As digital marketers, we find ourselves limited on the most valuable resource: time.
I speak with a number of digital teams everyday, who wish they had one “magic” tool that would instantly help them improve their position on Google – and unfortunately that doesn’t exist.
But what I am able to show them is a number of tools and features that can help save time and automate some of the most important aspects of search engine optimization (SEO).
There are dozens of popular tools available that can help you succeed in improving rankings. However, there are only a few that I rely on to completely streamline my work as an SEO. I rely on the following three tools to nearly automate my content discovery process, quickly discover new backlinks, monitor website changes or even position movement (rank) on Google.
1. Ahrefs
I particularly like to use the Content Gap portion of the tool. This helps you identify keywords that your competitors are ranking for, and that your site is not. That’s a great way to inspire new content, or even to plan out larger site categorization changes.
In addition, you can also set up notifications for when your competitor receives a new backlink. Ahrefs really is a powerhouse of an SEO tool.
2. Little Warden
Manually monitoring the technical aspects of your website can be tedious and time consuming. Luckily, Little Warden allows you to create alerts for events such as changes to meta descriptions or even a domain name expiration. Bonus points for their integration with Slack, which makes managing alerts that much more seamless.
3. STAT
Keyword tracking and measurement, which involves identifying particular words or phrases that describe the contents of your site and then monitoring their change in rank over time, has never been easier than with STAT. Identify and upload your keywords, and wait for the magic to happen.
You’ll be able to view and essentially automate competitive landscape data, while keeping an eye on the sites that most frequently appear in Google’s top 10 for a given keyword set.
The competitive analysis within STAT makes it easy to identify competitors from both a site level and keyword level. Also, you can take the competitive analysis one step further and include competitor site data in customizable reports. It’s a huge step forward from the old-fashioned, manual tracking that used to be required.
SEO is a big, complex world, and it can feel quite daunting. But with a familiarity of the available tools – you can be on your way to really moving the SEO needle and uncovering critical insights about your site. Hey, you might even enjoy it.
Econsultancy subscribers can download our SEO Best Practice Guide. Econsultancy also offers SEO training.