Increasing website traffic can boost sales and help companies reach more customers. But you can't attract visitors if you don't track search engine optimization (SEO) performance or website health. The best free SEO software for small businesses helps you check for backlinks, analyze keyword efforts, and monitor ranking progress. Plus you can use free tools for SEO to find new terms and trending topics that your audience cares deeply about.
Discover 10 beginner-friendly (and free) SEO software solutions to optimize and measure progress on websites, YouTube, and e-commerce channels.
Free Keyword Research Tool
Ryan Robinson's Free Keyword Research Tool is an excellent free small business SEO tool because it’s easy to use, shows ranking difficulty, and provides longtail keywords. It’s great for finding unique, less competitive phrases fast.
BrightLocal
Free local SEO tools from BrightLocal provide insights to evaluate location-specific efforts. BrightLocal's SEO platform includes a local search results checker that displays Google Search or Google Maps results for any city, ZIP code, or country. Simply enter a search query to view localized search results.
[Read more: How to Cross-Link in Your Content to Improve Search Ranking]
Ahrefs software
Free SEO tools like Ahrefs’ optimization solutions are lighter versions of professional SEO and marketing software. Ahrefs offers a free SEO toolkit with site audit features and keyword generators for YouTube, Amazon, Google, and Bing.
Here are two ways you can use Ahrefs' free SEO tools for competitor analysis and keyword optimization:
- Use Ahrefs' backlink, broken link, and web page traffic checkers on competitor sites. The first two tools help identify SEO opportunities, while the last assesses their value.
- Cross-check keyword suggestions using Ahrefs' keyword difficulty checker. It analyzes the score differently than other free SEO tools for small businesses, which can help refine your keyword list.
Screaming Frog
Screaming Frog's SEO Spider Tool crawls websites, finds SEO issues, and highlights opportunities. Clearly labeled, detailed reports and resources make Screaming Frog one of the best SEO tools for small business websites and a favorite among professionals.
To familiarize yourself with this free SEO software and site audits in general, try this approach:
- Scan a single page or a few URLs first instead of your entire website.
- Prioritize beginner-friendly SEO tasks and fix all errors in one tab before moving on.
- Focus on SEO issues you can fix, like 404 page errors rather than server-side problems.
See key SEO site metrics — such as total visits, bounce rate, and visit duration — using Seline, a privacy-first Google Analytics alternative.
AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic is a unique SEO content research tool that can help you understand user intent and find longtail keywords. It sources autocomplete data from search engines and creates easy-to-read lists, tables, and wheels.
After registering for free, you can perform three daily searches from one platform per search, like Google, Bing, YouTube, or Instagram. Use AnswerThePublic to ensure your content covers all the details people want or to generate new topic ideas.
Free SEO tools from HigherVisibility
The SEO agency HigherVisibility provides six free SEO tools for small businesses. You don't need to register or download anything. The web-based SEO features are easy to use, and each page answers frequently asked questions, such as where the data comes from or how to use the search results.
Use these beginner-friendly SEO web tools to:
- Uncover unique keywords and phrases from subreddits using Keyworddit.
- Find industry and geographically related terms with the Bulk Keyword Optimizer.
- See how your meta description and page title could appear on Google's search engine results page (SERPs) with the SERP Snippet Optimizer.
Seline
See key SEO site metrics — such as total visits, bounce rate, and visit duration — using Seline, a privacy-first Google Analytics alternative. The free version has all the features, allowing you to measure organic traffic growth and user engagement for 3,000 monthly events.
It's also a lightweight app, which means Seline is less likely to slow your website down. If you're focused on SEO for a small business website, Seline provides essential insights without requiring a credit card. Plus, it won't stop collecting site data if you exceed your limit, so you can upgrade to an affordable SEO analytics plan as your business grows.
[Read more: How to Track Your Website Traffic—And Why It Matters]
Keyword.io
Get longtail keywords for Bing, Google, YouTube, Amazon, eBay, and more channels using Keyword.io. The keyword research tool can help you find phrases people use for U.S. or international searches. Create a free account to download your generated list.
SEOquake by SEMrush
Explore SEO metrics for any web page with SEOquake, a free browser plugin. It works with Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera. Use the free keyword analysis tool to find keyword density and link information.
Google Keyword Planner
With a Google Ads account, you can access this effective, free keyword planner. You must enter billing information and set up a campaign, but you can pause the campaign to use the Google Keyword Planner for free. Find keyword suggestions by entering a term or website URL and clicking to get results.
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