SEO tools are an essential part of optimizing your website and for detecting technical issues that may hurt your search engine optimization efforts. While some SEO programs are available for subscription fees, there are others that are free to use. As website owners, we can be grateful that we have access to SEO tools that will help with our SEO efforts.
While we have covered SEO tools in 5 Fabulously Free SEO Tools and 12 Sensational Absolutely Free SEO Tools, the tools that I will be covering today provide more in depth analysis of your website.
One reason why you might like to use these SEO tools is to conduct a back link audit on your website. Google Penguin algorithm updates have heavily targeted unnatural links to websites. Penguin 2.1, which rolled out on October 4, 2013, takes a closer look at exact match and rich anchor text. If you have seen a decrease in your website’s search engine placements, you will want to perform a link audit to determine what may be causing the drop.
However, the worst time to do a link audit is when you notice something is wrong. By monitoring your websites back links and anchor text as well as other data on a regular basis, you will be able to take steps to stop a problem as soon as you discover it.
Let’s explore 4 SEO tools that you may not be aware of.
1. Moz Open Site Explorer
The Moz Open Site Explorer is an online search engine for links provided by Moz. There is a free version that offers a limited link analysis overview. Paid subscription plans start at $99 per month. These enable you to explore your site’s inbound links or what websites are linking to your site, allowing you to determine if those links have the “nofollow” attribute.
Other features include the Mozrank domain name authority, link anchor text and more. Examining your website’s back links is important, especially in the aftermath of Google’s Penguin algorithm updates. The paid subscriptions offer more data that you may be interested in investigating.
2. Majestic SEO Site Explorer
Majestic SEO offers a suite of SEO tools to analyze your website. The Majestic Site Explorer – Backlinks can be linked to your Google Webmaster Tools account to provide back link data including the source URL, linked anchor text, the target URL and more. The reports will help you examine the back links to identify any that may be questionable or on spammy pages. Subscription plans are available starting at $49 per month.
3. Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing Webmaster Tools offer an entire suite of tools to help you analyze your website. Under the Reports & Data section, you will be able to examine page traffic, search keywords and inbound links. The SEO Reports section is Bing’s tool that will scan your website every other week and automatically report on the 15 SEO best practices for on page optimization compliance.
4. Google Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster Tools is the one SEO toolset that you may have heard about or are currently using. I have mentioned it before, and it is an important tool to include. In the dashboard under search traffic, you will find “Links to Your Site”. On this page, you will be able to see the domain names that link to your site, your most linked content and how your data is linked. This information will give you an overview and will help you determine if you need to investigate incoming links more thoroughly.
Take Away
In the season of Thanksgiving, we can be thankful that we have SEO tools to help us monitor our website’s link profiles and determine if there are any issues that need to be addressed. Both Bing and Google Webmaster tools provide an overview of back links and if you are looking for a more in depth tool, you may like to consider a more comprehensive one. While this article is an overview, it will give you a glimpse of what tools you may want to add to your SEO arsenal.
Have you ever used any of these tools for a back link analysis or do you have another that you prefer? I would love to hear your thoughts.
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