What is an SEO tool? It is any software that developers can use to “improve some aspect of the search engine optimization campaign” (Emley, 2023). With this definition, an SEO tool could help improve a site’s performance by improving security, decreasing loading speed, or better reaching the target audience.

Why use SEO tools? SEO tools save valuable time and provide input. For instance, they help in keyword research and data analysis. They pinpoint what works and what parts could improve on a website. The “best SEO tools also report how you measure up to competitors and where the greatest opportunities lie.” Furthermore, they calculate website performance by language, country, or region (Ferreira, 2022).

Although there are scads of SEO tools available, these are just a few that I previously found useful when I improved the SEO of a nonprofit organization, Christian Growth Resources. Some are free, but others have a paywall.

Wix Website Builder

Wix Website Builder is a Software as a service (SaaS) that can build and analyze a website. I used Wix because the founder of a nonprofit organization built his website based on SaaS and wants to continue to do so. The software’s main page has a dashboard that overviews the site. After creating the website with the software, users can track the site’s analytics, visitors, and traffic sources. The Marketing and SEO portion of the site includes email marketing, Facebook and Instagram Ads, Google Ads, Google Business Profiles, social media marketing, video making, marketing integrations, and logo making. The SEO portion measures site performance (aligned with Google Search Console), and other tools and settings. The software also has promotional features like Wix Multilingual (Wix, 2023).

SEMrush

SEMrush is a marketing SEO tool that allows users to assess search rankings, pinpoint changes, and possible ranking prospects. One essential feature is domain vs. domain analysis, which lets users compare a website with its competitors. For instance, SEMrush allows comparisons of keywords and domains. The analytics reports provide insights into a site’s traffic and search data. The “On-Page SEO Checker tool allows you to easily monitor your rankings and find some recommendations on how to improve your website’s performance.” Organic Traffic Insights puts multiple data points on a dashboard with social share, keywords, and word count (Ferreira, 2022). Currently, the Google Analytics account does not connect with SEMrush, so SEMrush provides different data.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a website analytics platform that collects website data to create insightful reports. The founder of the nonprofit organization signed up with Google Analytics and placed a piece of JavaScript code on each webpage. Google Analytics uses this to gather data from the browser. Subsequently, Google Analytics uses the collected data to create reports. The software allows users to use configuration settings to modify data and use filters (Google Analytics Help, 2023).

Lighthouse

Lighthouse is an SEO tool I first learned about in an earlier course. Created by Google, Lighthouse is an open-source, automated tool that audits websites for accessibility, performance, and SEO. To get an overview of a site’s performance, users can enter the URL, and Lighthouse audits the webpage and then creates a report. Web designers can try to rectify any failed audits by making improvements. Every report has a reference document describing each issue’s importance and how to improve it (Chrome Developers, 2022).

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphic editor that lets users make, alter, and save vector images. Web designers primarily employ vector images in graphics, logos, and typography, and vector images are highly scalable and maintain quality when scaled up or down. For this project, I created the logo for the website using this program.

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor that allows users to create, change, and save raster images. Raster images differ from vector images because their building blocks are grid-like pixels used to create the image. Vector images display a varying array of gradient tones and colors. Raster images have less scalability than vector images and can easily distort. The program has a Save for the Web (Legacy) feature, allowing users to save images in smaller sizes for website usage (Popovic, 2022). 

Sucuri SiteChecker

Sucuri SiteChecker is a file malware scanner I found while researching the security section of the project proposal. It analyzes a website’s code for peculiar HTML or PHP files. Also, it scans for malware. Regularly checking the website for security problems can help identify areas of concern. Rapidly reacting to security threats can safeguard visitors and help sustain organic traffic, SEO rankings, and brand reputation. The site is free (Sucuri, 2022).

References

Chrome Developers. (2022, May 24). Overview. https://developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/overview/

Emley, B. (2023, October 30). The nine best SEO tools in 2024. Zapier. https://zapier.com/blog/best-seo-tools/

Ferreira, N.M. (2022, March 18). Eighteen best SEO tools that SEO experts actually use in 2022. Oberlo. https://www.oberlo.com/blog/seo-tools

Google Analytics Help. (2023). How Google Analytics works. https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/12159447?hl=en