There is no doubt today that internet marketing is the future of business. If your business organization is not yet online, you are late to the party and you risk losing out on the good things. With over 3.58 billion internet people using the internet according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), it goes without saying that any serious business venture should have some form of online presence. Well, there are over 1.2 billion websites and getting traffic to your site might prove harder than you thought. To get the best out of your online activities you need to invest in search engine optimization (SEO).
SEO entails making your website more favorable in the eyes of search engine crawlers to attain better ranking on search engine results. Now that Google controls 79% of global desktop search according to NetMarketShare, your SEO efforts should focus on getting your website on the first page of Google’s search engine result pages (SERPs). It is not an easy job andyou have to play by the Google’s Webmaster Rules or else suffer penalties.
Luckily, this is the age of innovation and there are some incredible SEO tools that your website can leverage to gain a competitive edge in your niche. In this article, you will learn more about the importance of SEO and how these amazing SEO tools can give your online business the boost it requires to compete. Read on.
Importance of SEO for your Business
They say that numbers don’t lie and in marketing, this is a maxim that you can’t ignore. According to a recent study, 93% of all online experiences start with a search engine. In short, your website must feature on the first page of SERPs for you to attract traffic. It gets better; 70-80% of internet users ignore ads and instead rely on organic results. The same study shows 75% of internet users don’t scroll past the first page of search results.
A similar study shows that search is the #1 driver of traffic to content website surpassing even social media. To appreciate why you need to invest in SEO, consider that SEO leads boast an enviable 14.6% close rate compared to 1.7% close rate for outbound marketing techniques such as direct mail. All these numbers highlight the importance of search engine optimization in promoting your online business.
In essence, SEO will help get your business noticed on this crowded platform. If you have no SEO strategy yet, it is time to reevaluate your priorities this year.
Effective SEO Tools for your Business in 2018
Now that you appreciate the ineluctable role of SEO in your online business, it is time to learn how you can leverage innovative tools to get ahead of the competition. Some of these amazing tools are free while some require payments. These SEO tools also play different roles including content marketing, research and analysis, keyword research, outreach, competitor research, SEO audits, link building, social media management among other functions. Here are some of these tools:
SEMrush
If you are in the market for the most effective SEO tool, you will definitely come across SEMrush. It is an SEO suite which helps in keyword and competitor research. In the competitive internet platform, you need to know to stay abreast of the ongoings in the marketplace and to do this, you need a very effective tool. SEMrush gives you more than 20 ways to discover your competition including their best content, best keywords, backlinks and so much more. There are analytics reports to help you understand your website performance and that of your competitors. You also get an On-Page SEO Checker to keep you up-to-date with your rankings. There are recommendations to get the best out of your website and all these features help to improve your site’s ranking on SERPs for your target keyword.
Ahrefs: SEO Keyword Tool
There can be no talk of SEO tools without a mention of Ahrefs. You see, there are tools that give beginners a better understanding of their websites and then there are those that even experts use. Ahrefs is one of the best SEO Keyword Tools that experts rely on to get the best out of their marketing campaigns. It is a tool that helps both in research and analysis. It ranks top among backlink analysis tools and there is also a Content Explorer feature to help you identify the best content out there for a target keyword.
The Keyword Explorer 2.0 feature comes in handy when you need keyword’s search volume (global or country), related keyword ideas, ERP overview and position history and difficulty level of a keyword. The Ahref’s Site Audit feature is another amazing feature to gauge the performance of your website while the Domain Comparison tool will help identify great link opportunities.
KWFinder: SEO Keyword Tool
You cannot overemphasize the importance of keyword research in SEO and for this reason, KWFinder one of the top SEO Keyword Tools comes in handy. With the rise in popularity for long-tail keywords, this tool helps find low-competition level long-tail keywords. You can also run analysis reports on backlinks and SERP, determine your ranking and get a ton of new keyword ideas which are more likely to convert.
Majestic: Marketing SEO Tools
The internet is a volatile platform and you need to constantly check your ranking. The Majestic: Marketing SEO Tools help you do this easily with features such as the Majestic Million which gives the ranking of a million websites for your target keyword. For a general overview of your website, there is the Site Explorer feature which also shows you the number of backlinks. The SEO keyword tool suggests best keywords to rank for and you will also find site comparisons features and others to track your site’s ranking.
Moz: SEO Tools
If you are in the internet marketing business, you have most likely come across the Moz: SEO Software. It is the quintessential SEO tool that every business needs because it has everything you need to improve your performancein search results. From keyword recommendations or a site crawl, backlink analysis keyword research, rank tracking, content optimization, store’s metrics to the page optimization feature, Moz has it all.
There are several other SEO tools worth mention including SpyFu and SEOQuake Free SEO Tools, Siteliner (SEO Analysis Tool), Fat Rank: SEO Tools, SEOptimer, BuzzSumo, LinkMiner, Authority Labs among others. All these tools help boost your SEO campaigns and enable you to play by the Webmaster rules while it.
