September 23, 2016

Photo Credit: Augur Marketing via flickr

“Good SEO work only gets better over time. It’s only search engine tricks that need to keep changing when the ranking algorithms change.” – Jill Whalen, Former SEO Consultant and Founder of High Rankings

Search engine optimization is a necessity for small business owners. Without the ability to be found in the SERPs, a smaller organization’s stream of traffic and revenue is greatly limited.

While SEO is not always an easy undertaking, when it is conducted properly, organizations can reap the fruits of their labor through enhanced reach, bolstered organic traffic and, ultimately, higher conversion rates, which leads to more qualified leads and elevated sales.

Unfortunately, there is no real way to automate SEO strategies much like what can be done in the world of social media. Since search engine optimization relies more on human intervention than other marketing modalities, you are going to need some powerful allies in your quest for query dominance.

There are a bevy of SEO tools on the market, but not all are geared toward helping small businesses climb the SERPs and often come with a hefty price tag. If you are on the hunt for tools that will help your SMB gain visibility in various search engines, check out these four intuitive instruments.

1. TinyRanker

Many businesses implement a variety of SEO tools to reach the standards they aim to achieve. TinyRanker seeks to shift that paradigm by packing virtually everything you could need into a single platform.

This tool is bursting at the seams with features, giving small business owners a singular avenue to boost their rankings. TinyRanker provides a keyword research tool to help identify ideal keywords for website copy. Simply add your site’s URL and the various keywords you wish to target and TinyRanker will shoot back data that lets site operators know statistics about on page SEO, search volumes for the keywords entered, rank fluctuations a site has undergone in the past several months and loads more instructional information.

In addition to keyword data, TinyRanker also allows for competitors to be monitored and compared to your current standings for keywords, rank, and a myriad of other points to help you overtake rival sites.

TinyRanker also offers users timed SEO reports sent via email, integration with Google Analytics, touts an intuitive user interface, and supplies great customer service. The best part is that you can try TinyRanker risk-free for 30 days.

2. SEMrush

No list of SEO tools is complete without SEMrush. In fact, this tool was named as the No. 1 most indispensable tool for SEOs by 97 different experts.

SEMrush is one of the most powerful competitive analysis tools available on the web. The software offers a kaleidoscope of features that allow small businesses to outrank the competition in no time. Everything from keyword analysis to domain comparisons, website audits, social media features, SEO suggestions and a plethora of actionable reports are all available through SEMrush.

This engine can literally help you to take traffic away from your competition and drive them to your site through its deep competitive analysis information that will allow you to intimately understand how your competitors are ranking, and then beat them at their own game.

The company’s mission is, “to make online competition fair and transparent, with equal opportunities for everyone” making this the perfect tool for any small business owner.

3. Scoop.It

Content marketing is at the bedrock of SEO. Much of the tactics involved with search engine optimization rely on content to help rank a site higher in the SERPs. Unfortunately for many small business owners, however, the time needed to produce, publish and promote content is simply nowhere to be found amidst all the other tasks involved with managing an organization. Thankfully, there is Scoop.It.

Depending on how much time you can free up, Scoop.It serves as a platform to either curate highly shareable content for those who are more strapped, or allows for content to be researched and produce four to eight times faster, according to its website.

If you are looking to merely curate content for your audiences, the service allows users to discover SEO-rich content based off of the keywords entered and quickly share the materials to websites, social channels and blogs.

On the creation side, Scoop.It curates content to be leveraged for research purposes and provides loads of data to help manage content calendars, maximize, measure content ROI, and various other content marketing analytics insights.

4. WooRank

Ensuring that your website is incredibly SEO-friendly is critical for landing toward the top of the SERPs. WooRank will help you do just that and more.

WooRank is an intuitive Web-based software that provides actionable insights on a website’s SEO strengths and vulnerabilities through generating reviews that are bursting with data. More than just administering data, the system will also offer up a list of comprehensive tasks to help optimize a site in order to achieve better rankings. WooRank establishes its reports using metrics based off of mobile optimization, social media, usability, SEO, and tons of other vital categories.

The software also offers competitor analysis features, checklists that make learning about site optimization easy, and other highly useful elements. You can sign up for a 14-day free trial to see if WooRank is a good fit for you.

Finding the right tools to leverage can be a challenging task in the vast sea of software competing for your patronage. By leveraging services that are mindful of the obstacles that small business owners face, you stand a far greater chance of increasing your rankings than if you were to opt for a service that is extremely powerful, but way out of your league. Be sure to see what each of these tools have to offer and adopt whichever will meet the SEO needs of your business best.

What is your biggest SEO challenge as a small business owner? What tools have helped you overcome those trials?

Conscious online marketer, web executive, and multi-faceted writer Tina Courtney has been creating and fostering online innovations since 1996. Tina has assisted many clients in maximizing online production and marketing efforts, and is a staff writer for SiteProNews, one of the Web’s foremost webmaster and tech news blogs. She’s produced and marketed innovative content for major players like Disney and JDate, as well as boutique startups galore, with fortes including social media, SEO, influencer marketing, community management, lead generation, and project management. Tina is also a certified Reiki practitioner, herbalist, and accomplished life coach. Learn more on LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+. Visit My Google+ Profile