This DIY SEO Toolkit is full of free SEO tools to get you started with search engine optimisation. It doesn’t include every tool out there, simply what you need to get on with SEO without paying a penny. I have used and personally recommend every single one of the SEO tools listed below.
All of these tools are free to use, although some require a sign up to use. Some of them also have paid tiers, but I wouldn’t be recommending them if they couldn’t provide a lot of value without costing you anything.
Note: I have not been paid to recommend any of these, nor are any of these affiliate links (I just like them).
I recommend you bookmark this page so you can come back and keep checking it whenever you need to.
Index
Click on the links below to jump to the associated section
SEO Analytics Tools
Google Search Console
search.google.com/search-console
A tool that shows you how your site is performing on Google Search. Take a look at your results by page, query, country, device, date, or any combination of these. All this and technical insights too! A free yet invaluable tool for all SEO work.
Bing Webmaster Tools
bing.com/webmasters
Bing.com is the second largest search engine, and Bing webmaster tools is their version of Google Search Console. It has roughly the same features as well as some nice extras. A great addition to your SEO Toolkit.
Google Analytics
analytics.google.com
A general website analytics tool that can connect to Google Search Console to contextualise your results even more. Google has said these two tools are going to become even more integrated too, so this is becoming an even more central part of SEO analysis.
SEO Value Calculator
theonlineadvertisingguide.com/seo-value-calculator
If you don’t put a value on your SEO work, then no-one else will either. The SEO value calculator makes it quick and easy to define how much value your SEO work has brought to your organisation. [Note: This is the only cheeky link to our own tool in this list! It’s only included because I use it myself so often]
SEO Diagnostics Tools
Website Crawler
screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider
Screaming Frog is my favourite SEO tool. It surfaces an incredible amount of issues including many of those listed here such as problems with meta details, hreflang, structured data etc. It has a free tier of pricing that scans up to 500 URLs so it’s incredible for small sites. Everyone should try it in my opinion!
Broken link checker
brokenlinkcheck.com
Most websites have some broken links – webpages get moved, websites get shut down, and people make mistakes. Outbound broken links make you look bad, and internal broken links waste link equity. This great tool finds broken links through your site for you. Use it periodically!
Hreflang Checker
dejanmarketing.com/flang
If your site uses multiple languages then you’ll need to use the Hreflang markup. It is notoriously annoying to get right, but this tool from Dejan will tell you if you’ve got it right.
Rich Results Checker
search.google.com/test/rich-results
A nice simple tool from Google which checks if your page supports rich results (eg from Schema Markups being implemented). It tells you if you’ve got the markup correctly, and also tells you which types of rich results (such as reviews) etc your webpage can display in search results.
Subdomain Finder
pentest-tools.com/information-gathering/find-subdomains-of-domain
If you’re working on the site for a big old organisation, it’s quite likely that they may have made some subdomains and forgotten about them over the years. This simple tool finds them for you, which can be very helpful.
Mobile-Friendly Tester
search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
A tool from Google you can use to see if your webpages fit their (pretty reasonable) description of what mobile-friendly webpages should be like. With mobile being the dominant form of browsing the web right now, and Google using Mobile-first indexing, it is vital to get this right.
Content Tools
Readability Tester
webpagefx.com/tools/read-able
Readability means how easy a page is to read, and is an indirect ranking factor for search. Search engines aren’t checking sites for readability themselves, but if your pages are difficult to read they are less likely to be popular pages and will therefore likely rank lower in search results. This free tool uses an array of standard readability tests to let you know how easy your users find your webpage to read.
Duplicate Content Checker
copyscape.com
Google is not a fan of duplicate content. At least in theory, if more than one page has the same content then only one page will rank for it. Use this tool to check if your sites is repeating itself, others are copying your content, or guest posters are plagiarising.
Content Decay
revive.animalz.co
Is your content past its prime? Google prefers ‘fresh’ content and people don’t want out-of-date content, so keeping an eye on how your pages perform over time is vital. Use this free tool to find out of your pages need updating.
Algorithm Update Tools
Google Algorithm Update History
moz.com/google-algorithm-change
Google updates its algorithms multiple times per year (as well as releases new ones), and each update has the potential to affect how your webpages rank in search. This comprehensive list of algorithm updates keeps you up to date with what happened and when.
Panguin Tool
barracuda.digital/panguin-tool
If you want to check whether previous algorithm updates affected your site, this simple tools overlays the dates of each update with your Google Analytics data so you can work it out.
Search Results Volatility Checker
semrush.com/sensor
Algorithm updates take a while to roll out. If you’re suspicious that one might be happening that hasn’t been announced yet, (or if you’re wondering if one affected your sector) this tool can help. It monitors changes to search results across categories and countries (and by SERP features).
Keyword Planning Tools
Google Trends
trends.google.com/trends
A tool that tracks the relative popularity of searches on Google (and related topics and searches). Useful for jumping on trends and finding related trends. Also great if there are two words for the same thing and you don’t know which one to use – stick them both in and then use the one which more people search for.
Google Ads Keyword Planner
ads.google.com/aw/keywordplanner/home
The keyword planning tool in Google Ads can be very helpful for organic search as it tells you volumes of searches. It also tells you how competitive a keyword is for people using Google Ads, and while that doesn’t directly translate to organic search it is a good proxy metric.
Keyword Generator
ahrefs.com/keyword-generator
A keyword idea generator that provides keyword difficulty and volume. It’s free, quick and very easy to use. It also provides keywords for Google, Bing, YouTube, and Amazon, and is filtered by country. A really nice tool.
Questions To Answer
answerthepublic.com
This freemium tool tells you all the questions around a keyword that are commonly searched for on Google. You enter a word (such as ‘car’), and it will come back with every question starting with what (‘what is a car?’), when (‘when were cars invented?’), who (‘who own the most expensive car?’), will (‘will my car insurance go up next year?’), etc. You get the idea. This is a great tool for planning content.
Longtail Keyword Finder
yoast.com/suggest
If you have a head keyword (eg “cheese”) and you want to expand deeper into that topic by finding more specific keywords (eg “blue cheese”) then this is the tool for you. It goes through and finds the autosuggest answers for your keyword and every letter and lists them out for you.
Keyword Mapping Cheatsheet
aleydasolis.com/en/search-engine-optimization/keyword-mapping-cheatsheet
This is a spreadsheet that can help you to quickly and easily map which keywords you should use for different web pages so that you don’t compete with yourself. It’s intended for eCommerce sites, but you can use it for any type of site really.
Competitor Research
www.similarweb.com
Check what your competitors rank for, and what paid keywords they are using (as well as lots of other interesting insights). The stats on this don’t seem exact, but they don’t have to be to still provide immense value.
New Trend Finder
explodingtopics.com
This is a really interesting tool that tries to surface trends just as they are becoming popular! You can filter by category and date range but not by country, unfortunately. Also, it’s a freemium tool – so you will just get a random smattering of results unless you pay. Even so, you can find some incredibly interesting stuff without paying a penny.
Local SEO Tools
Google My Business
business.google.com
Whether or not you claim your business location on Google Maps, a listing for you probably exists. By using Google My Business you can control that listing, and add details such as opening hours, services, and amenities. You can also use this tool to get your information in the knowledge panel (the right-hand column in Google search) and reply to reviews and questions. A must for all businesses with physical locations.
Bing’s version of Google My Business. Far less important than Google My Business due to the volume of users Bing Maps gets – but you can just import your locations from Google My Business so you may as well set this up!
Apple Maps Connect
mapsconnect.apple.com/business
This is how you take control of your business on Apple Maps. It is very annoying to set up your listings and is a very US-centric service. However, as Apple Maps is not great I highly recommend signing up just to correct any errors.
Tripadvisor Listing Manager
tripadvisor.com/GroupManagementCenter
This is how you manage your listings on TripAdvisor. Again, your listings probably exist anyway so you should claim them in order to make sure all the information is correct. Please note: the URL will change depending on your country so look it up wherever you are.
Listing Checker
moz.com/products/local/check-listing
This tool checks if your listings are correct and consistent across multiple mapping sites. It’s only available in a few countries so far (US, UK, and Canada), but if you’re in one of those countries you can just put in your businesses address and see if all the listing sites agree on where it is (or know about it at all).
Site Speed Tools
Site Speed Report
GTMetrix.com
There are many site speed checkers, but GT Metrix is my favourite. Not only is it free, but if you get a free account it will track your results over time (and email you them periodically). It’s about as convenient a tool as possible.
Page Speed Insights
developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights
This is Google’s page speed checker. It breaks down results by mobile or desktop and gives details around Core Web Vitals as well as recommendations on how to improve your page speed.
Image Optimiser
optimizilla.com
There are many many many image optimiser websites out there, but this is my favourite. It is incredibly quick and easy to use, you can choose the number of colours used in the final image, and it has a little dinosaur as the logo.
Reducing video size is a real chore, which is why I like this tool so much. It’s free and easy to use – it does require a sign up for video optimising but you can stick to the basic (free) plan and optimise all the videos you like.
Link Building Tools
Help A Reporter Out
helpareporter.com
Reporters often need expert sources for stories, and this is where many of them come to find them. By “helping a reporter out” you can get a link to your site in a news publication.
Where do people who are interesting in your subject matter hang out online? What social accounts do they follow? Find out with SparkToro, and then use that information to make a list of sites you should try to get links on.
Google Image Search
google.com/imghp
If your site makes useful images then it’s very possible that other sites are taking them and using them without your permission – and without referencing you! Use Google Image Search to find webpages with your images on, then get in touch with those sites and ask if they’ll add a link.
Meta Details’ Tools
If you have a WordPress site and want to edit the meta details of your page then you can do much worse than the Yoast plugin. It sorts out your site map for you and automatically generates meta details for your pages (which you can edit). It also does a host of other useful things and makes SEO simple for people who don’t have tons of time to devote to it.
If you want to see how your webpage will appear in search results, this tester is simple and easy to use. It has a character counter built-in too, meaning you can use it to try out different meta details to see what will fit the space.
XML Sitemap builder
www.xml-sitemaps.com
Don’t have an XML sitemap? Build one here, simple as that.
Robots Text Generator
en.ryte.com/free-tools/robots-txt-generator
Tell spiders, bots, crawlers, whether or not they can access your site with this Robots.txt generator. Whether or not they listen is up to them, but every site should have this file ideally!
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