Search Engine Optimize (SEO) is the monster that stands between bloggers and success. Arming yourself with the right tools before you head out into battle will swing the scales in your favor and assure victory. Whether your goals are to grow your traffic/authority, generate more profit through affiliate marketing, or increase conversation rates for your own services or products, our curation of the best SEO tools for bloggers is sure to help you in one way or the other. Suit up and have your pick of your most formidable weapons yet as far as SEO is concerned. 

1. Google Analytics

Sometimes the tools you want and those you need are two different things. This often falls into the latter category. Not given a second look by most bloggers, Google Analytics is still a decent tool to help you conquer SEO. 

Here are some of its standout qualities: 

• Funnel analysis: Retrace leads to their traffic sources so you can focus your efforts on certain platforms
• Data Activision: Leverage machine learning to anticipate your audience’s content needs
• Audience targeting: With comprehensive data, you can use this feature to help zero in on the type of audience you should be targeting

The only downside of Google Analytics is that the learning curve can be steep. But it is worth your time and effort

2. Readability Test Tool

A lot of bloggers pay a great deal of attention to technical SEO and search bots. But making content solely for search engines is where most of us go wrong. At the end of the day, readability is crucial and it has a say on Google’s rankings and therefore the amount of traffic you receive.

That’s where the Readability Test Tool comes in handy, helping you in the following ways: 

• Analyzes and grades your content in terms of readability 
• You can important content or entire web pages for testing
• Enables you to write at a grade level that meets the needs of your demography/industry

3. SEMrush

With 25 billion keyword tools in its repository, you need SEMrush in your corner to help you find the best keywords. 

However, that’s just a small hint of the possibilities, as you can do a lot else with SEMrush including: 

• Competitive research to help you find out how accomplished bloggers are achieving success, e.g. by tracking keywords they use
• Site analyses. SEMrush enables you to put your house in order so you can set up a robust foundation for your content marketing
• Content ideation. It is also an excellent asset for brainstorming new blog ideas

4. Screaming Frog

Want to scale the SEO ladders on your quest to the top of the page? Be sure to have the Screaming Frog by your side. It makes the climb up search result pages easier, thanks to the following features: 

• Tracking duplicate content which can hurt your SEO efforts
• Finding broken links that are sabotaging your blog 
• Overall, you can rely on this tool to sniff out super-elusive flaws in your technical SEO

Overall, Scream Frog is a powerful audit tool for bloggers keen to establish where their SEO strategy is missing the mark.  

5. Ahrefs

If you asked every digital marketing agency what are the top SEO tools they’d recommend for bloggers, chances are Ahrefs will rank among their top three each time. 

Here are a few reasons why Ahrefs is winning over experts: 

• Multi-search engine prowess: The tool leverages data from several search engines beyond Google, offering you a holistic approach to SEO
• It’s also great for identifying backlink and keyword opportunities that give you the edge on the competition 
• Content gap feature: This is a great place to uncover content goldmines you should explore

That being said, Ahrefs can be quite costly to maintain.

6. Yoast SEO

Simply add the Yoast SEO plugin to your WordPress website, and get a new ally to aid you in your SEO liberation. So what is the main benefit of using Yoast as a blogger? There’s not one but plenty: 

• Analyze your site’s metadata and readability to ensure you’re hitting the right notes with Google
• It’s an all-rounder, merging capabilities you would ordinarily find in separate tools
• Yoast SEO is also great for beginners. You get guidance and suggestions on how to optimize content as a newbie blogger. It’s also very user-friendly for the non-tech savvy

7. Surfer SEO 

Dominate the waves of search engine optimization with Surfer SEO, which has helped many a blogger paddle their way to more organic traffic and conversions. 

Here are some of the top features of this bad boy: 

• Keyword research: pull ideas for keywords and topics, with the ability to filter it all down to geographical metrics for maximum impact
• Content editor; Use this feature to get a detailed content brief and outline to help get the ball rolling
• Content audit: Identify opportunities to improve your existing content such as common backlinks you should capture

8. Cognitive SEO

Another fan favorite for many digital marketing agency teams, Cognitive SEO is another wise addition to your SEO war chest. So what can you do with this SEO tool for bloggers? 

Check it out: 

• In-depth backlinks analysis to help you spot and weed out unnatural links attracting the wrath of search algorithms
• Rank tracking for local, mobile, and desktop to ensure you create seamless content across the board
• Cognitive SEO keeps a close eye on Google rankings and uses real-time data to help you conform with algorithm updates

9. Majestic

Having crawled about 500 billion unique URLs within the past decade, link intelligence is the most powerful feature of this SEO tool. That’s where it truly shines for bloggers, allowing you to create an extensive backlink profile by scrutinizing: 

• Off-site links
• On-site links
• Domain comparisons
• Keywords and so on 

With a specific specialty in backlink analysis, you might need to pair it with other SEO tools for the complete SEO picture.

10. Moz Tools

Helping to inform many expert SEO techniques, Moz Tools holds a special place as the cornerstone of SEO for many successful bloggers. 

The best bits of Moz Tools include: 

• Keyword explorer: Find spam scores and keyword difficulties so you can choose your content battles where you’re most likely to win
• Website behavioral analysis: Understand how users interact with your website, so you can better structure your content and place your links and CTAs
• Site recommendations: Get suggestions on how to improve your site’s structure to win even more SEO plaudits from search engines

Lock and Load!

If you want to kill it with search engine optimization, you need the best combination of SEO tools in your arsenal. When done correctly, blogging can explode your traffic by about 55%, and even by so much more depending on frequency and the SEO techniques that you implement. It might be in your best interest to work with an experienced digital marketing agency that can also help you with the more technical side of SEO which could be affecting your traffic.