With businesses driving full steam ahead into 2021, there is no better time to evaluate your company’s online presence to grow your small business. A well-structured website and a high rank for relevant keywords is essential to driving qualified leads toward your website. Make sure that when people type in their questions, your business is there ready to provide the solution.
But my small business has a $0 marketing budget…
That’s ok! Below are five helpful SEO online tools that provide free versions of their platforms (with limited access) to help small businesses get started with SEO keyword research to optimize pages. The tools charted out below are compared across a few key categories including account setup, pricing, and free capabilities. Strategically, I recommend businesses utilize a mix of all these tools given some are better geared for social media research, where others are better suited for content creation.
How should a small business start researching keywords?
Quick answer – one day at a time! Spend 15-30 minutes a day for a couple of weeks to build a solid list of keywords including monthly search volume, difficulty and relevant long-tail phrases. Embed the most relevant keywords for which you want to rank into your content web pages and maintain this list on an ongoing bases to ensure you keep your content fresh.
Please note: The pricing information below is accurate as of the date of this post and taken from the organizations’ websites. Please refer to the website links provided for the most updated pricing.
Check out TheMarBlog’s Free Social Media Checklist for helpful steps toward driving results via social media.
| Feature | Moz Keyword Explorer | SparkToro | KeywordTool.io | Google Trends | Answer the Public |
| Account Creation | ✔ | ✔ | |||
| # Free Searches | 10 | 10 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Includes Related Keywords | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Includes Relevant Hashtags | ✔ | ✔ | |||
| Lists Influencers | ✔ | ||||
| User Friendly Interface | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Saves Your Searches | ✔ | ||||
| Downloadable Files | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Pricing | Annual subscription (cheapest category): $70/mo or $99/mo if monthly subscription) | Annual subscription (cheapest category): $38/mo or $50/mo if monthly subscription) | Annual subscription (cheapest category): $69/mo or $89/mo if monthly subscription) | Free | Annual subscription (cheapest category): $79/mo or $99/mo if monthly subscription) |
In addition to these tools, check out Free SEO 101 Resources for Small Business Owners with No Time to learn more about the strategy and how-to’s of SEO.
