KEYWORD RESEARCH TOOLS

Here are the best tools for keyword research.

SEMRUSH

SEMRush is an awesome website research tool. You can check search engine or PPC stats on any website, seeyour rankings, or your competitor’s rankings. I love using it for keyword jacking.

Here are 2 ways you can use this tool in just a few min:1. Easy Wins Method: Put in your website URL. Under Organic Research on the left, click positions. See what
you’re ranking for on page 2, re-optimize your pages or add links (internal or external) to boost your rank.

2. Keyword Jacking Method: Get your competitors domains and run a keyword report on them. Sort the
report by kw volume, jack their keywords and either add them to your existing pages or build out new
pages. BOOM.

KWFINDER

Quickest keyword tool ever! This will show strength values that come from majestic (TF & CF), & Unique
linking IPs for the top 10 results, as well as PR. Awesome.  You can use this in combination with all the keyword
ideas you got from Semrush (item #1).

HOTH KEYWORD RESEARCH TOOL

This is basically a free version of SEMRush – Just put in a ! seed keyword and it will give you all kinds of variations as
well as traffic, CPC, and more.

UBERSUGGEST

! This is basically a google suggest scraper. Find all kinds  of long tails with this baby.

AHREFS KEYWORD EXPLORER 2.0

Ahrefs has come a long way and they just released their ! new keyword explorer. This has some interesting features that other tools don’t have like the “also rank for” feature.

KEYWORDTOOL.IO

ANOTHER VERY POPULAR KEYWORD SUGGESTION TOOL.

OnSite SEO Tools

Here are the best tools for OnPage SEO.

YOAST WORDPRESS PLUGIN

Great tool for optimizing your wordpress site.

HOTH Free SEO Analyzer

Get a quick on page audit for your site, for free!
!

Google Pagespeed Insights

See how fast your website loads and how you can
improve it.
!

Google Mobile Friendly Test

! See if Google considers your website mobile friendly.

Backlink Analysis Tools

You can check the backlinks of any site with these tools. I use them for all of the following:

1. Overview of what’s going on with a site (any anomalies etc)

2. Checking for over-optimization

3. Checking competitors to see if they have any good links or to replicate their links

4. Doing general research on domains

That all being said, these 3 tools do about the same thing but each one has strengths & weaknesses. Here’s what I think about all 3:

1. Ahrefs – Best at catching backlinks. Most accurate
! checker.

2. Open Site Explorer – Most commonly used statistics for judging website power or strength, however DA & PA metrics scale with spam so you really need to look at the actual backlinks too.

!

3. Majestic – Best for determining websites trust / strength.

!

MOZ SEO Toolbar

This cool toolbar will automatically run stats for you on all the websites you visit and put an overlay in search

! results if you want. This is the quickest way to check stats as you’re browsing around.

Moz Bulk Domain Checker for Google Docs

Want to check a bulk group of domains? With this easy

! tool, you can throw a bunch of domains into a Google doc and quickly get the moz DA / PA for them.

Link Building Tools
Here are some great link building tools.

Ahrefs

I had to include this here because Ahrefs has stepped up
! so much in the last year. If I were to pick one tool, this
might be it.

Guest Post Tracker

Need a huge list of guest post websites? This is it.
!

Ninja Outreach

Makes link outreach easy. You can search for influencers
! and reach out all in one tool.

Pitchbox

! A very highly rated outreach tool. You can use this to
score guest posts, submit to link roundups and more.

Link Building Services

Shameless Plug – If you just want someone to build links
! for you, we have it all.

Point Blank Link Building Strategies

Not a tool, but an awesome resource with all kinds of link
building strategies.
!

Ontolo

! Awesome link prospecting tool.

SEO Analytics & Tracking

Here are the best tools for tracking.

Improvely

! Use this to track all your campaigns and get a detailed
look at what’s going on with your visitors.

Google Analytics

The grand standard. I just use it on all my money sites
!

Clickly

A Google Analytics alternative.
!

Fresh Metrix (Rank Tracking)

Easy rank tracking for national and down to the local
! level. You can start for free and they have plans all the
way up to the thousands of keywords.

Serpfox (Rank Tracking)

Nice & easy tool for rank tracking. Just plop in your URL,
keywords and location and it will do all the tracking for
! you. They have a free plan as well if you’re just getting
started.

Serpbook (Rank Tracking)

Similar to serpfox but with nice white label and
automated reporting.
!

Local Specific Tools

Here are the best tools for local SEO.

WhiteSpark Local Citation Finder

This is the industry standard tool and it’s awesome.
Basically you can drop in your main kw and city, it will go
! out and find your competitors and see what citations they
have, rank the citation sources by DA (Domain Authority)

and show you which ones you are missing. This is the
tool we use in HOTH Local.

Local SEO Checklist

! Nice and easy checklist to make sure you have the bases
covered + more.

! Rich Snippet Validator (Google)

Validate that rich snippets are working on your local site.

Schema Creator

Creates schema.org microdata for your local site.

!

Local SEO Quick Check (Moz)

Quickly check where you stand with citations, duplicates,
errors etc.
!

Free Review Montioring

! This will monitor your reviews, and you can track reviews
of your competition.

Bluementhals Local Business Category Tool

! Cool tool to get all the categories you should be in on
Google Places.

Local Citation Audits & Custom Citation Building

Doing local the right way. No cookie cutter solutions.
Every campaign is customized and researched. As close
to push-button local as you can get.
! Citation Cleanup Service

If you have incorrect or inconsistent citations, we’ll clean
them up for you manually.

My Call IQ.com

Call tracking for SEO & PPC + Call scoring
!

Call Fire

Call tracking, text messaging, voice response, and more.
!

Free Review Checker

Check your reputation with this free customer review
! audit!

Penalty Research
Here are the best tools for penalty research.

Panguin Tool

! You can connect your Google Analytics account and it
will display when google updates happened so you can
see if drops in traffic match any Google updates.

Ultimate Guide To Google Update History

All of the Google updates + what really happened + case
! studies.

Removeem Anchor Text Over Optimization Checker

You can check to see if you’re over optimized for any of
your anchors.
!

Link Research Tools

The industry standard in checking for toxic links. Be
! careful though, this tool likes to classify links as toxic
even if they are not. Use this as a baseline but judge each

link individually.

Social Media

Here are the best tools for social media and expanding your presence.

Lock My Brand

Registers your brand name on the top social media
! websites in the world.

Onepress Social Locker

Use this tool to get more social shares on your blog.
!

Flare

! This a cool social media share box.

Buffer

! Schedule posts for your social media accounts.

Instagress

Automate your instagram marketing.
!

Tweepi

Automate twitter marketing.
!

SEO Agency Building Tools

These are tools you can use to build your SEO business.

Calendly

You can use this to avoid the dreaded back and forth of
! finding a time to meet. This will let clients book meetings
with you.

join.me

The easiest online screensharing app. Once you have the
app, you can just give the client the link and they don’t
have to download anything (wow… right?)

!

close.io

This is the CRM we use at The HOTH after checking out a bunch of different ones. It can be expensive, but this has

! the features you’re looking for. One of the best things about this is that it creates a very customizable searchable database.

Salesforce

The industry standard CRM in the cloud. Integrates with lots of other apps as well.

!

Infusionsoft

CRM, Email Marketing, and E-commerce tools all in one.

Often called confusionsoft.

!

Olark

Live Chat software, we use this to help customers get
answers faster. It really helps with on-site conversions!
!

Insightly

Popular small business CRM that integrates with Gmail.
!

Raven Tools

Good for generating large amounts of data together for
clients and giving them their own log in to track
campaigns. Can do on-site audits on the fly, track links
! and rankings, and more!

Authority Labs

! Great rank tracking tool with an API.

Asana

! A very sleek project management app. I use this
personally.

Trello

! Easy project management.

Slack

Communication in one place for teams. They added
native voice calling so this is good for quick 1 on 1
! meetings or team meetings.

Get Harvest

! Sleek time tracking app.

Freshbooks

Fantastic invoicing / time tracking / bookeeping app.
!

Bench

Bookkeeping services for your business.

SOME VERY IMPORTANT SEO TOOLS FOR YOU

KEYWORD RESEARCH TOOLS

TOP BACKLINKS CHECKER TOOLS

SOCIAL MEDIA SCHEDULING AND MANAGEMENT

SOCIAL MEDIA COUNT TOOLS

DUPLICATE CONTENT CHECKER/PLAGIARISM CHEKER:

GOOGLE RANK CHECKER