Are you a beginner looking to enter the world of SEO? If that’s the case, you’ll find that you’re about to learn one of the most valuable skills you could master in an online environment. Apart from bona fide SEO experts, all webmasters and website owners can benefit from learning the basics of search engine optimization.
However, this can seem like a daunting field initially; you may not know where to start or which tools to use. With that in mind, we’re going to recommend some of the best SEO tools for beginners right here!
What kind of tools do I need?
A quick Google search will lead you towards countless different SEO tools. These days, plenty of SEO agencies offer their own branded software. But before you know which one you want to use, you should understand why you’re using it in the first place.
So, most of the best SEO tools for beginners are there to make data analysis and keyword research that comes with SEO easier. These tools will allow you to quickly surmise what kind of changes your SEO strategy could benefit from.
Furthermore, these tools are excellent for competitor analysis, giving you unique insights into how your website compares to your closest niche competition. Once you genuinely dig into SEO, you’ll also find plenty of other in-depth features that will become more useful to you as time goes on. For instance, one of the most significant advantages of using dedicated SEO tools over manually analyzing data is that you can efficiently manage multiple websites without being overwhelmed with endless spreadsheets.
Ahrefs
When you begin looking for the best SEO tools for beginners, there’s really no getting around Ahrefs. We’re talking about one of the most widely recommended tools for SEO experts. If you decide to start a career in SEO and explore this field professionally, you’ll almost certainly be using Ahrefs at some point or another.
The Website Audit option that comes with Ahrefs is excellent at showing you precisely what aspects of your website have to be improved to climb SEO rankings. You can also use it for a competitor backlink analysis, allowing you to have an accurate report on the backlinks used by a competitor website and giving you the chance to focus on a similar content strategy.
And it’s helpful in checking out your own content as well — you can notice and fix any broken links that you have at a moment’s notice. Plus, you’ll be able to have a clear view of which of your pages are performing the best, giving you an insight into what works and what doesn’t for your niche.
Google Search Console
We’d be remiss not to mention Google Search Console, the biggest search engine’s very own SEO tool for webmasters and SEO experts. As you learn the most basic SEO techniques to increase your website’s standing, you’ll find that Google Search Console is an indispensable tool. And it’s particularly well-suited for beginners because it’s completely free to anyone who has a website.
To use it, all you’ll have to do is to add a snippet of code to the website, allowing Google to index it properly; alternatively, you can also do so via Google Analytics. Now, you don’t actually need Google Search Console for your website to be featured in Google’s search results. However, it’s helpful in controlling the basics of your SEO strategy. Plus, it offers an insight into Google’s view of various websites, giving you a better vantage point for Google-centric SEO optimization. And, let’s face it, if you’re doing SEO, you’re probably doing SEO for Google, barring some extremely specific circumstances.
SEMRush
Tools like Google Search Console and Ahrefs are useful, but when it comes to the best SEO tools for beginners, having a full-on digital marketing suite like SEMRush can be quite advantageous. Once you start networking in the SEO community, you will realize that SEMRush is one of their favorite software options for all kinds of SEO audits.
This software provides all kinds of valuable SEO insights, like automatic identifying of ranking opportunities that you haven’t made use of yet. The competitor domain analysis tool is also extremely useful and one of the best in the market. Really, the level of value that you can extract from SEMRush largely depends on your own SEO proficiency.
If you’re a beginner looking to learn the ropes, you’ll find that the user-friendly interface and helpful tooltips give you a lot of helpful information right at the start. And as your SEO needs increase, the more powerful parts of the software will also become your favored utilities.
KWFinder
The last but not least tool that we’ll take a look at here is the KWFinder utility. When you begin working in SEO, keyword optimization will be one of your biggest tasks. As such, you will find that a specialized tool for that job — such as KWFinder — can be of immense use, particularly when it comes to long-tail keywords, which aren’t as easy to find with more generic SEO software.
Along with keyword research, this tool contains options for SERP and backlink analysis, though we do have to mention that the other SEO software suites on our list have more powerful options in this regard. Still, if you need ideas for new keywords to try to rank for, this tool is going to become your new best friend.
Wrapping Up
As you can see, the market for SEO tools for beginners is wide and long. Apart from the software that we’ve highlighted here, you’ve also got plenty of other choices to pick from; we’ve merely put the most popular ones in the spotlight!