There's plenty of room for paid tools in the SEO space — Moz is a prime example — but if you’re just getting started or lack the budget necessary for fancy tools, there are still many resources available.
In this piece, we’re going to cover five of our favorite FREE Google tools, and how they can help you step up your SEO game.
1. Google Trends
Google Trends[1] is used to track the “trends” around search queries. This makes it a great tool for keyword research[2].
Finding new keywords
When you go to Google Trends, you’ll see a search bar where you can input a broad topic or specific search query. Upon entering your query, you’ll be presented with a trend chart of interest in the query over time.
While this may be useful, the real gems are at the bottom of the page: Related Topics and Related Queries.
By default, these boxes will both be set to “rising.” This means that these topics and queries are currently gaining traction. These are the keywords that you may want to capitalize on quickly, as you could be a first-mover and gain rankings quickly.
Advanced keyword research
Even at a base-level, Google Trends is helpful, but you can always take it a step further. Across the top of Google Trends, there is a menu that allows you to specify a region, time period, category, and search platforms.
Region allows you to determine where you want to pull search data from geographically. This can be especially useful when working on local SEO projects.
Category allows you to select the category you’re competing in. This is a nice feature for people who offer a service in a specific industry, or who have a query that’s extremely common.