Ranking at the top of the search engines is increasingly becoming an elusive affair. Almost any niche you can think of is already crowded. You have to beat the competition that keeps on churning content. At the same time, Google algorithms are also becoming more complicated. You need more than just keyword stuffing and a few written content to rank highly.
However, that is not to say you cannot attain that elusive top spot with your website. You can rely on various SEO tools to help you find the right keywords, optimize content and the site pages and analyze the competition. Some of the must-have tools to have for your SEO building strategy include;
1.  Ahrefs
For most site owners, Ahrefs is a backlink tool. When in reality there is more to it. The tool is the best SEO package you can opt for. It comes with rank tracking, site crawl, and a keyword tool that surpasses the ordinary market tools. It can also help you find new topics for your site. Better still, it comes with the best user experience together with video tutorials to get you started.
Ahrefs is such a functional tool. It allows you to analyze the backlinks of any page, the keywords it ranks for, the generated traffic, and its value. You can also opt for the site audit tool which checks on the site’s health score then provides ideas on how you can improve the site. For content exploration, you can find topics, identify influencers and find places to get backlinks.
2.  SEMRush
SEMRush is an ideal SEO tool for every professional marketing personality. It allows you a database of over 20billion keywords with the ability to generate multiple keyword combinations.
SEMRush allows you to conduct a site audit to check the keywords your site is ranking for and fix any errors. You can also do an easy and chip backlink audit for your site and for any other site you wish to determine their competition.
For your marketing, the tools help you discover engaging topics that resonate with your target audience. It also has the feature for a content gap analysis that allows you to establish what your competition is ranking for then fill the gaps.
For technical SEO, SEMRush comes with an on-page SEO checker to determine your site’s weaknesses. It then compares how you rank compared with the competition and provides ways to improve.
3.  Google Analytics
For most marketers, Google Analytics is a basic SEO tool. However, it is quite functional if you are looking to supercharge your site’s growth. Once you have applied any SEO tactic, you need to measure the results. That is when you will understand what works or not. Google Analytics remains the best toolkit to analyze your site performance.
Google Analytics tracks every bit of traffic that ever appears on your site. It looks into the site visits, time spent on every page and the pages visited. You can also get vital keywords information on the terms people use to land on your website and the demographics of your audience like the country from where they view the page.
4.  Moz Pro
If you are looking for another functional SEO tool that competes with SEMRush and Ahrefs, MOZ Pro it is. It is a useful and accurate SEO tool that is all about technical SEO. You can use it as a site crawler for information on missing metadata, broken links, and duplicate content.
The Moz tool also comes with a convenient chrome extension that allows you to establish the domain authority and page authority of your website and that of your competition.
5.  SpyFu
To rank on top of the search engines you have to outrank the sites that are currently ahead of you, and the only way you can do that is when you understand exactly what they do. That is where SpyFu comes in. As its name suggests, it’s all about spying on your competition sites.
The tool comes with an easy-to-use interface that allows you the space to analyze the 110million domains and 7 billion search results it delivers. It provides detailed information on the source of your competition traffic, top-ranking keywords, Google Ad spend, and backlinks.
SpyFu allies you with access to your competition’s data dating back up to 20 years. You can use it for your site analysis to understand the organic keywords you are ranking for, your Google Adwords campaigns, and your monthly clicks.
Bottom Line
Ranking at the top of the search engine is one of the most tedious tasks you will take for your site. It takes time, top content, and consistency. Even then it is never assured given there is always competition also looking to outrank you. Use the above SEO tools to increase your chances of ranking highly on the search engines.
Better still you need a professional to help analyze the data from these tools. Click here to find an experienced SEO agency to guide you on how best to use SEO tools.
