Knowing which pages are sluggish will allow you to quickly sort them out and ultimately boost your dwell time.
28. WebPageTest
A slow or unresponsive site might lead to users clicking on the competitors’ web pages instead of yours.
Using WebPageTest, check your web pages’ load and response time. Perform competitor speed tests, identify the time to the first byte and find out how long it takes for a site to load.
29. Cloudflare
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Cloudflare is a free content delivery network (CDN). With a network of servers, it speeds up the loading of your site’s content by using servers closest to the user.
Not only does this speed up the loading time of your site for users but it also protects your site from attacks.
30. GTmetrix
Use GTmetrix to see how quickly your site loads and find out what’s holding it back from loading more quickly.
When giving you an overall performance score, GTmetrix will also make recommendations on how you can optimise your site and make sure it’s loading as quickly as possible.
Free Mobile SEO Tools
It’s no secret that Google puts mobile first when it comes to search engine results. Make sure your site looks great and performs well on mobile and desktop with these free mobile SEO tools.
31. Mobile-Friendly Test
An easy to use, responsive, and clear mobile site is key to engaging more customers. If you ensure your mobile site is up to date and easy to navigate from a phone, you’ll drive organic traffic, more conversions and a better dwell time.
Mobile-Friendly Test examines how easily a user can access your site from a smartphone, analysing things like whether web pages look good in a vertical format, and if the CTAs are large enough.
32. Mobile SERP Test
Mobile SERP results can vary hugely depending on both location and device. Using this free SEO tool, compare devices side-by-side with any location that can vary down to the exact address.
33. Mobile-First Index Checker
With Google’s switch to mobile-first indexing, it’s essential that key site elements like structured data and links match on both desktop and mobile versions.
This tool is super important for checking out how the mobile and desktop version of your site is in keeping with SEO best practises.
Free Local SEO Tools
If you have a local business, you’ll need to ensure you receive positive reviews, appear on Google Maps and have accurate contact information appearing in relevant business directories.
Use these free local SEO tools to boost your rankings.
34. BrightLocal
Composed of a few different tools, BrightLocal is created with the mindset of boosting your local rankings in search engines.
It can be difficult to assess your local rankings from any given location that’s not your current one but BrightLocal makes it easy for you to see local search engine rankings from anywhere in the world.
You can also monitor your competitors’ online reviews and compare your rankings against theirs.
35. Google My Business
The number one free SEO tool for local businesses. If your site sells area-specific products or services, make it a priority to claim your business on Google Maps.
Once your business is appearing on Google Maps, add photos and offers to your profile to hook your potential customer base. Control how your business appears to your target audience for increased conversions.
You can also use the platform to add multiple ways for potential customers to make contact either by messaging or calling your business.
Key stats tell you the total number of searches for your business, how many views your business received and the number of calls.
36. Moz Local Check Business Listing
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Wondering how accurate or consistent your business details are on directories and search engines? Moz Local Check Business Listing shows how your business appears across the web in data aggregators that Google and other search engines use to rank local search results.
Identify any errors in your business listings that may be damaging your local SEO efforts. View a summary of the categories your business is listed under and the type of media that’s used for your business.
37. Google Review Link Generator
Good customer reviews are essential for a strong SEO game. This tool is key for finding your Google Review listing and for generating a shortened link to your page making it easier for users to find and review your business.
Positive reviews will drive your rankings so make it a priority to set up a shortened link.
38. Whitespark Local Citation Finder
Monitor your site’s mentions, the competition’s citations and identify new opportunities for your local business with Whitespark Local Citation Finder.
Free Rank Tracking Tools
These free SEO tools show you where you rank as opposed to just showing your traffic like other analytical tools.
39. SERPROBOT
Like the name suggests, SERPROBOT tracks your SERPs. It’s easy to implement alerts and modify the frequency with which your SERP is analysed.
40. Bulk Google Rank Checker
Check your site’s SERPS for different keywords in bulk with this free rank tracking tool.
41. Taptimize
Taptimize will track SERPs for up to 10 keywords for free. The platform also gives recommendations based on your current SEO state.
42. SERP Checker (Ahrefs)
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View the top 10 rankings for keywords in over 170 countries. The free version of the platform also shows you essential SEO metrics like the estimated search traffic, referring domains and the number of backlinks.
43. Search Latte
To manually track your rankings, Search Latte is a great option. Simply enter the keyword and view all of the sites that rank in the top 100. You can filter the ranking results by country and language too.
You can then use the tool to view your own site and see if you are rising or falling in search engine rankings.
Free Analytics Tools
A successful SEO strategy is nothing if you can’t measure key data like organic traffic and site visitors. Use these free analytics tools to monitor your SEO strategy.
44. Google Analytics
To get a clear picture of whether your SEO strategy is increasing your site’s organic traffic, use Google Analytics.
As Google accounts for the majority of searches (70% to be exact) you’d be wise to take notice of its data.
View essential pieces of data like organic traffic and site visitors. If you’re set on your site reaching page 1 of Google results, this is the analytics tool you should be using.
45. Google Data Studio
Find all of Google Analytics’ data too detailed or overwhelming? Google Data Studio takes all the data and compiles it into digestible reports and dashboards to help you fully understand each and every metric.
Seamlessly integrating with other Google SEO tools, you can also use data from other tools like Google Search Console to ensure you receive ultra detailed reports.
46. WooRank
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If you want a quick and simple SEO analysis, WooRank provides a straightforward report of what needs to be improved on your web page.
Type in your domain and within a few moments you’ll receive a thorough report of what needs improvement.
This is a great free SEO tool for beginners as its user interface is easy to navigate and understand.
47. Bing Webmaster Tools
Although Google’s free SEO tools tend to be more popular, Bing Webmaster has a complete set of website and search analytics.
Particular highlights are crawling data, keyword research and keyword reports.
Free WordPress SEO Plugins
With so many free WordPress SEO plugins to choose from, these are the standout options for optimising your SEO strategy.
48. SEOPress
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SEOPress has an easy set up ideal for beginners as well as some more advanced features perfect for those with more experience.
Expect access to all the SEO features you’d expect to have from a SEO plugin like meta description, title, redirects, image and XML sitemaps and open graph support.
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49. Yoast
If you have a WordPress based site you may already be familiar with the powerhouse plugin Yoast.
Probably the most reliable and most installed SEO plugin, Yoast is very user friendly and makes it easy for you to optimise your web pages directly within WordPress, providing suggestions on keyword inclusion, SEO titles and meta descriptions.
50. Rank Math
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A newer SEO plugin, Rank Math comes with a few features that Yoast doesn’t have, such as built in redirection. Using Rank Math will save you from installing several other plugins and prevent you from having to do so many upgrades.
51. All in One SEO Pack
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This WordPress SEO plugin is a complete set of SEO tools designed to improve your site. Add meta tags, SEO titles, image sitemaps and XML sitemaps among other features.
Easy to set up, you can control many different settings using the features manager.
Final thoughts on the Best Free SEO Tools
Top quality SEO tools needn’t dent your marketing budget. Try a few of these free SEO tools and see how quickly you can increase your organic traffic.
Before you opt for a paid subscription to other SEO tools, make sure you give these free versions a go.