Small businesses do not have the budget to hire SEO experts or spend big bucks on search engine optimization campaigns. Fortunately, there are many tools available on the web that small businesses can use to track SEO metrics and success. For small businesses, the goal is simple: use SEO to increase website visibility, awareness, relevant traffic, monthly visitors, and conversions. To be successful in the cutthroat SEO world, here are some tools that small businesses can use to achieve these goals:
1. SEOBooks’ SEO Toolbar – This is very useful for small businesses because it offers you a bird’s eye-view of the different ranking factors and marketing data points essential to achieve SEO success. The Firefox extension gives a holistic view of the competition that can be seen directly in the search results.
2. SEMRush – SEMRush is a keyword research tool that analyzes competitive keyword rankings. The results are both organic and from Google AdWords. Additionally, the tool also shows estimated SE and AdWords traffic as well as hidden keywords. This is free but users can upgrade to SEMRush Pro for only $69.95/month.
3. Yahoo Site Explorer – It may be shutting down but Yahoo Site Explorer is still useful while it’s there. Using Yahoo Site Explorer will give you the most accurate data for finding links that point to a website, which is very important for SEO.
4. Google Analytics – Google Analytics is an SEO tool that even professionals use. It offers a web traffic report that includes where the traffic originates which will help you decide what needs to be tweaked and improved. Google Analytics can also be used to track email campaigns, targeted keywords, and most importantly, social metrics for those who do social media marketing campaigns on Twitter, Facebook, and now, Google+.
5. Google Webmaster Tools – Designed for ecommerce website designers and web designers in general, Google Webmaster Tools offers “detailed reports about your pages’ visibility on Google”. Users who utilize this tool will get a glimpse of how Google views and indexes which will notify the user of potential problems other visitors may also encounter.
6. Google Keyword Tool – By using this, small businesses can analyze the exact terms that people search for. This is very helpful when selecting the right keywords that should bring profit to your websites.
Small businesses don’t need to spend much on SEO. Furthermore, there’s no reason to say no to SEO now that free tools are readily available for you. Now, every business, big or small, can successfully launch SEO campaigns without spending too much on internet marketing.
