Best Online SEO Tools for Links, Keywords and Rank Tracking

Best Online SEO Tools for Links, Keywords and Rank Tracking

We’re always on the lookout for great tools and with a $5 billion industry, SEO is one market that has a ton of tools to help you. Whether you’re researching you or your competitors’ backlinks, trying to identify keywords and cocurrence terms, or simply trying to monitor how your site is ranking, here are the most popular SEO tools and platforms on the market.

Some key features of search engine optimization platforms

• Monitoring Keyword Rankings – the ability to enter keywords and then monitor their ranking over time is a core feature of most of the platforms. Given that search results are mostly personalized, this ability is largely used for overall trending analysis to see whether the efforts you’re making are improving your ranking on keywords or not.
• Local Keyword Rank Monitoring – since the location of the search user and your business can play a huge role, many of the keyword monitoring platforms provide a means to track your ranking by geographic location.
• Keyword Discovery – while many of the monitoring platforms provide you with accurate rankings, they don’t allow you to discover what keywords you might be ranking on that you’re unaware of.
• Backlinks Analysis – if your site is linked to on sites with poor search engine authority, you can have a terrible time ranking. Being able to analyze the volume and quality of the links that are pointing to your domains is imperative for advanced troubleshooting of ranking issues and competitive analysis.
• Keyword Research – understanding keyword related to the products and services you provide is critical to your content marketing efforts. Keyword research tools often offer co-occurrence keywords, question-related keyword combinations, long-tail keyword combinations and the competitiveness of the keyword (so you don’t waste your time trying to rank on terms you don’t stand a chance gaining traction on.
• Scraping & Internal Analysis – Tools that analyze your site hierarchy, page construction, page speed, and other associated issues are fantastic for correcting issues that might be less obvious but that could be causing you a great deal of problems when ranking.
• Social Influence – It’s only natural that the attention you attract across social media is a great indicator of the authority you’ve built with search engines. Newer SEO platforms are providing insight into the correlation between search and social and it’s paying off!
• Data Mining – Strangely missing from many of these platforms is the ability to tag, categorize, aggregate, data mine and develop reports across very large sets of keywords. For that reason, DK New Media built it’s own SEO platform for large publishers. Let us know if you’re interested!

Ahrefs Site Explorer – The largest and the freshest index of live links. Index is updated every 15 min.

AuthorityLabs – Track website rankings in Google, Yahoo!, and Bing daily. Our automated SERP tracking saves you time and helps you respond quickly to ranking changes.

Bing Webmaster Tools – improve your site’s performance in search. Get access to free reports, tools and resources.

BrightEdge SEO is the first SEO platform to deliver proven ROI – enabling marketers to increase revenue from organic search in a measurable and predictable way.

Cognitive SEO Unique SEO features that will boost your link analysis and link building results.

Colibri gives you insight into how to get more traffic and customers from SEO.

Conductor Searchlight is the most widely used SEO platform – empowering enterprise marketers to take control of their search performance.

Cuutio Inbound Marketing Platform – Know your exact positions and competitive situation on Google, keep track of the results of
search engine optimization and analyze the overall performance of your important keywords

Ginzametrics makes enterprise SEO simple and is the only platform to help marketers effectively monetize traffic from organic search.

Google Webmaster Tools – provides you with detailed reports about your pages’ visibility on Google.

gShift’s SEO software system centralizes your clients’ SEO data (rank, backlinks, social signals, competitive intelligence, Google Analytics and keyword research) and provides automated, scheduled, white-labeled SEO reports leaving more time for your services team to implement the SEO tasks that will improve your clients’ web presence.

Majestic SEO – Link intelligence tools for SEO and Internet PR and Marketing. Site Explorer shows inbound link and site summary data.

Meta Forensics – Meta Forensics is a website architecture, internal link analysis and SEO tool that helps identify unseen website problems that may be affecting your visitors, search engine crawlers and ultimately, hampering your site.

Monitor Backlinks – Keep all of your link data under one roof with our management tools.

mySEOTool – SEO Software Used by Thousands of Web Designers, SEO Consultants & Agencies to manage their SEO clients.

Ontolo – Our Link Building Toolset has become one of the most-often recommended internet marketing and link building tools by the top SEO and link building experts for it’s automation and link prospecting abilities.

Posirank – Our wholesale platform not only centralizes every imaginable SEO service into a single dashboard – it also supports total automation.

Positionly is powerful, user-friendly tools that make improving your website an enjoyable experience. Monitor daily changes, measure SEO performance, and improve search engine rankings with simplicity.

Pro Rank Tracker – Get the most up to date, easy to analyse ranking information on all your websites, so you can stay one step ahead of the competition and maximize your profits.

RankAbove’s Drive SEO Platform and business intelligence software enables you to dig deeper into SEO information already at your fingertips.

Rankinity – Check your website positions and analyze your competitors in popular search engines in real-time.

RankSonic – Track daily changes in your rankings, get advanced site analytics, spy on your competitors and improve your search engine rankings.

RankRanger – daily reports and insight into your website traffic and marketing achievements.

RankScanner – Monitor your keywords’ positions on Google with a free account.

RankWatch – Rank analysis, backlink watch, keyword suggestions, white labeling, reporting and website analyzer.

Raven has 30+ tools to help you get results in all of these online marketing tasks.

Rio SEO is the best SEO platform to deliver global search success across Organic, Local Search, Mobile and Social Media for Top Brands & Agencies.

SE Ranking – a universal search engine monitoring system offering both hosted and self-hosted solutions.

SE-Intel is the world’s first SEO platform specifically designed with internet marketers in Asia in mind, complete with a full set of features that meet the needs of the vastly different search environment in Asia.

Searchmetrics – Our search and social analytics software Searchmetrics Suite with data-based analysis and intelligent solutions enables marketers and SEOs to monitor and optimize national or international SEO actions and thus increase market share, revenue and profits.

The Search Monitor – Unlimited reporting on all competitors and affiliates listed within universal search results on your keywords.

SEMrush is created by SEO/SEM professionals for SEO/SEM professionals. We have the knowledge, expertise, and data to help you take your projects to the next level. We collect massive amounts of SERP data for more than 95 million keywords and 45 million domains.

SEO Rank Monitor – Boost your rankings, Track your competitors, and monitor SEO performance with the most comprehensive rank tracking in the industry.

SEO Scheduler – Affordable small business SEO software for budget conscious website owners.

seoClarity is the first and only Enterprise SEO Platform that provides you complete visibility into ALL of your SEO efforts

SERPS.com – Improve your SEO results. See how your SEO is working with this beautiful dashboard. No code to install. Fast 5-minute setup. Keyword rankings updated daily.

SERP Scan – tracks your website’s search engine position for the keywords that matter to you.

SERPWoo – Monitor ALL Top 20+ Results For Your Keywords and get alerts when competitors increase their backlinks, social signals, rankings, and more.

sg.SerpStat Keyword Suggestion Tool — popular keywords and their various forms used by people who are looking for interesting products, services or information.

Simple Rank – Discover where your keywords are positioned on Google and Bing. We make it easy to check your Search Engine Rank Position in a glance and see whats improving and what needs work.

SpyFu exposes the search marketing secret formula of your most successful competitors. Search for any domain and see every place they’ve shown up on Google: every keyword they’ve bought on Adwords, every organic rank, and every ad variation in the last 6 years.

SyCara’s SEO Platform provides users with industry-leading workflow management, local search rankings, social media reporting, and SEO analysis.

UpCity – Let UpCity help your small business get free traffic from search engines, social media and local directories.

WebMeUp SEO tools combine the convenience of online SEO software with the data-richness only desktop apps could provide.

WooRank is a dynamic grade on a 100-point scale that represents your internet marketing effectiveness at a given time. (The average score is 50.) The WooRank is based on a website review of 70 factors ranging from keywords to usability and social monitoring. Far more than a number, the WooRank review provides you with valuable insights and tips to help you take the online world by storm.

Wordtracker offers Keyword Research tools for SEO and PPC, Rank Tracking and Site Analysis tools.

Note: We don't have affiliate accounts with any of these platforms.

Free Tools For SavVy Internet Marketer

If you’re an Internet Marketer and love the World Wide Web; you’re going to LOVE this list of free Internet marketing tools for your various needs. The list is based on cloud tools offers free or freemium services. I'm not going to brief description but a small overview for every tool that can help you know, what is & how thus tools work.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the most popular free analytics platform available online. You can access analytics through your Google account(if you have one already) or you can open Google account by any of your existing email accounts. Once you create an account, you are asked to insert a few lines of JavaScript on your site. After that code is in place, you’ll be able to start monitoring your site’s traffic through the Google Analytics interface. If you already use Google webmaster tools for your website, Google Analytics will then be able to display some data from your webmaster tools in some analytics reports.

Currently, the interface is divided into 5 main sections: Audience (Detailed information about the people visiting your site), Advertising (information about your site’s advertising campaigns), Traffic Sources (information about where your site’s traffic is originating from), Content (information about your site’s most popular pages), and Conversions (information about your site’s goal completions and sales conversions).

Google Webmaster Tools

Google is the most popular search engine in the world, and as a result, Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) is one of the most useful free SEO tools available because it gives you direct access to some of Google’s information about your site.

GWT presents information in 5 categories: Configuration (allows you to configure your GWT account), Health (displays crawling errors or malware found on your site), Traffic (shows search queries, backlinks, and +1s for your site), Optimization (helps you improve your site’s content and indexing), and Labs (experimental features).

Bing Webmaster Tools

Bing isn’t as popular as Google, but Bing Webmaster Tools (BWT) is still an extremely valuable tool because it allows you to view your site through the eyes of yet another search engine.
BWT displays information in 5 main sections: Dashboard (shows traffic, index, and crawl summaries), Crawl (displays crawled pages and errors), Index (presents indexed pages and backlinks), Traffic (identifies traffic sources and CTRs), and Keywords (Bing’s keyword research tool).
 

Google PageSpeed

Google PageSpeed is a free online tool (plugins are also available) that tests a URL’s load performance. You enter a URL, and then, the tool presents a list of performance-based suggestions (e.g., optimize images, minify JavaScript, etc.), which are categorized into high, medium, and low priority items.

Pingdom Full Page Test

Pingdom offers a free online tool that analyzes a URL’s load time. You simply enter a URL, and the tool displays a summary of the page’s load time, size, and a number of corresponding HTTP requests.
Here’s a screenshot of Pingdom’s results:

As the screenshot shows, the tool also presents a waterfall visualization that displays the load time and size of each of the page’s objects.

Alexa

If you are not familiar with Alexa, you should be. This popular website ranking tool is owned by Amazon and carries a lot of clouts. Alexa works by having individuals install the Alexa tool onto their computer. Once this toolbar is installed, users are tracked and their habits are used to create website rankings.

Alexa is one of the leading internet statistics engines. It keeps a "top billion" chart, where every webpage on the planet has its place. It's a chart that gives you insight on how your business is doing through calculating the popularity of your site.
 

Open Site Explorer

Open Site Explorer one of the most popular backlink checking tools now-a-days. Open Site Explorer uses the freemium model, and without an account, you are limited to running only 3 reports per day.

If you register for a free account, you have access to 1,000 backlinks for a given URL, and the first 15 backlinks include additional information such as the link’s anchor text, Page Authority, and Domain Authority. Each report also includes summary information about the requested URL: its Page Authority, Domain Authority, the number of linking root domains, and number of total links. 

Majestic SEO Site Explorer

Majestic SEO Site Explorer is another popular backlink checking tool, and like Open Site Explorer, it uses a freemium model. Without an account, you are only able to access general summary information about a requested URL or domain.

If you register for a free account, you receive additional summary information (e.g., a backlink breakdown), and you also get access to the top 5 backlinks, top 5 referring domains, and top 100 pages for your request.

SEMRush

 

SEMRush is one of the older free SEO tools on this list, and its age is a clear endorsement of its value. The tool focuses on competitive research as well as keyword research. When you enter a domain or URL, you receive a report that includes the corresponding organic keywords, advertising keywords, organic competitors, advertising competitors, and more.

When you enter a keyword, the report presents summary information (CPC, level of competition, average volume, etc.), similar keywords, organic competitors, and advertising competitors.
The tool uses the freemium model, and with a free account, you have access to 10 reports per day (and 10 results for each section of the report). For more information, consult the SEMRush manual. It provides useful videos and detailed descriptions of the tool’s functionality.

SEO Workers - Analysis Tool

 

SEO Workers Analysis Tool Firefox & Chrome Extension analyzes any page/site very easily. Access the addon from the status bar or just right-click on the page you want to analyze. The tool will provide you with the comprehensive page SEO analysis grouped in the following sections.

1. HTTP Headers check;
2. Meta tags analysis;
3. Keywords Relevancy;
4. The page displayed within search engine results;
5. URLs found in the page;
7. Keywords found in the anchor tags;
8. Keywords found in the image 'alt' attribute text;
9. Heading & Phrase Elements;

WooRank

 

WooRank offers an instant website review. The tool also uses the freemium model, and without a premium account, you are limited to generating only one free report per week (but you can still query reports that have been previously generated).

Here’s an excerpt from WooRank’s report:
The tool’s report is currently divided into 13 sections: Top 5 Priorities, Visitors, Social Monitoring, Mobile, SEO Basics, SEO Content, SEO Links, SEO Keywords, SEO Authority, SEO Backlinks, Usability, Security, and Technologies.

Link Diagnosis

 

Link Diagnosis is a completely free backlink checking tool, but unless you install the corresponding Firefox extension, you will only receive a limited view of the results (the “lite report”). Without the Firefox extension, the tool displays the first 250 backlinks, along with each backlink’s anchor text, mozRank, Page Authority, and Domain Authority.

With the extension installed, the 250 backlink restriction is removed, and the tool presents each backlink’s title (i.e., the title of the linking page), link type (e.g., nofollow), PageRank, outbound link count, modified outbound link count, and LinkStrength (in addition to the information displayed without the extension).

Ahrefs Site Explorer

Ahrefs is one of the newest backlink checking tools, but it already has a very loyal user base. Similar to most of its competitors, the tool uses a freemium model.

As a guest, you are allowed to perform 5 requests per day, and if you register for a free account, that allowance increases to 15 requests per day. Each request returns a backlink overview as well as specific information about individual backlinks (for free accounts, only the first 5 backlinks display additional information).

The backlink overview includes information such as the total number of backlinks, the number of referring domains (and a corresponding TLD breakdown), and a breakdown of the backlink types (e.g., text, image, nofollow, etc.).

For a given request, free accounts receive access to the first 500 backlinks. The first 5 backlinks display the link’s Ahrefs rank, source URL, source title, destination URL, anchor text, type, and crawl date. However, the remaining backlinks only display the link’s Ahrefs rank, source URL, and source title.
 

W3C Markup Validation Service

 

The Markup Validation Service is a free online tool that checks the markup validity of the Web document associated with a given URI. You simply enter a URI, and then, the tool checks its correctness (based on the syntax of its document type). Finally, the tool displays an itemized list of errors and warnings (with corresponding line and column numbers) that it finds during the validation process.

Here’s an excerpt from the tool’s validation output: 

BuiltWith

 

BuiltWith provides a technology profile for a given site, which includes information about the site’s server, frameworks, advertising, analytics, JavaScript libraries, and much, much more. You enter a website’s URL, and the tool essentially performs a technology X-ray.
Here’s a screenshot of the tool’s technology profile:

The tool also provides a simple SEO profile, which checks a page’s title, meta description, H1 tag, content keywords, images, response speed, and social sharing.

SpyOnWeb

 

SpyOnWeb identifies multiple sites that probably belong to the same owner. On the backend, the service clusters sites that share an IP address, Google AdSense ID, Google Analytics ID, Yahoo! Publisher Network ID, or Yandex.Direct ID. Then, when you query a website’s URL, the tool presents a list of sites that have been clustered together with that URL using the previously listed information.

Xenu’s Link Sleuth

 

Xenu’s Link Sleuth is a free desktop application that checks for broken links on your website. The tool also displays page titles and meta descriptions, but its primary purpose in life is to quickly crawl a website and identify the status codes of the site’s links.

W3C Link Checker

 

W3C Link Checker is a free online tool that checks the validity of links for a given URL. You simply enter a URL, and then, the tool recursively checks the URL’s links for URI scheme errors, redirects, and error status codes.

URI Valet

 

URI Valet is a free online tool that displays the HTTP headers exchanged during a request for a given URI. The tool also presents a summary of the corresponding HTML’s <head> tags and a breakdown of the various objects (e.g., scripts, images, etc.) that are downloaded when accessing the URI.

Google AdWords Keyword Tool

The AdWords Keyword Tool is one of the most popular free keyword tools available. The tool gives you three options for querying keywords: (1) input a list of keywords, (2) input a URL, which the tool scrapes to identify keywords, or (3) select from a predefined list of categories.
Once you select a querying method, the tool allows you to slice and dice the results using a variety of filters, match types, and keyword term inclusion/exclusion lists.
To learn more, visit Google’s help page for Using the Keyword Tool. It answers popular questions and offers helpful videos that showcase the tool’s functionality.

Wordtracker

 

Wordtracker is one of the oldest keyword research tools, and it uses the freemium model. With the free version, you enter a keyword phrase, and then, the tool presents up to 100 related keywords, along with estimated search totals.

SpyFu

 

SpyFu is a competitive keyword analysis tool that uses the freemium model. When you enter a domain, the tool displays summary information, which includes the domain’s daily PPC ad budget, the domain’s daily organic SEO traffic value, and a graph of the domain’s historical budget. The tool’s domain report also shows the domain’s top 10 paid keywords, ad competitors, organic keywords, and organic competitors.

When you enter a keyword, the tool presents summary information, which includes the keyword’s CPC, average click count, and search volume. The keyword report also displays the top PPC domains, organic search results, and related terms.
Here’s an epic video that introduces SpyFu:

Copyscape

 

Copyscape is an online duplicate content detection tool that uses a freemium model. You simply enter a page’s URL, and the tool returns a list of pages that are duplicating the URL’s content. With a free account, the tool only displays the first ten results, and the tool only allows a certain number of monthly requests for any given site (this limit is irrespective of the IP submitting the request).

Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool

 

The Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool is a freemium desktop application that allows you to crawl and analyze the pages on your website. The tool is free for the first 500 URI requests and £99/year after that.

For each request, you receive a wealth of information, including the page’s title, meta description, heading tags, image info (e.g., alt text), link info (e.g., are they nofollowed), and much, much more. Rather than bombard you with screenshots, here’s a video that demonstrates the tool’s functionality:

SEO Browser

 

SEO Browser is one of the oldest free SEO tools, but it is still incredibly useful. The tool is 100% free, and it offers two modes: Simple and Advanced. The Simple mode displays a given URL like a text-based Web browser (e.g., lynx). The Advanced mode provides a text-based view of a URL, and it also includes useful information that summarizes the URL’s content (e.g., page title, meta tags, page size, word count, IP address, etc.).

 

Feedly

 

Feedly is a mulch-platform, cross-browser web app that syncs with Google Reader and displays your RSS feeds beautifully – it practically invites you to sit down and read through every article. Beyond its attractive interface, Feedly lets you share articles via social networks and save content to read later.

Free SEO Analysis by Web Gnomes

 

The last tool on the list is a shameless plug for our free SEO analysis. You simply enter a URL, and then, the tool sends you a report that covers 20 important on-page SEO best practices, which are divided into 5 categories: Accessibility, Content, HTML Markup (<head>), HTML Markup (<body>), and URL.
Here’s a screenshot of the report’s summary gnome:

What Do You Think?

I would love to hear from you in the comments. Which of these tools is your favorite? What other free SEO tools should everyone know about?