SEO isn’t the easiest thing to do and in this post I will be discussing how to be successful with your site with SEO.
With the help of tools you’re able to bring some much needed automation into the mix.
In this post I am going to be mostly analyzing keyword research tools. SEO is mostly about content and the foundation of content is good keyword. That comes with keyword research.
KwFinder
KWFinder is an easy to use tool that provides meaningful analysis of keywords. With the tool, understanding the ranking difficulty for keywords is easy. The difficulty scores are highlighted in colors of yellow to denote ease, green ease and red difficulty to show the sliding scale of ease or difficulty associated.
If you target the right keywords in your content, attaining the number 1 position on Google doesn’t seem like a far cry.
With the winning keywords, conversions too go up a lot which means keywords are an essential part of the conversion rate optimization strategy.
Another factor that adds to ease-of-use with Kwfinder is that there’s no need to download a clunky software that would lag every time you press the keyword difficulty score. Instead, it’s entirely cloud-based so that you can calculate keyword difficulty scores on the go with a single tap. It doesn’t lag. The tool isn’t clunky either. This is the highlight of the keyword research tool.
So what are the aspects of a keyword you get to analyze?
You get to understand a number of things.
- Search Volume Trend – this tab lets you see the averaged out search volumes for the last 12 months. Almost every keyword research tool does this
- Monthly Search Volume – You get the monthly search volume for the keyword which is an average of the figures from the past 12 months.
- Average CPC – the cost per click to advertise the keyword on Google
- PPC Competition – the level of PPC competition
- Keyword SEO Difficulty – this is based on the relative strength of the overall backlink profile of the sites ranking on the first page and is a much accurate metric to understand the actual keyword difficulty compared to other tools.
When you input a keyword to analyze you get a segmented view filtered into two columns. The left column gets you search volume, PPC, organic difficulty etc. The right column shows an expanded view of the keyword difficulty score as part of a circular chart along with showing the top 10 competitor sites, the number of backlinks each has and other useful metrics.
Kwfinder is going from strength to strength with its robust analysis of keywords. Plus to make things sweeter on a given day you can run up to 5 different keywords for analysis for free with a free account.
That’s not all because keyword research is only a quarter of the whole story. Kwfinder packs into itself several key competitor analysis aspects like checking the keywords a competitor site ranks for along with its backlinks. For the price you pay, you get a number of things to use. The backlinks module is called the LinkMiner. True to its name, it uncovers the most powerful backlinks of a competitor.
Also in 2019, they upgraded themselves with two more core features, the SERP analysis features which gives you local rankings insights pulled from 50 locations plus a website analyzer that finds out the problems with your website.
From my analysis I could see that the tool sources its backlinks from Majestic. While Majestic’s index isn’t exactly knock-of-the-socks, you’re definitely relieved that you don’t have to pay the price of Majestic as well.
There’s a rank checking module called the SERPwatcher where you can input keywords you want to check rankings for and find out daily improvements in its ranking.
The pricing is as follows:
There are three variants to KwFinder. The parent company is Mangools and hence the names have Mangools in them. The listed packages show the monthly pricing for the annual plans.
- Mangools Basic – $29.90/mo
- Mangools Premium – $39.90/mo
- Mangools Agency – $79.90/mo
If you go for the monthly plan here’s the pricing:
- Mangools basic- $49
- Mangools Premium $69
- Mangools Agency $129
Did I mention it was steep?
What do you get for each tier?
Withe basic plan you get 100 lookups per 24 hour period with 200 keyword ideas for each lookup.
You get 25 competitor keywords lookup. You can get 100 SERP lookups. You get 200 different tracked keywords. You can export up to 2000 backlink rows. You can have 20 site lookups. No simultaneous logins for the account.
With the premium account priced at $39.90/month you get 500 keyword lookups in 24 hour period. Get 700 keyword ideas. Unlimited competitor keywords, 500 serp checker lookups, 500 daily tracked keywords, 7000 rows in backlinks report, 70 website looks and 3 simultaneous logins.
With the final plan you get over 700 lookups, unlimited competitor keywords, 700 SERP lookups, 1500 tracked keywords daily checked, 15000 backlink rows and 10 simultaneous logins as well.
Opt for the annual package to save 40% on the bill. The month to month pricing is steep but the annual package is much more lucrative. But if you only need the tool for a month or two then the monthly package, however steeply priced is your best bet.
Serpstat
Serpstat is a relatively new player to the field.
And with comprehensive coverage they help us discover great keywords to rank for.
Like most tools you get to see the:
- Average monthly search volume calculated on the basis of past 12 months of data
- The competition level for PPC ads
- PPC costs
- Keyword difficulty rating
There are two options to search for something I can’t find on most tools. Other than getting estimates from Google which is universally available, you also have the option to get trafic and volume insights from Yandex, the russian search engine.
There’s also a trends bar.
The keyword difficulty score expands into 10 other pages that show you stuff like page rank, the number of external backlinks to the site and the total number of referring domains as well.
So Serpstat expands into a competitor intelligence suite as well.
For PPC analysis you get a full analysis on the top competitors advertising for the target keyword. You see the ads they run.
Serpstat is helpful in researching and analyzing keywords, it helps you build new links and develop a deep understanding of what kind of links move the needle.
The pricing is modest at $19 per month.
SEMrush keyword research and competitor intelligence tool
SEMrush is another tool that deserves a grand mention. SEMrush offers a number of competitor intelligence metrics and tools built inside that help you leverage competitor research.
SEMrush packs a lot of features inside it.
SEMrush as a tool has been going on for years. I guess more than a decade. Over the years, they added several new features to the tool taking it from strength to strength.
To give you a brief idea of the potential with SEMrush, here’s what you can do with the tool:
Being a competitor intelligence tool, get insights into competitors like keywords they rank for.
Uncover backlinks to your competitor site’s domain
Check if the backlinks are do follow, no follow, from within the content or image or comments
Option to research keywords and get phrase and exact match keywords
Integrate SEO keywords into your content with their free plugin
Rank tracking modules built in.
Of these the competitor keyword research module that gives you keywords your competitor ranks for in several different countries is the best I guess.
In addition to get started with the tool there’s a free 14-day trial you can subscribe to and understand all the relevant features of the tool.
Other than a comprehensive competitor intelligence suite two features stand out:
The site audit tool:
Once you input a url into the site audit tool the tool immediately highlights all that is wrong with your site.
You get the errors, the warnings and minor issues.
- Errors are highlighted in red. They show the issues with highest severity. They need immediate fixing. It can be anything from robots.txt issues that blocks your site from search engines or duplicate content. They need to be fixed immediately.
- Warnings are shown in orange and consist of things like missing title tags or missing alt tags. Or no follow links for internal links. If the number of posts on your site number only a few then fixing these warnings won’t take more than a few hours of effort.
- Notices (shown in blue) – The least troublesome issues like orphaned pages or crawling blocked images. The notices aren’t errors or warnings. Just statements about such and such.
The tool sums up the top 3 issues fixing which will get you the biggest SEO lift. You get a good explanation of what each error is about and the steps you need to take to remedy these errors
Based on the severity of errors some of them may have a progressively bigger impact on your site’s health score.
Run SEO audits to fix these issues as and when they occur.
Try to always get a score of above 85
On Page SEO Checker
The on page SEO checker unlike the SEO audit brings into focus both on page and off page issues and fixes.
To sum up, it’s a tool you need in your arsenal to figure out what our competitors are doing to leap frog ahead of you. With the tool optimize your existing blog posts, your landing pages or important pages to get ahead and get the rankings you deserve.
Create a new project inside the Semrush dashboard.
Start the on page SEO checker campaign to see the suggestions the tool has for your domain.
The tool will generate a report consisting of optimization ideas that hold the potential to improve the website’s rankings.
The tool also gives an estimate of the traffic to the page along with listing potential sources for backlinks, for technical SEO and user experience.
You see a list of pages you can optimize for higher ranking with only a few ideas.
There’s a bigger list beneath that if you click on view all pages and ideas.
The suggested improvements around LSI keywords, on page issues, technical factors and user experience will determine the overall direction you need to progress in.
SEMrush Pricing
There are three pricing plans. For most needs you will be able to just score it with the basic plan
- Pro – $99.95/mo
- Guru – $199.95/mo (the plan is more developed and great if you want to check hundreds of different websites
- Business – $399.95/mo this is the agency plan.
Moz Local for Local SEO
Optimizing for local SEO is increasingly becoming a component of search engine optimization efforts.
Realizing the ever increasing role Moz plays when it comes to the life of an SEO they also released the Moz local seo tool.
There are several key features in the tool that helps you optimize your listings.
Location Data Management: With this module you can improve your local SEO performance. Lets you manage location data to optimize local search performance.
SEO & Local Ranking Analytics: This module gets you thorough analytics data to improve your local marketing efforts. With this you can better your local marketing and make decisions to improve what works.
API Access: Moz gives api access to integrate the data with other reporting tools. This is a handy feature if you don’t like logging in and out of several tools.
Reputation Management: With this module manage your reviews from external sites without having to login and log out of each of them.
There’s a 30 day trial as well.
Here’s how to use Moz. Login to moz and search for your business with postal code. Click on the menu option that says Check my listing.
Moz pings Google for the closest matches. You will see a lot of results. Focus on the closest matches.
FOcus on the listings that are verified.
A green icon will be next to those.
Click on that and you will be taken to a page where they will list your business name, address and phone number. The chart will show the accuracy of the listings based on what you claimed. Also it will check for duplicates and errors.
Click on “Improve with Moz Local” button to purchase and manage your listing through Moz Local. To learn more about purchasing a listing on Moz Local, check out this comprehensive guide.
Moz Local – GMB Sync
Go to Google my business sync option from the dashboard. Click on connect to add a new account.
There are four important tabs
Synced – It’s the first one where you see all the synced listings
Unsynced – Here you will see listings Moz has access to but not linked with GMB
Import – Import locations that exist in GMB not published on Moz local.
You can import these to Moz local.
Click on import button and the new locations will appear as ready to publish.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs has really evolved from being a mere backlinks research tool. Starting 2016 or 17 they added a bunch of new features to Ahrefs.
Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
How to get started with it.
Enter a url into the big and large box and click submit to get started. The site explorer tool works its magic giving you access to competitor backlinks, the keywords the site ranks for the organic traffic to it and the individual organic traffic to each and every page. The tool also lists the paid keywords the site bids for. And metrics like DR and UR show how powerful the domain is.
The site explorer tool is one of the biggest features with Ahrefs. The tool is a boon to anyone who wishes to uncover their competitors ranking strategies. With an in-depth look at the backlink profile the Site explorer tool is easy the best thing you can lay your hands on. Look at the search traffic profile of any website to understand which keywords are driving them traffic. THe site explorer tool is a ninja that tears down at your competitor profiles bit by bit helping you understand what makes them tick.
You can also enter your own website in it to see if and what can be improved.
Learn about your website and your own backlink profile.
Ahrefs Backlink Analysis
With this you can understand the quality of backlinks to the site.
You see the total number of referring domains. You see over time which links were lost.
You see the new referring domains.
You can click over to historical backlink profile to see old links that are no longer there. Though in most cases I found those links to be alive and kicking.
You see the most populated anchors on the site.
Ahrefs Pricing
The basic price for Ahrefs is $99 per month if you pay month to month. For the annual package it costs $82 per month.
There are different pricing plans as follows
Lite – $99/month
Standard – $179/month
Advanced – $399/month
Agency – $999/month
For one or more sites if you need some info you only need the basic account. If you’re also looking into several competitors as well as managing client portfolios you can take standard or advanced accounts. The price is every bit worth it.