SEO Tools – Short Conceptual Explanation

SEO tools are online programs and services that enable website creators to analyze the performance of the website as it relates to SEO. They can analyze the details of a webpage in order to uncover potential problems and provide important information about those visiting the website, its ranking on search engines, and more.

What are SEO tools?

SEO tools can be found online. They are designed to analyze the performance of a website with regards to search engine optimization (SEO). Web designers, marketers, and others can run the program and get specific, detailed feedback about how the website is performing online. Based on that information, action can be taken.

Tools exist to measure both on-page SEO and off-page SEO. Based on the information uncovered by an on-page SEO tool, details of the website can be adjusted in attempt to meet a specific goal. With off-page SEO tools, those working on the website can see how the site is performing on other platforms, such as social media.

What SEO tools can measure

SEO tools can measure a wide variety of details on a website, as well as how that site is performing on the web. A few examples include:

  • Organic traffic to the site
  • Keyword rankings, which include whether the right words are being targeted
  • The quality and quantity of backlinks that occur on other websites
  • Time visitors to the website spend on the page
  • The amount of people who bounce away from the website
  • How many people are accessing the website via a mobile site
  • The click-through rate of people clicking ads and listings
  • Domain authority, which is a direct reflection of how overall SEO is performing
  • Visitors who return to the website more than one time
  • Visitors who visit the website directly by typing in the URL
  • How fast the website loads

Results can be displayed in different ways. Some metrics are simply listed, as would probably be the case when measuring how fast the website loads. Other metrics may be displayed on a graph so web developers can see how the metric performs over time. That would be the case when measuring the organic traffic to a website.

Pie graphs can also be used to compare data. It can be helpful to see on a pie graph how many people visit the website via a mobile site and how many people visit it by using a traditional desktop computer.

SEO Tools
SEO Tools Analytics

Why SEO tools are important

Using SEO tools and adjusting SEO tactics can take a lot of time, but it’s well used time. Without using the various tools available, website creators aren’t able to see how their site is performing on the web, which means they can’t make adjustments to increase its performance, increase its ranking on the search engine results page, and enhance the user experience.

Without control of a site’s SEO, mistakes can easily be made. For example, dead links may be found on the site because the wrong URL was linked. Dead links can negatively affect SEO. With a specialized tool that scans the website and uncovers dead links, web designers can discover which links need to be updated without having to click on each one individually.

The Internet can change in an instant, so it’s important to use SEO tools regularly. It is recommended that the website’s ranking should be analyzed once a week.

Other website details should also be changed regularly. As the popularity of keywords and phrases come and go, it’s important to update old content with newer, more popular keywords, remove external links to outdated websites, and modify the layout and design of the site as popular web design changes.

Google Analytics is a popular SEO tool

There are many different SEO tools to choose from online. Some are provided for free, while others cost money. Google offers some of the most popular SEO tools through Google Analytics. Many of the tools are free, with options for paid services and tools.

It allows you to identify user behavior, like how long they stay on the website, whether certain goals are being met by measuring conversions, uncover details about how the majority of visitors find the site, and much more. Using this information can inform website changes, as well as Google AdWords. For example, after analyzing specific keywords, marketers can make sure they use targeted, high quality keywords in their ads.

Although Google Analytics offers popular tools, there are many SEO tools on the Internet offered by many different agencies that can measure any and every possible SEO metric.