Most company owners know that SEO is a long and slow process. You’re constantly waiting to see your name at the top of that search engine results page, but it’s tough to know when it’s going to happen. For this reason, many companies use SEO reporting tools to help ease a little bit of the suspense.
SEO reporting helps keep you in the loop when it comes to your SEO efforts. In general, SEO reporting software will give you the ranking of a keyword you are targeting and then show you the jump in rankings that keyword has over time. Other reporting tools offer information about your web pages for further optimization, the Google PageRank or Alexa ranking of your site, and/or the competition for a specific keyword. Unfortunately, many of these software cost money that many companies just don’t have. In such an up-and-down economy, things like SEO reporting tools usually get the boot when it comes to budget cuts.
However, there are several SEO reporting tools that are completely free. Although they may not have quite as many of those “fancy” features you would get with some software, they get the job done. The tools will give you an idea about the success (or failure) of your SEO efforts so you can improve. Below is a list of my top five favorite free reporting tools.
Top 5 SEO Reporting Tools That Work Break Your Pocketbook
- Google Analytics – This tool allows you to see not only the traffic to your website, but where that traffic is coming from. This will let you know if people are finding you through links or directly. You can also see how you are doing in terms of ranking by taking a quick look at a graph.
- SEO Quake – This works great for Mozilla Firefox and Chrome and works as a browser plugin. It will show you your PageRank and Alexa ranking and can be installed as a toolbar right at the top of your screen. This makes the tool convenient to use. It also has the ability to highlight the number of times a keyword shows up on a specific webpage.
- SEO for Firefox – This tool also generates rankings (obviously) and is easy to use. It also allows you to find the source of all the data that is pulled for you, which is a nice feature for someone who likes to have a full understanding of all analytics. Read the SEO Book article for a complete list of features.
- Rank Checker – This is another Firefox extension that allows you to check rankings while surfing the Internet. All you need to do is enter your website’s domain name and then paste in the keywords you’re hoping to track.
- Quarkbase – What makes this tool somewhat unique is the fact that it can tell you detailed information about a domain. It will tell you the owner, the sites date history, and the social media accounts of a specific site. This is a great tool for those who like to dig a little bit deeper into SEO reporting and competition.
While the popular saying “you get what you pay for” is oftentimes true, it does not apply to SEO reporting tools. The more expensive tools do offer more features, but these free downloads should get you the results you need to succeed. For more tips and advice about SEO reporting tools, visit Organic SEO Consulting.
21 Comments
This are very useful tips and google analytic is a great tool to use to get the adequate information and similarly SEO Quake is also equally useful.
I still think Google Analytics is the best tool out there. Other tools are handy to augment your data, but GA needs to be the backbone of any SEO strategy.
Hi guys, i am getting 500 facebook fans for free on this site – http://bestlikehits.com
Twitter: torikulislam
Hi Amanda,
Thank you for the rundown of these free seo tools. I use Google Analytics and SEO Quake they are great. They are even easy to use.
I need to try out the Fire fox tool and Google Analytics and Quarkbase. Those sound like the have interesting information. Well sort of interesting ……. as long as I am interested
.
My Best,
Stephen
Twitter: peters_stephen
Because i’m nosy i love using the SEO quake toolbar to quickly find metrics of people’s sites.
Twitter: micronichej
A lot of people like using the SEO quake toolbar to find metrics on other sites. For most people it is a part of researching similar sites.
I have used SeoQuake and it is indeed an excellent tool.
Twitter: samsungtabletpc
SeoQuake is a great tool and is very popular.
Really Google analytic is nice tool which we use for get information about daily keywords competitor, our website daily analysis report, and many more. It’s very helpful tool for SEO. Thanks for sharing this nice post.
I love SEO Quake. I’ve had it on my screen for a while and never really used it and then one day it clicked and I think it’s a fantastic tool that’s right at the top of my screen and I can easily hide it when I don’t need it.
Thanks for the other tips.
Twitter: kg_photography
I use SEO Quake from time to time myself. I find that enabling too many of the options will slow down my browser though. I turn it on when I need to use it.
I have been using all the above tools but I didn’t know about Quarkbase tool. GA and SEOquake is must have SEO tool, I use these tools almost every day.
Twitter: pkarunkumar
SEO quake need to be replaced as I don`t think they are displaying backlinks now!
It should be replaced by Blekko!
Twitter: khajamoin1
I’ve only used Google Analytics for my SEO. I think its time to try some additional tools as well. Thanks for sharing this post. I’m going to take a look at what SEO Quake and Quarkbase have to offer.
Twitter: theapptimes
Thanks for the resource.Its very essential to make best use of these tools in order to monitor the overall performance.Tools like Google Analytics, Rank Checker helps you to see the SEO work and get it in better direction.I have never tried SEO Quake, I am thinking of using it once now.
If you are in a competitive niche I think you have to spend some cash on more advanced software like SheerSEO and Linkdex, the competitor analysis they provide can be priceless when it comes to beating your competitors.
Twitter: creately
For those that are in competitive niches, I think that they are willing to spend the extra money to get ahead, especially if the ROI is there in the end.
There are so many free services available to webmasters (and webmistresses!) that those who maintain smaller websites should never feel the need to dish out a large sum of money for SEO. I guess it all comes down to what kind of website you’re working to promote. Then again, all webmasters love to see their websites a success!
I think that many people don’t know how many SEO services are available for free. Many read about an expensive tool and think that there isn’t a free tool that can do the same thing. It does pay to do some search into the free offerings.
I’m a big fan of Google Analytics and all the free SEO Book tools. Truly amazing value for not having to pay a thing! I haven’t, however, used Quarkbase, although it sounds very useful for analyzing competing websites. Definitely going to check it out.
Twitter: walshandj
I think many people are a big fan of Google Analytics. It provides a lot of data for free, and the amount of reports you can generate is amazing.