Social media is often your customer’s top choice to try and solve any issues they are experiencing with your site or your product. This brings up a few challenges for big and small businesses: Customers tend to expect answers right away Your leads may give up on your brand if they find your social media… Read more »
Who says you have to spend money to get more traffic?
For today’s blog post, I thought it would be fun to break down all of the free SEO tools. Sure you may know of some, like Ubersuggest, but there are many more options than just my own tool.
Now before I dive into the tools, I’ve broken them down into
the following categories:
Keyword Research
Content Marketing
Rank Tracking
Link Building
Technical SEO
So, are you ready to dive in? Let’s get started!
Keyword Research
All of the tools in this category will help you find more
keywords. Many of them have different ways of coming up with keyword
suggestions, so you may want to check them all out.
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest
has many different keyword research options. First of all, it shows you how
many searches a keyword has had over the last 12 months so you can see if there
is any seasonality.
In addition to that, it pulls keywords from a few different sources such as Google Suggest and its own database, it shows you all of the keywords your competition ranks for, and it provides keyword suggestions based on questions, comparisons, and prepositions.
My favorite feature of Ubersuggest’s keyword research capabilities is that it not only can you see how competitive a term is, but it also tells you how many links the average ranking website contains.
That way you know how many links you need to build to rank
well.
What’s also unique about Ubersuggest is that it provides
local keyword suggestions. This is great if you are trying to do local SEO.
Answer The Public
Answer The Public
leverages Google Suggest to find all of the questions people may have related
to any industry or keyword.
Just type in a keyword and it will give you a laundry list
of questions people are searching for related to that keyword.
Similar to Ubersuggest it also shows you comparison and
preposition related keywords.
What I like about the tool is compared to any competing tool, it represents the data in nice visuals.
KeywordTool.io
SEO doesn’t just exist on Google. You can also rank higher on Amazon, YouTube, Bing, and tons of other sites.
KeywordTool.io uses
the same concept of Google Suggest, but for a handful of sites like Amazon,
Play Store, and YouTube.
If you are performing SEO on sites other than Google, you
should check out KeywordTool.io.
FAQfox
FAQfox is a neat little tool that finds you questions people want to be answered based on any specific site you want information from.
For example, you can type in the word “cat” and quora.com as the URL and it will show you category based questions people are asking on Quora.
You can do this for Reddit or any other site you want
keyword ideas from.
Google Keyword Planner
Of course, the search giant, Google, has its own keyword
research tool.
You’ll also notice that a lot of other keyword tools have CPC data, but chances are they are pulling it from Google Keyword Planner.
When you are using Keyword Planner, look for terms with a high CPC as they tend to convert well when you rank for them organically.
Google Trends
Out of all the tools on the list, I probably use Google Trends 3 to 4 times a week. That’s
how much I love it.
What I love about Trends is that it shows you what is hot right now. In addition to that, it tells you if an industry is getting less search volume or more over time.
You can also filter your data based on a specific country or
you can look at the data from a global perspective.
Soovle
Soovle takes the concept of Google Suggest (autocomplete) but for a lot of the popular sites around the web.
Soovle pulls all of the popular keywords on Google, YouTube, Amazon, Wikipedia, Bing, Yahoo, and Answers.com.
You enter in a handful of terms you want to target and it will combine them to make different variations for you.
Not all of the keywords will be popular when it comes to search volume, but it will give you a sense of how you can go after long-tail variations within your site.
Keyworddit
Reddit has a ton of categories (subreddits) and Keyworddit helps you find all of the keywords within that subreddit.
What’s neat is it even breaks down the volume for each of
those keywords. That way you can quickly see if any are worth going after.
Generally speaking, you’ll want to use tools like this as it
will give you a new perspective on keyword research.
Pulling results from Google is something that all SEOs already do. Because of that, you need to use other sources if you want to get a leg up on your competition.
Bulk Keyword Generator
The Bulk
Keyword Generator by Higher Visibility does keyword research a bit
differently than most of the keyword tools out there.
First, you pick a business category. Then you select the type of business you have and enter in any locations you are targeting.
You’ll then be given a list of keywords that you can
potentially target.
What I like about this tool is that it makes things super
simple, especially if you are new to SEO.
WordTracker Scout
WordTracker
Scout is a browser extension that gives you a list of keyword ideas from
any web page.
Just browse any site or check out your competition, click a button and boom, you are given ideas on keywords that other people are using.
It breaks the keywords down by relevance and volume.
SearchVolume.io
When you are doing keyword research, how do you know a keyword is getting enough searches?
SearchVolume.io lets you bulk upload up to 800 keywords and it tells you how popular each keyword is.
The tool also works for a handful of other regions, such as Brazil, France, and Italy.
Google Location Changer
Serps has a neat tool that works well if you are doing
international SEO.
Their Google Location Changer
allows you to search Google in any country or city. Just type in a keyword and
you’ll see who ranks.
Using this tool in combination with WordTracker Scout can
give you unique keyword suggestions.
Content Marketing
Content is the one thing we all have to create if we want more search traffic.
Here are free content marketing tools that can help you get
the most out of your search traffic.
Animalz Revive
Have you noticed that your rankings decrease over time?
It’s not just because of Google algorithm updates. In most
cases, your old content won’t perform as well because it’s old.
Animalz Revive shows you which content pieces are dying over time.
That way you know what to focus on. Just look at the ones that have declined the most and then spruce them up so you can get more rankings.
What’s cool about this tool is it will save you a lot of
time. For example, my team updates 90 pieces of content a month. The last thing
you want to do is waste a ton of time on content that never had much traffic.
Google Search Console
Most people use Google Search Console to see which keywords are driving them traffic.
My favorite way of using Search Console is to see which one of my blog posts are getting a lot of search impressions but have less than a 4% click-through rate.
I then go in and modify each of those pages to include the right keywords in my meta tags. Then I look to see which keywords I am ranking for but not really targeting yet, and then either create new content around those terms or modify existing content to also target them.
Content Ideas
Ubersuggest
has a feature similar to Buzzsumo but it is 100% free. It’s called Content
Ideas.
All you have to do is enter in a keyword or phrase and it
will show you all of the popular blog posts that contain that term.
The blog posts are then sorted by social shares, backlinks,
and search traffic.
This helps you create content around topics people want to
read, which means more traffic.
Hreflang Tag Generator
One of my biggest traffic gains has come from translating my
content.
A lot of people ask me if they would be penalized from duplicating
and translation their content.
This tool creates tags for you to place in your HTML code so
Google knows you are targeting specific languages and countries with certain content
pages.
Portent Title Generator
For every 10 people that see your headline, only 2 on average will continue to read your content.
In other words, content marketing is all about the headline.
It may not sound important to you, but if your titles look off, people may not click through from SERP results to read your content, which can decrease your rankings over time.
Which do you think Google prefers? Ranking a blog post that reads well or one that contains a lot of spelling and grammar errors?
Grammarly helps you avoid spelling mistakes. This is really important if you want to rank on Google.
Google SERP Tool
Have you noticed that some listings on Google get cut off because the title is too long?
A big misconception is Google uses character counts for meta tags. In reality, they count pixels.
Google
SERP Tool will tell you how many pixels your meta tags contain and if they
will get cut off by Google.
It also shows you a preview of what your web pages will look
like on Google.
Rank Tracking
Google Analytics is a great tool to show you your overall
traffic, but it doesn’t tell you where you rank.
If you want to track your rankings, you’ll need to use some
tools.
Google Search Console
I know I mentioned this tool above, but Google Search Console is the most unique rank tracking tool out there.
Because this tool is from Google, they can tell you your
average ranking for any one of your pages per country.
And because the data comes from them, they average it out to give you accurate information.
You can also go back 16 months and see how your rankings
have changed over time.
Ubersuggest
Again, I know I also mentioned Ubersuggest above, but it now has a free rank tracking feature.
It provides the same features as those paid rank trackers. You can track your rankings daily for any keyword or groups of keywords for any country, city, or county.
It also saves your data for you so you can go back as far as
you want to see if your rankings have been increasing or decreasing.
Search Latte
If you want to track your rankings manually, you can do so with Search Latte.
Just put in a keyword and select the language and country so you can see all of the sites that rank in the top 100.
You can then manually find your site and keep track to see
if you are improving or declining.
You may want to use Search Latte in combination with Excel as you can create a daily log of your rankings.
Link Building
You used to have to pay for tools if you wanted link data,
but that’s not the case anymore. Here are the free link tools you can use.
MozBar
This is probably my favorite link tool that I use.
Even though Google doesn’t use domain authority, in general, the higher the authority of a site that is linking to you, the better off you are.
MozBar
shows you the domain authority and page authority of every page on the web.
If you are going to build links, focus on the sites with the highest authority.
SEOgadget for Excel
If you are like me, you probably love using Excel when you
are building links.
SEOgadget
for Excel makes it really easy to pull in data from Majestic and Moz.
If you haven’t tried this yet, you should consider it. It
will make it easier for you to find new insights and run your own calculations.
Backlinks
Backlinks is
a free tool that shows you all of your backlinks. There are no limits in row
count or anything like that… you can just see everyone who links to you.
You can see if any of your links are dofollow or nofollow as
well as the anchor text.
You can filter the results to find backlink opportunities when researching competitors and you have the option to look up link data on a domain, subdomain, or a specific URL.
It will also show when a link was first found and last
crawled and the authority of each link.
Bulk Metrics Checker
Tired of looking up the domain and page authority manually
on each of your pages or sites?
Just upload a list of URLs and within seconds you’ll have a
list of your page authority per URL. You can also do the same for domains and
upload dozens of domains at once.
Technical SEO
SEO has changed. You no longer can do just a few things and expect your site to rank well. You have to do everything if you expect to beat your competition.
And when I mean everything, that includes technical SEO.
SEO Analyzer
If you haven’t already, try running your URL through my SEO Analyzer.
It will tell you what’s wrong with each of your web pages.
From duplicate meta tags and redirect errors to sitemaps and much more… it pretty much looks at every major factor when it comes to SEO.
It will even tell you your overall site speed and what you need to fix in which order to get the maximum results.
And if you register for a free account, it automatically checks for errors each week on your behalf.
Google Analytics Referrer Spam Killer
When you are doing SEO, there is a good chance that your Google Analytics gets messed up by referral spam.
Google
Analytics Referrer Spam Killer solves that problem by connecting with your
Google Analytics account and blocking off the most common referral spam.
Once you connect it, you’ll find that your data is much more
accurate so you can make better SEO decisions.
Pagespeed Insights
Speed is everything. The faster your site loads the better
you will rank, especially when it comes to Google’s mobile index.
Pagespeed Insights
tells you what you need to fix for your site to load fast on any device.
It doesn’t matter if you are optimizing for tablet devices, desktop, or mobile… it will tell you what to fix.
Pingdom
Fixing your code is one thing, but you’ll also want to make
sure your site loads fast overall.
Your overall load time is affected by things like your
server and CDN.
In a nice graph, it shows your traffic over time and tells you if a Google update has caused your traffic to go up or down.
Structured Data Markup Helper
A simple way to increase your search traffic is to use
schema markup.
But there is one big issue, schema markup is a bit complicated to implement. Because of that, Google created a Structured Data Markup Helper to guide you.
All you have to do is select what kind of markup you want to use, type in your URL, and go through the walkthrough wizard.
And at the end, you’ll be given code that you just paste within HTML.
Woorank
Looking for a simple SEO analysis? Woorank shows you a simple report of what’s
wrong with your web page.
All you have to do is type in your domain and within a minute you’ll see a thorough report of what you need to fix.
What I love about Woorank is that it is a great tool for beginners because of their easy-to-use interface.
SEOptimer
Just like Woorank, SEOptimer is a simple tool that gives you a technical overview of your on-page SEO as well as your content.
It breaks down things like page speed as well in addition to showing you how your website loads for both desktop and mobile devices.
You can even see social sharing data.
Varvy
Varvy provides a detailed
technical checklist of all things related to your SEO.
From your Robots.txt file and your sitemap to security settings and even your links, it covers all the bases.
If you don’t have a technical background, Varvy might be a bit complex unless you take the time to read each of their articles that outline what each tip/recommendation means.
301 Redirect Code Generator
When you are doing SEO long enough, eventually you find
yourself changing your older URLs.
But if you don’t add a 301 redirect, you’ll lose your rankings.
Content strategy can be defined as managing all tangible media that you create and therefore own, including written, visual, downloadable, etc. assets. This segment of a marketing plan is continuously demonstrating who you are and what expertise you are bringing into the industry. There is no niche where content marketing wouldn’t work. It all comes… Read more »
A Comprehensive Guide for How to Get Loans for Women to Start Business
Research shows that forty percent of brand-new business owners in the United States are ladies. Furthermore, the variety of businesses owned by women is growing at twice the rate of those possessed by males, according to Kauffman. You may assume this indicates that there are more loans for women to start business. That isn’t the situation however.
As a matter of fact, according to research done by Fundera, 3 out of 4 female local business owners do not even apply for company financing. Those that do are requesting much less than their male counterparts.
Are There Business Loans Just for Women?
Not really. There are not a lot of specific business loans for women to start business. There are, however, a ton of resources to help women find loans. Organizations exists that work toward helping women business owners access all their resources and find the funding they need. Also, some loans work better for women business owners than others, and these organizations can help you find the best ones for you.
According to a survey by the Reserve bank, women owned businesses have better chances of getting funding at smaller banks. As a matter of fact, 67% of loans for women to start business are authorized at smaller financial institutions. This compares to only 50% at large banks. Those that have loans with smaller banks are generally more satisfied with the service they receive.
What’s that mean? It’s probably best for female local business owners to stick to smaller, community banks. There are other options though.
Hit the jackpot with our best webinar and its trustworthy list of seven vendors who can help you build business credit.
Pack Your Tool Bag
The key is to have a stock of tools you can use to help you find loans for women to start business. These are sources and resources that every small company proprietor needs in their arsenal to enhance their chances of funding approval, especially women. Some are even designed specifically to help women, though not all offer funding. Those that do not, however, definitely know how to help you find and get the funding your need.
The Everyday Essential: Small Business Administration
While the SBA exists for all small company owners, their Office of Women’s Business Ownership exists to help women local business owner particularly. According to SBA.gov, The Office of Women’s Business Ownership’s is here to enable and empower business owners that are women via advocacy, outreach, and education as well as assistance.
They work with firms to make sure the best resources are available to women business owners at all stages. Whether starting a business, looking for a company financing, enhancing a currently developed business, or trying to find government agreements, their mission is to support the female company owner. If that’s you, go here first.
National Female’s Service Council
The NWBC is a federal advising council. It works as a resource of guidance to the government on women’s organization problems. The objective is to encourage campaigns, programs, and policies to sustain females in service at all phases, from startup to growth, and hopefully to expansion and sustainability.
Other Tools to Consider
Along with those firms listed above, these agencies provide support to women owned businesses.
The AWBC runs a network of business centers geared toward women. These centers labor to help women succeed by offering training, business development, financing, and mentoring opportunities.
With more than 300 chapters and 10,000 volunteers, this is the country’s largest network of expert business mentors that volunteer their time. They match female business owners with mentors, or they can participate in a workshop to help them learn what they need to know to be successful.
Hit the jackpot with our best webinar and its trustworthy list of seven vendors who can help you build business credit.
But What About the Loans for Women to Start Business?
Most females carry a bag of some sort, and women business owners need a bag of tricks and tools to help them get the funding they need. It’s not all black and white, and if the statistics listed earlier are any indication, it isn’t always fair either. At some point, all businesses need financing, and these tools are designed to help level the playing field with it comes to getting loans for women to start business.
Make use of these resources for assistance and education, and get prepared for what the lenders will want to see.
What Other Tricks Do You Need in Your Bag to Get a Business Loan?
Now, as for traditional business finance, the best thing to do is be prepared. A lot of loan providers need to see the following:
– Company financial statements or income tax return for the past 3 years.
– Personal Income tax return for the past 3 years.
– A professional business strategy.
– They will certainly run a credit history check, and though 680 is standard, minimal credit rating varies by lender.
– Various other info at the discretion of the lender.
– Constantly ask about the application process on the front end so you can have any type of extra documents prepared.
The more of this you have prepped to go, the faster and smoother the process should run. This info is typical of what a standard loan provider may ask for. There are non-traditional lenders that may call for more, or less, info. You would certainly be hard pushed to find a typical lender that does not need a personal credit history check, but there are other choices.
The Secret Weapon: Business Credit
Business credit is a vital secret weapon to have in your bag of tools. There are choices for funding that count on your business credit rating as opposed to your individual credit score. What is a business credit score? It is like your personal credit, except it is based only on the credit history of your company. It is not influenced by your individual credit report. Also, your personal history is not impacted by anything that is reporting on your business credit history.
This is beneficial for a few reasons. First, you can access funding for your business despite an inadequate credit rating. That one is obvious. What some do not recognize is, even if you pay on time, utilizing your personal credit history for company purchases can be detrimental.
That is because organization transactions are, naturally, big. Individual credit limits are typically much lower than company credit limits. Due to this, business transactions can max out individual credit scores rapidly. Consistently bringing the balances close to your credit limits negatively impacts your debt- to- credit ratio. That, in turn, lowers your credit score even if you are making consistent, on-time payments.
How to Get Business Credit: The Secret to the Weapon
Business credit opens doors to various other choices if the conventional route isn’t working out for some reason. If you have a good company credit report, your business is fundable.
The very first step in developing a business credit report is to ensure your company is recognizable as an entity separate from yourself. It needs to stand on its very own. You have to incorporate instead of operating as a sole proprietorship or partnership. You can organize as an s-corp, LLC, or corporation. They each have their own advantages and costs, but for the purposes of establishing business credit, they work similarly.
Next, you will need to take a few other actions to lay the structure for a business credit rating.
– Obtain a separate company address and also telephone number. Ensure the contact number is via a toll-free exchange, and list both in the directories under the business name.
– Get an EIN. This is a number that identifies your business so you do not need to connect it with your Social Security Number. Obtain one completely free at IRS.gov.
– Get a DUNS number from Dun & Bradstreet. It’s cost-free on their web site, but beware. They will attempt to offer you a bunch of things you do not require. Put on your blinders and power through. All you need is the free number.
– Open a specialized company checking account. Take care to run all organization transactions through this account.
– Set up a professional web site and also committed business e-mail address. The email address needs to have the same URL as the website, and it must not be from a cost-free e-mail service. Gmail and Yahoo will not work right here.
Forging the Weapon
Once you have the foundation for a business credit report, you can begin forging your business credit score. This is performed in layers, or tiers. For example, the initial tier is the vendor credit tier. This is the beginning point because these vendors will extend net 30 terms without a credit score. Then, they will report your payments to the business credit reporting agencies. This is exactly how you start to construct a company credit score without involving your personal credit. By applying with your EIN as opposed to your social security number, you keep your personal name out of the formula entirely.
How do you find these starter vendors? There are loads of vendors that will work with you in this tier. A few of the easiest to get started with are here. They each offer products that pretty much any business can use on a regular basis, so it’s simple to open an account and begin doing business with them.
After you have 5 or so accounts reporting from the vendor credit tier, you can apply for business credit cards from the retail credit tier. These are store cards from retailers such as Best Buy, Amazon, and Office Depot.
Get 10 or more of these reporting and you can apply to cards in the fleet credit tier. Cards from companies like Fuelman and Shell are in this tier. They can be used for automobile maintenance and gasoline purchases.
After that comes the cash credit tier. Once you have enough accounts reporting on time payments from these three tiers, you can apply for general business cards from companies like MasterCard, Visa, and American Express. At this point, your business credit is pretty well established, and it is not attached to your personal credit in any way.
Wielding the Weapon
So, say you have used every tool in your box and you still come up short. What then? That’s when you whip out this secret weapon you forged known as business credit. If you have followed the steps properly and worked through all the tiers, you have business credit cards you can use to fund your business. You also now have other options.
You can use that business credit to help improve terms and interest rates on traditional loans. They may still look at business credit, but stellar business credit can only help, not hurt, when it comes to loans for women to start business.
Hit the jackpot with our best webinar and its trustworthy list of seven vendors who can help you build business credit.
In addition, a strong business credit score can help you out when it comes to loans from non-traditional lenders. They can help you with approval and improve your terms and rates. Sometimes alternative lenders will even accept a business score in place of a personal credit score.
Wield Your Weapon Wisely
Even though loans for women to start business specifically are not really a thing, there are options to make the process easier women. A lot of resources are available to help women business owners be successful and find the funding they need. In addition, the challenges female business owners face can be mitigated by solid preparation and education.
Having a strong business credit score is important too. This will open up a world of funding options that would not be available otherwise. Business credit cards and products from non-traditional lenders are a valid option if you find yourself facing issues. Do not be afraid to jump into the fire and forge that business credit weapon. Once you have it, do not be afraid to use it. Not only can it tear down your funding foes, but it can also serve as a key to open the doors to the kingdom.
I am a huge believer in blogging and genuinely feel that one of the best possible ways to create a social community is by setting up your own blog. Blogging is a great way to get your name out there and to begin building yourself up as an authority. But how to find your own… Read more »
Content marketing is not just the most effective forms of online promotion that you can take part in, it’s the foundation of pretty much any other form of digital marketing. It remains stable over time, can be timely or evergreen, is easy to entice traffic with, and is perfect for boosting your SEO. What… Read more »
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