There are many different tools available to digital marketers nowadays, but SEO is still one of the best, most cost-efficient ways of getting eyes on your site. It can be implemented on everything from personal blogs to e-commerce business sites, and many other business models. In 2024, those new to the SEO field should use these free and essential tools that can make their content stand out.
How SEO Tools Work
An SEO tool is any kind of service or software that makes it easier to find data and act on it, to make pages more discoverable by Google’s algorithms. That includes helpful web pages, plug-ins, and downloadable software that helps site owners rank their pages higher on results pages.
It generally doesn’t matter what kind of business you operate online, all of them can benefit from using SEO tools. Many individuals use SEO for their blogs, while businesses in online industries like e-commerce develop sophisticated strategies to market their products. Other services like iGaming provide experiences that only exist online, so SEO and digital marketing are their main way of gathering audiences. They try to rank for online roulette and other terms related to digital slots, table games, and other casino activities that can be found on the internet.
The biggest businesses online spend a lot of money on their SEO strategy, but it isn’t necessary to find success with the right strategy. Many SEO tools are free or operate on a freemium basis, where basic features are available but the best functionalities are locked behind a transaction. Naturally, a paid SEO strategy tends to yield better returns. Some of the biggest SEO tools take a holistic approach, trying to offer an all-in-one service, but it’s a good practice to use multiple to cover all your bases. You can generally split SEO tools into three categories:
- Keyword research: These track search metrics to identify viable keywords.
- Auditing tools: These scan and diagnose site issues, to fix them for SEO benefits.
- Rank trackers: These track how well your domains/pages rank by their primary keywords.
Essential SEO Tools
Most SEO experts should swear by the resources Google gives them – Google Analytics and Google Search Console. They’ll provide a lot of information for free and form the core of your SEO strategy.
Then, you may consider some handy SEO tools that can give you special insight into digital marketing for 2024 audiences.
Exploding Topics
Today, a lot of online discourse is driven by trending topics and virality. That’s why viral marketing exists, but it often yields hit-and-miss returns because it’s the very definition of catching lightning in a bottle.
Tools like Exploding Topics can help you see trends as they emerge in search metrics. It’s limited by the fact you can’t search for your own terms, but it presents popular trends with a graph showing how popular they are right now. It’s free to consult, but notifications, tracking, and more details are locked behind paid plans.
Animalz Revive
If you’re not new to SEO, you might have a lot of old pages gathering dust online. If that’s the case, using Animalz Revive can quickly and effectively refresh published content. Republishing content is a valid SEO strategy that can make old pages re-enter search results pages, but the updates must be meaningful and added to the page.
This tool tracks downward trends in traffic and gives you a report of pages that could rank better if they are updated. It’s free, but you have to give your email to plug it into Google Analytics.
Compared to standard SEO tools, these two services have special relevance to the SEO landscape in 2024. Exploding Topics can help you cash in on viral events, and see which trends have legs in your niche. Meanwhile, page republishing is common after Google’s landmark content updates in 2024, and a service like Revive can help with that.