SEO
is essential when attracting customers to your homepage. By performing search engine optimization, you can rank higher in search results and increase traffic.
There are several types of tools that can help with SEO. Therefore, this time, we will introduce the types of SEO tools and 10 representative tools that can be helpful.
Types of SEO tools and 10 specific tools
There are various SEO tools. Of these types, I will list seven of the main ones. Let’s take a look at 10 specific tools and an explanation of each type of SEO tool.
SEO diagnostic tool
SEO diagnostic tools are helpful when implementing SEO. This is a tool that allows you to get an idea of how well your company’s website has been SEO-optimized.
For example, when you enter the URL of the page you want to diagnose, you can see tag information such as “title”, “description”, “keywords”, and “h1”, which are said to be important for SEO, the number of links such as the number of outbound links and number of backlinks, and the last update. Date and time, file size, page load time, search ranking, etc. are displayed.
This allows you to know how well the pages on your company’s homepage have been SEO-optimized and which keywords are related to them. Additionally, since you can visualize the weaknesses in your homepage’s SEO, you can use this as a reference when implementing SEO measures.
1) “Google Search Console”
https://search.google.com/search-console/about?hl=ja
Google Search Console is a leading SEO diagnostic tool. This is a free tool provided by Google that is often used by people doing SEO.
It’s a web-based service that can be used in your browser, as long as you have the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Safari and a Google account.
Search Console has a variety of tools and reports that you can use to modify your website and improve your SEO efforts.
It is often confused with Google Analytics, but while Google Analytics records and reports user behavior on your own homepage, Google Search Console basically records user behavior on search engines. It records and reports.
Search Console provides tools and reports that allow you to, for example:
- Checking if Google can crawl it
In order for your website to be indexed by Google and displayed in search results, your website must be crawled by Google’s robots. Search Console allows you to check whether Google can crawl your site.
- Can fix indexing issues
You can fix Google indexing issues and request that new or updated content on your homepage be re-indexed.
- You can know the search performance of your homepage
The “search traffic” data that comes in when your homepage is searched by users on Google, the frequency with which your homepage appears in Google search results, the words and phrases entered in the search window when your homepage is displayed, and the search queries. It shows search performance, such as how often search users click through (move to the homepage by clicking on a link to the homepage).
- Receive homepage alerts
You can receive alerts when Google detects issues with your site, such as indexing or spam.
- Displaying sites linked to the homepage
Displays external sites linked to the homepage and the number of links, and pages that link to each other on the homepage and the number of links.
- Check mobile usability rating
Displays the usability evaluation of mobile version homepages such as those for smartphones.
Another feature of Search Console is that it can be integrated with other tools provided by Google, such as Google Analytics.
2) “AI Analyst”
https://wacul-ai.com/
AI Analyst is a tool that can be used by linking with Google Analytics, and will tell you the necessary measures and important points for SEO measures based on the access analysis data of approximately 34,000 sites.
It thoroughly checks access analysis data and discovers what factors are influencing the site’s target value, CV (conversion). We then check all the inflow sources, entry pages, transit pages, etc. on the homepage, and find out under what conditions the CV will be high or low.
For example, it will show you the potential for growth of your company’s homepage, such as showing page improvement ideas such as “There are pages that will increase your CVR (conversion rate) if you direct people to them,” so you can know where to improve them to get the most results. You can.
In addition, even after implementing improvement measures, it is easy to verify the effectiveness, which helps in implementing the PDCA cycle.
The tool is available for free. With the free plan, you can check the “List of Artificial Intelligence Proposals” and the “Report Screen”, but if you want to see more detailed evidence data, consider switching to a paid plan.
Search ranking check tool
A search ranking check tool is a tool that allows you to find out where each page of your company’s website ranks on search engines such as Google. It is an important tool that allows you to know how much SEO effect has been achieved by running each page that has undergone SEO measures through this search ranking check tool after a certain period of time. After actually implementing SEO measures, it will become an indispensable tool for SEO measures that you will use to check regularly.
Specifically, you can obtain search results from Google, Yahoo!, and Bing in real time, and see a list of the rankings of your company’s homepage. Checking the search results manually by yourself becomes a difficult task as the number of pages increases. On that point, the search ranking check tool can help you reduce your work time and give you more time to spend on the core SEO measures.
GRC is a search ranking check tool from Japan that has free and paid plans. This is a type of software that has been distributed since 2004 and is installed and used on a PC. Can be used on both Windows and Mac.
Once you have set the URL and keywords for your company’s homepage, just by starting GRC, it will retrieve and display the search rankings of all Google, Yahoo!, and Bing in real time.
The obtained results can be checked in graphs or output as a report, making it convenient for company personnel to use as a report when implementing SEO within their company.
Since you can check the trends in search results in a graph, it is suitable for implementing SEO measures over the long term.
GRC has a PC version “GRC” and a mobile version “GRC Mobile”. There is also “GRC-W” which investigates search rankings on overseas search engine Google and records the history.
All of them can be used for free, but the free version has a limited number of items. You can only register up to 3 URLs and 10 search terms (keywords).
In order to relax or remove the item limit, you will need to purchase a license. There are 5 types of license plans in total, and the lowest plan “Basic” costs 450 yen per month, allows you to register up to 5 URLs, 500 search terms, and top tracking (search results for specified search terms). Up to 5 items can be set for the function that records the entire ranking history of top sites.
The top plan, “Ultimate,” costs 2,250 yen per month, and has unlimited URLs, search terms, and top tracking items, as well as remote viewing (the ability to view GRC data on other PCs connected via LAN). You can also use CSV automatic save. Higher-level plans have more pages on their homepage, so there may be room for use depending on the scale of use.
Competitive analysis tools
This is a tool that allows you to analyze websites that are your competitors. Track and analyze your competitors’ homepage strategies and develop strategies to improve your search rankings. You can clearly see what your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses are, where they are competing with you, and where you are losing.
Competitor analysis tools can provide you with the following information:
- Number of sessions (number of accesses)
Many competitive analysis tools will tell you how many sessions, or visits, your competitors’ sites are getting. If a competitor’s site has more sessions than your homepage, it may be that your homepage has attractive elements that the site lacks, or that your homepage is being accessed by a different group of users.
- Inflow route
You can see what routes users take when visiting your competitors’ sites. This allows you to see how competing sites are attracting customers. For example, you can refer to whether they use only organic search, whether they use advertising, or whether they use SNS.
- Natural search inflow keywords
Find out what keywords people are using to visit your competitors’ sites. You can also analyze the keywords that are contributing to the traffic of your competitors’ sites. By finding keywords that are competing with your own website and keywords that are not, you can devise strategies for SEO for your own website.
- Staying time
Find out how long users stay on your competitors’ sites. If the user stays for a long time, it probably contains information that is useful to the user. If such a page exists, it would be very helpful.
“SimilarWeb”
https://www.similarweb.com/ja/
SimilarWeb is a leading competitor site analysis tool. It is popular because it is easy to use even for beginners.
Many of the competitive site analysis tools are made overseas and have English versions, but SimilarWeb is a British tool and has a Japanese version, so you can use it even if you can’t read English.
SimilarWeb allows you to obtain information on competing sites. Items that can be obtained include the number of sessions (number of accesses), average length of stay, bounce rate, number of page views (PV), inflow keywords, inflow routes, rankings of popular pages, etc. You can obtain a wealth of data useful for competitive analysis. can.
Using this data, you can develop a homepage strategy that surpasses your competitors by repeating trial and error on your homepage by comparing it with your competitors.
There is a free version and a paid version, but it is said that the free version allows you to sufficiently research competing sites, so it is a good idea to try the free version first and switch to the paid version if necessary.
Another notable feature is that it can be installed as a Google extension. It’s very convenient because you can analyze your competitors’ sites with just one click.
keyword research tools
A keyword research tool is a tool that allows you to perform detailed research on the keywords necessary to display your company’s homepage at the top of search results and to increase traffic to your company’s homepage.
The target users you want to visit your homepage will depend on how you set keywords. By knowing which keywords are suitable for attracting customers to your company’s homepage, what keywords are often searched by the general public, and what are trending keywords, you can find the most suitable keywords. can be found.
With keyword research tools, you can find out how often the keywords you want to target are searched per month, and how much competition there is for those keywords. By utilizing the information obtained from keyword research tools, you can efficiently select keywords, which are the most important for SEO measures.
There are several keyword research tools out there, but the most well-known and widely used one is the Google Ads Keyword Planner. Although it is a tool prepared for selecting keywords when advertising on Google, it is open to the public and can be used for free by simply obtaining and registering a Google Ads account, so it can be used not only for advertising but also for a wide range of purposes. It can be used for any purpose.
However, if you are not running ads with a Google Ads account, only rough numbers such as “1-100, 100-1000, 1000-10,000” will be displayed instead of the correct search volume. If you want to know more detailed search volume, we recommend checking with the account where you advertise.
Keyword Planner lets you see related keywords related to the word or phrase you enter, as well as monthly searches for the keyword, amount of competition, bids, and more. It also provides information such as changes in the number of searches for each month in the past, so it is useful to know the demand and influence of keywords depending on the season.
2) “Keywordmap”
https://keywordmap.jp/
With Keywordmap, just by entering the URL, you can research the keywords that have a lot of search traffic and the keywords that are not ranked high for that homepage. We have an overwhelming amount of data, and based on that data, we can analyze not only our own homepage but also competitor sites.
It also visualizes and displays the concerns and interests of users who search for a certain keyword. It is easy to intuitively understand what kind of articles and content to create to be effective, and its interface has also been praised.
In addition, it has a wide range of functions for those who operate listing advertisements.
There is a fee to use it, but a one-week free trial is available.
Content analysis tools
A content analysis tool is a tool that analyzes the content of your own homepage and competitor sites.
In recent years, in addition to analyzing current content, there has been a rapid increase in the number of tools that visually show what kind of content is required to rank high in search results for a targeted keyword.
It is possible to quickly and effectively implement SEO measures for your own homepage based on competitor sites that are already ranked high and a huge amount of other data. When it comes to content analysis tools, the majority of tools are actually capable of not only content analysis, but also comprehensive analysis of SEO, such as analysis useful for internal SEO measures and competitive research.
MIERUCA is a multi-functional content/SEO analysis tool. It analyzes the contents of your company’s homepage and makes suggestions for improvements, which is useful for internal optimization, internal measures, and content creation.
We also visualize keywords that will increase traffic and inquiries to your site. It will also make strategic suggestions, such as visualizing the difference in traffic between your competitors’ sites and your own, and clarifying what you should do.
It also has a function that easily visualizes what search users want to know, that is, insights, and provides hints for promoting content-oriented SEO and marketing.
There is a fee to use it, but a free trial is available.
2) “Pascal”
https://www.pascaljp.com/
Pascal is a tool that analyzes the content of top search pages for topics and co-occurring words that are necessary for higher rankings. For example, you can know the words used by top pages, co-occurring words that are useful for content creation, and topics searchers are looking for, which is useful for creating content for SEO.
It also has a function that checks in real time the internal and external information of pages ranked in the top 30-50 on search engines and statistically analyzes common characteristics. For example, it statistically analyzes approximately 50 items such as tags, content, backlinks, etc. that are important for SEO in one minute.
Prices start from 45,000 yen per month, so you can easily get started. There is also a free trial version that you can try for 4 days.
SEO internal measures tools
SEO measures can be broadly divided into “internal measures” and “external measures.”
Internal measures literally refer to optimizing the inside of your company’s homepage for search engines. However, the items are wide-ranging. When it comes to SEO measures, it is said that the first step is to implement internal measures, but if this is your first time, you will need to take the necessary measures based on what you see.
However, after implementation, there will naturally be some omissions. By confirming this, you can further strengthen your internal SEO measures.
The scope of internal measures is wide-ranging, including keyword selection, site design, and tag settings. Tools that can diagnose your company’s homepage in order to obtain the necessary information are generally called internal SEO tools.
For example, the following information can be obtained with the main internal SEO tools:
- Search ranking, search keywords, number of impressions
- HTML tags such as title tag, description tag, h tag content, etc.
- List of internal links
- Site issues such as broken links, redirects, duplicate content such as duplicate titles, and incorrect anchor text
- Number of social media registrations
Information useful for these internal SEO measures is displayed, so you can check at a glance whether or not there has been an improvement by correcting any problem areas and running the diagnostic tool again.
Anatomy is an SEO analysis tool originating from Japan. It also has an access analysis function, which is very useful for internal measures.
You can try it out for free, but it’s basically a paid tool. It is equipped with access analysis and technical SEO functions, and the initial fee is 50,000 yen and the monthly fee is 10,000 yen for up to 50 pages analyzed.
The access analysis function simultaneously displays metrics such as the number of page views, number of sessions, and bounce rate, which are the basics of access analysis, as well as data such as the number of inflows from searches, advertisements, SNS, and emails, as well as page captures.
Furthermore, the access trends over a 10-week period are displayed in place of “weather marks”, so you can find problematic pages at a glance.
In addition, the user flow line, “where the user came from and where the user went,” can be clearly seen through animation.
It also has a CV (conversion) analysis function. With just a few clicks, you can see which pages on your site the inflows from advertisements, emails, searches, etc. went through, and how much they ultimately contributed to your CV.
Technical SEO features include structured data such as H1, H2, and P tags, title, description, and OGP (abbreviation for “Open Graph Protocol”). When sharing on SNS, you can set the page title, image, details, etc. You can list meta information such as html element information for each page.
You can also see graphs of keyword ranking trends (past), top 20 Google search rankings (current), and predicted increase in number of top 10 keywords (future).
It also has a function to share information with a team, so it is perfect for implementing SEO measures as a team.
SEO external countermeasure tools
SEO external measures tools are tools that allow you to obtain useful information for “external measures” of SEO. External measures are to increase the quality and number of backlinks.
Google not only looks inside the company’s own homepage, but also evaluates what kind of homepages are linking to it. Simply put, the higher the quality and number of backlinks you have, the higher you will appear on search engines.
SEO external measures tools can obtain the information necessary to implement such external measures.
Specifically, the information that can be obtained with external SEO tools includes how many backlinks there are from external sites, which pages they are on, and what the quality of those backlinks is. Masu.
It is said that SEO measures require both internal and external measures, so it is best to use them in conjunction with internal measures tools.
Majestic SEO is a tool that allows you to analyze the backlinks of your own and competitors’ websites.
This tool is from the UK and has been well received for its ease of use as many parts are also available in Japanese. Although it is a paid tool, you can get a list of backlinks by registering a free account.
The main tool, Site Explorer, allows you to easily find out information such as the number of backlinks and source domain information by entering a domain or URL.
Majestic also has its own metrics. For example, “Trust Flow” and “Citation Flow”. By utilizing them, you can know the quality level of the domain.
Trustflow is a score of link quality from 0 to 100. If you receive high-quality backlinks, the number will be high, but if you have low-quality links, the number will be low.
Citation flow is an indicator that predicts the impact of a website based on the volume of backlinks it has. It is displayed as a score from 0 to 100, which is calculated based on the number of links and the strength of the links.
Based on the information about these backlinks, you can implement external SEO measures efficiently and accurately.
Points for using SEO tools
As we have introduced so far, there are many different types of SEO tools. You can see that there are tools that have a variety of functions even just from the ones introduced here.
However, if you use all of them at once, especially for beginners, the amount of information will be too much, leading to confusion, and you may end up not knowing what to do for SEO.
The key point when implementing SEO measures is to distinguish between tools that you want to use all the time, tools that you want to use as needed, and tools that you use regularly. By understanding the importance and frequency of use and using them appropriately, you will be able to implement SEO measures efficiently.
Also, the tool comes in both free and paid versions, so it’s a good idea to try out the free version first, see how easy it is to use, and then switch to the paid version if necessary. There is a lot of information that can be obtained even with the free version, so by making full use of the free version, you can reduce costs as much as possible.
summary
◆There are various SEO tools: 1. SEO diagnosis tool, 2. Search ranking check tool, 3. Competitor analysis tool, 4. Keyword research tool, 5. Content analysis tool, 6. SEO internal countermeasure tool. , 7. There are various types of SEO external countermeasure tools.
◆Specific examples of tools by type include: 1. SEO diagnostic tools “Google Search Console” and “AI Analyst”, 2. Search ranking checking tool “GRC”, 3. Competitor analysis tool “SimilarWeb”, 4. Keywords There are research tools “Google Ads Keyword Planner” and “Keywordmap”, 5. Content analysis tools “MIERUCA” and “Pascal”, 6. Internal SEO tool “Anatomy”, and 7. External SEO tool “Majestic SEO”.
◆In order to use SEO tools efficiently, it is more efficient to use the core tools all the time and use the others as needed, rather than using every tool you can get your hands on at once.