BrickSeek: The Hidden Tool Online Consumers Use to Find Hidden Inventory Sales

Have you ever wanted a fast way to get the best deals in retail stores like Walmart, Home Depot, Target, and more?

Whether you’re just looking to save some money or you’re into retail arbitrage, the ability to easily check product inventory from the comfort of your home is something many people only dreamed about.

Until BrickSeek came along, that is.

What is BrickSeek, and how can it help you get the best deals on some of the most popular products?

What Is BrickSeek?

BrickSeek is an application that allows users to search for sales and clearance sales in retail shops in their area.

Launched in 2014, BrickSeek started as a website to help Lego enthusiasts find hard-to-find pieces—on and offline. The website quickly evolved into a massive platform that includes inventory information on just about every product stocked by retailers.

You can choose to use the web-based version or the mobile app as BrickSeek supports Android and iOS.

While BrickSeek doesn’t support all retail brands at the moment, they do have access to inventory for retailers like:

Target
Walmart
CVS
Home Depot
Macy’s
Lowes
Office Depot
Staples

BrickSeek uses product identification numbers like stock-keeping units (SKUs) and unique product codes (UPCs) to work its magic. With these, the software can find the best discount prices on specific products you want—for online and offline stores.

Besides showing you the best deals in your area, BrickSeek also shows the availability of all products stocked by most major retailers.

While you can use BrickSeek to browse store inventories, other features require you create a member account. Pricing starts at $9.99/month.

Why Should Consumers Use BrickSeek?

Now that you know what BrickSeek is, you’re probably wondering why you should even consider using the platform—especially the paid services.

There are two main reasons why you should use BrickSeek:

1. Saves Time (and Energy)

Tired of going from store to store looking for the best deal on products?

BrickSeek will take care of that for you with its inventory checker. With just a few clicks of a button, you can find out which stores offer the best deals. You can also learn whether they have the product in stock or not.

2. Saves Money

BrickSeek helps you save money by showing you the best deals on products. You also save money that you would have otherwise used to commute from one store to another.

Whether you’re a consumer or merchant, these two reasons are strong enough to make BrickSeek part of your tool kit.

How Does BrickSeek Work?

Thankfully, while it may seem like a daunting task to run through all the inventory of your favorite big box store, with BrickSeek, it isn’t. That’s because BrickSeek has a powerful inventory checker that digs into the inventory of the stores it supports.

From a user’s point of view, you have two options when it comes to using Brickseek to find deals:

1. Specific Search

To search for a specific product, you will need more information on the product than just its name. For best results, you’ll need metadata like the SKU, UPC, or model number of the product you’re looking for.

BrickSeek for consumers - using brickseek for specific search

BrickSeek also allows you to filter out products by zip code, so you get the deals closest to you.

Once you’ve entered the product information, click on the “Check Inventory” button. BrickSeek will then give you information on:

Local stores that have the product in stock.
Available prices and best deals on products.
Number of products in stock at each store.

Do note there may be some minor discrepancies in rare cases of miscounts or server lag after inventory has been updated.

2. Browsing for Products

Another way of using Brickseek is by simply browsing trending deals.

How Does BrickSeek for consumers Work - Browsing for Products

This function is particularly useful if you’re a small business that deals in retail arbitrage. You can use it to find products that are in the clearance section. BrickSeek allows you to search by trending deals (online and in-store) and by categories to make the search easier.

What Effect Do Tools Like BrickSeek Have on E-Commerce?

The world of e-commerce is rapidly evolving, all thanks to technological advances in the industry. There has never been a better time for entrepreneurs to start an e-commerce store as the setup has become easy and affordable.

However, one of the main challenges budding e-commerce store owners face is finding the right products to sell, at the right price.

That’s where tools like BrickSeek come in.

Whether you’re looking for stuff to sell on platforms like eBay, Amazon, or any other platform you use for e-commerce, tools like BrickSeek streamline the process of finding what to sell. You can easily compare prices without having to leave the comfort of your couch. As a result, you speed up the process and get the best deals. These are all benefits you can pass on to your customers, giving you a competitive edge.

However, tools like BrickSeek are a double-edged sword. While they help e-commerce store owners find and sell more products, they also help savvy shoppers cut out the middleman. A simple visit to the BrickSeek website is all it takes for consumers looking for a great deal in-store or online.

BrickSeek Features

BrickSeek started as a simple platform for finding Lego pieces. However, the platform has evolved into a powerful tool you can use to search through massive product inventories to find specific products, the best deals, and the local stores that stock them. To help you do that, BrickSeek has several nifty features. Here are some of the most prominent ones:

Inventory Checker

The inventory checker is by far the most used feature on the BrickSeek website.

As noted earlier, this allows you to browse through the inventory of the retail stores featured on the platform.

Recent Stock Changes

BrickSeek’s recent stock update feature shows inventory updates like availability and price. A significant advantage of this feature is it helps you compare prices in different stores and locations. If you’re a consumer, this enables you to get the best deals. If you use BrickSeek for business purposes, it helps you decide how to price the items you buy for resale.

Markdowns by Store

As the name suggests, this members-only feature shows you items that have been marked down in stores near you. The number of items displayed is dependent on your membership level.

Brickseek for consumers: markdown feature

When you access each store’s markdown deals page on BrickSeek, you’ll get information on each product that has been marked down. Apart from the product name and description, this information includes:

previous and newest detected prices
date and timestamp of the recent detection
the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP)
a stock status indicator

This information is essential in helping you know whether the product that’s been marked down is worth investing in.

Online Stock Alert

Is the product you’re looking for out of stock?

This is where the online stock alert feature comes in handy.

The online stock alert feature is reserved for users who have created an account with BrickSeek. This handy feature sends notifications when out-of-stock or hard-to-find items are available in a store near you. When a product you’re looking for is out of stock, BrickSeek will ask if you want to be alerted when the product is in stock.

For those in the retail arbitrage business, the online stock alert feature is a massive time-saver as you won’t have to hunt for a product physically. It also gives you an advantage over your competitors as you get notified first when popular and in-demand products arrive in stock.

With features like these, BrickSeek is definitely a tool you must include in your tool stack as an e-commerce store owner, especially if retail arbitrage is your primary business model.

Three Alternatives to BrickSeek You Must Know

As excellent a tool as BrickSeek may be, it’s always a good idea to look around for some alternatives. That’s why I want to make that search easier for you by highlighting some of the most popular BrickSeek alternatives.

Let’s get to them, shall we?

Dealspotr

Dealspotr is one of the most popular BrickSeek alternatives and has been around since 2015. Dealspotr is a platform that finds coupon codes, discount sales, and promotions run by e-commerce stores listed in their store directory.

Besides their software that scours for deals, Dealspotr also has a large community of users who edit and verify the deals posted on the platform. This helps ensure all coupons and deals are current and legitimate. Another reason Dealspotr is so popular with users is that it rewards them for posting legitimate deals.

Slickdeals

Another great BrickSeek alternative is Slickdeals.

Slickdeals is touted as the most trusted deals platform on the internet as real people source all deals. The community of deal seekers that power the platform is obsessed with uncovering the greatest deals and savings opportunities online.

What sets Slickdeals apart from other platforms is the vibrant community designed to make you feel like part of a tribe of like-minded people. Everyone on the platform can share, confirm, and comment on deals to make sure everyone benefits. You can also sign up to receive notifications of deals in your favorite categories.

PriceGrabber

Getting the best deals means finding the lowest-priced products. That’s exactly what PriceGrabber does.

PriceGrabber is a price-comparison site that allows you to compare prices on products in almost every category in retail. Whether you’re a merchant looking for inventory or a savvy shopper looking for a great deal, PriceGrabber is an excellent platform to turn to.

BrickSeek for Consumers Conclusion

With retail e-commerce sales at $4.9 billion last year alone, there’s no better time than now to hop on the e-commerce bandwagon. To catch up to players who have been in the game for long, you need an ace up your sleeve.

BrickSeek might just be that ace you need to make your first e-commerce sale and many more.

Leverage the platform to find the best deals around, and you’ll soon grow a thriving e-commerce business. BrickSeek will also help you personalize your inventory as you use it to find out what your customers are looking for.

Have you ever used BrickSeek or its alternatives in your e-commerce business?

How to Use Google’s Disavow Tool For Better Rankings

Recently, I had a friend ask me for help because her website rankings were tanking.

Always willing to lend a helping hand, I asked her what she had been doing to build links and improve SEO.

Everything she was doing checked out OK. So, I fired up Ahrefs and took a look at her backlink profile. That’s when I saw it.

Tons of spammy links were pointing to her site. These links were killing her rankings.

Then I took a look at her Google Webmaster Tools account and saw that she had a manual actions report stating that her website had been penalized for low-quality links.

Here’s an example from linkresearchtools.com that shows what that report looks like.

manual action unnatural links to your site message google disavow tool

I asked her if she tried using the disavow tool to remove these spammy links. She looked at me like a deer in headlights.

Here’s the deal:

It’s no secret that spammy links can penalize your site’s rankings.

Knowing how to build links is a cornerstone of SEO. But the flip side is knowing how to avoid having harmful links point to your site.

If you don’t know how to protect yourself from bad backlinks, you could be setting your site up for epic failure.

The good news is that you can audit your link profile and use Google’s disavow tool to prevent or reverse any penalties.

If you use it the wrong way, you can do more harm to your site than good. You’ll want to make sure you’re careful when using the tool.

This article will teach you how to use the tool well.

What is Google’s Disavow Tool and When Should You Use It?

Before we go into using the tool, let’s dive into the concept of disavowing links.

Good backlinks can raise your Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA) scores, increase your visibility in search engines, and help you rank better.

Bad backlinks do just the opposite. They harm your SEO and cause you to lose ranking.

With that said, you shouldn’t go disavowing links left and right.

When you disavow a link, you’re telling the search engines not to factor in a specific link when crawling your site.

There are a few categories of bad backlinks you might consider disavowing:

Sites set up just for links
Obviously spam sites
Links in spam comments
Backlinks from sites in your non-target country/countries (e.g., a backlink from a German site when your audience is in the U.S.)

If you don’t have control over the spammy links, use the disavow tool so Google disregards them.

Google’s Disavow Tool Warning

According to Google, using this tool the wrong way can have a negative effect on your rankings.

That sounds pretty intense, but don’t worry; Google just wants to make sure you’re not disavowing the wrong links. You should request removals first, and I’ll talk about that later.

Just make sure you use the tool when you have a lot of low-quality backlinks pointing to your site and when you’re sure they’re causing problems.

The good news is that if you use it the right way, you can improve your rankings.

Disavow Tool Best Practices

There are a few important rules of thumb you should follow when using the disavow tool.:

Try Removing Links Via Email First

Google prefers that you try removing links on your own before using the disavow tool.

You can do this with a link removal request.

A link removal request occurs when one site owner emails another to request the removal of a link.

Moz shows an example of a link removal request here.

Unfortunately, link-removal requests get a bad rap. Oftentimes they’re ignored, missed, malicious, and even spammy. There’s an art to sending successful link-removal requests.

Use It When You Need It

Matt Cutts (former head of Google’s Webspam team) gives the green light on using the disavow tool:

You may be worried about negative SEO or a bunch of spammy links pointing toward your site. In this case, it would be a good move to disavow. It’s OK to disavow links even if you don’t see a message in your webmaster console.

If your removal-request emails aren’t effective, feel free to use the disavow tool whenever you need.

Use It Like a Shotgun, Not a Rifle

Instead of picking out bad links one by one, you should instead use the domain operator to disavow all bad backlinks from a whole domain instead. This is also a faster method for improving rankings. It may take longer to see results if you handpick bad links one by one.

How to Use the Disavow Tool: A Step-by-Step Guide

Now it’s time to dive deep into how you can use the disavow tool — step by step

Create a List of Backlinks

There are lots of different tools that you can use to get a list of your backlinks.

These services often try to automate the auditing process. While it does save time, you won’t get as clean of a result as would if you manually reviewed each link.

To create your own backlink list manually, here’s what you do.

Download Your Links From All Sources

First, go to Google Webmaster tools. Click search traffic, and links to your site. Download both the latest links and sample links.

google webmaster tools links to your site disavow guide

If your site has a large number of domains linking to it (over 1,000), you can find more links by downloading the sample link list every day for a few days.

You can also download links from other sources:

Open Site Explorer: A great tool from Moz, one of the largest brands within the advanced SEO community.
Ahrefs: One of the most accurate and largest databases of live backlinks
Majestic SEO: Breaks down a lot of information into digestible, granular pieces. This tool is great at preventing overwhelm.
Ubersuggest: View your backlink profile, see content suggestions, and more.

Put Your Links into One Spreadsheet

Once you have gathered the spreadsheets from your sources, find the URL column of the sites that link to you and copy this column into a new spreadsheet. Feel free to use Google Docs or Excel — whichever you prefer.

Now you’ll have a master list of every link that leads to your site. You will see some duplicates, but don’t worry because we’ll fix that later.

Break the URLs into Subdomains

Make a new column that is to the immediate left of your URLs. At the top of the spreadsheet (A1), type this formula:

=left(B1,find(“/“,B1,9-1)

Now, highlight the entire column and hit CTRL+D on your keyboard. This will fill in each cell in the row with the formula.

Once that’s done, highlight the whole column again and convert the results of the formula into values. This will allow you to copy and paste data into the column.

Do this by hitting CTRL+C to copy, then press Edit, Paste Special, and Paste Values Only.

Next, let’s use the Find & Replace tool to break everything down to its subdomain.

With column A highlighted, click edit, then find and replace. Type “HTTP://“ (without quotes), don’t put anything in the replace field, and hit “Replace All.”

Repeat the same steps with these two phrases

https://
www. (Remember the period after www)

After you’re done, column A will now have the subdomains or domains of each URL that points back to your site.

Get Rid of Duplicate Links

You’ll likely have some domains with several links. What we want is to only have one link from each domain. Sort column A into alphabetic order and then insert a new column to the left of the domains. Put in this formula:

=if(B1=B2,”duplicate”,”unique”)

Copy this down the entire spreadsheet again (you can also click the little plus sign in the lower right-hand corner of a highlighted cell — also known as the “fill” button).

Next, filter this column to only show the duplicates. Finally, delete each duplicate URL.

Now you’ll have one URL for each domain that’s giving you a backlink.

Audit Your Backlinks

Now, click on each URL on your spreadsheet and decide if you want to keep all the links from each domain or disavow them.

audit backlinks example disavow tool guide

If you’re unsure, you can always mark links as “maybe” and come back to them later after you’ve looked at all your links.

Sometimes, you can pick up patterns after looking at all of your links that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

If you’re not sure whether or not you should disavow a link, think through these questions:

“Does this link help me?” i.e., “Could I actually get business and/or traffic from this link?”

“Was this link made 100% for SEO only?”

“If a Google employee saw this link, would I be worried?”

Remember that Google only penalizes sites that are trying to game the system. Every site has its share of unnatural links.

You’re not going to get hit with a penalty if you’re playing by the rules. So if you see some unnatural links, don’t sweat it.

Make a Disavow File

Once you’re done reviewing each link, filter the column so you only see the links that you want to disavow.

Next, make a new spreadsheet and copy and paste your domains into the new sheet.

Next, you want to add “domain:” (no quotation marks) in front of every domain name.

When you disavow on the domain level, you’re doing a clean sweep of all the bad links on that domain. When you disavow by URL, you’re more likely to miss bad links.

You’ll want to always disavow at the domain level.

Type the following formula into B1 to add “domain:” to the front of every domain name.

=“domain:”&A1

Use the fill button to paste the formula down the entire column. Once again, highlight the column and then select paste special, paste as values.

Now, column B will be full of disavow directives.

Make a Text File

Your disavow file must be in 7-bit ASCII or UTF-8 format. You can do this a couple different ways.

On a Mac, open TextEdit, copy and paste column B into TextEdit, and then hit Format and make plain text.

On Google Docs, open a Google Doc, copy column B into a document and then click File, Download As, and Plain text.

Add Comments

Feel free to add comments to your disavow file by starting your comment with a #. But remember, Google employees don’t look at your disavow file.

The disavow tool is 100% automated. Any comment you add is for your own records. You can insert them to jog your memory on certain things when revisiting the file in the future.

File Your Disavow

Go to the disavow tool and pick your file from the dropdown list. Click disavow links twice and then select “choose file”. Then you’ll want to upload the .txt file you made.

Here’s what a successful disavow looks like:

Top Disavow Tool Mistakes

You may run into errors when you attempt to disavow links.

Luckily, it’s very common for an error to pop up when disavowing links. In this video, Matt Cutts talks about common mistakes that people run into when using the disavow tool.

You should only upload a regular text file. No sorting, fonts, or syntax should be added to this file. People try to upload spreadsheets, Word docs, and other file formats. Only upload a text (TXT) file.

Start out by using the domain: command when disavowing links so that you disavow all links from the entire site. Many times, users will try to disavow specific URLs with a fine-tooth comb. Don’t do this.
Incorrect syntax is another issue that pops up a lot. Make sure you use a TXT file with the proper syntax.
If you want to provide commentary on why Google should disavow certain links, save that for the reconsideration request. Don’t write it in the text file.

When you comment using the disavow tool, make sure that you use tags. If you don’t, it will cause syntax errors. In fact, it’s best to limit your commenting.
The disavow tool is not a magic wand that will fix every URL. You should clean up your link profile manually in addition to using the tool.

Frequently-Asked Questions

Still got questions? Here’s a few of the most-asked questions

How Often Should I Use the Disavow Tool?

This all depends on your link profile. For example, if your site has a track record of unnatural links, you may need to do a monthly disavow.

In other cases, it’s best to do a link audit first and then a disavow.

By spacing out every disavow, you give yourself time to spot recurring problems and trends. This will help you make better decisions with your link-building strategies.

But if you have an average website that doesn’t have a history of low-quality links, and if you aren’t in a super competitive space where negative SEO isn’t much of a factor, you’re good with disavowing only once or twice per year.

When Should I Remove a Link Manually and When Should I Use the Disavow Tool?

Removing a link manually should always be your first option.

But, if you’re hit with an algorithm penalty, say from Penguin, there’s no need to go on a long, drawn-out process of emailing site owners to ask them to get rid of links.

In that case, you should disavow. But, if you’ve been hit with a manual penalty, you should definitely try to manually remove links first.

Can I Reavow a Link if I Make a Mistake?

To reavow, modify your disavow file by removing the directive and re-upload it. Matt Cutts has stated that it takes “a lot longer” to reavow a link than to disavow it.

Google purposely builds in this lag time to discourage spammers from trying to game the system.

How Long Will It Take to See Better Traffic and Rankings?

Google applies your disavow directives to your links as soon as it crawls your site.

After you’ve uploaded your directives, Google applies an invisible nofollow tag to the disavowed links that point to your site.

This means that those links will be thrown out of the equation when the Google algorithm considers your website.

You’ll need to wait until Google needs to run the algorithm again, so you won’t see changes right away. Most links only take a month to be removed.

Quick Guide to Using the Disavow Tool

The Disavow tool is a powerful tool to clean up your link profile. Here’s how to use it.

Download All Links From All Sources
Head to Google Analytics, Ubersuggest, and Ahrefs to view all your links.
Sort The Data
Pull all the lists together, then remove duplicates and sort.
Audit Your Backlinks
Check to see which links are problematic, remove the ones that are okay.
Attempt Manual Removal
Send emails to sites asking them to remove the links.
Create a Text File
Your disavow file must be in 7-bit ASCII or UTF-8 format. You can do this a couple different ways.
Add Comments
Use # to add comments or notes as needed.
Submit the File to Google
Send your file over and wait for Google’s decision.

Conclusion

Whether it’s from hiring a shady SEO agency or being the victim of negative SEO, you’ll need to disavow bad links before you get penalized.

However, be careful and don’t abuse the tool. Disavowing the wrong links can hurt your rankings the same way bad backlinks can.

If you carelessly disavow links, your backlink profile may look unnatural and can cause you to get penalized.

You must review individual backlinks before you submit your disavow file. There’s no getting around it.

When you get things right, though, and your traffic and SEO will improve.

The disavow tool is not the end-all-be-all magic button that will send tons of traffic your way.

However, it is a great SEO tool to have in your arsenal and one that every site owner should be familiar with.

What results have you experienced from using the disavow tool?

Get Your MBA in SEO with These 10 Guides, 5 Courses, and 1 Tool

Are you interested in using SEO to build your brand? Or do you want to use SEO to get more leads and sales?

Most importantly do you want to avoid the common mistakes that hold back rankings?

Well today, I thought I would do something a bit different.

I wanted to break down how you can get a crash course in SEO.

Best of all I wanted to do so without you having to spend a dollar.

Today we are going to examine 10 guides and 5 courses that you can rely on to improve your SEO knowledge. Although some guides and courses have a similar title and focus, the information and advice provided in each one are both unique and valuable.

Let’s get started!

10 SEO Guides

1. SEO Made Simple (A Step-by-Step Guide) – Are you new to the world of SEO? In this case, a beginner’s guide is exactly what you need (more of these to come).

This is why I wrote this guide:

It truly is for beginners, leaving advanced technical details out of the equation.
It’s broken down into easily digestible sections, with each one providing a primary focus.
It’s full of screenshots, videos, images, and infographics, all of which paint a clearer picture of what is needed to succeed.

2. SEO Periodic Table – This guide is a little bit different than most. It’s more in a visual format where it breaks down the elements of SEO.

It’s important to know each factor that can impact SEO because every little bit adds up.

Unlike other marketing channels, SEO is one where you have to do a lot of little things right to get traction.

3. Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide – If you could learn SEO from one person or company who would it be? Most people will overlook the obvious answer: Google.

Everybody wants to rank higher in Google. After all, it’s the search engine of choice for the majority of the world.

If you are new to SEO and you want to learn from the top dog, this starter guide will be your new best friend.

The primary benefit of this guide is that you don’t have to worry about whether or not the information is accurate. You know that every point of advice is spot on, being that it comes from the master of all search engines.

With 32 pages of advice, ranging from SEO basics to mobile optimization, there is a reason why so many new marketers keep this guide close by at all times.

Just because you are new to SEO does not mean that you can afford to make mistakes. Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide helps you get up and running in a fast, efficient, and effective manner, all while avoiding common mistakes that have plagued millions before you.

4. The Beginner’s Guide to SEO – Moz created one of the first guides ever on SEO. And they tend to update it every year as well.

There are 10 chapters that make up this in-depth guide, starting with “How Search Engines Operate” and leading to “Measuring and Tracking Success.”

In between, you will pick up advice on why search engine marketing is important to your business, how to build links without being penalized, and common myths and misconceptions about SEO.

You can read the guide online or download the PDF.

The Beginner’s Guide to SEO deserves to be read from start to finish. Even if you have some knowledge of SEO, this guide can help sharpen your skills.

5. The Blogger’s Guide to SEO – No two people share the exact same goals for their website. For example, a blogger may not take the same approach to SEO as an e-commerce store.

And with over a billion blogs on the Internet you should know SEO when it comes to blogging specifically.

SEOBook goes above and beyond in providing information solely for bloggers.

Make sure you also read the section on “Why Blogs Are Different Than Static Websites.”

You may already know the difference, but those who are new to this may be confused. Here is an excerpt from the section, showing the targeted yet simplified nature of the guide:

SEO for a blog is different than SEO for most other websites, largely because of the social elements baked into blogging technology. SEO for blogs is more focused on giving people something to talk about and creating something worthy of attention.

As a blogger interested in SEO, you want to rely on advice that most closely matches your wants, needs, and goals. This is why this guide from SEOBook is a must-read. It’s meant to give your blog’s SEO a shot in the arm.

6. Everything You Need to Know About SEO – You won’t be an SEO beginner forever. When you are ready for the next step, this advanced SEO guide is a good place to start.

Here is how I describe the guide:

The Most Extensive and Detailed Guide of Advanced SEO Techniques That Exists Today.

Every guide on this list is solid. Every guide should be read, when you have time because the information is presented in a unique manner.

But when it comes to the most in-depth and actionable information on advanced SEO techniques, I think this guide takes the cake.

It’s not so much about the length (nine chapters), as it’s about the depth and use of examples. Here is what I mean:

The guide doesn’t just tell you to create an SEO-friendly title. It doesn’t just tell you how long your title should be. It gives you actionable advice on how to make changes for the better. On top of that, the screenshots give you a “visual” on exactly how you can make this happen.

There is a lot to learn when you get into the advanced details of SEO. This guide makes sure that you don’t overlook something that could make or break your rankings.

7. The Complete List of Google’s 200 Ranking Factors – I mentioned above how in SEO you have to do every little thing to get rankings.

It isn’t enough to just build links.

It isn’t enough to just writing amazing content.

It isn’t enough to just optimize your meta tags.

See, everyone is doing the main aspects of SEO. But what most site’s aren’t doing is every little thing correctly.

Now just imagine if you did every little thing correctly? Your rankings would be much higher.

I recommend that you go through each of the 200 ranking factors.

8. The Ultimate Guide to Ecommerce SEO – ecommerce sites are very different than traditional sites.

The pages you want ranking high on Google typically are listing pages or product pages. Because these are the type of pages that will drive you sales.

What’s unique about this guide is it teaches you everything you need to know about SEO for ecommerce sites. Because link building, content creation, schema markup, and even optimizing for load time are all different on ecommerce sites.

Also it works for all platforms. It doesn’t matter if you use Shopify or Bigcommece or even Wix, it works for all of them.

9. 19 Advanced SEO Techniques to Double Your Search Traffic – As I’ve mentioned above a few times, every little thing adds up with SEO, especially because it is so competitive now.

Just doing the basics isn’t enough. You have to go well above and beyond your competition.

That’s why I would read this guide that breaks down 19 advanced tactics.

Each of those tactics are very effective in increase your SEO traffic, but before you implement them you’ll want to consider doing the basics.

Because without doing the basics, the advanced tactics won’t have much use.

For example, if your URLs aren’t SEO friendly, which is a beginner’s tactic, Google may not be able to crawl your site. So no matter what advance strategy you use, it wouldn’t have much of an effect.

10. Link Building Resources That Work – links are the cornerstone of SEO. Think of them as votes.

The more votes someone gets, the higher they will rank.

But not all votes (links) are equal. Ones from authoritative sites like CNN or Yahoo have more effect. And the more related a link is to your site, the better off you are.

So how do you get links when you have little to no resources or money to spend on a big SEO firm?

Well, this guide breaks it down. It goes over all the different ways you can build links.

From creating free tools, to writing guides, to even doing manual outreach… There are many possibilities and you’ll be able to learn them all from this guide.

5 SEO Courses

1. SEO Unlocked – This is a 7-week course on SEO. But don’t be scared, by the 7-week number, each video is short and actionable.

You’ll find a total of 21 videos broken down over 7 weeks. Each video ranges in length from 5 to 15 minutes.

And accompanied with each video is cheatsheets, worksheets, and templates to make SEO easier to implement.

That way after you learn a specific SEO tactic or strategy, you’ll be given documentation on how you can use it and implement it.

2. Ecommerce SEO 101 Video Series – Here’s an SEO course from the largest ecommerce platform, Shopify.

This isn’t a course for just someone with a general interest in SEO. It’s a course for online store owners who want to improve rankings as a means of driving traffic to increase revenue and profit.

There are seven videos in the course, all of which are free to watch. Some of my favorites include:

Why is Your Store Not on Google?
How Does Google Rank Your Ecommerce Store?
Keyword Research: Which Search Phrases Should You Rank For?

The videos aren’t so long that you get bored, but they are long enough to provide an inside look at the subject matter.

Online store owners understand that the difference between success and failure can rest solely on their ability to generate organic traffic. If you want to improve this area of your e-commerce business, the Shopify video series is a good jumping-off point.

3. SEO Training Course by Moz – Moz once again finds itself on the list, this time with a training course offered through the Udemy platform.

This free training course teaches the tips and tricks that you need to implement a successful SEO strategy.

Think of this course as an extension of the company’s beginner’s guide to SEO. With five lectures and more than one hour of video content, you’ll leave the course feeling better about how to rank your website.

The titles of the lectures are as follows:

Building a Monthly SEO Action Plan
5 Ways to Use Your Social Profiles for SEO
Keyword Targeting gets Tough!
Link Building with Twitter
Mapping Keywords to Content

This course is designed for marketers of all levels, so take the time to sign up and dive in. It’s free, so you really have nothing to lose.

4. Free Download: On-Page SEO Template – It’s hard to categorize this as a traditional course, but it definitely fits the mold in some ways.

The On-Page SEO Template is available for free from HubSpot. It was designed with the purpose of helping marketers track on-page SEO elements.

With the template, you will have an easier time:

Tracking changes in one place.
Organizing your on-page SEO strategy.
Implementing SEO elements that drive results.
Coordinating keywords and pages without confusion.

As a free download, you should at least see if this template from HubSpot can provide you with any SEO value. You will probably find that it’s good to keep nearby as you make on-page changes.

5. Local SEO Unlocked – If you are a local business this course is perfect for you. It breaks down local SEO down into 2 weeks.

The course contains 6 videos as well as worksheets, cheatsheets and templates so you can implement what you have learned.

And similar to SEO Unlocked, each video is short and to the point.

Here’s an overview on what you’ll learn:

Overview – an overview of local SEO.
Local SEO signals – what impacts local rankings.
Google My Business – how to use it to rank higher on Google.
Content – how you can create local content that ranks.
On and Off-Page SEO – the main elements of SEO that you need to optimize for.
Secret Recipe – the key ingredient to ranking well on Google.

SEO Tools

There are a lot of SEO tools out there that can help with improve your rankings.

I maybe a bit biased because I created it, but I would start off with Ubersuggest.

The reason I would recommend it over other SEO tools because you can get started for free.

From rank tracking, to site audits to link building, to keyword research… you can do all the aspects of SEO for free.

Here’s a preview of the Ubersuggest site audit report.

I recommend that you get started with Ubersuggest by first running a site audit. Just put in your URL here.

And after that I recommend that you create a project so you can track your SEO progress. This will allow you to track your rankings and be notified when something good or bad happens with your SEO or even when your competition does something new.

If you want to get the most out of Ubersuggest you should read this guide.

Conclusion

Even if you don’t have the time to go through everything, just pick one or two courses or guides to start off with.

Something is better than nothing. And you don’t have to do everything in a day as that would be unrealistic.

If I were you, I would start off by creating an Ubersuggest project and then go over the SEO Unlocked training course.

From there you can go over the other courses and guides in any order. But that is where I would start.

There are also a lot of paid options on the web, but I would start with the free options above as it will give you enough to start getting results.

What are your thoughts on these guides and courses?

Ubersuggest 8.0: The Ultimate Competitor Analysis Tool

You may have noticed some small changes to Ubersuggest recently, but now it is time for another major release.

In the last few months, you have seen the application get faster, we are slowly (but surely) working on increasing data quality, and we have even made multiple updates to our Chrome Extension.

But today, we are announcing a new feature that will make finding lucrative keywords even easier.

So, what is it?

It’s a competitor analysis report!

An easier way to find keywords

I want you to head to Ubersuggest and type in the name of one of your competitors.

Ideally, you’ll add a popular one. The more popular the competitor the more keywords it will show you.

If you don’t know of a competitor, just perform a Google search for any keyword that you are trying to rank for and grab the top site.

Or you could just use “neilpatel.com” to see how it works.

At this point, you should see a report that looks something like this.

I want you to go to the sidebar and click on “competitors.”

From there you should see a report that looks something like this.

The top part of the report shows your main competitors in a graph.

You can easily see who is getting more traffic (keep in mind subdomains are counted as separate sites).

And, if you want, you can click on the “more domains” drop-down and unselect some of the competitors or even add more that may not be listed.

As you scroll down you’ll also see a long table.

In the table, you’ll see the competitor domain, the number of common keywords you rank for, keyword gaps (the keywords they rank for that you don’t rank for – this is your main opportunity), their estimated traffic, and the number of backlinks that you have.

So, let’s dive into the keywords.

Common keywords and keywords gap

Within the table you can drill down on the common keywords. All you have to do is click the “view all” button under that table column and you’ll see something like this.

It breaks down the common keywords that both you and your competition are ranking for.

This is useful because it shows you which keywords you are focusing on that they may also be focusing on.

When drilling down on this table, pay attention to volume, position, estimated visits, and CPC.

Volume tells you how many times a keyword is searched.
Position tells you where your competition is ranking on Google.
Estimated visits breaks down roughly how much traffic they get from that keyword.
CPC tells you how expensive a keyword is if you had to pay for it through advertising.

Generally, you want to make sure you rank higher than your competition for keywords with high volume and high CPC. Ideally, they need both. That way you know a keyword can not only drive traffic but also sales.

And my favorite part about this report is the keywords gap. This shows you the keywords that your competition ranks for that you don’t.

To see those keywords, you just have to click on “view all” and you’ll see a list.

Again, you’ll want to pay attention to the same metrics and you’ll want to look for keywords that have a high volume and high CPC.

It means those keywords drive traffic and typically drive conversions as well.

I highly recommend that you go through all of the keywords that each of your competitors rank for that you don’t.

Within the table just keep clicking the “next 10” button to keep seeing more keywords.

Or you can just click “export to CSV” if you want to download all of the keywords.

Now head to Ubersuggest and give it a try to find more keyword opportunities.

So, what’s next?

Well, hopefully you’ll start using the Competitors report because it will give you more keywords.

But over the next few months you’ll see some big changes that will make all of the reports more useful.

More accurate data – from traffic estimations to keyword volume, you’ll start seeing better estimations that are much closer to people’s actual traffic. Our new estimation formulas take much more data into account, so we are able to come up with better data for you.
More link data – over the next few months you’ll see a much more robust link dataset as we are working to expand our database. It will be much more comparable to competing products and the link data will be indexed much faster. So, when you build new links or lose new links, we will pick it up faster.
More accurate metrics – from domain authority to keyword difficulty scores, the data will also be more accurate on that end so you can make better-informed decisions.
Better filtering of keywords – within Ubersuggest and even other SEO tools, sometimes you see keyword recommendations that don’t make sense. We have new logic that is coming out soon that will remove most of these irrelevant keywords so you can focus your efforts going after terms that don’t just drive more traffic, but they also drive sales.

Conclusion

You’ll see big improvements in the accuracy of our data by the end of the year if not in January, worst-case scenario.

We are already starting to slowly roll out the changes over the next few weeks and it will continue until the end of January.

And after that we even have a few cool new features coming out that you haven’t seen on any competing tools yet, which will help you get more SEO traffic faster. 😉

So, what are you waiting for? Go give Ubersuggest a try.

What do you think about the new feature?

The post Ubersuggest 8.0: The Ultimate Competitor Analysis Tool appeared first on Neil Patel.

Ubersuggest Chrome Extension: The Ultimate Link Build Tool

Over the next few months, you are going to see a lot of updates in Ubersuggest, including new features.

But before I dive into what I’m going to release soon, let’s first talk about the new Chrome extension.

If you haven’t installed it, make sure you go and do so now…

No more Neil’s face

The biggest complaint we got about the extension was “my face” being in the search results.

You know, that speech bubble that looked something like this…

So, I removed it.

I know you don’t like it based on the reviews, so I tried to leave it in as long as possible because it’s branding.

Indirectly it keeps me and my agency top of mine so hopefully, it would eventually drive business.

Link building

You may have noticed that there is a little “U” symbol within your browser bar once you install the extension.

If you don’t see it, just click on the extension icon…

And then click pin next to Ubersuggest…

Now whenever you visit a site (other than Google) you can click on the “U” to see data.

But what’s new is we have added link data. So when you click on “Backlinks” you’ll see link data on any given site.

You can see the domain score (our version of authority), the number of backlinks, referring domains and organic monthly traffic a website receives.

You’ll even see a chart of link growth (or decline) over time.

And as you scroll down you’ll even see more metrics…

The chart above breaks down how many new and lost links you are getting on a daily basis.

And beneath that you’ll see a list of links pointing to any given site. You can then search for a specific link using the search box or you can use the filtering options.

Keyword gaps

I know that I mentioned a while ago that I am releasing a feature that show competitive domains and gives you an overview of the keywords your competition ranks for that you don’t.

That way you can find more opportunities to go after if you want more traffic.

That’s still coming out soon. We are roughly a month or so away from releasing it. 🙂

But that’s not all

The biggest thing my team and I have been working on is data quality.

From fresher link index to even a bigger link index.

Or when you put in a URL it would be great to have even more accurate traffic estimations.

By the end of the year you’ll see drastic improvement in this. It’s our biggest focus.

And then comes a faster application

The last thing on our roadmap this year is speed improvement.

We have so much data in Ubersuggest that sometimes reports take longer to load than you would like.

We have been refactoring our code, which should fix this soon. So now reports will load faster, which is really important if you use Ubersuggest on a mobile device.

Conclusion

I hope you try out the new Ubersuggest extension. It’s easy to use and it offers more free data than any other Chrome extension.

In addition to the link feature, there will also be some other Chrome extension features that we are adding soon, but I have to save something as a surprise. 😉

Plus, there will also be a few other features that you’ll also see in the Ubersuggest app that is coming out this year that I didn’t mention above either.

So, what else would you like to see in Ubersuggest?

The post Ubersuggest Chrome Extension: The Ultimate Link Build Tool appeared first on Neil Patel.

Ubersuggest Chrome Extension 2.0: The Ultimate Keyword Research Tool

Please note: Once you install the extension, all you have to do is go to Google and perform a search. That is where you’ll see data.

I promised that I would release a new version of the Ubersuggest Chrome Extension today, and now it’s out.

You can go here to install it.

If you are wondering what’s new… well, let’s just say the changes have made keyword research much better and a lot easier. And on top of that, later in this post, I’ll even give you a sneak peek at the new changes that we are making to the extension that will be released within 30 days.

So, what’s new?

Who says keyword research should be limited to Google?

What most people don’t know is that YouTube is the second most popular search engine and has been exploding.

On top of that, Amazon is the largest e-commerce site in the world and SEOs are doing Amazon SEO and Amazon ads… so why not have access to keyword research there, too?

Now, when you go to YouTube and perform a search you’ll see data on suggested keywords as you perform a search.

And if you want more details on any given keyword you searched for, just click “view all” next to the search bar and you’ll see something like this:

It breaks down search volume over the last 12 months as well as shows you if a keyword has any seasonal trends.

You can also see how competitive a keyword is to rank for, its cost per click data, how many people even click on any of the listings, and even the age range of the people who search for that term.

Also, what’s interesting is that you can see data on whether a keyword is searched more on mobile or desktop devices and the breakdown. This is important because mobile searches tend to not convert as well… so ideally you want to go after keywords that have more desktop searches when possible.

Now on the right side of any YouTube search listings page, you will also see more keyword suggestions.

It’s pretty similar to what the extension already shows on Google… this is more so our version for YouTube.

But with Amazon, we didn’t want to impact your user experience too much, so we decided to provide keyword data in the most unobtrusive way possible…

Anytime you perform a search on Amazon, you’ll see keyword data on the suggestions.

So now anytime you want to do keyword research for social media or e-commerce, you can easily do so with the Ubersuggest Chrome extension.

But wait, there is more…

There is also one other important change made to the extension that you may have already noticed if you use Google on a regular basis.

When you search on Google, there is now traffic estimations under each URL.

This traffic estimation is for organic search traffic and it is done on a domain level. Eventually, we will tweak it to be page-based and even show you the other keywords each page ranks for… but for now, we are providing you with organic traffic estimates for each domain.

And if you are more of a visual person, in the right-hand sidebar you can also see the traffic estimation for any result in the top 10.

So if you want to know traffic data in addition to keyword suggestions when you perform a Google search, make sure you install the Ubersuggest Chrome Extension.

But the best is still to come…

My goal is to make major releases to Ubersuggest every month if possible… every other month if all doesn’t go as planned.

The next big one is introducing competitor analysis features within the extension.

Right now if you click on the “Ubersuggest” logo within your Chrome browser you see something like this:

Now, that’s not really useful.

So, within the next 30 days when you click on the “Ubersuggest” logo within Chrome, I am thinking of showing something like this:

For any domain you’ll be able to see the following metrics:

Domain metrics – you’ll see a quick overview of each domain. From the number of organic keywords a site ranks for to their estimated organic traffic, domain score, and even number of backlinks.
Historical traffic – you’ll see an organic traffic chart of the last 6 months to any given site.
Top pages by country – want to know the most popular pages on your competitor’s site? This table will show you just that.
Top keywords by country – you’ll also be able to see the most popular keywords that drive traffic to that site.

Conclusion

If you already have the Ubersuggest Chrome extension installed, you may need to reinstall it because we now show you data on YouTube and Amazon. That means you’ll have to grant Ubersuggest permission to show you data on those two sites.

If you don’t have the extension installed, you can do so by going here.

Let me know what you think about the new extension, the upcoming releases, and if you want me to add any other features. 🙂

The post Ubersuggest Chrome Extension 2.0: The Ultimate Keyword Research Tool appeared first on Neil Patel.

The SEO Tool Kit: 11 Tools That’ll Save You Time

When I first got into the world of SEO, you could literally optimize your site for any term and rank at the top of Google within a month or two.

But of course, that was ages ago.

Now with Google’s ever-evolving algorithm, it takes more time and effort to get results.

But what happens if you don’t have the luxury of time? Or you don’t have the financial resources to put in the effort that is truly needed.

What should you do?

Just forget about SEO?

Of course not. Today, I want to call out 11 tools that will help you get an edge over your competition. But unlike most lists, I am going to get very specific on the feature I want you to use within each tool to make your life easier and help you get results faster with less effort.

Let’s dive right in.

Tool #1: Ubersuggest Projects

You probably already know about Ubersuggest, but do you really have time to spend hours and hours each week to do your SEO?

Chances are you don’t.

So how do you improve your traffic with the least amount of effort?

You set up a project in Ubersuggest.

As you can see, it shows your SEO traffic over time. It will let you know if your rankings are going up or down, your link growth, and your SEO issues.

With so many things going on in marketing, you don’t have time to manually check your rankings or if things are going up or down or even what you need to fix.

Ubersuggest will do it for you all automatically and even notify you of what needs to happen through email. That way you don’t have to constantly check your SEO. Ubersuggest will do it all automatically.

More so, you’ll get notified of what you need to focus on each week to maximize your traffic.

All you have do is head to the dashboard and click on “Add Your First Project.”

It’s as simple as adding in your URL.

Then select the locations you do business in and want traffic from.

Then add in the keywords you currently rank for or want to go after.

And of course, set up your traffic preferences.

And then you’ll be good to go.

Then when things go great, you’ll be notified. And when things are going wrong, you’ll also be notified. Ubersuggest will even tell you what to fix.

That way you get the maximum results in the least amount of time.

Tool #2: Google Analytics Alerts

You have Google Analytics set up on your site, but how often do you log in?

And when you do log in, do you know what to focus on or what to look at?

And if you do, do you know what to do with that data?

Google Analytics is a great tool, but you don’t want to waste hours and hours looking at reports. Instead, you want to spend your time doing and getting results.

But if you set up alerts in Google Analytics, you can save tons of time.

If you watch from the 6:33 mark, it will show you how to set up alerts. I added the whole video as it will teach you how to set up Google Analytics in general in case you don’t have goal tracking set in place.

Once you set up alerts, you’ll again get notified when anything good or bad happens. I usually have alerts set up for only when things go bad, so I know when I need to focus on fixing my marketing.

Tool #3: Trello

You’re probably thinking how the heck is Trello a marketing tool. It really isn’t, but it is a good project management tool.

And with your SEO, you may have a team helping you out and Trello will help streamline the process, make you more efficient, and get your results faster.

I keep my Trello board simple by breaking it into 3 sections.

To do – what needs to be done over time.
Prioritized – what I need to be done now (tasks at the top are the most important)
Done – tasks that need to be double-checked to ensure they were done right.

It’s that simple. That way you don’t have to micromanage your team.

Some people have more complex Trello boards, but something simple like I have works too.

If you want to create a Trello board for your content marketing, assuming you want to write lots of content (such as 10 posts a week), this process works well.

The columns I use for content writers are:

Topics – this is where writers add topics they want to write about.
Outline review – writers submit their outline before they write for approval.
Draft – writers submit their rough draft.
Draft review – editors review each draft.
Uploaded, prepared, and ready to review – this is where the editor adds the post to your CMS (like WordPress).
Scheduled – this is where you schedule the content to go live.
Done – the content is now live.

We’ve found it effective if you are managing dozens of writers at once.

Tool #4: Content Decay Tool

Can you guess how many articles I write each week?

Seriously, that’s it. 1 article a week which is roughly 4 to 5 per month (depending on how many weeks in the month).

And can you guess how many articles my team and I update each week?

21.

That’s roughly 90 a month.

Just think about it… why would I have a team of 3 people updating 90 articles per month when I only write 1 a week.

It’s because updating old content is an easier way to get more SEO traffic than it is to create new content.

But what content should you update?

The content decay tool will tell you that.

It breaks down in order which articles you should update first, second, third… based on what will generate you the most traffic.

If you are wondering what is involved with updating content, just think of it this way:

Is there anything outdated within your post – if so, either update the outdated information and make it relevant again. If you can’t, then delete that part from your article.
Can you use media to improve the experience – do you need to embed videos, add more pictures, maybe even add an infographic? Use media to better tell your story and message.
Are you including the right keywords – a simple way to get more traffic is to integrate other popular related keywords within your article. Whatever your article is about, insert it into Ubersuggest and head to the “Keyword Ideas” report in the left-hand navigation.
Is there anything missing – try to poke holes within your content. What could you have done to make it better? What do your competitors talk about that you forgot to mention? What questions didn’t you answer that the reader might have? By asking yourself these simple questions, you’ll be able to make it better.

Tool #5: Ubersuggest Chrome Extension

If you haven’t installed the Ubersuggest Chrome extension, make sure you do so.

I’m not going to bore you with all of the features of the extension… instead, I am going to give you one thing that will save you time.

You know when you Google for information to learn more on any subject?

Chances are, sometimes you are Googling to learn something related to your space. And when you do, you’ll find that your site usually won’t be at the top of those search results.

And that’s ok.

But when you do a search, you’ll notice “monthly searches” in the Google search bar.

This shows you how often that keyword is searched.

So anytime you are looking up anything in your space, pay attention to that number. If you see a keyword with over 5,000 searches, it may be worth targeting.

And as you scroll down and start going through the sites that rank at the top, you’ll notice metrics under each site.

If you notice a web page with thousands of social shares and hundreds of links, it should reaffirm that you probably want to go after that term. And the listing that has thousands of social shares and hundreds of links is a good benchmark of a page that is high in quality and what people in your space prefer.

Ideally, you want to create something better than that one, as that is the main way you beat them over time.

Tool #6: Hello Bar

SEO is very different than paid traffic.

With paid traffic, you can drive people to a landing page with very little content, which makes it easier to generate sales or leads.

With SEO, Google prefers to rank content-rich sites.

But when someone lands on a page full of educational-based content, they are less likely to convert into a customer.

There’s a simple fix… Hello Bar.

Hello Bar has a lot of features, but I just want you to use the top bar like I do on NeilPatel.com.

And as you scroll it moves along with you.

That one little thing allows me to improve my conversion rate from my SEO traffic.

You can easily adjust what you show with a few simple clicks within Hello Bar or you can even show people different messages based on where they are coming from.

Although SEO traffic doesn’t convert as well as paid traffic, it is much cheaper in the long run and does have a better overall ROI. And that one little Hello Bar will improve your numbers.

It’s responsible for 9.4% of revenue from NeilPatel.com.

Every little bit adds up.

Tool #7: Mozcast

Google makes over 3,200 algorithm changes a year.

Are you really going to keep up to date with all of them?

If you followed the first tool and set up a project in Ubersuggest, you’ll get notified when your rankings go down.

And if you set up alerts in Google Analytics (tool number 2) you’ll also get notified when your traffic drops drastically.

What you’ll find is that it’s overwhelming to keep up with all of Google’s updates and it could be confusing to figure out what you need to fix to get your traffic back.

This report on Moz keeps track of all of the algorithm updates and gives you an overview of what has changed or what the update is about. On top of that, you’ll want to check out the Mozcast if you get a notification of ranking or traffic drops as this tool confirms if other people are also seeing changes from a Google update.

Keep in mind that Google doesn’t announce each update, hence you’ll want to cross-reference what you are seeing with the Mozcast.

That way you don’t have to spend hours researching each update.

Tool #8: Detailed

Link building is a pain. There are so many link tools like this one… but let’s not kid ourselves… you just don’t have the time to spend 10 to 20 hours a week doing link building.

So, each minute you spend, you have to make sure it counts.

There’s a tool called Detailed that breaks down the best links for every industry.

All you have to do is select an industry and a site and it shows you all of the good links that are going to your competition.

You can then focus your efforts on reaching out to those sites to get links.

Sure, you will still need to have amazing content or a good product or service in order to convince those sites to link to you, but hey, if you don’t have any of that it’s going to be hard to do well in the first place.

So, don’t waste your time trying to search for links when Detailed will give you a list of hundreds of amazing sites to get links from within your space.

Tool #9: Site Speed Audit

Speed impacts rankings.

Google doesn’t want to rank slow websites anymore.

It doesn’t matter that technology has become better and you can now purchase satellite Internet. Not every location has blazing fast Internet.

For that reason, Google has an Accelerated Mobile Pages framework that helps with mobile load time.

But that’s not enough, you also need your website to load fast.

So, go here and put in your URL.

You’ll then be taken to a report that looks like this:

What you’ll want to focus on is site speed. That Ubersuggest report pulls from Google Lighthouse.

So, send that to your developer and tell them to get you in the green mark for both mobile and desktop load times.

As your speed goes up, so will your SEO rankings and traffic over time.

Tool #10: Supermetrics

Are you tired of having your data everywhere?

Why would you want to log into four of five different apps to get your SEO and marketing data when you could log into one.

And no, I am not talking about Google Analytics. I am talking about Google Data Studio.

If you haven’t used it yet, sign up for it… it’s free.

Google Data Studio is a business intelligence tool that will show you all of your data in one place.

So how do you get all of your SEO data into Google Data Studio? You use Supermetrics.

It passes all of your SEO data from different sources into Data Studio, so you no longer have to log into multiple tools, including Google Analytics.

My favorite feature in Supermetrics is you can automate your marketing reporting, so you no longer have to create your reports manually.

Tool #11: VidIQ

Google is the most popular search engine.

But do you know what the second most popular search engine is?

It’s not Bing… it’s actually YouTube, which Google actually owns.

If you haven’t done YouTube SEO yet, you should reconsider. Just look at how much search traffic I get from YouTube each month.

This article will break down how to do YouTube SEO if you want to learn how it works.

But to make things easier, install this Chrome extension.

Whenever you perform a search on YouTube it will show you what’s popular, what keywords are being searched that are related to each video, and which tags people are using to get more SEO traffic.

I wanted to end this post with VidIQ because it’s not competitive.

See, unlike traditional SEO, it doesn’t take months to see results. YouTube SEO is the opposite in which it isn’t as competitive (yet) and you can rank at the top within 24 to 48 hours of releasing a video (seriously!).

Conclusion

They say SEO is hard and time-consuming. And I am not going to lie, you won’t get results unless you put in some effort.

But who says it has to be as time-consuming?

By using some of the tools I mentioned above you’ll save time. It really is that simple.

I know there is a lot and it can be overwhelming. So if you don’t have time to use all of the tools it is fine… just start at the top and work your way down (I put them in order based on what will save you the most time).

What other ways do you save time on your SEO?

The post The SEO Tool Kit: 11 Tools That’ll Save You Time appeared first on Neil Patel.

Ubersuggest 7.0: The Ultimate Keyword Research Tool

Believe it or not, I’ve been working on Ubersuggest for
almost 3 years now.

I bought it on February 13, 2017, for $120,000 dollars as a test to see if I could get more traffic from a tool than traditional content marketing or SEO.

Since then the tool has come a long way, in which I’ve added tons of features that competitors charge $100 a month or even more for.

But I’ve finally got Ubersuggest to a point where I can start releasing features that my competition don’t even have.

So before, you head on over to Ubersuggest to work on your SEO,
make sure you read everything below because I’ve just changed up how you are
going do keyword research (in a good way).

On top of that, I’ve also released a few other features as well related to link data and traffic estimations.

Here’s what’s new:

More keyword data

The biggest problem I had with keyword research was how to find the right keyword.

Sure, there are metrics like CPC data, SEO difficulty, or even search volume, but assuming you find keywords with a high CPC, low SEO difficulty, and high search volume, it still doesn’t mean it is a good keyword to go after.

And there are a few reasons why…

Mobile searches aren’t worth as much – first off, if the keyword mainly gets searched from on mobile devices the conversion rate will be lower. It doesn’t mean mobile traffic is useless, it just typically means the keyword won’t be as valuable.
High search volume doesn’t guarantee lots of organic clicks – what happens if the keyword gets a ton of searches but no clicks? This sounds crazy, but it actually happens a lot. For example, when people search for “weather” in the United States, roughly 60% of the people don’t click any results.
Not all searchers are worth the same – some keywords get searched heavily by teenagers. Some keywords get searched heavily by people who are in their 30s or 40s. If the majority of the searches for a given keyword happen by a really young audience, chances are they won’t have a credit card and they won’t convert into a customer.

Because of all of this, I decided to change how the industry
does keyword research.

Now when you type in a keyword like “marketing” into
Ubersuggest, you’ll see this:

If you have been using Ubersuggest for the last year or so you may notice some differences… but if you haven’t let me break down what’s new.

First off, for any given keyword you will see what percentage of the searches are taking place from mobile devices or desktop devices.

For example, with the term “marketing” you can see that the majority of the searches are coming from desktop devices.

On the flip side, if you use Ubersuggest to look at the term “weather” you’ll notice that the majority of the searches happen on mobile devices.

And with any given keyword you can also see what percentage of the people even click on the SEO or paid results.

I love this bar chart because it tells me if I should even go after a specific keyword. Just because a term has tons of searches doesn’t mean you are going to get tons of clicks, even if you rank at the number 1 spot.

If you leverage paid ads, this bar chart is also helpful because it will give you a sense of how many people click on the paid ads as well.

Another chart that I’ve added is one that breaks down the age range of each searcher.

As you can see from the above image, Ubersuggest now shows what percentage of the searches take place between each age range.

This is really important if you know the persona of your ideal customer, as you only want to target keywords that your ideal buyer is searching for.

What’s also cool is this data is available for all countries
within Ubersuggest and for almost all of the keywords within our database.

Now before you head off to Ubersuggest and test it out, there are a few more features that I’ve just released.

More backlink data

Over the last few months, I’ve gotten feedback that our link database isn’t as big as you would like, so we have been working on fixing this.

First off, whenever you do a backlink search in Ubersuggest, you’ll start seeing stats on historical backlink data.

This chart will quickly show you if a site is growing in
backlink and referring domain count over time or if they are declining.

On top of that, we are even showing the daily new and lost link count for a given site.

I know the new and lost link count chart looks a bit off,
but keep in mind we started having Ubersuggest crawl more pages around the web
faster and more frequently. Hence you are seeing a big spike in new and lost
links.

But over the next 4 weeks, it should normalize, and you’ll see an accurate representation of new and lost links.

This will help you identify new link opportunities more
easily. Especially because you can now clearly see where your competitors are
focusing their link building efforts.

Better traffic estimations

Lastly in Ubersuggest, you can also enter in a URL and get data on any given domain.

From its estimated monthly search traffic to the number of keywords a domain ranks for to even its top pages based on link and traffic count.

We haven’t fully finished creating our new algorithm when it comes to traffic estimations, but the chart you’ll see now is much more accurate than the older one.

Even though this is a big improvement from our older charts, give it another 3 months and it should be extremely accurate.

When you are using the traffic analyzer report in Ubersuggest, keep in mind that this will give you a directional guide on how you are doing versus your competition.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoy the new changes to Ubersuggest.

I’ve made them in order to give you a leg up on your competition as the data in the tool is now something that most of you have never seen before.

And over the next two months, you’ll see some big launches in Ubersuggest. From a chrome extension to even more accurate traffic estimations to even an Alert system that will notify you when things are wrong with your site.

So, go to Ubersuggest and try out the new keyword features as well as traffic estimation and backlink features.

What do you think about the
new features?

The post Ubersuggest 7.0: The Ultimate Keyword Research Tool appeared first on Neil Patel.

Ubersuggest 7.0: The Ultimate Keyword Research Tool

Believe it or not, I’ve been working on Ubersuggest for almost 3 years now. I bought it on February 13, 2017, for $120,000 dollars as a test to see if I could get more traffic from a tool than traditional content marketing or SEO. Since then the tool has come a long way, in which …

Ubersuggest 4.0: The Ultimate Content Marketing Tool

Why do you do keyword research?

It’s to find more lucrative keywords to rank for on Google, right?

But once you find these keywords, you still have to figure out how to rank for them.

For that reason, I decided to update Ubersuggest because I wanted to show you what kind of content to create and even how to promote it.

That way you can start ranking for these newly found keywords.

Here’s what’s new…

Content ideas

The way you rank for a keyword is by creating content around it. I know content isn’t king anymore and that’s because there are over 1 billion blogs on the web. That means Google can be really picky about what they decide to rank.

So now, not only do you need to write amazing content, but you also have to promote it if you want to do well.

To help you with this I created a Content Ideas report in Ubersuggest. So whenever you do keyword research, you’ll see an overview that looks like this:

Just like before, you’ll see a graph at the top with the search volume over time, some keyword recommendations and, at the very bottom, a list of blog posts that performed exceptionally well for that keyword.

When you click on “content ideas” in the navigational menu or you click on “view all content ideas,” you’ll then be taken to a page that looks something like this:

This page shows you all of the popular blog posts that have been written related to the keyword or phrase you searched.

The list is ordered by social shares, so the posts with the highest social shares are at the top. At the bottom, you can keep clicking to see more results. Even if your screen only shows 1 or 2 pages, just keep clicking next and you’ll start to see results for pages 3, 4, 5, etc.

We only show you 20 results per page, but each key phrase will typically have hundreds, if not thousands, of results as our database has over 500,000,000 blog posts from around the world.

And because there are so many results, we’ve also created an easy to use filtering system so you can fine-tune your search by including certain keywords or excluding other ones and even putting minimum and maximum thresholds on social shares.

My favorite part about the content ideas report

I know you can do similar things with Buzzsumo and other tools, but this is why I created the Content Ideas report.

As I mentioned earlier, content isn’t king. You not only have to write amazing content (that’s why I sort the content by social shares as more shares typically mean people love it), but you also have to promote it.

You’ll notice that there are two other columns in this report that make the tool unique… one is “Estimated Visits” and the other is “Backlinks”.

Estimated visits will show you how many visits the blog post generated from Google each month. Just click on “Keywords” and it will even show you the keywords that drive those visits and the position the article ranks for each of those terms.

Backlinks, on the other hand, are all of the referring domains that point to each article. So if 12 unique domains link to that blog post, then you’ll see the number “12” in that column. All you have to do is click on “links” and you’ll see the full list of backlinks.

Not only do I provide a thorough list of backlinks, but I also show you the overall page score, domain score, anchor text, and even the type of link.

The reasons I made the Content Ideas report like this are:

By creating content similar to posts that have a lot of social shares, it increases the chances that the content you are writing is going to do well as people have already shown interest in that topic and even shared it on the social web.
By showing you the keywords a blog post ranks for, you’ll know what keywords to focus on when writing the content. This way your post can rank as well.
By showing you who links to your competition, you can now hit up everyone who links to competing articles and ask them to link to your piece of content.

Less fluff and more data

In addition to the Content Ideas report, you’ll now find that Ubersuggest provides you with more data and less fluff when you perform a keyword query.

For example, if you search for the term “dog food,” it will tell you that the average result that ranks in the top 10 has 72 backlinks and a domain score of 82.

This way, if you want to rank for that term or any other term, you’ll have a rough idea of what you need from an authority and backlink standpoint to achieve a spot on page one.

Conclusion

If you are going to create content or write a blog post, you should check out the Content Ideas report each time before you write.

The last thing you want to do is create content that people don’t care about reading. And this report will give you good feedback so that way you aren’t wasting your time creating content that doesn’t generate social shares, backlinks, or rankings.

You’ll also notice that some posts do extremely well from a social sharing standpoint but terrible from a backlink and a search traffic perspective.

Social shares will bring you more short-term traffic and search engines bring you less traffic upfront, but more consistent traffic over time.

This report will help you find a balance so that you can get both short-term traffic and consistent traffic over the long-haul.

So, head on over and try the new Content Ideas report.

What do you think about the content ideas report?

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