Overlooked SEO Tools: Six Of The Best
At Parallax, we love using a wide range of SEO tools on a daily basis. SEO tools are essential, whether you’re just getting started with SEO, or you’re an SEO wizard.
Having access to tools which provide metrics, optimisations, suggestions and research can have a profound impact on the overall performance of a website in regards to SERPs. As this is my first post i’m going to do something a little different.
What you’d normally expect from a post like this (Best SEO Tools for example) would be a list of the following:
- Crawlers
- Keyword Research
- Sitemaps
- Analytics
- SERP Tracking
Whilst these are helpful, most digital agencies and in-house SEOs already use these tools. Even though those lists (and there are many) all show tools which are targeted directly at SEO and can be extremely useful, I wanted to highlight how SEO merges into many other areas.
I’ve decided to give some alternatives that people have maybe overlooked due to their nature as either ‘developer tools’. It’s truly amazing how you can apply something like Firebug to SEO tasks. If anything, I hope you are able to find something within this article that makes you think differently about a piece of software you already use, even if it’s just applying it to something else.
Google Speed Insights
PageSpeed Insights is another one of those hidden gems nestled within the labyrinth of Google Developer tools that a fair few people either don’t know about yet, or don’t use. Don’t let the category fool you though, it’s extremely useful and present within modern SEO. If you think back to 2010 when it was announced the speed of a website would be an attributing factor in it’s search ranking, you can see why it this tool would be helpful for discovering areas to improve the speed of your website. It’s pretty self explanatory to use, just type in a website and analyse.
If you’re interested here is an insightful article from the guys over at Zoompf, posted on Moz titled “How Website Speed Actually Impacts Search Ranking”
BuiltWith
So what is behind yours or a competitor’s website? BuiltWith will tell you, right down to the server it’s hosted on or what analytics they are using. BuiltWith comes packaged with a number of tools such as market analysis, header usage, lead generation and sales intelligence if you’re into that.
You can also see daily updates of internet technology trends, similar to Google’s Trends which we love here in the office. Don’t worry if you know nothing about development, everything includes a description and their trends, for example: “New Relic is a dashboard used to keep an eye on application health and availability while monitoring real user experience.” It’s also interesting to see the trends of analytic usage.
BuiltWith also comes with some other handy features like trend tracking for individual tools across the internet such as the image to the left of New Relics usage across the whole internet.
Currently they offer free and pro research tools but honestly, just searching websites freely will amaze you and it’s perfect if you’re working with a technology client for example, to see how to improve their penetration across the web.
Firebug
Firebug is one of the best Firefox plugins available, primarily meant for web development and testing. However, we can also use it for SEO purposes.
Arguably, it applies to a more technical aspect of SEO but regardless of this it’s extremely useful. For example, you can disable CSS to see whether bots (and humans) with CSS disabled can access pages, inspect loading times, examine HTTP headers with ease and much more. Firebug really is a swiss army knife when it comes to inspecting a page. I’ll be writing a tutorial on using Firebug for SEO purposes in the future.
I’ve also included some that don’t fall into the developer category. These either haven’t been around that long or have recently been updated, and I believe they should get a mention.
ThinkUp
ThinkUp is relatively new and is currently ‘accepting new members’ as it’s in beta stage. It provides a different way of looking and analysing each Twitter post. ThinkUp claim that makes your Facebook and Twitter experience richer and provides you with customised insights into your social marketing campaigns.
For an example, take a look at Matt Cutts insights (he’s been raving about it quite prolifically on Twitter). I’m not one for jumping on the bandwagon but I have to agree it is extremely well presented and a modern way of viewing twitter analytics.
Google Webmaster Tools
With updates to Google Webmaster Tools aiming towards better analytics within the ‘Search Queries’ section, Google have made a more accurate representation of keyword data. Webmaster Tools has now become an invaluable tool for anyone wishing to increase their web presence or understand how Google Search works. There has been much speculation about future updates but here are some examples:
- Option to download the web pages that Google has seen from your site, in case a catastrophe like a hard drive failure or a virus takes down your entire website.
- Better tools for detecting or reporting duplicate content or scrapers.
- Tell the pages on your website that lead to 404s or broken links, so that site owners can fix their own broken links.
For those who are just getting started Google Webmaster Tools has its own ‘Webmaster Academy’ tailored for those putting their business or themselves on the web. Each lesson takes about an hour and includes lessons, quizzes, examples and videos. I highly suggest taking a look.
Buzzsumo
With Buzzsumo you can discover trending stories by domain, topic or influencer. A quick search of any domain will give you a list of recent topics, articles and posts that have been trending, including their Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+ shares. You can also go deeper into each link shared and analyse those links. It’s also free with pro plans coming soon.
All of these tools are really beneficial to those working in a digital agency and in-house, many of which we love here at Parallax.
What tools do you use at the moment? Feel free to contact us if you think we’ve missed anything, we’d love to hear from you.