[00:00:00] If you want to learn the best SEO tools to use this year, then you're going to want to listen up.
[00:00:05] What's up you guys? Rich Tavetian here, founder of RedRet Media.com, where digital marketing
[00:00:11] agency, based in Austin, Texas.
[00:00:13] Today's episode we're going to be talking about the best SEO tools that you could use for
[00:00:18] your business to help you grow.
[00:00:20] Now I know a lot of people are like if you're new to SEO, you might think let's just find
[00:00:28] the best tools and then SEO will be done for us and magically we'll have page 1 ranking on Google.
[00:00:35] And the unfortunate reality is this, you can't just rely on tools to do SEO for you.
[00:00:43] So to optimize your website to optimize your pages to optimize the content that you're
[00:00:47] creating, it really comes down to leveraging the tools to help you gather information
[00:00:54] that will allow you to optimize your pages accordingly.
[00:00:57] So let me get more specific.
[00:01:00] I guess let me just start here so the tools aren't going to do the work for you.
[00:01:05] If you do want the tools to do the work for you, then you're actually looking in the
[00:01:08] wrong place.
[00:01:09] You have to understand the concepts of search engine optimization and really what generally
[00:01:15] Google is looking for from a basic perspective.
[00:01:18] So if you listen to me before, if you've read some of my blog posts, you know that there
[00:01:22] are several categories of search engine optimization.
[00:01:26] And it really requires an ongoing maintenance because at any given time, you know, Google
[00:01:32] will give us a heads up on an algorithm update.
[00:01:35] We won't know necessarily what that algorithm update will be.
[00:01:38] However we should have the tools necessary to identify where the like what those changes
[00:01:44] are and whether or not that change or algorithm update is negatively impacting our website.
[00:01:50] So first of all, you know, make sure that you understand that the tool is not going to
[00:01:56] do the work for you before we get into this here.
[00:01:59] And I should warn you that don't download, like, don't actually log in and sign up
[00:02:04] for a tool until you understand the, you know, the things like on-page SEO, you understand
[00:02:12] off-page SEO.
[00:02:13] You understand technical SEO, like performance.
[00:02:17] You understand local SEO and what the difference between those things are.
[00:02:22] And you understand the importance of paid media and how differs from organic search results
[00:02:27] as well.
[00:02:28] So yeah, I think before you really dig deeper into the tools I'm going to share with you,
[00:02:35] try to, you know, educate yourself, I guess on a high level SEO to understand like
[00:02:41] what exactly does it mean.
[00:02:43] The goal obviously is to get on page one or to get impressions on your website and pages
[00:02:49] so that when people search for certain terms, that you show up organically.
[00:02:53] And that could also mean not just on Google but that could also mean on social media as
[00:02:58] well.
[00:02:59] Quick example is I have a TikTok video that it continues to get views every single day because
[00:03:07] it has very specific keywords for what people are searching for while they're on TikTok.
[00:03:12] So if they're searching for, you know, Sigma, you know, whatever camera lens, then my
[00:03:18] video seems to be showing up.
[00:03:19] Now, quite frankly, I don't know why or how that thing blew up but I guess it's primarily
[00:03:25] based on the keywords that are in the caption itself and in a way I kind of got lucky with
[00:03:30] that, right?
[00:03:31] So now I didn't know that until I actually created a, and by the way, that video I didn't
[00:03:38] intentionally say like let me put keywords in here so that people can search for it.
[00:03:42] All I did was describe the actual, you know, video camera lens and what it does and all
[00:03:47] that and it was valuable to people so it kept, you know, keeps showing, continues to keep
[00:03:51] showing up on people's search lists.
[00:03:54] So but we're going to be talking about Google and we're going to talk about Google SEO.
[00:03:59] So let's start first of all, I want to share with you some of the free tools first
[00:04:04] and then we'll go into some of the paid options as well.
[00:04:07] And actually, I'll just say this 80% of this list are free options.
[00:04:11] So you're in the right place if you're kind of low on budget and also hopefully you're
[00:04:17] listening to this because you're either doing, you know, kind of DIY, search engine optimization
[00:04:24] for your website.
[00:04:26] And if you're not doing DIY, maybe you have a team, maybe you have, maybe you are the
[00:04:30] person that's responsible for it and you're trying to educate yourself.
[00:04:34] We typically, you know, have really three options like when we're working with people,
[00:04:38] it's either like the DIY option by leveraging our resources like this podcast or our blog
[00:04:43] posts or other, you know, various social media posts as well and really just content.
[00:04:49] Or, you know, we have like a done for you service.
[00:04:51] We do offer SEO as a service and then we also do consulting and coaching as well from a marketing
[00:04:56] perspective.
[00:04:57] So let's talk about the tool.
[00:04:59] So number one is the free report.
[00:05:02] So you can get a free report from our website at SEO.redretmedia.com.
[00:05:09] The reason why I'm starting with that is not from an ego perspective.
[00:05:12] I just think that when you're getting free stuff, it's always good.
[00:05:16] And we do offer, you know, if we report from an SEO perspective and it's pretty thorough,
[00:05:22] you know, you do have the option to sign up for free to get more details on it.
[00:05:26] But it gives you a basic level of understanding.
[00:05:28] Now keep in mind, SEO, I think about it in terms of very, very much of like an analytic
[00:05:35] perspective, you know, I analyze everything.
[00:05:38] So when you're pulling data from different tools, you can't necessarily use one as a source
[00:05:45] of truth.
[00:05:46] Okay, and so what I mean by that is although our tool is great and it helps give you
[00:05:50] guidance, you definitely want to use other tools that we're going to be sharing to give
[00:05:56] you a reference point as well.
[00:05:58] So one tool actually might say something different than another tool.
[00:06:01] And that's the unfortunate unreliability of the internet and how often it changes and
[00:06:05] how Google, you know, can be unreliable as well in the sense.
[00:06:09] So once you understand that you're just getting a reference points from tools and to not
[00:06:16] use one necessarily as an end all be all for everything on your website, then you start
[00:06:23] to realize that okay, I have information from the tool.
[00:06:27] Now what do I do to act on that information?
[00:06:30] And the same goes for performance reports as well, right?
[00:06:33] There's probably about, you know, maybe hundreds of performance report tools that are out there
[00:06:38] for your website where you can run your website and it says okay, you know, this images
[00:06:42] to have you or this JavaScript, this to heavy or this web part of the websites to have
[00:06:46] you fix this, fix this but then you go to another tool and it says something different.
[00:06:50] So take these reports generally with a grain of salt but know that you're gathering information
[00:06:57] that's hopefully useful for you so that you can act on it.
[00:06:59] Okay, so number one would be go to SEO.redremmy.com.
[00:07:03] Number two is to use Google Lighthouse.
[00:07:05] So if you're not familiar with Google Lighthouse, the simplest thing to do is to use Google
[00:07:09] Chrome's developer tools right, right click inspect and then go to the Lighthouse tab.
[00:07:14] And you can run a free SEO report and it'll show you very basic high level checks that
[00:07:19] it's doing to identify like are you on track for things like meta tags and meta descriptions?
[00:07:24] Okay, you know, basic things that Google is looking for.
[00:07:29] Okay, number three is my favorite tool that I use pretty much every day and I look at it
[00:07:34] on a regular basis is Google Search Console.
[00:07:38] So this is where you're going to find out where your traffic is coming from.
[00:07:41] So the content that you have out there today, the pages that you have out there today,
[00:07:44] where is that traffic coming from?
[00:07:47] You know, for certain keywords.
[00:07:48] So in our case it's like digital marketing, Google Ads Agency, you know, SEO agency, SEO
[00:07:53] company, look for keywords that are trending towards what you offer as a business.
[00:08:02] If they're not related to that, then you probably should identify the pages that are
[00:08:06] you know, that are attracting people that are not related to your business and either remove
[00:08:10] them or read direct them to the right place.
[00:08:15] So Google Search Console, my opinion is really helpful because it helps you track like
[00:08:20] our pages indexed.
[00:08:22] You know, where's the traffic coming from?
[00:08:24] How can I leverage the content that people are actually getting impressions on?
[00:08:29] And what page are they, you know, what position are they showing up?
[00:08:32] Are they showing, you know, is my page showing up on position five, which is page one or
[00:08:37] is it showing up on, you know, position 50, which is way down the list.
[00:08:42] And by the way, nowadays when you Google things, there's really no page one.
[00:08:45] It seems like kind of like a constant scroll.
[00:08:50] So for example, if I just type in like plumbers, I'm typing literally typing it now.
[00:08:57] And I scroll down the list, it's actually not really a page one thing.
[00:09:02] Right?
[00:09:03] I can keep scrolling and it does like an automatic load.
[00:09:06] So the benefit to that is really, you know, you can show up and you can get impressions
[00:09:12] for people that are searching for keywords even if it's not on page one.
[00:09:16] So people are scrolling.
[00:09:17] They may click on the next, they may continue to scroll on this top, which is really beneficial
[00:09:22] for you because then you get impressions.
[00:09:24] So the point is, use Google Search Console to identify where those impressions are
[00:09:29] coming from in terms of keywords.
[00:09:31] And then you say, okay, these keywords are highly impressionable.
[00:09:34] Let me create more content around that and then that will hopefully increase the value
[00:09:39] of that page or update that existing page to push you up higher in the list.
[00:09:44] And by the way, the content needs to be helpful.
[00:09:46] Like it can't just be like AI generated.
[00:09:48] It can't just be, you know, garbage.
[00:09:51] Like it has to be useful, right?
[00:09:53] So you want to make sure that it's coming from a place of authority from experience,
[00:09:57] you know, showing that, you know, you are trustworthy as a source because you have the
[00:10:01] experience.
[00:10:02] You've gone through the process of actually, you know, let's say you're 25 year veteran
[00:10:08] plumber and you have the experience and you can show that through written content.
[00:10:12] Okay.
[00:10:13] So then number four is this is more for keyword research but a very important SEO tool that
[00:10:19] I like to, I like to leverage is Google Trends.
[00:10:22] So Google Trends is literally telling me what people are searching for, what's trending.
[00:10:27] Most importantly not just what's trending but what's, um, what is the change over time?
[00:10:31] Well, I guess that's trending but what's the change over time over a longer period of
[00:10:35] time?
[00:10:36] Okay.
[00:10:37] So there are certain keywords that you can search for where you're like, okay, over the
[00:10:40] past year it has increased in trend, you know, in terms of like volume or use, you know,
[00:10:47] you keywords are just going down.
[00:10:49] So for example, the terms chat or the term chat, GPD has a very high, you know, you probably
[00:10:56] could see a spike over the past year or two years but I think at some point it's going
[00:11:00] to come back down.
[00:11:01] Right?
[00:11:02] You're going to see it sort of fizzle out, um, sort of like when type people are typing in
[00:11:06] fidget spinners and keywords like that when it was like a trendy thing, you just, you
[00:11:11] can see that spike back in the day when it was a big thing.
[00:11:14] So what's cool is you could see these like kind of macro level keywords that people are
[00:11:19] searching for based on trends and typically what I always find is like, what do I search
[00:11:23] for first?
[00:11:24] Well start with your industry first, start with a service that you sell, start with a product
[00:11:28] that you sell and then you'll start to get recommendations from Google trends as well to give
[00:11:33] you more ideas.
[00:11:35] Number five is Google keyword planner.
[00:11:37] Now for this is for micro level keyword research, the benefit of using this, you do
[00:11:41] have to, you have to create an ad account in Google ads but once you have it set up,
[00:11:45] the keyword planner is really cool because now I could see, okay, when I search for certain
[00:11:49] keywords, what's the volume?
[00:11:51] What is the competition for it and then also how much is going to cost me if I decide
[00:11:55] to use Google ads, um, you know, for paid media.
[00:11:59] So SEO is really the way I think about SEO is like more from an organic perspective when
[00:12:04] you're creating content people are coming to you but you also have the option to do paid
[00:12:08] media like Google ads for search when people actually type in keywords and you can show up
[00:12:12] at the top of list.
[00:12:13] Now if you have the cash to do that and the budget to do that then I would highly recommend
[00:12:16] to do that along with your SEO to help support, you know, both organic and paid media
[00:12:21] as well.
[00:12:23] So that's number five.
[00:12:24] Number six is Google's, so do a Google search for the keyword on Google, right?
[00:12:28] Like do a search for whatever service you provide attorney, you know, in New York or whatever
[00:12:33] it is.
[00:12:34] Carwash, RV Park, you know, whatever company that you look for or that you sell or service
[00:12:41] that you sell and product that you sell, then what you're going to notice is the people
[00:12:45] also ask section.
[00:12:46] Okay.
[00:12:47] These are topics that are related to the keyword that people are searching for which
[00:12:50] means Google has all of this data, right?
[00:12:53] That is then gathered has continuously gathering over the years.
[00:12:56] It has a lot of reference points and what it's doing is it basically curating ideas for
[00:13:01] topics for us that we can create content for.
[00:13:03] Okay.
[00:13:04] So for example when you type in, um, you know, something like let's just say roofing companies
[00:13:10] and let me just type it here actually roofing.
[00:13:16] So if I type in roofing company, I'm going to see paid ads and I'm also going to see results
[00:13:21] that show up so Google maps results which from a local SEO perspective you want absolutely
[00:13:25] have that.
[00:13:26] But then there's a section that says people also ask and there's one and I'm on desktop
[00:13:30] it's going to be different on mobile but one two three four.
[00:13:33] I get four results that say people also ask.
[00:13:35] First thing that comes up it says what time of the year is best to replace a roof.
[00:13:39] And that's literally a question that people are asking at a high volume.
[00:13:42] And so you create content for that.
[00:13:45] Then you're, you know, and it's useful and it's, um, you know, crawled by Google and it's
[00:13:50] helpful and it's shared and it's linked it from other people.
[00:13:53] It's going to show up ideally in that list and it's going to be reference, right?
[00:13:57] Especially in the AI piece but it's going to be reference.
[00:13:59] And it also gives you ideas on what content should I create organically so that people actually,
[00:14:06] you know, getting, are getting the right information that are, you know, people are looking
[00:14:10] for like if the majority people are looking for hey, what's the time of the best time
[00:14:14] a year to replace a roof.
[00:14:16] Then as a roof in company you want to absolutely create content for those customers because
[00:14:21] it shows that you're helping and that's what Google likes.
[00:14:24] Okay.
[00:14:25] So now we're going to continue on all these are all Google products as you get to out and
[00:14:30] we'll get to the paid ones in a second here but so the other free thing that you could
[00:14:34] do is Google business profile, Google business profile as you guys know if you're listening
[00:14:37] to me before is absolutely one of the best ways especially for local business, local
[00:14:42] company and you want to show up on, you know, maps.
[00:14:45] Then you absolutely need to have a Google business profile created.
[00:14:49] Process a little bit tedious nowadays but once you get it set up, you know, you can create
[00:14:53] you can put photos, you can add testimonials, you can put, you can request reviews, you
[00:14:57] can answer questions if people have.
[00:15:00] And the ideal state is that when somebody's like their GPS has close to your business
[00:15:06] they do a search, they see you, you show up and then ideally they call you first or
[00:15:12] they go to a website first because you're typically close around the list and you're physically
[00:15:16] closer to them.
[00:15:17] What Google likes about that is it's supporting people locally to that area and what
[00:15:25] I've found and in the over decade experience of understanding SEO and figuring out how
[00:15:33] to show up on the list.
[00:15:35] Google is it seems like it's prioritizing local businesses visually so that you show up.
[00:15:43] And so if Google is going to prioritize that then I'm going to prioritize that for
[00:15:46] our clients and we're going to make sure that you show up locally for your business
[00:15:50] when somebody does a keyword search that is physically close to that office.
[00:15:54] And if you don't show up then you need to either create a profile, a claim it or be more active
[00:16:00] on it and treat it like a social media platform because that's kind of what it is.
[00:16:04] Okay, now number eight is Google Analytics.
[00:16:06] You can use this to find trends if you don't have it installed in your website you absolutely
[00:16:10] need to make sure that's there.
[00:16:11] GA4 is the newest property that you can use and what I like about it is it's a really
[00:16:17] good way to look at the data to analyze your website to see where people are coming from
[00:16:22] not only from acquisition perspective but to also see like are you getting sales from certain
[00:16:29] acquisition channels.
[00:16:32] What are the trends for what people are searching for?
[00:16:34] You can kind of see some of the keywords search consoles going to be better for keywords
[00:16:37] but you can see some of that in there as well on GA4.
[00:16:41] And then the paid one number nine.
[00:16:44] Now there's a lot of paid tools out there for SEO.
[00:16:47] There's like screen I think it's screaming frog, there's local dominator, there's gosh
[00:16:52] there's so many there's some rush, there's like literally if you just type an SEO
[00:16:57] tool I'm just pulling up here.
[00:17:01] Mazza's a good decent one, similar web there's surfer SEO, there's Uber suggests, there's
[00:17:09] answer the public, there's keyword tool, there's like it's ridiculous I'm going to
[00:17:13] either are out there honestly and the point of me, I kind of giving you this list
[00:17:21] and giving you mostly free ones is that you really don't need like you really don't
[00:17:26] need paid tools to be successful in SEO if you understand the basics of SEO.
[00:17:32] And the basically the only paid tool that I suggest honestly is a H refs, a H REFS,
[00:17:41] I like the tool a lot it's very powerful and honestly like this is going to sound horrible
[00:17:46] but they all to me are very similar because they all do the same thing like I'm just
[00:17:52] going to be honest they all do the same thing, they all provide similar data it's just
[00:17:57] like preference at the end of the day like do you want this particular user experience
[00:18:01] do you want to see how you're actually ranking do you want to see competitors do you want
[00:18:07] to see keywords do you want to see and a lot of the keywords can be searched for free using
[00:18:13] Google search planner, keyword planner but the point is again you're getting data and
[00:18:19] information for your website it's data and information that you need to understand how to
[00:18:24] interpret and then once you interpret it you can start to see trends with these tools like
[00:18:29] the benefit of these paid tools is honestly to see trends to use the data to look at those
[00:18:34] trends and make decisions based on that information you know how are you going to increase your
[00:18:39] domain authority if you don't know what your domain authority is right how are you going
[00:18:44] to get more backlinks if you don't know what a backlink is right and the importance of
[00:18:49] high authority backlinks right how are you going to increase your traffic if you don't
[00:18:55] know what your traffic is and you could probably get there from Google Analytics but you
[00:18:59] know where's that traffic coming from high keywords you know which country like does that
[00:19:04] contraction matter you know for your business and yeah just understanding like where you're
[00:19:11] at now current state and then figuring out what are the what are the actual tasks that I need to
[00:19:16] do to help you succeed so hopefully that makes sense guys and again you know overall in my
[00:19:23] opinion the best tool that's paid it's probably a atrefs use them all basically and it's just
[00:19:30] comes down to preference at the end of the day and they're all really quick at making updates
[00:19:35] so like if something comes out they're pretty quick in terms of like product management
[00:19:39] and to get their product updated for any any any Google algorithm changes so hopefully that
[00:19:47] makes sense and at the end of the day it's not about the tools that matter it's about understanding
[00:19:52] the foundations right of SEO and then using the tools to gather the information to help you make a decision
[00:19:59] on what's working what's not working and then take the action towards improving those those things
[00:20:05] so hopefully that makes sense guys this is a long long audio here and if you guys have any
[00:20:11] questions please reach out to me and check us out at redratmedia.com we are a digital marketing engine
[00:20:18] for small media and businesses we also you know have several software tools that can help you
[00:20:23] grow your businesses well peace out
