- GA4/Analytics - this is a tool I use to analyse user behaviour and how users are navigating around a site. Which pages are they landing on and clicking through to before they convert, for example (behaviour flow). Can be installed via adding tracking code to a site. Great for helping to recover lost website traffic.
- Screaming Frog (up to 500 URLs) - this is used for website crawling and is developing to become more comprehensive all of the time. Get an overview of your site's data and structure.
- Google Search Console - as an SEO, I use this tool more than any other. It provides raw search data, revealing how well pages are performing organically and for which search queries. It's a goldmine, even if the data is limited.
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Answer the public - this is a tool to gather relevant topical questions.
For example if you're a chef and searched the word 'cooking' then Answer the public would deliver the most frequently asked questions around this topic - and it uses the hub and spoke model.
- Google Trends - this tool shows how popular a topic is. These statistics, although broad, can be used to put together content for link building. You
An auxiliary to Google Ads, keyword planner allows you to gather search volume data, ppc and ads data and it can help with keyword clustering.
- Ahrefs (if you have Search Console access)
You can run site audits for free!
- Also Asked (up to 3 searches per day)
This is a tool developed by Mark Williams Cook which allows you to gather people also asked question data in an easy format for download.
This chrome extension allows you to see metadata at the click of a button without browsing the SERPs or sifting through html
Run this free tool to gather data around site speed performance and rendering. It can help to identify which elements on a page are slowing down the rendering process and affecting mobile speed.
- Elements of SEMrush
- Elements of Moz
- Ubersuggest
These are subject to change and some may no longer offer free trials