Top SEO Resources

Many SEO resources are available to digital marketers, web developers, and entrepreneurs. Google is by far the most popular search engine. Hence, SEO resources follow Google’s guidelines and policies.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs was founded in 2010 as one of the most significant commercial web crawlers, 2nd to Google. In addition, the Site Explorer tool with Ahrefs is a handy, fan-favorite for most entrepreneurs. This tool allows clients to check their site’s organic search traffic and provides analytics on their competitors’ paid search traffic. Ahrefs’ ability to adapt to industry needs has also set it apart from its competitors. As if Ahrefs weren’t popular enough, they released their Webmaster Tools as a free-tier option to help websites optimize and improve rankings.

SemRush

This tool entered the market in 2008, when only two SEO tools were available, and has since grown into an SEO powerhouse, offering 50 tools. SemRush is one of the most popular SEO resources for entrepreneurs and provides a range of services and features. It is ranked among the top SEO resources in the United States and the United Kingdom. One of the features that sets Semrush apart is its ability to let users easily compare their site to competitors using accurate analytics.

Google Search Console

Of course, we can’t exclude Google Search Console. Offering free SEO resources to entrepreneurs and professionals, it’s no wonder it’s one of the most popular resources available. By providing users with accurate analytics based on real-time data, entrepreneurs and professionals can monitor things much more closely. One of the reasons it’s a favorite among entrepreneurs is that Google sends notifications when the site has any indexing, spam, or other issues, so you can quickly address them and save valuable time.

Ubersuggest

Another excellent SEO tool is Ubersuggest, a free keyword finder that helps marketers identify keywords and phrases to improve their SERP rankings. This tool allows users to search for keywords and short and long-tail terms. A couple of the analytics this program provides are seasonal patterns for keywords or phrases, ideal for holiday promotions, and keyword volumes.

AnswerThePublic, a sister company of Ubersuggest, is another free SEO tool designed to help users find content to write about. It does this by searching for keywords and phrases people are currently searching for, enabling a more targeted approach to content. For example, suppose a user sees many questions about a specific topic they can help with or a service they specialize in. In that case, they can write a blog using the keywords and phrases provided by AnswerThePublic to help them rank higher on the SERPs. 

Knowing the competition

Finding the right search engine optimization resources can be time-consuming and effortful. But one thing is sure: clients need to be updated on their competitors’ actions. This can be done with competitive analytics, one of the many features offered by Semrush. This feature allows users to analyze their competitors’ online presence and better understand the marketing landscape.

For example, a marketing agency could use organic research and traffic analytics tools to learn about the estimated total traffic and top traffic sources and identify any keyword gaps in their competitor’s marketing campaigns. With this information, users can specifically target keywords and phrases to gain a competitive advantage.

SEO Resources: Identify Back Linking

Another essential feature to consider is the Backlink Checker. Ubersuggest offers this feature for free, and Ahrefs offers Site Explorer. This is a crucial feature because one of the most important Google rankings doesn’t come from the web page. It comes from backlinks from other websites that link to your page.

Google uses relevant backlinks to help determine rankings and positioning in the SERPs. You can think of this as a vote of confidence, and the more votes a site has, the more likely that site will rank higher for that specific topic. The backlink feature analyzes users’ and competitors’ pages to identify unnecessary backlinks and potential backlink opportunities, boosting rankings. Once the user has identified likely backlink websites related to their topic, they can reach out to these sites to request a link from them, and vice versa.

Website Speed

In today’s society, people don’t like to wait. Think about the last time your computer froze or the car in front of you didn’t start moving when the light turned green. How long did you wait before you began honking or restarting that computer? We live in an age where people want immediate gratification. This couldn’t be truer with customers and websites.

Customers wish to fast, easy-to-use sites, not slow and complicated ones. Studies have shown that websites with a load time of over 6 seconds lose 43% of customers. This is because 47% of customers expect the webpage to load within 2 seconds. Using features like the SEO Analyzer can help identify load speeds and provide tips and insights to improve your website and deliver a better experience, ultimately helping increase your rankings. 

Finding the right SEO Resources to help you rank higher is essential, and sometimes you may even need to hire a third party for help. Regardless, it’s necessary to understand the technical requirements and follow Google’s guidelines. This helps avoid being ranked lower or omitted from search results due to bad practices.

Spamming

Link spamming is an easy way to be placed on Google’s naughty list. This approach deliberately places out-of-context links in blog posts or purchases, creating backlinks to other websites. There are SEO companies that will buy backlinks. Still, it’s essential to be wary of these practices, as they can harm your ranking. Significantly, if the websites linked have been previously penalized or if the site were to receive a large number of links in a short period. In this case, quality over quantity is better.

Hiding Links

Another practice to avoid is hiding text or links within the site to add more keywords or phrases to rank higher. This can be done by hiding text or links on the viewable page using CSS, or by hiding them behind images.

Sneaky Redirects

Misleading functionality and sneaky redirects are both practices to avoid. Deceptive functionality advertises one thing but does another, while a sneaky redirect sends the user to a spam site they didn’t expect. For example, advertising a link to an app that performs a specific function, such as a mobile scanner, instead redirects to a spam site that promotes irrelevant items for sale.

When optimizing for search engines, the critical thing to remember is to create helpful content designed for people, not computers. Keep in mind that Google’s bots analyze human behavior on the web to determine what’s popular and purposeful.