- What are Google SEO Tools?
- 1. Google Search Console (Google Webmaster Tools)
- 2. Google Keyword Planner
- 3. Google Trends
- 4. Google Analytics
- 5. Google Mobile-Friendly Test
- 6. Google PageSpeed Insights
- 7. Google My Business
- Summary
What are Google SEO Tools?
Free online Google SEO tools help webmasters receive data and alerts about the overall websites’ health and performance. They can also discover opportunities and issues that impact ranking and organic visibility in the search results.
Below are the recommended free online SEO tools by Google.
1. Google Search Console (Google Webmaster Tools)
The #1 must-have free online SEO tool created by Google and is used for the following features:
- Performance Analysis – keyword ranking, impressions, and clicks
- Indexation – submit sitemaps and disavow backlinks
- Crawl Monitoring – see which pages have been crawled or not
- Technical Audit – identify technical issues that may exist including schema markups and AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)
- Website Settings – target country location and preferred website domain address
2. Google Keyword Planner
One of the essential free online SEO keyword research tools that also provides paid search data. Below are some of the key features:
- Discover New Keywords – find keywords related to your website, business, products, or services.
- Average Monthly Search Volume – the estimated amount of search instances that take place every month
- Cost – what are competitors paying for each click for the keyword
3. Google Trends
A free online SEO tool to analyze the popularity or search interest for specific periods and geolocation. Below are some of its key features:
- Trending Keywords/Topics – what are the recently popular keywords/topics
- Rising Breakout Keywords – which keywords have a significant increase in search interest compared to other keywords
- Local Search Trends – identify from a regional, state, and even city-level analysis where searches are popular
- New Keyword Ideas – find what the most popular topics across all industries are
4. Google Analytics
Some may think Google Analytics serves the same purpose as Google Search Console regarding traffic performance. Below we have put together the key differentiators:
- Audience Demographics – can see the traffic’s age, sex, country, and more
- Engagement Metrics – how are visitors interacting with the website including bounce rate, time on site, amount of pages visited per page, and more
- Conversion – which page are people converting or purchasing your business, products, and services
5. Google Mobile-Friendly Test
Another of Google’s free online SEO tools can test whether a website is mobile device friendly. Below are some of the issues it can detect:
- Incompatible Plugins – plugins that use Flash are not search engine friendly and would need to redesign using preferred HTML5 coding.
- Viewport Not Set – this tells browsers how to adjust the website screen size, so it’s important to set this up
- Wide Content – sometimes content becomes cut off when viewing horizontally let’s say, it’s best to use relative width values for CSS elements.
- Small Text – the text is too small for viewers to read
- Crowded Click Elements – click or touch elements such as buttons or links are too close to each other making it difficult for users to accomplish their goals.
6. Google PageSpeed Insights
This free Google tool can help detect the loading speed of a website. It can also provide optimization suggestions which we have listed some of the more commons ones below:
- Eliminate Render-Blocking Resources – coding such as JavaScript or CSS that are slowing down the website load speed and is suggested to inline the scripts or defer JavaScript
- Minify CSS & JavaScript – when scripts are too big possibly because of a large number of characters, spaces, and duplications that are not necessary
- Properly Size Images – sometimes images are too big and can slow down the load speed and can be fixed by uploading the exact size you need by cropping images.
- Text Compression – when text is too large you can use GZIP to compress them
7. Google My Business
This is for the business listings you see within Google Maps in the search results and below are some of its key features:
- Business Information – description to help customers know what you are all about
- Customer Reviews – see what customers are saying about your business and how you can improve
- Questions & Answers – can include frequently asked questions that customers may have about your business
- Call To Action – you can allow customers to book an appointment, make a reservation, or call directly to your business
- Analytics – most importantly, it can track data about your visitors including user traffic, where they came from, and what actions they took
Summary
Across the 7 free SEO tools, Google Search Console is best for knowing click performance on the search results, Google Keyword Planner is best for knowing the search volume of keywords, Google Trends is best for knowing trending topics for particular regions, Google Analytics is best for knowing who’s your target audience, Google Mobile Friendly Tool is best for ensuring your website is compatible with mobile devices, Google Page Speed Insight is best for knowing how fast can your website be downloaded, and Google My Business is for physical locations that want to track their Google Map listing engagement.