![\"free](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/free-seo-tools.jpg\")
How much money do you spend per month on SEO tools and monthly services? Backlink checkers, hosting, proxies, the list goes on and on. Now there are plenty of posts out there listing the paid tools but not so many listing all the cool free stuff that’s available. <\/p>\n
And after doing SEO for a longggggg time, it turns out that there are some pretty handy tools you’ll discover and they won’t cost you a dime. This list is a compilation of everything that we (SEOs) use to get the job done without spending a dollar, all found by hustle. So next time you’re about to throw a buck to that bum on the corner, write the URL for this post down on a piece of paper and give that to him instead. <\/p>\n\n
Google Trends<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – Hang out with the cool kids and follow the latest trends.<\/p>\n Keywordtool.io<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – This guy will give you some keyword suggestions appending your root keyword with a-z, just like Scrapebox<\/a> but since we’re on zero budget this will do. <\/p>\n Ubersuggest<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – Another clutch free suggestion tool, gets the job done as well. <\/p>\n Bulkdachecker<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – Had this beast in the browser bookmarkelts for a while now, hopefully this post doesn’t crash the damn thing. Free DA folks, 200 URLs at a time, please click this dude’s ads. <\/p>\n Majestic SEO<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – Now both of the main backlink checkers are going to be asking for your credit card real quick, but you get on run and a partial view of the data. Use a proxy to check multiple URLs. Ahrefs<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – Same gig as majestic with free uses, but I really like the anchor cloud the show. Yoast SEO<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – Yoast is the best around, run it here and on countless money sites. Offers practically every options you’ll ever need and more importantly it’s 100% free, you just have to ignore Joost’s expert cartoon animations of him flexing like an SEO superman. <\/p>\n Google Rich snippet tool<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – For testing markup and also looking smart with clients, see your schema markup is fixed Mr. client sir. myfuzzysoundingbrandname.com Import.io<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – This is a free web scraping tool and it’s confusing as hell, good luck. <\/p>\n Fake name generator<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – No idea why you would want to generate fake names but if you did find the need, here you go. <\/p>\n Expireddomains.net<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – Sure everyone knows about expireddomains.net, well they do now at least but you can still find some gems here and for the price you can\u2019t beat it. <\/p>\n Clicky<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – For tracking all those visits you’re getting from search and creepily spying on them. <\/p>\n Piwik<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – Another free tracking alternative. <\/p>\n Joint Accounts<\/strong> – Does your besty do SEO also? Well why the hell are you guys both paying for an Ahrefs subscription? Sorry ahrefs, but one subscription will do. Do the same for other tools also. I have a shared account on practically every service. <\/p>\n Free trial, get data, and cancel<\/strong> – Sort of a dick move but works, signup for a trial, run all the reports you need then cancel before the billing starts. <\/p>\n Blogspot Hosting<\/strong> – If you use a .blogspot subdomain blog you can switch it to a permanent domain and host it on blogspot, yes you have to pay $10 for the domain which technically breaks the guidelines of this post but handy information still. <\/p>\n Cracked Copy of MS Office<\/strong> – Excel is probably the most crucial tool an SEO uses consistently day in and day out. There are cracked copies everywhere, I promise you won’t go to software pirating hell if you use one. <\/p>\n Cheap Laptop + Teamviewer for VPS<\/strong> – Instead of paying for a monthly VPS, set up your own on an old laptop or something equivalent. Then bum off your neighbor’s wireless and run your GSA blasts. <\/p>\n Parasite pages<\/strong> – Not only are they free but if you pick the right ones they can rank very well and withstand mass spam. Great for testing and making some $$ with spam. <\/p>\n Search operators<\/strong> – These should go without saying but a good SEO should also be good at actually searching for things. Shocking I know. Advanced operators are the key to searching in beast mode.<\/p>\n site:moz.com “black hat seo”<\/p>\n Common Sense<\/strong> – Thanks to Adam Steele<\/a> for reminding us all of one of the most important tools, or brains.<\/p>\n Well there you have it folks, a massive list of all the free shit out there to get the job done. Have any free tools, tips, or tricks to contribute? If it’s something good you could join the group of luck individuals receiving an OBL in this post. Translation, suggest a tool worth adding and you will get a backlink<\/u><\/strong> to the location of your choice. <\/p>\n Now don’t be shy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How much money do you spend per month on SEO tools and monthly services? Backlink checkers, hosting, proxies, the list goes on and on. Now there are plenty of posts out there listing the paid tools but not so many listing all the cool free stuff that’s available. And after doing SEO for a longggggg… Read More →<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"google](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/google-keyword-planner.png\")
Google Keyword Planner<\/a><\/strong><\/u><\/strong> – The trusty keyword planner, formerly the “keyword tool”. This is where you get the search volume bros. <\/p>\n![\"google](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/google-trends-seo.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"sem-rush-logo\"](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/sem-rush-logo.png\"){kind=logo}
SEMrush<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – Yes it’s paid but we can still get some insights here. The organic keyword positions graph is incredibly revealing and can give you some serious insights without even looking at the site or analytics. They limit the amount of keyword returned but you can sort from high to low and see the top ones.
\n![\"semrush](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/semrush-organic-ranks-300x168.png\")
<\/p>\nBacklinks<\/h3>\n
\n![\"majestic](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/majestic-tf.png\")
<\/p>\n
\n![\"jacobking](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/jacobking-anchors-300x207.png\")
\nYup that’s neg SEO, oh no!<\/p>\nProductivity<\/h3>\n
![\"dropbox\"](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/dropbox.png\")
Dropbox<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – Oh Dropbox how you make my life easier. Have multiple computers? Work on joint ventures? Have clients? The list goes on, dropbox is my go to, also remember that you can create multiple accounts for different computers and share them with each other. You can also try to game the free space a bit by referring some bogey signups. <\/p>\n![\"LastPass\"](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/LastPass.png\")
Lastpass<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – Get ready to pull the tin foil hat out you tin foil hat wearers, it’s a password manager that stores all your passwords conveniently in one location. For some people this might be a scary thought, let it go and start using lastpass, you’ll thank me when your nose is no longer in a password spreadsheet every ten minutes. <\/p>\n![\"Evernote-logo\"](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Evernote-logo.png\"){kind=logo}
Evernote<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – If you’re not using evernote then start, no self respecting internet marketer or SEO can manage all this craziness in our heads, Evernote should be your go-to for planning, to-dos, and other references. This breaks the rules of this post but the premium version of Evernote which is a few bucks per month allows you to edit notes jointly with other users and avoid Google docs which is ideal. <\/p>\n![\"IFTTT](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IFTTT-Logo.png\"){kind=logo}
IFTTT<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – If this, then that. Catchy right? Now the possibilities of this tool are so endless that it overwhelms most people into not using it, myself included. For example, you could seutp a recipe for automatically tweeting a blog post after publishing. <\/p>\n![\"thunderbird\"](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/thunderbird.png\")
Thunderbird<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – Similar to using a spreadsheet for managing passwords, manually logging into multiple email accounts is for noobs. Thankfully my boy Robert<\/a> opened my eyes to this about a year ago and now I’m a email boss.<\/p>\n![\"logo-skype\"](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/logo-skype.png\"){kind=logo}
Skype<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – Yup Skype, redundant mention for most but come on, it’s free and such a crucial part of our operations. You can also be on the other end of a call in full neck beard and everyone will think you’re a pro. <\/p>\nGoogle Docs<\/strike><\/strong><\/u> – It’s…get ready for it…keyword…**GOOGLE** docs, try not to scheme about gaming their search engine on here, regardless of the hat color you think the strategy is<\/a>. <\/p>\nGmail<\/strike><\/strong><\/u> – See the above and use a different free email provider. <\/p>\nDevelopment<\/h3>\n
![\"Basic](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Yoast-seo.jpg\")
WordPress<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – Duh.<\/p>\n![\"ssl-icon\"](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/ssl-icon.png\"){kind=icon}
httpstatus.io<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – So now that we all know this HTTPS ranking factor thing is complete bullshit<\/a> we’re still gonna have a-holes out there who read the first round of trash pushing SSL wanting it installed. You can check a list of redirects with this tool. Thanks to Anthony Nelson<\/a> for the suggestion.<\/p>\n![\"pingdom-logo\"](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/pingdom-logo.png\"){kind=logo}
Pingdom<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – Run this fancy test on client sites and make them think you know what you’re doing. Then tell them page speed is an important ranking factor since you’re probably not that good at building links. <\/p>\n
\n![\"google](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/google-structured-data.png\")
<\/p>\nEverything Else<\/h3>\n
![\"hidemyass\"](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/hidemyass.png\")
Hidemyass<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – While this tool is a piece of shit more or less it sort of gets the job done. Compared to other free proxies out there, it’s the best of the worst that I know of. <\/p>\n![\"seobook-logo\"](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/seobook-logo.png\"){kind=logo}
SEObook rank tracker<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – Some fancy free rank tracker from that Aaron Wall dude, only thing is it’s running on your own connection so you’ll likely need to proxy up for checking lots of ranks. <\/p>\n![\"copyscape-logo\"](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/copyscape-logo.png\"){kind=logo}
Copyscape<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – The premium version of Copyscape is what you really need for checking your spam content for uniqueness but the free version will have to do. <\/p>\n![\"knowem\"](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/knowem.png\")
Knowem<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – If you’re into that whole branding thing then you might want consistent handles throughout the main social channels, ideally matching your domain name. For example:<\/p>\n
\ntwitter.com\/myfuzzysoundingbrandname
\nfacebook.com\/myfuzzysoundingbrandname<\/p>\n![\"xenu-creepy-guy\"](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/xenu-creepy-guy.jpg\")
Xenu Link Slueth<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – Not winning any design awards but it’s free and will crawl and snoop out broken links which provides a range of opportunities. <\/p>\n![\"wayback](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/wayback-machine.png\")
Wayback Machine<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – For whatever reason these guys decided to start archiving everything on the Internet and letting people access it for free. As an SEO this is provides a treasure trove of content. <\/p>\n![\"pagerank](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/pagerank-checker.png\")
Fake PR checker<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – Handy tool for checking fake Pagerank if you’re into that sort of thing. <\/p>\n![\"msm](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/msm-logo.png\"){kind=logo}
Micorsitemasters<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – You can try searching around but MSM offers 10 free keywords to get started, better make em count!<\/p>\n![\"Screaming-Frog-Logo\"](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Screaming-Frog-Logo.jpg\"){kind=logo}
Screaming Frog<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – There is a free version of Screeming frog which will allow you to audit a site but limits the amount of URLs you can crawl. For a small site this will do the job. <\/p>\n![\"godaddy-domain-check\"](\"https:\/\/www.jacobking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/godaddy-domain-check.jpg\")
Godaddy bulk domain checker<\/a><\/strong><\/u> – If you have a big list of potential domain names to register, use Godaddy’s bulk checker for free. It can handle 500 just watch out for odd characters. <\/p>\nTracking<\/h3>\n
Hacks<\/h3>\n