Tools I’ve stopped using in 2024<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nI constantly get asked about SEO.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Here’s my toolkit to realistically manage SEO \ud83d\udc47\ud83c\udffb<\/p>\n
Daily SEO Tools<\/h2>\n
\u2b1c\ufe0f Google Search Console –<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\u2b1c\ufe0f Google Analytics 4 (GA4) with Google Search Console (GSC) –<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\u2b1c\ufe0f Keywords Everywhere Chrome Plug-in (Paid Version) –<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\u2b1c\ufe0f SEMRush –<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\nWeekly SEO Tools<\/h2>\n\u2b1c\ufe0f Looker\/Google Data Studio<\/strong> and\/or Swydo –<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\u2b1c\ufe0f ChatGPT (Paid Version) – <\/strong>ChatGPT is my co-worker in creating repeatable workflows and is a key part of my content research and production process.<\/p>\n\u2b1c\ufe0f Lowfruits.io –<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\u2b1c\ufe0f Midjourney –<\/strong> Unique, AI image creation tool done for you based on prompts and uploaded images \u2013 but please, please<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n\u2b1c\ufe0f Google Trends –<\/strong> 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?<\/p>\n\u2b1c\ufe0f AnswerThePublic.com –<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\u2b1c\ufe0f CloudFlare –<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\u2b1c\ufe0f Cuppa.sh –<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\nOccasional SEO Tools<\/h2>\n\u2b1c\ufe0f ScreamingFrog –<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\u2b1c\ufe0f Koala.sh –<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\u2b1c\ufe0f Descript –<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\u2b1c\ufe0f GTmetrix –<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\ud83d\udee0\ufe0f Want more tools? Steal my entire marketing tech stack<\/strong><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\nTools I’ve Stopped Using in 2024<\/h2>\n\u2b1c\ufe0f Jasper.ai –<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\u2b1c\ufe0f SurferSEO –<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\nAs always, I’d appreciate it if you forwarded this on to a colleague \u2013 perhaps the coworker who’s always telling you SEO is a losing game.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\u00a0\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n <\/p>\n[elementor-template id=”26839″]","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 despite it being one of the many, many facets of my work. 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…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26664,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34,37,143,142],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seo","category-ai-ads","category-all-tools","category-getting-started-with-ai"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketingalec.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketingalec.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketingalec.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketingalec.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketingalec.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21724"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/marketingalec.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27100,"href":"https:\/\/marketingalec.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21724\/revisions\/27100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketingalec.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketingalec.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketingalec.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketingalec.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} | |
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