The Top 3 SEO Tools and How They’re Used

In some of our previous blog posts, we’ve examined the importance of establishing a successful and consistent SEO campaign.

So, by now, you might already know just how much thought goes into SEO, how time-consuming it can be, and how difficult keeping momentum is.

But there’s some good news. There are plenty of SEO tools you can use to navigate a successful strategy. However, the bad news is there are so many solutions out there, finding the right one can be a challenge.

SEO trends are continuously changing, so it’s imperative you find a tool that stays ahead of the curve.

So, to help you find the best tools for SEO, we’ve outlined our three favorite SEO software. We’ll look at SEMrush, AHREFS, and Spyfu. These are the tools we use to keep our SEO running smoothly. 

So without further ado, let’s get you introduced to these top-notch platforms.

Best Features of the Top SEO Tools?

First things first, it’s worth mentioning that all these SEO tools suit a similar purpose: They can inform your SEO strategy by helping you identify the best content and keywords for optimizing your web pages.

These days, high-quality content plays a pivotal role in top-notch SEO strategies, which is why these SEO tools provide everything you need for researching the keywords and content your competitors have already had success with.

These platforms also identify where you rank for specific keywords. With this info at your fingertips, you can then take the necessary steps to improve where your SEO strategy might be lacking.

High-quality SEO tools (like the ones we’re about to review) also boast intuitive dashboards, where, over time, you can keep track of your SEO efforts.

With just a glance, you can measure the success of your SEO by comparing traffic, backlinks, and search engine rankings.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is jam-packed full of features you can use to help boost the success of your SEO and marketing campaigns.

In short, Ahrefs has a fast-updating index of backlinks, live links, competitive sites, and keywords.

With all these resources at your disposal, you can conduct insightful market research, explore different content opportunities, compare your SEO ranking with other websites, and analyze the potential strategies for obtaining backlinks.

With that in mind, let’s take a more specific look at some of the features AHREFs has to offer:

• Site Explorer: Here, you can analyze your site’s backlinks profile (as well as your competitor’s backlink profiles).
• Content Explorer: This enables you to find highly shared content on any topic
• Keywords Explorer: Use this tool to identify relevant keyword ideas and traffic estimations.
• Rank Tracker: Track where your web pages rank for both mobile and desktop searches for any location (and get regular reports to help monitor your progress).
• Site Audit Tool: Analyze your website for common SEO issues, identify them, and then make the necessary improvements.

Just to name a few. 

How You Can Use Ahrefs to Boost SEO

Let’s break this down…

Analyze the High Traffic Pages of Your Competitors to Find the Low-Hanging Fruit

Ahrefs is hands down one of the best SEO tools for scouting out your competition, their most successful posts, and their most popular web pages. This, in turn, can inspire your own content. You may glean ideas you might otherwise never have thought of! 

Simply use the Ahrefs Site Explorer by entering your competitor’s domain name to get a better feel for their content strategy.

If you’re unsure who your competition actually is, run a ‘competing domains’ report. This should populate a whole list of similar sites, alongside their most popular pages and the keywords they’re ranking for. 

This tool works wonders for getting a better understanding of the kinds of content that work best in your niche, and more importantly, the sorts of posts that don’t perform as well.

With this info to hand, you won’t have to bother with topics and content formats that don’t convert.

Instead, skip ahead of the game by focusing on the pre-established ‘low hanging fruit.’ By this, of course, we mean the content opportunities where you can easily out-perform your competitors.

Learn How Competitors Use Backlinks

You can also utilize the AHREFs Site Explorer to see which content published by your competitors attracts the most backlinks. Filter your search to see their newest backlinks and find out, by tracking these sites, why and how the link occurred.

By analyzing and keeping an eye on your competitor’s backlinking strategy, you can further enhance your own. Simple, right?

Use Alerts to Seize New Linking Opportunities

You can set an alert that indexes sites that have mentioned your brand without linking to your website. Capitalize on this by contacting the website owner and ask if you can get a link back to your site.  

Use AHREFs’ Content Explorer to Find Valuable Keywords and Guest Blogging Opportunities

Plug a topic into the Content Explorer and find similar blogs that haven’t yet covered your area of expertise. This info makes it much easier to approach the site about potential guest blogging opportunities, which, of course, will link back to your page.

You can also use the same explorer to find keywords to optimize your content for, more specifically, ones with low competition and high search rankings.

SEMrush

Similar to AHREFs, SEMrush is another SEO tool you can use for keyword research.  This tool also enables you to track your competitor’s keyword strategies, look for backlinking opportunities, and run SEO audits on your site and blog.

The tool has a database of over 46 million domains and 120 million keywords, which is why this software can accurately determine the organic position of a domain on Google’s search engine.

How You Can Use SEMrush to Inform Your SEO Strategy

Let’s take a closer look at a few of the ways you can use SEMRush to your advantage:

Comparative Competitive Intelligence

SEMRush helps you research your competition and take inspiration from market-leading sites in your industry. It lists your organic competitors and indicates how much of a competition they are to you.

SEMRush can also send you a monthly PDF highlighting your own SEO performance and search engine rankings, which comes in handy for monitoring the progress of your SEO campaign.  

Last but not least, SEMRush helps you to identify keywords your competitors are using as well as their most successful content. From there, you can quickly develop content to target these search terms.

Find New Keyword Opportunities

SEMRush enables you to search for keywords and compare them. The tool will automatically suggest other keywords it thinks are relevant to the term, alongside their monthly search volumes.

Having all of this info in one place makes it easy to compare keywords and pick the most relevant one for your web page. 

New Advertising Opportunities

SEMRush also looks at the keywords you’re currently ranking for and helps you monetize your content by suggesting companies that pay similar sites for displaying ads as well as relevant affiliate programs you could join.

Spyfu

Spyfu is another useful tool for competitor and keyword research. So, here’s how you can use Spyfu to grow your traffic:

Identify Content Gaps with Kombat

Kombat is Spyfu’s tool for comparing your content with that of your competitors. Just enter your own domain name as well as two competing domains you want to compare yourself with, and you’re good to go!

The dashboard will then inform you of any weaknesses in your own content, or keywords that have been tackled by all three competing sites. This makes it easy to identify content that’s worth pursuing.

Shift Your Keyword Focus onto Existing Content

Keywords can lose popularity over time, which sometimes leads to outdated content. Luckily, Spyfu has tools to help with this.

Spyfu can identify articles that have ranked for unexpected keywords, or those that have fallen behind.

That way, you’ll know which of your existing content to focus on.

Are You Ready to Boost Your SEO Strategy?

All in all, we think Ahrefs, SEMRush, and Spyfu are some of the best SEO tools for boosting your online visibility and informing your content marketing campaigns.

All three help you stay up to date on relevant keywords and introduce you to new advertising, backlink, and guest blogging opportunities (if used correctly).

So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to get working on your SEO strategy. But, if you want more information on SEO, digital marketing, or building an online business before getting going, please feel free to contact us.