Good tools are half the job
A chef doesn't cook with a blunt knife. A painter doesn't paint with old, cheap paint. And a carpenter doesn't work with a dull chisel. But the chef, the painter and the carpenter also know that neither the knife, the paint nor the chisel does the job alone. It takes a whole arsenal of tools to deliver a solid piece of work. Good tools are half the job.
The same goes for you as a webmaster with ambitions of reaching the top of Google: you can't optimise for search engines without good tools. But one good tool isn't enough either. Your toolbox needs to be filled to the brim with tools that each serve their own purpose while complementing one another.
So with no further ado: let's open the toolbox and take a look at what's inside.
1) Ahrefs, the SEO consultant's all-embracing all-in-one tool
Ahrefs always sits at the top of my toolbox when I take on an SEO case. That's not to say it's only useful in the initial phase of your SEO strategy. It's just as well suited to ongoing monitoring and optimisation – it's not without reason that I call it the SEO consultant's all-embracing all-in-one tool.
But the reason I still keep it at the very top of my toolbox is that I see it as an indispensable tool for establishing a solid data foundation. Not least because of Ahrefs' “content gap” feature. Here, you can compare your own visibility on relevant keywords with that of comparable competitors.
By entering competitors' domains, specific paths or URLs and comparing them with your own, you get a list of keywords your competitors are found on, but your website isn't. That makes the content gap feature an exemplary tool for keyword research, because you find new keywords that can make you visible to your target audience.
Example:
In the example below, I've compared a dental clinic's website with 3 competitors using Ahrefs' content gap feature.
Here, for example, I can see that all 3 competitors are found on “tandblegning” (teeth whitening), and I also get data on the keyword's estimated monthly search volume (5,000) and keyword difficulty (3). So I already know that:
- The clinic's website should have a subpage about teeth whitening (provided, of course, that it offers this service).
- There's a considerable amount of potential monthly traffic to gain by ranking high on this keyword.
- I don't need to invest much time and energy in link building for the page: a keyword difficulty of 3 means Ahrefs estimates that I only need backlinks from around 4 other websites to rank in the top 10.
I can then repeat this exercise with other relevant keywords from the list. After that, I can dig deeper into my competitors via Ahrefs. For example, I can use Ahrefs' link building tool “Referring domains” to see which websites my competitors have backlinks from.
Finally, in “overview” I can get further data on a given keyword – for example, a list of typical questions about teeth whitening as well as ideas for alternative keywords.
That gives me a data-driven direction for the angle of the copy on my landing page, because I now know which questions and subtopics people are searching for on Google. That increases my chances of ranking high.
Afterwards, I usually organise and categorise my keywords in a spreadsheet, because it gives me an overview of keywords within the same category and how to prioritise them. That way, I make sure I'm not just writing landing pages based on keywords, but also focusing on matching users' search intent.
All in all, Ahrefs comes with a broad palette of features that make both on-page and off-page SEO easier. You can also use it to track how your keywords develop (Rank Tracker) and to identify technical pitfalls (Site Audit).
I warmly recommend exploring Ahrefs' Academy universe if you want to geek out on the countless options and features in this all-embracing all-in-one tool.
2) Screaming Frog, instant insight into technical pitfalls
Don't be fooled by the silly name: Screaming Frog is indispensable for the technical SEO consultant. It's also my go to tool when I need to identify technical pitfalls on a website.
In fact, crawling a website in Screaming Frog is always one of the first things I do when I need to find technical SEO pitfalls for a new client. The screaming frog tells tales about a whole host of parameters I'd otherwise have to go through thousands of lines of code to find.
With Screaming Frog, you can, among other things:
- find missing and duplicate h-tags
- find missing and duplicate meta tags
- get an overview of images over 100 kb
- check whether meta tags are the correct length
- get an overview of your image sizes and alt texts
- find broken links (404 pages)
- analyse redirects when migrating a site
- pull in data via API from Analytics, Search Console, Ahrefs, PageSpeed Insights and other SEO tools
- find directives that prevent your site from being crawled correctly
- get an overview of your internal link profile and outbound links
- crawl your site the way Google would
- and much, much more....
In short, Screaming Frog gives you insight into all the technical challenges that can trip up your website's performance in Google's organic search results. Then it's simply a matter of getting started on optimising based on the information Screaming Frog serves up for you on a silver platter. .
You can read much more about how in Webamp's seven tips for improving your SEO with Screaming Frog.
You can download the program for free here, and on the same page you can also buy a Screaming Frog licence. However, most people won't need one, as the free version lets you crawl up to 500 URLs, which is mainly an issue for larger webshops with many web addresses.
3) PageSpeed Insights, indispensable insight into your website's speed
Many SEO specialists have been tearing their hair out since Google made speed a ranking factor in 2020 with the Core Web Vitals algorithm update.
With that notorious algorithm update, website speed suddenly had a direct influence on SEO. Website speed was no longer just a question of users' patience, but also of websites' rankings in Google's search results.
I've seen many online discussions about whether speed optimisation is the responsibility of SEO specialists or developers. Developers may in many cases have the skills to optimise speed, but it's also the SEO specialists' responsibility to identify the speed-related pitfalls, precisely because a website's speed is so critical for SEO.
And this is where PageSpeed Insights is indispensable. PageSpeed Insights gives you insight into specific speed-related pitfalls on both desktop and mobile devices.
By entering your web address in the tool, you get an overview of how well your website meets the Core Web Vitals parameters, and not least whether it passes or fails Core Web Vitals. Finally, you also get suggestions for improvements that can help it pass, and thus perform better against Google's requirements for user experience and load time.
Who ultimately has the responsibility for fixing the shortcomings PageSpeed Insights points out is a whole other discussion. In Webamp's SEO department, we handle speed optimisation ourselves, partly because we think the developers' skills are better used elsewhere, but also because, as SEO specialists, we feel responsible for being able to solve our clients' SEO challenges without compromise.
4) Google Search Console, Google's goldmine of a webmaster tool
Google Search Console, formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools, is Google's own goldmine of SERP and technical SEO data.
This is where you'll find indispensable data on how Google's users interact with your website in the search results. Search Console can also give you information about any user-related and technical pitfalls on your website, including page experience, Core Web Vitals, mobile usability and other technical parameters that affect the user experience, and therefore your SEO too.
Finally, Search Console gives you an overview of your website's coverage: are there, for example, invalid web addresses, 404 pages or pages that Google hasn't indexed and therefore aren't shown in the search results?
In other words, Search Console is an absolutely essential tool in the webmaster's toolbox, because it gives you concrete, data-driven suggestions for improvements.
For my part, Search Console is probably the tool I use most often of all. Not least because the platform gives me insight into optimisation opportunities on alternative keywords. I get this in the “Performance” tab, where you can see how your subpages perform in Google's results, measured on the following criteria:
- total clicks
- total impressions
- average CTR
- average position
The figures are based on real user activity on Google, so you won't find more “pure” data on how successful your SEO strategy is. For example, you learn how many times your subpages have been shown for a given keyword in a given period.
You can also filter by country and device, giving you insight into your SEO performance across different countries and devices: are you lagging behind in some of your geographical markets, for example, or do you perform worse on mobile than on desktop?
And this is where Search Console shines compared with, say, Ahrefs, SEMrush and similar platforms. Where Ahrefs and co. work with an estimated monthly search volume, in GSC you can actually see the real search volume for a given period.
That gives you a far more data-driven basis for judging whether it makes sense to be visible on a given keyword, and for optimising your landing page accordingly.
Does it make sense, for example, to update a landing page because it has been shown enough times on keywords other than the ones you originally intended when you wrote it?
Example:
Let's take an example from a bricklaying company's landing page about extensions. In a given period, the page has been shown 50,962 times for the search term “tilbygning” (extension), which was also the top priority. The page is also shown for a number of related search terms.
And with a ranking in the fine company of Google's top 10 on the keyword, the page has also received a respectable number of clicks across the various searches.
But GSC tells me that the page has also been shown 3,846 times for the search “tilbygning parcelhus” (house extension) – a keyword we didn't have in mind when we wrote the copy for the page, but which the page still gets impressions for in Google's search results. With an average Google position of 42 on this keyword, though, it's no surprise that the click-through rate is pretty low.
In other words, the bricklaying company has missed out on a considerable number of potential clicks in the period by not optimising the page for this keyword. So now it's simply a matter of getting started on optimising our content to rank higher on this keyword.
5) Google Analytics, Google's data MONSTER
Where Search Console gives you technical data and statistics on how your users interact with your website in the search results, Google Analytics tells you how your users behave after they've clicked through to your website – and it's an almost inexhaustible source of valuable data once you've learnt to navigate its many features.
You can use that data to optimise content, navigation, conversion and much more on your website.
Google Analytics isn't just an SEO tool, by the way. Anyone working with online marketing and sales, or running a webshop or website, can benefit from Analytics, whether you work with search engine marketing or social media marketing, or you're a business owner with ambitions of generating leads through your website.
Analytics has many deep layers, and you can quickly get lost in a tangled web of filtering options once you start scratching the surface of the data. But that's also where Analytics shines. There are practically no limits to what data you can dig up about your users' comings and goings on your website.
I might as well say it straight away. Analytics is a MONSTER that, on closer inspection, can seem impossible to rein in and tame. And it doesn't help that Google is currently phasing out the current Analytics Universal in favour of GA4, which in many ways differs considerably from Universal.
That's why I won't go any deeper into Analytics in this post, partly because both Universal and GA4 are far too extensive, and partly because it's currently possible to use both Universal and GA4. And the two platforms are so different that learning to understand both at once would be like learning Danish and Afrikaans at the same time.
So I can only warmly recommend visiting Google's Skillshop if you want to learn how to use Analytics.
6) Schema Markup Generator, structured data for dummies
Structured data is a way of technically optimising your content so search engines understand it better. You can read much more about it in Webamp's introduction to structured data.
However, structured data can be a rather tricky business if you can't write JSON-LD, which is the code language Google recommends for writing structured data.
Yours truly is certainly no code-cruncher either, which is why Schema Markup Generator is my go to tool when I need to create schema markups. Schema Markup Generator speaks fluent JSON-LD. All it needs is input from you, and it responds with an error-free schema markup (Schema.org is the universal vocabulary for structured data). That way, this little tool makes it possible for anyone to generate their own schema markups.
Afterwards, it's a good idea to test your code snippet in Google's Rich Results Test tool to make sure there are no errors in your code. Schema Markup Generator may guarantee error-free output, but that also requires you to give the tool the right input.
You can then copy and paste the code into your website, either directly in the source code or via Tag Manager. I'm a big advocate of the latter myself, as it keeps all my structured data in one place, so I don't have to dig around in my website's backend if I need to edit or delete a schema markup.
Below, I've used Schema Markup to create an FAQ markup on Webamp's subpage about online marketing. On the left, I've entered my questions and answers, and on the right, Schema Markup has responded with an error-free script, which I then tested and implemented on the subpage.
And the result? First, Google now finds it even easier to understand that the page is about online marketing. Second, my little FAQ is now shown in the search results, which means Webamp takes up more space in the search results, increasing the chance of getting more clicks on the result – or, in industry terms, we increase our CTR.
Last but not least, it creates a better user experience, because users can get answers to typical questions about online marketing directly on the results page. And good user experiences equal good SEO.
This is how Google interprets my schema markup, translating JSON-LD into easy-to-read human language, presented in a clear expandable section.
7) Thruuu, awesome SERP scraper for the content creator
It wasn't actually me who gave Thruuu the label “awesome”, but the developer. Still, Thruuu is pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. Let me explain…
Good content is the cornerstone of any successful SEO strategy. If you hit the mark with your target audience, and therefore your users' search intent, you're rewarded with better rankings on Google, because Google always wants to deliver the most relevant results to its users. That's why copy, images and other content on your website are the top priority once your keyword research is in place.
But if your copy and other content are to secure your website higher rankings on selected keywords, they also need to be competitive. In other words, they need to be on a par with your competitors' in terms of information, angle, length and structure.
However, it can be quite a slog to chew your way through your competitors' copy to find a common thread in what gets a given landing page into Google's top 10 – and that's exactly where Thruuu comes into its own.
With Thruuu, a few clicks give you insight into the content that performs on Google's results page. That saves you from manually clicking through the landing pages you want to compete with on a given keyword.
Enter the keyword you want data on (remember to choose language, country and any other parameters you want); and hey presto: Thruuu gives you an overview of your competitors' parameters, which can help you produce content that gets your landing page to the top, including:
- title tag and meta description
- average word count of the pages in the search results
- word count of each page in the search results
- h-tags on each page, in other words: the angle and
- sub-angles of the copy
- number of images on each page
- number of links on each page, both internal and outbound links
- related searches and Google's People Also Ask questions
- speed performance of the various landing pages
- last update of the various landing pages
- structured data
You can also export your data to a spreadsheet, making it easier to get an overview and organise things when you implement your content on your landing page.
That way, you partly get an overview of the content and technical SEO formalities that secure higher rankings. Not least, you get the chance to angle your content better towards search intent, because you can see the angle and sub-angles within a given search query. That makes it easier to produce content focused on topics rather than keywords, aka semantic SEO.
Here, for example, I've entered “tandblegning” and scraped the search results for data on this search.
I can then dive into the individual landing pages – below, the landing page that ranks at the top of the organic results for the search.
That way, I can look over my competitor's shoulder and find out exactly why this particular landing page performs so well in the search results.
FAQ about SEO software
What are SEO tools?
SEO tools are software that ensure your SEO strategy is 100% data-based and strategically targeted - from the first keyword research to ongoing monitoring and optimisation.
Why are SEO tools important?
Because they give you a data-driven foundation for your SEO strategy. That way, you avoid shooting in the dark and increase your chances of succeeding with your SEO.
What are the best SEO tools?
There are countless SEO tools for everything from keyword planning and content optimisation to technical analysis and data analysis. In this post, you can learn more about Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, PageSpeed Insights, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Schema Markup Generator and Thruuu, which make up a palette of tools that can help you with every part of your SEO strategy.
Get help with your SEO strategy
Well begun is half done. Badly begun is…. well, not good. If you don't have the resources to put together a well-thought-out SEO strategy, we're ready, as an SEO agency, to help you on your way to higher rankings in the search engines.
You're always welcome to drop me an email at seo@amplify.dk.
