Top 13 FREE SEO Tools to Rank #1 on Google

in this video i'll share with you the
top 13 free seo tools that will help you
improve rankings on google these are the
tools that i use every single day and i
couldn't do seo without them if we
haven't been introduced before i'm matt
diggity i've been doing seo since 2009
and i now run multiple seven-figure seo
companies no matter the size of your seo
operation i can guarantee there isn't a
single seo success story that doesn't
rest on the solid foundation of free
tools in this video we're going to
review all the free seo tools that my
team and i use throughout every area of
our seo processes some of these free
tools are quite popular and you've
likely heard of them others aren't as
well known and i'll be happy to
introduce them to you either way i'm
excited to be sharing my complete list
of the best free seo tools that you can
also add to your tool kit there are two
types of free seo tools out there first
we have freemium tools premium tools
give you limited functionality for free
and then you can pay more to get the
rest freemium tools are awesome because
you typically get a better built tool
you can often bank on the fact that
companies offering freemium models are
constantly improving their tools and
innovating since their paid tiers
allowed them to grow and scale
continuously it won't be a scrappy side
hustle project that has long been
gathering digital dust so be sure to pay
attention when i share my top picks that
use a freemium model then we have truly
free tools that will likely remain free
forever but don't let their freeness
fool you into thinking they're not
effective the free tools i'm about to
share with you are absolute powerhouses
in their own right let's start right now
by looking at the best truly free tools
the first on my list is 100 free youtube
like button which can be activated for
the low cost of zero dollars by giving
it a gentle smashing just kidding but in
all seriousness it helps my channel out
a lot and it helps the youtube algorithm
know what kind of videos you like now if
you're doing seo and you don't have any
free browser extensions in your tool kit
you're seriously missing out so let's
start out with these bad boys there are
tons of seo extensions out there but
here are my top picks hands down my
favorite tool in this list is keyword
surfer keyboard surfer lets you gather
keyword ideas and seo metrics while
you're searching google it's super handy
when you're hunting around for low
competition keywords to add to your
content plan using the sidebar feature
you can build a list of keywords related
to your search and then with just one
click you can export that list along
with the monthly search volume metrics
too you can also gather metrics for
different countries without interrupting
your workflow keyboard research is such
a critical task for seo success and it
can be so easy to get slowed down by
clunky tools that's why i love how
intuitive keyword surfer is so after you
watch this video check out the link in
the description below and take it out
for a spin next on the list of free seo
extensions we got seo minion have you
ever been researching on google and
wanted to extract data about the top
ranking pages directly from the search
results page for example you could
scrape the top 20 titles from the search
result to get good ideas for your own
title optimization or you could do some
fancy pants topic research by scraping
the people also ask results i'll show
you how to do that in a sec well seo
minion is the guy that gets that job
done my favorite application of this
powerful extension is how it makes light
work of exporting all the people also
ask data with a few button clicks you
can download every people also ask
question related to your search query
this is great for plugging any gaps in
your content content gaps happen when
there's a topic that's relevant to your
niche but your website isn't really
covering it completely and that's no
good if you're a visual thinker you can
also get a neat tree diagram of how
these faqs relate to each other
seriously most seos i know have seo
minion installed the next free tool on
my list helped me build my very first
outreach link and i still recommend it
to this day it's called gmass and like
the other tools so far it's also a free
browser extension if outreach link
building is a core part of your seo
process gms will help with managing cold
outreach campaigns directly from gmail
for free it drips out emails to your
outreach list and also schedules
follow-up emails a nice benefit is that
gmass's deliverability is also damn good
email deliverability algorithms often
don't like it when you use an additional
tool layer and gmass helps you avoid
that because it's a lightweight add-on
to gmail if you're a newbie seo or just
want to get started for free then go for
gmass the final free browser extension i
wanted to share with you is the detailed
seo extension detailed gives you a
one-click bird's-eye view of the on-page
and technical specs of any public page
on the internet i like using it in our
qa process to make sure that my content
uploader has implemented the right
heading structure image alt text and
used all the html tags necessary for a
good foundation for on-page seo you can
also use it when auditing a client's
website or performing a detailed no pun
intended analysis of a competitor's
content what you see on a page can be a
very different story from what's
reflected in the code the next few tools
i'm going to recommend are must-haves
for your site's overall seo health the
best data you can get often comes
directly from search engines and you'd
be a dum-dum not to tap into it not to
mention google search console is hands
down the most popular free seo tool out
there so let's take a look at it gsc
does a bunch of by using google search
console you can submit your sitemap
directly to google to get crawled you
can also troubleshoot technical seo
problems related to how google's bots
crawl and index your content google
search console is also the best tool to
turn to when you need your content
indexed as soon as possible you can
force indexing on new content and pages
you made significant edits to that is
when it's not broken you can also get
insight into what keywords your website
is ranking for and your website's
overall organic performance in google
search this data is an absolute treasure
trove forget gold it's worth its weight
in bitcoin since we're already talking
about powerful data we can gather from
google there's a bunch of other free
tools that google offers which can level
up your seo these include the google
freaking search bar google analytics tag
manager google trends keyword planner
google sheets and the nlp api these
tools have all played a crucial part in
my seo success so far and i know many
other seo pros out there who also agree
with me on this but a lesser known
search engine tool that can also give
you powerful data is being webmaster
tools and with it you can also access
microsoft clarity heat map software for
free too how do you like that compared
with google search console being
webmaster tools has a lot of the same
functionality plus a few additional
features not many people know this but
in being webmaster tools you can check
out their seo section and get reports on
backlinks new keyword opportunities and
you can even run technical audits if
you're just getting started with seo you
don't have to pay a penny to access all
this valuable information and to sweeten
the deal bing is much more generous with
the data it offers to seo professionals
compared with google as mentioned
earlier bing also gets you free access
to microsoft clarity which is a heat
mapping tool if you're not using a heat
mapping tool stop just stop but in
saying this both google search console
and bing webmaster tools don't really
get into the super detailed technical
items we need to fine-tune our
optimization for anyone interested in
taking their technical seo skills up a
notch i suggest you look into the
following free schema tools schema is
like a translator between what we
understand as humans to concepts that a
search engine can understand too now
remember no matter how smart google
seems like it is it still can't read and
understand content as well as us humans
can schema helps you tell google that
your article is about a review of a
network router instead of forcing them
to guess if you're looking for free
tools to help create schema most seo
plugins will already do a basic level of
it for you but their output scheme is
often generic and basic so if you want a
competitive edge i'd suggest starting
with merkel's free schema generator
which walks you through how to create
different types of schema combine it
with the free schema validator offered
by schema.org and you can hand craft
your own custom schema whether that be
for e-commerce websites review websites
or service websites this alone is a
competitive edge over your competition
that relies on seo plugins to
auto-generate their schema besides you
get a nice boost on people clicking
through to your site if you implement
things like review ratings that stand
out on the search results page and while
we're looking at tools for technical seo
screaming frog deserves a mention here
screaming frog has long been a staple
tool used for technical audits by seo
nerds all over the world technically
it's on a freemium pricing model but if
you have a site with less than 500 urls
you unlock a decent amount of essential
functions for free screaming frog is
great to use in combination with google
search console and it's fairly easy to
operate and it also offers a butt ton
more technical data than search console
does we use it to gather the following
data pages with no internal links
pointing to them slow loading pages the
indexability status of all pages
checking all pages with missing on-page
elements such as heading tags meta
titles and descriptions and a bunch of
other nerdy sh it makes large scale
auditing so much more efficient since
you gather all your data in bulk with
only two clicks here's some more
freemium seo tools that i find very
helpful for improving rankings and
traffic let's kick these off with ahrefs
many people know ahrefs for their swiss
army knife seo solution that powers many
seo professionals around the world
including myself most people know ahrefs
is a paid tool what's not as well known
is that hrs also has the stack of free
tools available most noteworthy ahrefs
webmaster tools it's like a cross
between google search console and
screaming frog a similar level of data
but in a much more user-friendly
experience you can also get access to
the same version of ahrefs site explorer
and site auditing tools that paid
members access the only drawback is you
can't use these on competitor sites on
their free tier just the ones you verify
ownership of but that's an insane amount
of value anyways for free you can also
leverage all of these free tools by
ahrefs as well i'll add a link to the
page in the description below the next
premium seo tool we're checking out is
answer the public instance the public
made waves in the seo community by its
ability to expand a topic and visualize
it not only can it give you ideas for
subheadings in your content but you can
also go one level beyond that and
extract ideas for keyword research so
you make sure you aren't leaving any
gaps in your content plan on the free
tier you have limited usage per day but
for most people it's still decent enough
if you want next level tips on how to
use tools like this to create a topical
map check out the interview i did with
corey after you watch this video stick
with me though the next few tools i'll
be sharing are freemium tools that you
can plug into your topical mapping
process too ubersuggest is a decent tool
for most people starting out since it
has similar functionality to ahrefs you
can do keyword research basic competitor
research and access your website's seo
performance stats the level of data
isn't as great as hrs by mile but if
you're looking for a free tool to start
learning with ubersuggest is a good one
to go with as far as implementing
essential seo optimizations on your
website rank math is a damn good seo
plugin it's a freemium wordpress plugin
that allows you to update your key
on-page seo items such as title tags and
descriptions keep in mind it's not a
detailed on-page optimization tool like
surfer seo you can also set up an
automatically generated site map but
where ranked math stands out is its
support for different schema types
natively it's going to be the closest
you can get to manually creating your
own schema through a generator like
merkel another great freemium tool to
add to your toolkit is keyword hero ever
want to unlock those not provided
keywords in google analytics who doesn't
with keyword hero you can unlock those
values to get more insights into how
people are actually finding your content
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