As a small business owner, you know that marketing is a vital part of your path to success. However, marketing means so many things—so what do you focus on and when, especially if you have a limited budget?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a phrase you've undoubtedly heard before, and whether you employ an outside agency or have an in-house team member, it's important to research the best SEO tools for your business to get the most out of your strategy.
If you're just starting out, or looking to revamp your small business SEO, our list of the top SEO tools for 2017 can help.
1. G Suite
Okay, this technically counts as more than one—Google offers a variety of helpful tools to guide your SEO strategy. Google Analytics should be your bread and butter as far as reporting goes; tracking organic traffic will be the best way to tell if your implemented SEO is working. Google AdWords, while mainly a pay-per-click tool, can be helpful for organic keyword research. Search Console can help you track and resolve technical SEO errors, like missing meta data and sitemap issues, in addition to monitoring your backlink profile.
Cost: Free, business and enterprise plans available
2. UberSuggest
Once Google Analytics limited the keyword data you could pull into their reporting, organic keyword research has been a struggle for most small businesses. Many tools have popped up to fill the gap, but one of the best for 2017 is UberSuggest. With Google's 2013 Hummingbird update, long-tail keyword queries are becoming more important than exact match for a more improved user experience. UberSuggest can find related terms based on real-life organic queries.
Cost: Free!
3. Moz
Moz has been known as one of the premier SEO tools for years, and 2017 is no different. Their constant updates and improvements to their suite of tools keeps them at the top of the list for small businesses every year. You can analyze your competitors' and your own backlink profiles with Open Site Explorer, check your local business listings with Moz Local, and take advantage of their robust Keyword Explorer for research, on-page recommendations and improvements.
Cost: MozPro costs range from $99/month to $599/month.
4. ScreamingFrog
Technical SEO should be a large and ongoing part of your small business strategy. If you've had your website up and running for a while, but you aren't seeing organic results, there might be problems in your foundation. ScreamingFrog can audit your website pages for crawl errors like broken links, duplicate content and blocked URLs. You can also scan your pages for missing meta data, or pull a report of all page titles and descriptions for optimization.
Cost: Free up to 500 URLs, $185/year after 500 URLs
5. Optimizely
Implementing an SEO strategy and tracking organic traffic is important for your small business website, but you also have to think about your bottom line. Are people getting to your website but not converting? Does your organic traffic drop off as quickly as it arrives? Monitoring organic content and landing pages is just as important as doing your keyword research, and Optimizely is one of the best tools to help you do just that. Optimizely lets you use A/B testing to analyze real-time visitor data and user experience to increase your organic sales.
Cost: Plans start at $17/month
By driving more organic traffic to your site, SEO can help your small business stand out in its field. Using one or more SEO tools will streamline your strategy, build a strong foundation and ultimately increase revenue.
If you're just starting out, or looking to revamp your small business SEO, our list of the top SEO tools for 2017 can help.
1. G Suite
Okay, this technically counts as more than one—Google offers a variety of helpful tools to guide your SEO strategy. Google Analytics should be your bread and butter as far as reporting goes; tracking organic traffic will be the best way to tell if your implemented SEO is working. Google AdWords, while mainly a pay-per-click tool, can be helpful for organic keyword research. Search Console can help you track and resolve technical SEO errors, like missing meta data and sitemap issues, in addition to monitoring your backlink profile.
Cost: Free, business and enterprise plans available
2. UberSuggest
Once Google Analytics limited the keyword data you could pull into their reporting, organic keyword research has been a struggle for most small businesses. Many tools have popped up to fill the gap, but one of the best for 2017 is UberSuggest. With Google's 2013 Hummingbird update, long-tail keyword queries are becoming more important than exact match for a more improved user experience. UberSuggest can find related terms based on real-life organic queries.
Cost: Free!
3. Moz
Moz has been known as one of the premier SEO tools for years, and 2017 is no different. Their constant updates and improvements to their suite of tools keeps them at the top of the list for small businesses every year. You can analyze your competitors' and your own backlink profiles with Open Site Explorer, check your local business listings with Moz Local, and take advantage of their robust Keyword Explorer for research, on-page recommendations and improvements.
Cost: MozPro costs range from $99/month to $599/month.
4. ScreamingFrog
Technical SEO should be a large and ongoing part of your small business strategy. If you've had your website up and running for a while, but you aren't seeing organic results, there might be problems in your foundation. ScreamingFrog can audit your website pages for crawl errors like broken links, duplicate content and blocked URLs. You can also scan your pages for missing meta data, or pull a report of all page titles and descriptions for optimization.
Cost: Free up to 500 URLs, $185/year after 500 URLs
5. Optimizely
Implementing an SEO strategy and tracking organic traffic is important for your small business website, but you also have to think about your bottom line. Are people getting to your website but not converting? Does your organic traffic drop off as quickly as it arrives? Monitoring organic content and landing pages is just as important as doing your keyword research, and Optimizely is one of the best tools to help you do just that. Optimizely lets you use A/B testing to analyze real-time visitor data and user experience to increase your organic sales.
Cost: Plans start at $17/month
By driving more organic traffic to your site, SEO can help your small business stand out in its field. Using one or more SEO tools will streamline your strategy, build a strong foundation and ultimately increase revenue.
Kelly AyresKelly is a freelance SEO consultant based out of Washington D.C. She has worked for Philadelphia marketing agencies and writes for several lifestyle sites.
