Apart from Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Screaming Frog and other free tools, webmaster and site owners that are serious about SEO can stand to gain a lot from implementing the right tools to evaluate and fortify their SEO strategies. As the market is bursting with premium SEO tools, so how do you know where to place your dollars for the best overall effect?
While smaller and new businesses can do well with the free tools, as the site/business grows, you need additional analytical data and information to give you advantage over your competition, and that’s where premium tools come in. With so many tools, your business requirements and personal preferences will dictate the best for your business. Below is a brief description of five premium tools webmasters can use to fortify capabilities offered by the free tools.
1. Moz Analytics
It offers a brilliant toolset to enable evaluation of a host of SEO-related metrics. You can also grade your SEO and analyze your backlink profile. MA offers insights into keyword rankings, search traffic, social media engagement and attention, best landing pages, brand mention tracking among others. It is possible for grading of these metrics as well as provision of insights into possible issues that could be preventing better SEO performance.
The Open Site Explorer is however MA’s best tool, enabling backlink profile analysis for both you and your competitors. You can get MA from as little as $99 monthly, making it a cost effective choice.
2. Searchmetrics
Searchmetrics offers a wide-ranging suite of tools for content optimization and SEO, including insights into ranking and URLs, keyword research link evaluation, on-page content and structure, social engagement and domain comparisons among others. It also offers on-page analytical metrics and recommendations regarding site structure.
Its patented Search Visibility metric is a combination of keyword ranking and search volumes, offering an in-depth look into overall brand visibility. It can also be useful for competitive keyword research, both for SEO and PPC purposes.
3. Majestic
If you’re looking to build a solid and maintainable link profile, Majestic offers highly useful information not available anywhere else. These include backlinks, lost links, new links, referring domains and anchor text among others – you have virtually all information related to links and link-building, making for a great place from which to build a link campaign.
One tool unique to Majestic is the Topics feature that offers indicators for which sites have the highest possibility of providing quality links. It groups your backlinks in categories according to the sources, enabling you to determine where your highest link value lies.
