Recommendations on SEO Tools, Strategies and References
-
Hello all,
I have been doing SEO/SEM work on some sites I own for a few years but now I am in a position where I need to handle these tasks for a significant numbers of clients on a freelance basis. Obviously, this requires much more work and organization as well as some additional tools to help.
I was wondering if the experts on here could help me with the following:
-
Does anyone know of any online step-by-step guides or checklists that highlight a comprehensive SEO and digital marketing strategy? This could be helpful while trying to juggle multiple projects at once and provide a blueprint that I can follow and alter as I go.
-
What free project management tools do you recommend? I was thinking of using Wunderlist, Trello or Evernote to keep track of projects, but there may be other suggestions I am not aware of.
-
I have it in my budget to spend about $200/month worth of paid tools. Which tools are best for keyword research, backlink analysis, search rankings etc.? I am currently testing out Moz and SEM Rush, but would like a wide variety of information that helps me efficiently execute a plan but without too much white noise. What are the best paid (or free) tools to accomplish this?
-
What are the best references for Q&As and reference materials on strategies, etc. for when I need to deep dive and do some learning on the fly? Besides this website of course.
Thanks for any help!!
-
-
Thanks APFM.
This is probably more tools than I want to deal with on a regular basis right now. If you had to boil it down to two or three, which would you choose.
Also, what is "wbf"? I Googled it and got World Bodybuilding Federation!.
-
BuzzSumo, like Moz Content, can provide you with a view of the best-performing content across the web, making it possible for you to see which content and content types would be most palatable for the audience served by your vertical.
-
-
Semrush for comprehensiveness, cost, rate of development, open roadmap and responsiveness of product team ( I think I know all by name now). I also think at pace they are going they will incorporate more off functions from smaller too.
-
varvy and dareboost - comprehensive tools finding page speed issues
-
ranks.nl - valuable tool to analyze keywords, prominence and semantic usage
-
copyscape and site liner for dupe content issues
-
urlprofiler and screaming frog
-
search console for queries, keywords, serp ctr and internal linking
-
ahrefs and majestic for back links - unfortunately I can't recommend OSE anymore
-
Google sheets, Supermetrics and xpath
-
Annie Cushing checklists for audits
-
Moz forums and wbf
-
-
Thanks Ronell! As I've right now, I think I'm going to stick with Trello since I don't need a lot of team collaboration as I am the only one working on the SEO tasks. Really just needs something to keep tasks and projects organized for my own efficiency and sanity.
Moz does look like it will do everything I need. What can Buzzsumo add to my repertoire?
-
Thanks Erica. I've been testing with Moz and SEMRush and I do find Moz more pleasing to use in general. I think I'm going to stick with is. It seems like it is useful for keyword research, link building and site monitoring, so there doesn't seem to be a need to pay for another tool at this point.
-
As a freelance consultant who has been working solo for most of the last six years, I can empathize with you. I've had to test numerous tools and platforms to find the right for me.
First, keep in mind that what works for others likely won't work for you, so you'll have to do some experimenting as well.
- For project management, I've used Trello, Wrike, Basecamp, Freedcamp, Asana and a few others. For singular use, they are all fine, but as you have to share information across teams and with clients, you'll need the added capability and ease of use of platforms such as Asana and Wrike. They each have quirks, so experiment. I found Asana the most intuitive of the bunch. Also, keep in mind that a lot can be done simply through Google Docs and Google Sheets.
- If I had $200 for tools, I'd go with Moz Content or Buzzsumo ($99 each) for content ideation and Moz Pro for site analytics ($99). Admittedly, I'm biased as a Moz Associate. However, the key is having the ability to attain, access and discern information quickly and accurately, not have information on ALL THE THINGS. You could be successful with this small suite of tools, then over time add others such as Buffer and Followerwonk for social media.
RS
-
Hi!
I'll start off with a few recommendations. The first being our Beginner's Guide to SEO, which will give you a great foundational knowledge of all the things you should be thinking about. The SEO developer's checksheet is also a great resource.
I won't weigh too much on tools as I use Moz's and have bias. Fresh Web Explorer for alerts and content tracking and Followerwonk for social graphing on Twitter are some of my favorites for what I do. (Which is probably quite different than what you do.)
For project management, Trello is definitely one of the easiest ones I've found to use and a favorite. Basecamp's also pretty good for cross-company collaboration. I use GDocs all the time and Evernote for specific note-taking, usually projects or ideas.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Backlink Transparency with SEO Agency
Hello everyone. I recently started working with an SEO agency and today they gave me an updated keyword report which showed some increase in rankings. I was not aware that any backlinks had been created yet so I asked for a report of the links. Their response is below and I am just wondering if this is normal practice being I have not worked with any type of SEO agency yet. "
Link Building | | wonderd24
Hey Daniel, We release a small report on them which the guest blog team will do soon. We don't reveal all backlink sources unfortunately because people have tried to bother the webmasters we have and basically steal our techniques. But rest assured you will be ranking at the top of the pack with our methods 😃
"1 -
No-follow Links - Do they work for SEO?
Seems like some of the big sides only give no-follow links now are they still useful for building link authority? Do you have any experience? Thanks
Link Building | | seoman101 -
Are Side Bar Links Bad For SEO?
I'm thinking about adding a sidebar on the right side of my blog post with links to other pages. Is have a sidebar with links to other pages good or bad for SEO.
Link Building | | WilCross0 -
Best SEO practice to redirect affiliate link
Hello, I got an affiliate program on my website, that redirects the affiliate link to the main site like: site.com/ads/aff_code/ -> site.com/ (The redirect is done using a 301 status code.) On the redirect process the site stores a cookie to track the affiliate sale. Will Google and others SE follow this permanent redirect, transferring the relevance of this affiliate link to my main site? In other words, if an affiliate does something wrong (like spams), does the bad reputation will be transferred to my main site? Is there a better way to do that from a SEO standpoint? Thanks,
Link Building | | darkmediagroup0 -
Does using "pring2web" hurt SEO?
I've never really seen this before but one of my clients has 4000+ links from Print2Web. Their rankings are falling back a bit but I'm wondering if this is part of the problem. They don't seem to say their service is about SEO so I'm not so sure this is counted as spam or not. The main concern is that the next closest number of links from one site is only 97. Has anyone heard of this service? Can someone tell me from experience if using this service has hurt SEO efforts? Thanks!
Link Building | | BenRWoodard1 -
Google Webmaster Tools Message regarding unnatural links - how to respond
I acquired a small website which was subsequently hit by Google Panda for unnatural links. Since the previous owner was involved in the link building, I'm not sure what to look for. Here's the message I received from Google: ** Message from Google ** "We've reviewed your site and we still see links to your site that violate our quality guidelines. Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass pagerank or participating in link schemes. We encourage you to make changes to comply with our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results. If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request. ** End Message from Google ** I'm not sure how to locate "unnatural links" when there are so many pointing to the site. For example, are there specific domains I should look for that are known offenders? Or, should I look for sites that are using obvious anchor text that seems orchestrated? Any insights would be appreciated on creating an action plan. Jerry
Link Building | | JerryCharles0 -
Do no follow links have any seo value at all?
I saw some test results of no follow links from some years back and it seemed to indicate that Google still counts the anchor text in no follow links provided the page is already indexed and has do follow links pointing to it. The test results seemed to indicate that Google does count the links and uses the anchor text to cause the page to rank higher in the serps for those key words. any truth to this? If i don't expect any traffic whatsoever from a no follow link should i not build it? Take care, Ron
Link Building | | Ron101