My go-to tools for running SEO

Alec’s favorite SEO tools

Read Time: 5 minutes

HIGHLIGHTS:

• My daily SEO tools to tweak & test changes
• My weekly SEO tools to look at the large picture
• My occasional SEO tools with niche use cases
• Tools I’ve stopped using in 2024

I constantly get asked about SEO.

In a previous life, I ran a search engine. But search algorithms change 4-5 thousand times each year. To be an expert in SEO, you have to stay up to date with the latest changes, test frequently, and have the time to analyze what works for your brand.

Modern SEO, on the other hand, is a more realistic approach for those of us with lots of marketing tasks. SEO is something we care about but don’t have nearly enough time for. A modern approach to SEO may look like frequently testing and iterating your content.

For those of us with many focus areas, systems and tools can be a lifesaver for testing and iterating with SEO. Once you’ve automated a process or simplified optimization, it becomes easier to manage SEO efforts without overwhelming yourself.

Here’s my toolkit to realistically manage SEO 👇🏻

Daily SEO Tools

⬜️ Google Search Console – Everyone knows Google is the leader in SEO and search engine marketing, so it’s always best to get whatever data we can directly from their platforms.

⬜️ Google Analytics 4 (GA4) with Google Search Console (GSC) – Yes, GA4 has its own problems and headaches… but it’s free! Plus it’s directly connected with Google and is still better than the alternatives.

⬜️ Keywords Everywhere Chrome Plug-in (Paid Version) – This tool provides key data on keywords whenever I do a search (such as search volume & trends data). Super user-friendly for SEO beginners, and starts at $6/mo.

⬜️ SEMRush – This one is my personal favorite, but any fully-managed SEO tool like this is a must for anyone looking for a robust solution with minimal upkeep. Like most software, it does have its own issues (can get expensive, overly complex, and unhelpful metrics), but it’s great to have everything in one place at a reasonable price.

Weekly SEO Tools

⬜️ Looker/Google Data Studio and/or Swydo – These tools all offer automated reporting and custom dashboards. Looker can create complex, thorough reports, whereas Swydo can host simple, combined reports from Meta, Bing, and Google data. There’s some upfront investment needed to build your correct reports, but once those are crafted, it’s smooth sailing from there.

⬜️ ChatGPT (Paid Version) – ChatGPT is my co-worker in creating repeatable workflows and is a key part of my content research and production process.

⬜️ Lowfruits.io – This is a keyword research tool that makes it easier for you to find keywords to rank for. It’s similar to tools like SEMRush, but cheaper and focuses mostly on analyzing Search Engine Results Page (SERP) results for weaknesses.

⬜️ Midjourney – Unique, AI image creation tool done for you based on prompts and uploaded images – but please, please don’t use stock images! From my extensive testing, stock photos perform worse as they’re already used on thousands of other websites. Starting with your own photos is always best.

⬜️ Google Trends – Again, Google’s the leader of SEO, so might as well use their tools. This is great for general topic and category research. Is a keyword growing or shrinking? Is it a fad/seasonal topic or here to stay?

⬜️ AnswerThePublic.com – This one’s an oldie but a goodie and helps you understand the searcher’s intent. Use it to understand what problems your audience is trying to solve and reverse engineer your SEO strategy from there.

⬜️ CloudFlare – This is more on the IT side, but it essentially acts a reverse proxy on your cloud infrastructure (websites, email domains, etc.) to make your assets faster, more secure, and more reliable. This greatly helps with technical SEO.

⬜️ Cuppa.sh – An AI-enabled tool that helps you rework and create SEO-optimized content in minutes through its integration with ChatGPT. It also easily exports to WordPress, Google Docs, and Zapier.

Occasional SEO Tools

⬜️ ScreamingFrog – For when I need to do an audit of a new, larger website. This is a website crawler and log file analyzer to find keywords, broken links, and more areas for optimization.

⬜️ Koala.sh – Another strong AI-enabled content writing tool, powered by GPT-4. But I mostly use Cuppa these days as it’s cheaper and directly uses the OpenAI API.

⬜️ Descript – AI-enabled video editing and transcript building for someone like me who isn’t a video expert and needs a tool as easy as a word processor. This isn’t directly in SEO but can help with creating faster content processes once you have your SEO strategy nailed down.

⬜️ GTmetrix – For when I need a deeper dive into site speed issues, which can hinder SEO. This tool tells you how your website performs, why it’s slow, and how to optimize it for a pretty affordable price.

Tools I’ve Stopped Using in 2024

⬜️ Jasper.ai – It’s an OK tool for enterprise marketing teams… but it’s expensive. I’ve replaced all of what it does with other tools at a significantly lower cost. In my experience, just using Copilot or ChatGPT directly works better.

⬜️ SurferSEO – When I was using Jasper.ai, I had this tool integrated with it. My hope was that it would be a helpful guardrail for new marketers on my team. But after over a year of testing, it’s wrong in too many categories. It overstuffs keywords and feels totally off on its article-length recommendations. Plus, it’s also quite expensive.

As always, I’d appreciate it if you forwarded this on to a colleague – perhaps the coworker who’s always telling you SEO is a losing game.