Category: SEO

  • Labrika Review: The Next Big SEO Tool?

    Labrika Review: The Next Big SEO Tool?

    Looking to up your content optimization game?

    Labrika is one of the rising tools on the block that provides SEO audits, content optimization suggestions, site rankings, and white-label reports.

    Labrika boasts its own algorithm that can find multiple website errors that other tools don’t provide.

    Is it comparable to the SEO giants like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz? If it does what it promises, then Labrika is an ideal SEO tool for many businesses trying to beat the competition.

    Most of the focus of this review will talk about the features of Labrika that can really help out SEO professionals and website owners.

    If you’re looking for a perfect SEO partner, then let’s review if Labrika is the one for you.

    Pros

    • Ease of Use
    • Comprehensive data
    • Shareable reports with white labeling

    Cons

    • Limited language support
    • Unpolished search rankings results
    • No keyword research and backlinks

    Labrika is a very solid audit tool that gives you a full view of any site’s SEO performance. You can break down a site from how optimized its content is optimized to its technical SEO settings. There’s still a lot of room for improvement as far as UX and search result data are concerned, but Labrika is on the right track as far as being a cost-efficient SEO audit tool is concerned.

    What is Labrika? 

    labrika-review

    Labrika is said to be an all-in-one SEO tool that uses a machine-learning algorithm and analyzes important search engine ranking factors to get your website to the first page.

    In a nutshell, it checks what’s wrong with your website and gives you solutions to fix it. 

    With the competitive nature of ranking on the search engine, it’s really best for a business to have a tool that will help identify problems and solve them.

    However, SEO is quite a complicated digital strategy. You’ll find possibly hundreds of reasons why your website is ranking or not ranking well.

    And finding those data requires a ton of time. So that’s what Labrika tries to solve.

    It saves time and provides actionable data that’s essential to ranking on Google.

    Labrika Features

    Labrika is divided into seven main sections that each answer to a particular SEO need.

    • Site Rankings
    • Optimization and Keyword Grouping
    • Technical Site Audit
    • SEO Audit & Crawl
    • User Behavior Data
    • Essential Elements (Competitor Analysis)
    • Links

    You can do a lot with Labrika, but would you need all of them?

    In SEO, there are a bunch of tools that promise to do everything, however, all these tools mostly have certain features that will stand out more than the others. Those other features can be good to have but you most likely won’t use them.

    In this Labrika review, I’d like to focus on where I think Labrika can really help in optimizing content that can rank on Google. 

    There’s two features that stood out for me: Optimization and Keyword Grouping and Full Website Audit.

    There’s another good feature called Links that can be really helpful too.

    That said, I’ll review each of these three features and how SEO specialists, writers, and website owners can utilize them.

    Let’s head over to what Labrika brings to the table.

    Full Website Audit

    The full website audit includes both SEO and technical site audit.

    As always, a comprehensive audit of the site is always required to check the website’s health. This part will tell you what’s wrong with your site, what errors you need to prioritize, and which areas are in good standing.

    I’ve personally used a lot of SEO audit tools so seeing Labrika’s dashboard is a refreshing change.

    Labrika’s UI is quite straightforward so it’s really easy to know where I need to go at first glance. All that’s left for me to do is input the domain I’m going to audi and add in important details so Labrika can get to work.

    Start audit

    It will ask what kind of report you want to process. I’d suggest doing a full website analysis so you’re getting all that you need in one go.

    Note that Labrika only shows data from Google so other search engines which is a bummer if you’re also looking to optimize on other search engines like Bing and Yahoo.

    What I like about their search audit is that aside from adding your target country, you can also set your website’s target region, city, or state. This helps a lot if you’re trying to rank a local business.

    Here’s how the SEO audit looks like.

    The SEO Audit and Crawl section checks for the content’s optimization such as meta tags, plagiarism, content quality, and list of competitors.

    It took about 10 minutes for Labrika to process the report and show the full website analysis. Now, that’s quite a long waiting time as the website I added is fairly new with just over 50 published pages.

    While the waiting time is quite decent compared to SERPstat, it’s not as fast as SEMrush or Ahrefs. But that may change depending on the size of your website.

    The technical audit, on the other hand, checks for technical data like errors, broken images, duplicate pages, sitemap, page speed, and canonicals.

    As shown above, there’s a ton of data Labrika can tell you. The description button explains what the data is about which is really useful especially if you’re not used to specific terms in the SEO field.

    Content Optimization

    In optimizing content, Labrika will analyze your website along with your top competitors.

    For example, if the top 10 results of your keyword all have 1000-1500 word page content, Labrika will recommend the same number of words for your content. 

    But before you analyze all of your site’s content, make sure to check the Exclusion of Competitors menu first. This will show you all the websites that target the same seed and long tail keywords (similar to the ones found on Long Tail Pro) as yours. In my case, there are 103 total competitors that Labrika was able to gather.

    Labrika will automatically group the relevant keywords uploaded on the site as well as the relevant URL of the page the keywords connect to.

    However, it doesn’t always work like that.

    I used a different website and I still had to input the relevant URL to check its content. While it’s easy to simply copy and paste all my URLs on each keyword grouping, it’s not efficient to do so if I have hundreds of pages on the line.

    There are two main features in this section that I want to focus on: Text Optimization and Content Optimization

    Text Optimization

    • Labrika shows page optimization recommendations based on competitor analysis. In this part, you can see some technical analysis of your page’s H1, description, number of words, latent semantic or LSI, and essential keywords.
    • This is what you can refer to when you’re trying to optimize your content directly on your site.
    • The exported content brief is one of the best I’ve seen. Even a new SEO writer can easily understand the content requirements of each brief.

    Content Optimizer

    • Labrika provides a content editor so you can directly revise your content and adjust according to Labrika’s optimization. 
    • The editor highlights words in three colors to identify whether they are good, have errors, or needs improving.
    • Results are real time so after you’re done implementing recommendations and are satisfied with the scores, you can simply copy and paste the final content to your site.
    • You can also use a custom link for your writer so they can directly revise and optimize the content.

    The content optimization feature has become a favorite feature of mine. What I would love to be able to do is to manually add specific competitors in the list.

    While they do have a comprehensive list of competitors, the competitors that I’d like to use are not in the list.

    It would also be nice to have a WordPress integration so I can simply edit my content and hit publish.

    Both internal and external links are necessary to increase SEO scores to your content and your site’s overall SEO status.

    What I like here is that it shows me all of the links I used in one simple page so it’s really easy to scan through all of them.

    If there’s one link that I want to investigate, I can simply click the “Show All” button to show me which page I used the link for. However, some links will also include that category and author URLs which aren’t really necessary.

    The only downside here is that it only focuses on internal links, so if you want to check your backlinks, you’ll have to find another tool like Ahrefs.

    Labrika Review: Pros and Cons

    As with many other tools, Labrika has its good and bad sides. Here’s a closer look at its pros and cons.

    Pros

    • Ease of Use – Labrika also has bits of explanations on most, if not all, of the tools they have. Labrika eliminates the need to use other supporting tools like GTmetrix and simplifies SEO auditing in just one dashboard.
    • Comprehensive data – All Labrika’s features are packed with comprehensive data that are really useful and easily digestible.
    • Shareable reports with white labeling You can add your name, contact details, and logo on all the downloadable reports, a cool feature for agencies and freelancers with various clients. Most features also provide a shareable custom link that can be shared with anyone for up to 30 days.

    Cons

    • Limited language support Labrika only fully supports websites in English while Spanish, French, and German languages are all in beta phases. 
    • Unpolished search rankings results – Labrika’s site rankings are not close to real-time data. After entering custom keywords manually, the rankings all show 50> even if the manual checking results are higher. Keyword suggestions upon set up are also not useful or sometimes irrelevant to the site.
    • No keyword research and backlinks – Both of these features are really necessary for websites to push their website to the top. If it doesn’t have a keyword research function and backlinks checker (like what Serpstat has), it’s not really an all-in-one SEO tool as it claims to be.

    Conclusion

    Labrika Review: The Next Big SEO Tool?

    • INTERFACE
    • USEFULNESS
    • USABILITY
    • EFFECTIVENESS

    Is Labrika the right SEO tool for you?

    My best answer is: it can be.
    There are many useful features in Labrika and while that gives you the best value for money, I find it confusing what Labrika can really do best. But right now, it’s all the two main features I’ve talked about above: full website audit and content optimization.
    My verdict is that Labrika is a great tool for SEO specialists, agencies, and even new website owners who want to understand what’s happening with their website SEO wise. 
    I hope this Labrika review provided some insights one what you can and cannot do with it.
    While there are other powerful tools that can do better, Labrika can serve as a great addition to help improve your website’s on-page optimization.
    4.0/5

  • Long Tail Pro Review: The Best Keyword Research Tool Ever?

    As one of the market’s first traditional keyword research tools, Long Tail Pro still has a lot left in its tank. Not only does it help you find low-hanging keywords to optimize for your site. The tool now tracks your keyword research, checks your link profile, and more!

    EASE OF USE

    Just enter your seed keyword and expect hundreds of ideas and suggestions complete with keyword data that you can use to build topic clusters for your blog or clients’.

    EFFECTIVENESS

    The new editor comes with a handful of default blocks, such as paragraph, image, gallery, and more, to help you create better standard posts and pages.

    COST

    As a keyword research tool, Long Tail Pro has a very reasonable price. But its price is hard to beat if you factor in its rank tracking and SERP Analysis, Backlink Analysis, and Rank Tracking features.

    CUSTOMER SUPPORT

    In my experience, I had a problem with their billing statement, but they swiftly fixed the issue. Besides that, support has been pretty solid throughout my time using the tool.

    In this Long Tail Pro review, we’ll dive deep into how to use this tool to find low-hanging fruit keywords for your niche.

    But before that, we’ll discuss the importance of long-tail keywords, which the tool will help you find.

    Then, we’ll tackle the different features of Long Tail Pro and how you can use it to find the best keywords for your business.

    Note

    All links that point to Long Tail Pro are affiliate links. If you click on the links and successfully subscribe for an account at Long Tail Pro, I will receive a commission on the sale. If you like the tool, I would highly appreciate it if you sign up for Long Tail Pro using any of the links or clicking here. Thanks!

    Let’s begin!

    What essential features of Long Tail Pro that bloggers need to know

    Long Tail Pro home

    Long Tail Pro is the long tail keyword suggestion tool of choice. Many marketers like Matthew Woodward and Louie Luc attest to how indispensable Long Tail Pro is as part of their keyword research strategy.

    However, as a blogger, do you need this tool?

    Not to sound like a broken record, but you need to learn SEO to increase your blog traffic and build your readership. And the foundation of a solid SEO campaign is choosing the right keywords for your blog.

    Below is Long Tail Pro’s best long tail keyword tutorial:

    Thankfully, Long Tail Pro will help you achieve this goal. Below are some of the features that bloggers will find useful:

    • Calculate keyword difficulty – Instead of toiling most of your time analyzing keyword difficulty, Long Tail Pro will take care of finding it for you!
    • Determine metrics – Find the most relevant SEO factors that will help you better understand a keyword.
    • Advanced filtering features – Organize your research by filtering out the needless information so that you can analyze the data that matters to you.

    These features would not mean anything unless I show them to you. So why not proceed with using the tool so you can get a better idea of how Long Tail Pro works.

    Before we proceed with the review, I will review the tool based on the following factors:

    • Ease of use – Does the tool make my job easier?
    • Effectiveness – Does it do the job as advertised?
    • Cost – Is it worth it? Do the results I get from using the tool compensate for my payment for it?
    • Customer support – Do I experience problems with the tool? Is the support team help me solve the problem?

    If you like Long Tail Pro so far, I suggest you take advantage of their 30% OFF PROMO before it’s too late. CLICK HERE if you want to learn more about it!

    How to use Long Tail Pro to find the best keywords for your

    Once you have set up your account, you need to download and install the file on your hard drive. The instructions will be included in your email once you sign up.

    Setting up a project

    After opening the tool, you will need to create a project where you will conduct your keyword research.

    To do that, click on the plus button.

    ADD PROJECT LTP

    Fill out the details in the floating window.

    Once you’ve created a project, you can enter the domain name of your website that you want to search for keywords.

    ltp domain

    Search for keyword ideas

    To find keyword suggestions for your site, you must enter the seed keyword.

    But before you do that, you need to confirm the country of the database from where you want to scrape data. By default, you will draw information from Google United States. To get the most accurate data on your country (if you’re doing local SEO), click on the drop-down menu to change the country.

    LTP COUNTRY

    Once you’ve confirmed this, type the keyword on the Seed Keywords bar.

    It’s best to enter head terms (search phrases will be two words max) to unearth more keyword suggestions. Enter up to five keywords to search for this part.

    For each keyword, you can assign many suggestions. You can increase the number of suggestions the tool will unearth for you from each search. The number of total suggestions depends on your chosen plan.

    If you want to get granular with the keyword results, you can toggle the Advanced Options switch. Flip it to see more search options.

    ltp advanced options

    You can filter results according to these options:

    • Monthly searches – Find results based on the range of monthly searches the keyword has.
    • Suggested Bid – Only see keywords according to the range of bids it gets on Google Ads.
    • Advertiser competition – Reveal keywords based on how competitive they are.

    Once you’ve set up the options for your search, click “Retrieve.”

    Give the tool a minute or two to deliver the results for your search.

    Once the tool is done, you’ll see something longtail keyword analysis similar below:

    long tail pro keywords

    What separates Long Tail Pro from other keyword tools

    Now to discuss the exciting part about the effectiveness of Long Tail Pro.

    Among the factors in the results, two of the most critical factors that will help you determine which keywords to choose for your blog are the Words and Avg KC (keyword competition).

    As the name of the tool states, Long Tail Pro will help you find the best long-tail keywords for your blog. The Num Words filter will help you find long-tail keyword ideas that you can use to help optimize your content.

    Normally, you should look for keywords with at least four words, which is the prevailing minimum for a long-tail keyword.

    Once you have filtered the long-tail keywords, it is time to determine the difficulty of how to rank for these keywords.

    There is no definite explanation for how to figure out the keyword difficulty. It could pertain to the following:

    • On-page optimization factors of the ranking pages
    • Link profile and quality of backlinks of the ranking pages
    • Freshness index or how recent or old the ranking pages have been published

    Wrapping your brain around these factors and mining for these data will take you days.

    However, through the Avg Keyword Difficulty, Long Tail Pro will help gather and computer these factors for you and provide an aggregate difficulty score for each keyword!

    You can get down and dirty with the data used to calculate the keyword difficulty by opening the first 10 SERPs for the keyword.

    To analyze the keyword’s Keyword Difficulty, click on the keyword. It will load another page for you that shows relevant information about the keyword.

    ltp kc

    From the image above, you will see the different factors that determine keyword competitiveness.

    According to Long Tail Pro, keyword competitiveness is computed this way:

    KC = Page Authority (PA) +/- Page Title Factor +/- Keywords in Domain Factor +/- Domain Length
    PA = (Several Factors including: Domain Authority, Site Age, Page Links, Juice Page Links, Social Signals, and More)

    Also, remember that the higher the KC, the more difficult it will be to rank for that keyword. Therefore, you should go for keywords with low competition or a KC score of 0-30. Anything higher than that will take much more effort for you to rank.

    While Keyword Competitiveness is not the be-all-end-all metric to determine the difficulty of ranking for search terms, it is a good barometer to measure which keywords to choose for your blog’s SEO campaign.

    At the same time, it would still be good practice to open the pages yourself and see what makes the pages rank for their respective keywords. Please do not rely solely on LPT’s Keyword Difficulty feature, no matter how useful it may be.

    Scrolling down the page, you will see the top 10 pages ranking for the keyword on your chosen Google database. It also includes different factors to help you parse through each page accordingly.

    ltp organic results

    As mentioned, as help KC is helping you research for the best keywords, but it’s not the only metric to check. From the screenshot above, you can see variables like Flow Metrics, External Backlinks, and others to help you determine the quality of the pages ranking for the keyword.

    To summarize, below are the tips on how to choose the best keywords using Long Tail Pro:

    • Go for long-tails– While they have historically lower search volume than head terms, long-tail keywords have a more transactional search intent, among other keyword intents. Therefore, ranking high for these keywords increases your CTR from search results and will drive more blog traffic.
    • Choose keywords with low competition – Refer to LTP’s Keyword Competitiveness score to help you choose which keywords to target for your blog. For best results, find keywords with a KC that ranges between 0-30.
    • Find keywords with high search volume – Choosing keywords with relatively high search volumes increases your chances of getting found on search engines.

    Exclusive offer – 30% OFF from Long Tail Pro

    Liking what Long Tail Pro can do for your site or blog? That’s great because instead of getting LTP for its retail price ($37/month), you can subscribe to this excellent keyword research tool by paying $27/month instead!
    Think about it – get the most relevant data to determine which keywords to optimize with just a click of a button at a very low price! 

    More than just a keyword research tool

    Long Tail Pro has been associated as a keyword research tool throughout the years. However, more keyword tools have been taking a slice of the pie that Long Tail Pro once dominated.

    The tool is aware of this, which is why they’ve diversified its features and provided more value to users just like SE Ranking. Let’s take a look at some of its most recent additions:

    Rank Tracker

    To help you manage the organic SEO performance of your company or brand, you can track the keywords that you optimized for your site pages and find where you stand on organic search.

    ltp rank tracker

    Enter the keywords and domain you want to track. Also, identify the database to want to pull data from based on search engine and location. By default, you can track your keyword ranking daily.

    Using this tool, you can stay on top of your keyword ranking and make the necessary changes to improve your position!

    The quality of a site’s backlinks is arguably the most crucial SEO factor. The better backlinks your site (or competitor) has, the better chances your site will rank higher on organic search.

    Long Tail Pro now helps you track the backlinks of any domain of your choice!

    Enter the domain on the search bar to reveal the total number of backlinks and referring domains to the site.

    ltp backlink analysis

    The results include pertinent data from the referring domains. Use the information here to monitor new and lost backlinks to your site. At the same time, you can also spy on your competitor’s link-building strategy based on the links they’ve acquired so far.

    This feature is possibly the best addition to Long Tail Pro. Since backlinks have an indelible effect on your site’s ranking, you can check its link profile. You can then connect the dots by yourself – for instance, there’s no coincidence that the site increased its ranking for a keyword after acquiring a link from a site with high Flow Metrics.

    Analyze SERPs

    Spy the competition more effectively by analyzing the SERPs for your keyword.

    ltp analyze serps

    It works the same way when entering your seed keywords and looking for suggestions. But with this feature, you need to enter the keyword you want to analyze. Then it immediately jumps to the top 10 results and delivers information about each.

    The pros and cons of this keyword research tool

    Pros

    • A very affordable keyword research tool

    Cons

    • Not good enough as an SEO tool
    • Keyword lookups

    Pro: A very affordable keyword research tool

    As mentioned, Long Tail Pro may not satisfy users looking for a more comprehensive tool for their SEO needs. However…

    .@longtailpro is one of the best and most affordable keyword research tool in the market, #SEO

    Given that it only does keyword research (and does it quite well), the pricing is, at the very least, fair.

    ltp pricing

    The price has stayed the same with adding the backlinks analysis feature.

    Con: Not good enough as an SEO tool

    This is not a knock on Long Tail Pro because it does not pose anything more than just a keyword research tool. However, in today’s SEO world, more tools, even writing software, are offering other features that provide a more immersive experience to users concerning SEO.

    You could say that Long Tail Pro is stuck in the thinking that it’s enough to do one thing well. Others like to keep things simple. Regarding simplicity and straightforwardness, Long Tail Pro fits the bill. However, some might disagree with this sentiment, as evident with tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Moz.

    Con: Keyword lookups

    Long Tail Pro puts a cap on searching for ideas using seed keywords. Depending on your chosen plan, you can only search 800-6,000 total ideas in 24 hours.

    I understand putting a limit on searching for keyword ideas. But it staggers your keyword research, especially if you’re deep in your research. You’ll have to wait 24 hours before you can begin searching again.

    Buggy software?

    As good features Long Tail Pro has, the same cannot be said about the actual tool.

    I have had multiple incidents with their support team about duplicate billing, my account getting canceled without me knowing, and my license not working, to name a few.

    img20160628210141
    Above is the photo of the billing statement I received from the bank about the duplicate payment for Long Tail Pro.

    To their credit, Long Tail Pro was able to assist me with this particular issue. While their support team could not provide a refund, they offered a discount for the next months if I continued to subscribe to them.

    However, you must look at this situation based on your business needs. I do not take too much time researching keywords.

    But if you are a small business working for different SEO clients, then instances like this can prevent you from providing clients with a consistent experience for SEO. It might leave a bad taste in your mouth, especially if you are used to operating a steady ship.

    UPDATE: Long Tail Pro seems to have ditched the local software. You need to sign in online to use the tool, which appears to have made the toll less buggy.

    Long Tail Pro review: Verdict

    LONG TAIL PRO REVIEW: Still one of the best keyword research tools in the business

    Christopher Jan Benitez

    longtailpro
    EASE OF USE
    EFFECTIVENESS
    COST
    CUSTOMER SUPPORT

    Summary

    Long Tail Pro has stood the test of time and remains one of the best keyword research tools in the market. Finding keywords using the tool is a breeze that you no longer have to do any lifting. Instead, parse through the suggestions using the metrics, and you have your keywords for your site – it’s that simple! Also, you can now track your ranking and analyze backlinks, helping Long Tail Pro evolve more into just a keyword research tool.

    4.1

    Now that I have discussed how to use the tool in-depth and what my experience with the product is, here’s my take on it:

    Long Tail Pro is an indispensable tool for your keyword research strategy. It will help you find long-tail keywords most efficiently and conveniently as possible.

    The tool is best used by niche marketers who are in the business of building and optimizing sites for the most profitable keywords.

    As discussed above, Long Tail Pro is also an excellent tool for bloggers to help them identify long-tail keywords for blog posts and find ideas they can tackle on their blogs.

    However, if you are looking for a more comprehensive SEO tool that can do more than just keyword research, I suggest you look for other tools.

    Also,  you may want to be cautious with its support team. From my knowledge, Long Tail Pro was sold by its original owner, Spencer Haws, so I would assume that there are kinks the tool will have to iron out during the transition process. At the same time, I have talked to other Long Tail Pro subscribers who never have experienced any problems with their support.

    Nonetheless, I strongly suggest that you should be wary of subscribing to the tool until you have proven itself to be reliable enough for long-term use.

    For a quick recap of the review, watch this video created using InVideo:

  • The Only Best SEO Writing Tools I Use for Writing Content that Ranks!

    The Only Best SEO Writing Tools I Use for Writing Content that Ranks!

    Providing “high-quality,” “actionable,” and “error-free” content won’t cut it anymore. It’s because everybody offers the same promises to clients.

    That’s why I approach writing differently compared to others:

    I ensure that all my articles are maximized to rank on Google for their target keywords.

    By getting more clients to appear on top of search engine results pages (SERPs), the happy they are, the more work I get, and the more money I can spend on new Nintendo Switch games!!

    But I digress.

    To help me create content that clients will love, I use search engine optimization (SEO) writing tools to make my job much easier.

    There are many excellent SEO content writing tools, but below are some of the best ones I’ve used so far and are part of my SEO content creation process.

    #1 – LowFruits

    Perfect for: topic and keyword research

    Your target keyword is crucial to the success of your SEO content.

    It won’t rank on Google search if it’s not optimized for keywords with high search volume and low competition.

    That’s why you need to find such keywords to help position your content to rank on the first page of Google search results when people search for them.

    Using tools like Google Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest, while helpful to some extent, falls short of providing you with more detailed information about a search phrase.

    In particular, both tools don’t show how easy or difficult it is to rank for the keyword, what the intent of each term is, and other factors.

    As a result, you have no idea which queries to target in your content!

    To help you develop a low-hanging fruit keyword, use a keyword research tool like LowFruits*.

    It’s a tool similar to Keyword Chef in a lot of ways. You can find tons of long tail keywords you can target in your content from a seed keyword.

    LowFruits then provides various filters to help you find search terms relevant to your writing goals.

    But before I get ahead of myself even further, let’s start at the very beginning:

    Perform Traditional Keyword Research

    You can sign up for a free account and gain a limited number of daily searches.

    However, if you purchased credits to your account (more on this later), you will be able to unlock the true power of LowFruits.

    Go to KWFinder on the left dashboard. This loads the page where you can enter your seed keyword and extract hundreds and thousands of keywords.

    lowfruits keyword finder

    You can also use the wildcard search operator on the search bar to help you find more precise keywords, similar to what Keyword Chef allows you to do.

    Also, enter the correct country and language for your query for accurate results in the report.

    Give the tool time until it finishes organizing the data for you.

    The next page will show the number of keywords the tool extracted.

    From here, click “Access” to show you these keywords.

    LowFruits analyzes the first few keywords for free. Here, it shows you the search volume, SERP features, and, most importantly, the Weak Spots.

    If you want to extract the other keywords in the list, click on the check box just below the Weak Spots button on the menu. These are mostly long-tail keywords with specific intent and low KD, which you want to target in your content. Another tool that can help you find these is Long Tail Pro.

    LowFruits then asks you to select all keywords on the page or the entire selection.

    Once you’ve chosen the keywords you wish to extract data for, click on the “SERP Extr.” button so the tool can analyze them.

    Wait for a bit before you can see the results.

    Identify Low-Hanging Fruit Keywords

    We need to go back and talk about the Weak Spots feature, as it’ll play a vital role in your keyword research process.

    It works like the Keyword Difficulty metric, which tells you how difficult ranking for the search term is.

    However, it shows you different-colored fruit icons to indicate keyword competitiveness.

    A green icon means that the keyword has a site on the top ten of search results that’s not strong. The tool measures this by looking at the site’s Domain Authority. 

    The green icon indicates that the site has low Domain Authority (DA), which makes ranking over them much easier.

    The lower the score is (on a scale of 0-100, 0 being the lowest), the easier it will be to leapfrog over them on SERPs simply by writing great content.

    On the other hand, a blue icon under the Weak Spots column means the site ranking on the top 10 of SERPs for the term is a forum site. 

    Historically, you can easily outrank forum sites since the information isn’t as organized adequately as an article or blog.

    From here, a keyword can have a mix of blue and green fruit icons. 

    And if the keyword shows ten green fruit icons under the Weak Spots column, you should target the keyword to rank on top of its search results!

    Filter Keywords Based on Your Needs

    While targeting low-hanging fruit keywords is essential to increase your organic traffic, you must approach your keyword research more strategically.

    In this case, knowing the search intent for a keyword allows you to create topical authority by creating content users want to read for that specific keyword. 

    This allows you to rank on top of organic search for your keywords and attract more organic traffic!

    To know the kind of content you have to create, you must know the different intent your keywords may have.

    For example, you want to find a mix of informational and transactional keywords to target in your upcoming SEO campaign.

    The informational content sets the stage for you to showcase your expertise. 

    Once you’ve earned their trust, it’ll be much easier to lead them down your commercial pages, where they can purchase the product or service you’re recommending.

    Going back to LowFruits, you can filter the keywords based on intent by clicking on the Intent button on the menu.

    All the keywords you can filter here have commercial or transactional intent. However, you can organize them based on whether the user is still considering purchasing or has bought the product already.

    This can be valuable to your keyword research since you want to create content that satisfies people at various stages of your sales funnel.

    But if you want to beef up your content at your funnel’s ToFu stage, the People Also Ask (PAA) filter comes in handy.

    Click on it to open a small window allowing you to filter the result to show only PAA keywords or remove them from the list.

    These filters allow you to analyze highly targeted keywords for your SEO content writing research.

    For instance, you can target PAA keywords with low competition based on LowFruits’ analysis and write about it in your blog. It’s that simple!

    Pricing

    Unlike most SEO tools, LowFruits has a credit-based subscription.

    Basically, you buy credits from the site. Each keyword analyzed by the tool costs one (1) credit. That includes the search volume, Weak Spots, and other factors.

    The cool thing about LowFruits is that the credits don’t expire until the following year (365 days after purchase). That means you can still use your purchased credits over the next few months.

    Not to mention, the credits aren’t costly by standards, especially if you just occasionally search for content ideas.

    LowFruits also offers a subscription-based payment ideal for power users, particularly for niche site owners who need thousands of keywords every month to power their blogs.


    #2 – SE Ranking

    Perfect for: Clustering new keywords

    SE Ranking is an SEO tool that lets you monitor your keyword rankings. It can also let you analyze website competitors, perform on-page SEO analysis, and can even help you find related keywords to optimize for your topic.

    However, I primarily use the tool for its Keyword Grouper feature. This is where you export the keywords extracted from your keyword tool and cluster similar terms.

    As a content writer, I love this feature for helping my content increase its chances of ranking for multiple keywords instead of one.

    As you should know by now, a page can rank for multiple keywords simultaneously. This is true even if you target a single keyword in your content.

    At this point, it’s a matter of identifying which keywords to target in your content and why

    Thankfully, you don’t have to overthink it because SE Ranking will do the heavy lifting for you.

    Before we begin, download the keywords you’ve gathered from your keyword tool.

    Using LowFruits, you can check the boxes of keywords you want to export and click on “Export” to download them as a list in an XLS file.

    Now, click on More > Keyword Grouper from your SE Ranking dashboard to access the feature.

    On the next page, enter the name of the report. Then determine the accuracy and method by which the tool will group the keywords.

    By default, SE Ranking will group keywords that share three (3) similar URLs on the first page of SERPs with the chance that it might group irrelevant terms into a cluster.

    You can change the settings before you begin the clustering process. For now, we’ll leave the settings as is.

    Next, scroll down to find where to include the keywords you want to group. Copy and paste your list on the text box or upload the keywords sheet.

    Keep in mind that each keyword requires you to pay outside of your subscription with SE Ranking. 

    Granted, the rate isn’t very high, but the amount may pile up if you have thousands of keywords you wish to group. You can, however, lower the cost by not including the volume check from the research.

    If you’re all set, click “Start grouping.” Wait for a few minutes or hours before you get access to the report.

    Once you do, you should see something similar to the one below:

    It shows you the number of clusters grouped by the tool. For each cluster, you can see how many keywords it has and its total search volume.

    Click on each group to unfurl the results and show you the keywords grouped into which group.

    As mentioned, there may be irrelevant keywords lumped into the clusters. So, you must review the clusters first and take out the unrelated terms before optimizing for each one.

    From here, you can decide which keyword groups to target as a content writer for your site or client based on the metrics provided.

    If you want, you can run the cluster using LowFruits again to determine which among the keywords have the best Weak Spots, i.e., lots of low-quality sites ranking for the terms.

    This way, you can further refine your cluster by targeting only low-hanging fruit keywords!

    Other features include competitor research, page monitoring, and more.


    #3 – Google Search Console

    Perfect for: Clustering keywords to optimize for old content

    Among the free SEO writing tools, Google Search Console (GSC)  may be the most indispensable.

    Initially, it helps you monitor your site’s search performance based on multiple SEO factors.

    For content writers, you can use this to identify which pages are getting the most clicks and impressions.

    First, you must install GSC’s code into your site months before doing the steps below. If you’re working for clients, ask them to give you access to their GSC account. 

    Also, your site should be generating a modest amount of traffic. If not, it won’t gather any data for you.

    Now that’s settled, log in to your account, choose the site you wish to analyze, and click “Performance” on the left sidebar.

    Scroll down the page and click on the Pages tab.

    This should show your sites’ top pages based on clicks and impressions.

    From here, identify pages that have low clicks and high impressions.These pages may be ranking for multiple search queries but not high enough to get clicked on.

    Once you’ve clicked on a page to analyze, click on the Query tab to show the queries that your page appeared on SERPs.

    Use the information here to research which keywords here you should target when re-optimizing the page.

    If you scroll up the page, you should also see the average ranking of the page for all the terms combined.

    This could be useful if you want to identify pages that are ranking outside of the first page of Google.
    So, by optimizing your content (which we’ll get to later on), you can raise its ranking for these keywords and generate even more organic traffic!


    #4 – ChatGPT

    Perfect for: Content brainstorming and ideation

    A lot has been said about ChatGPT over the past few weeks as of writing that others have said everything I could be writing about it in some shape or form.

    Instead, I’ll let the tool do the talking for itself:

    Cool. How about an example?

    Keep in mind that ChatGPT only took seconds to generate the text above.

    However, as mentioned in the subheading above, it’s a great content brainstorming tool.

    That means I use it to help me build the ideas I’ll write in certain sections of my article.

    I don’t publish the text generated by ChatGPT as is. I make sure I edit it first and confirm if what the text says is true.

    Whatever people may say about the tool, it’s still not powerful enough to write content on its own.

    It still needs a real human to verify the information it’s saying and edit the piece to make it sound more personal.

    That said, it’s simply one of the best free content writing tools you’ll find right now.

    Take advantage of ChatGPT while it’s still available and find more use cases for your writing needs.


    #5 – SurferSEO

    Perfect for: content optimization

    Once you have chosen the keywords for your content, you need to strategize how to write it with SEO in mind.

    It’s not as simple as mentioning the keyword on the title, meta description, subheadings, and various parts of the article.

    There’s a good chance that all your competitors are doing the same thing now. So, it would help if you did something else to help you stand out from the pack.

    To help you set your content apart, use SurferSEO*, a tool that lets you observe the best content optimization practices for your web pages.

    You will be optimizing your content for your keyword and getting insights on which on-page factors you need to prioritize in your content.

    Analyze SERPs

    Upon signing up for an account, enter the keyword on the search bar so the tool can analyze the pages ranking for it on Google and determine the factors that need your utmost attention.

    Once the results pop up, you will see a graph showing the factors that potentially affect SERPs, such as keyword density, site speed, headings, meta tags, and more.

    For this example, here are the results for the keyword “content marketing:”

    In the graph, you will see the graphical representation of the number of words for every ten results (or every page) of search results.

    The overall results from the first page have over 4,000 words. The graph trends downward as you move to the following ten results and so on.

    On the left of the screenshot are the different ranking factors. You will see some of the elements in green.

    It means those factors bear the most relevance in the ranking of the pages. In the example you just saw, you need to optimize your content based on the number of words, keyword density, and character count, among others.

    To make the factors appear on the graph, check the boxes. Below is what the chart will look like after you do it:

    You must choose the best factors to include in the graph to make it readable. At this point, the discrepancy between the number of characters of each post and the others is too wide. As a result, it renders the entire graph unreadable.

    This content optimization software helps you identify which factors to optimize in your post.

    The idea is to stick with the figures of the first ten results for the keyword.

    The SEO content writing software helps you associate your post with the page ranking on the first page. By sheer association, you increase your chances of ranking for your target keyword.

    Also, it prevents you from over-optimizing your content for factors that don’t bear any relevance in SERPs.

    This enables you to avoid antiquated “tactics” like keyword stuffing in your content to ensure that you only include the best possible information about the topic in your articles.

    In fact, SurferSEO works even better if you want to analyze your published posts concerning pages that are ranking for their respective keywords!

    When you’ve analyzed the keyword you want to optimize your content for, type in the URL of your page on the “Enter custom URL *” entry. You can do this even if your page is ranking for this keyword or not.

    surferseo custom url

    Once you have added your post, click on the Audit button on the right to view a brief report of your page.

    surferseo audit

    Before running through the report, familiarize yourself with the keyword’s most critical factors in green. It shows you what you need to edit and improve on optimizing your content.

    Click the “Show details” button for more information about the suggestion so you can make an informed decision instead of just implementing the changes.

    Optimize Content for Your Target Keywords

    Aside from using the SERP Analyzer, you can skip the steps above and use Content Editor instead.

    It’s an SEO content optimization tool that uses natural language processing (NLP) to gather related keywords about the search phrase you want to optimize your content for.

    Once the keywords have been processed, you must mention the terms in your content to increase your score.

    To use it, go to the Content Editor and enter the keywords you want to optimize for your content.

    Remember the keywords you clustered a while back? Well, you can enter them here and optimize for them simultaneously!

    However, you can only enter a maximum of twenty (20) keywords into the Content Editor. So, be sure to include the very best keywords here.

    Once Surfer SEO has analyzed the keywords, open the Content Editor to see something like this:

    The goal is to create optimized content as measured by the Content Score indicator on the right sidebar. 

    The best way to do this is by including the words and phrases found on the lower-right side (the NLP keywords) in the article.

    These keywords have a close relationship and correlation with the keywords you’re optimizing for. 

    So, by including them in the content, you increase its topical relevance to your target keywords, thus increasing your score.

    And the higher your content’s score is, the higher its chances of ranking on top of search results!

    Also, a Chrome extension lets you show the Surfer Content Editor sidebar on Google Docs. This is great if you prefer creating content on this writing platform.

    The Content Editor is very similar to SEMrush’s SEO Content Template and SEO Writing Assistant (I’ve discussed this feature of SEMrush comprehensively in this post).

    Cluster Keywords Automatically

    As one of the best content writing tools for SEO, Surfer SEO allows you to cluster keywords as well, albeit differently than the process above.

    Using the tool’s Keyword Research feature, enter your seed keyword.

    Once the results come in, you will see keyword clusters, their respective monthly search volumes, and keyword difficulty.

    Click on a cluster to see the keywords included in each.

    Once you’ve chosen cluster you want to work on, click “Create Content Editor” so you write content for it,

    Identify Existing Content to Re-optimize

    What makes Surfer SEO the only SEO content writing tool you’ll need is that it also identifies which content to optimize for your site.

    To do this, click on Domain Planner and enter your domain URL on the text bar.

    In the results, you’ll see the pages ranking for keywords and their respective Content Scores.

    The goal is to identify which pages are not drawing enough clicks from SERPs based on the keywords they’re ranking for.

    To help you identify these pages, flip the Low Hanging Fruit switch to show pages with an average position between 10 and 20.

    From here, you should be able to identify which pages to prioritize optimizing first.

    You can also use its other filters to narrow down the pages to your specified metrics.

    The Domain Planner is a great feature for content writers who would like to offer this as a service to clients.


    #6 – Quillbot

    Perfect for: content paraphrasing

    Here’s an issue that content writers face regularly:

    They’ll find themselves repeating the same thing over and over again.

    This happens if they’re writing about the same topics and covering the same headings in all their articles.

    This is also an issue that bloggers and even niche site owners deal with on a daily basis.

    They can use ChatGPT to help break the monotony by asking the tool to write it. However, given the tool’s free nature, it’ll be only a matter of time before you have to pay for it.

    So, to help you get ahead of the curb, use the content paraphraser Quillbot.

    What it does is reword a sentence or paragraph into a unique passage that you can use in your content.

    Let’s say you’re writing a roundup post about the best content optimization tools.

    And part of the task is to describe what the product is and what it does.

    For this, head on to a site like GetApp and find the tool there. Then click on the App Info to show you its description. Copy the text you’ll find there.

    Paste the text on Quilbot to paraphrase it.

    Choose from different modes how you want the tool to paraphrase your content.

    Once you’re happy with the paraphrased text, you want to ensure it’s grammatically correct.

    If so, paste the text onto the tool’s Grammar Editor and fix all the errors the tool spots.

    Once done, the last thing you want to do is use Quillbot’s Plagiarism Checker.

    Since you copied the text from an existing page, there’s a chance that search engines may flag the text as duplicate content.

    But by using the Plagiarism Checker, you can identify which passages in the text Google can detect. This way, you can manually edit them to avoid further detection. Another tool you can use to ensure content uniqueness is PlagiarismCheck.org.

    Keep in mind that Quillbot provides you with a limited number of pages to analyze using this feature, even for paid subscriptions.

    Also, one (1) page is equivalent to 250 words. So, an article worth 1,100 words will be considered five pages off your credits (5 x 250 =1,250) even if you didn’t maximize the last page credit.

    So, be smart when analyzing text so you don’t burn through your credits.

    Quillbot still requires manual intervention on your part (what SEO writing tool doesn’t need one?). Nonetheless, more than half of the job is done for you. 

    All you must do here is edit the page in a few minutes based on the plagiarized text the tool detected, and you’re good to go!


    #7 – Grammarly Premium

    Perfect for: editing and proofreading

    What makes content SEO-friendly is how grammatically and structurally correct it is. 

    It doesn’t matter how valuable your content is. Nobody wants to read incoherent content filled with basic errors. 

    And you won’t create clients if you keep publishing articles that aren’t optimized for humans to read.

    To help you clean up your text, run Grammarly*.

    The free tool lets you download the Chrome extension to edit the post as you write whenever the tool spots an error. 

    The free account lets you fix major errors, but you need to subscribe to the premium plan for minor mistakes and suggestions to make your content much better.

    Grammarly Premium scores your content out of 100. While striving to get a perfect score is ideal, you don’t have to. To be honest, having a score of over 90 is good enough for me.

    Aside from detecting over 250 grammatical errors, it identifies plagiarism for you. 

    Run the plagiarism checker to ensure that your post doesn’t have identical blocks of text found on published pages. 

    Search engines frown on duplicate content, and by keeping your post unique, you increase its chances of ranking for your keyword.

    You’re missing out on a lot if you’re not subscribed to Grammarly Premium as a content writer! 

    The tool checks over 250 common grammar mistakes and belts out suggestions on correcting them in your article with just a few clicks of a button.

    Otherwise, the free content writing software version of Grammarly is good enough to detect significant errors that make your content difficult to read. You can even integrate it with Google Docs to simplify your workflow further.

    So, at the very least, give its free version a shot.


    BONUS: Optimize your titles using this headline analyzer tool

    Creating a great headline is a craft. It may sound easy to write a headline but coming up with one that generates enough CTR is not easy.

    isitwp headline analyzer

    This is where a Headline Analyzer tool by IsItWP comes in to help you create enticing headlines. This tool helps you drive clicks and traffic by analyzing the headline based on word count, sentiment, power words, search preview, and six more factors to suggest an overall score.

    The best they suggest is getting a 70 or above!

    Thanks to ReviewsXP for making this article possible.

  • How to Increase Your SEO Score in 2026 (Step-by-Step Guide)

    How to Increase Your SEO Score in 2026 (Step-by-Step Guide)

    Your SEO score is a snapshot of how well your website is optimized across four areas: technical performance, content quality, on-page signals, and authority. To increase it, you need to fix crawlability issues, strengthen your content for both humans and AI systems, pass Core Web Vitals, and build topical authority over time. This guide walks you through exactly how to do each one, in order of impact.

    I’ve been doing SEO for over a decade. I’ve seen the game shift from keyword stuffing to helpful content to AI-generated answers. What I’m sharing here reflects what actually moves the needle in 2026, not what worked three years ago.

    What Is an SEO Score (and Why You Should Take It With a Grain of Salt)

    An SEO score is an aggregate metric that tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, SE Ranking, and SEOptimer use to grade your site’s overall health. These tools crawl your pages and assign a score based on factors like broken links, missing meta tags, page speed, and on-page optimization.

    Here’s the thing though: your SEO score from a third-party tool and your actual Google rankings are two different things.

    I’ve seen sites with a 95/100 tool score sitting on page 4. And I’ve seen sites with a 62/100 generating thousands of organic visits a month. The score is useful as a starting diagnostic, but it does not directly tell Google where to rank you.

    What does matter is fixing the underlying issues those tools are flagging. The score goes up when the site improves, and the rankings follow when the improvements are meaningful. That’s how I use it.

    The Four Pillars of a Strong SEO Score

    4 SEO pillars

    Before diving into fixes, it helps to understand what actually drives the number. Every legitimate SEO audit tool measures some combination of these four areas:

    Technical SEO covers crawlability, indexing, site speed, mobile usability, and Core Web Vitals. If Google can’t access and understand your pages, nothing else matters.

    On-page SEO covers title tags, meta descriptions, header structure, internal links, and keyword optimization. This is where most beginners start and where most basic issues live.

    Content quality covers search intent alignment, depth, freshness, and E-E-A-T signals. Google’s Helpful Content updates made this the most important factor on the list.

    Authority covers backlinks, brand mentions, and how well your site is recognized as a trusted source in your niche. This is the hardest to build and the slowest to move.

    Let’s go through each one.

    Step 1: Fix Technical SEO First

    Technical issues are the easiest to identify and the most urgent to fix. A single crawl error on an important page can wipe out months of content work. I’ve put together a detailed technical SEO site audit guide if you want to run through the full process step by step.

    Run a Google Search Console Audit

    If you have not connected your site to Google Search Console yet, do that today. It is free and it is the only tool that shows you exactly what Google sees when it crawls your site.

    Once you are inside, check three things immediately:

    Go to Pages under Indexing. Look for pages marked “Crawled, currently not indexed” or “Discovered, currently not indexed.” These are pages Google found but is not ranking. Common causes are thin content, duplicate content, or a noindex tag you forgot about.

    Go to Core Web Vitals. This report shows your LCP, INP, and CLS scores based on real user data. Any pages flagged as “Poor” need attention before anything else.

    Go to Manual Actions. If Google has penalized your site for any reason, this is where it will tell you. Most sites have nothing here, but it is worth checking.

    Fix Your Core Web Vitals

    Core Web Vitals

    Core Web Vitals are three metrics Google uses as ranking signals. As of 2026, the three are:

    LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) measures how fast the main content of a page loads. Your target is under 2.5 seconds. The most common culprit on WordPress sites is unoptimized hero images. Compress your images with a tool like ShortPixel and implement lazy loading on anything below the fold.

    INP (Interaction to Next Paint) replaced FID in 2024 and measures how quickly your page responds to user interaction like clicks or taps. Your target is under 200ms. Bloated JavaScript and too many third-party scripts are usually the problem here. Audit your plugins and remove anything you are not actively using.

    CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) measures how much your page visually jumps around while loading. Your target is under 0.1. Always define dimensions for your images and avoid inserting ads or banners that push content down as the page loads.

    Run your pages through Google PageSpeed Insights to get specific recommendations per URL. It is free and gives you both mobile and desktop scores.

    Check Crawlability and Indexing

    A few quick things to verify:

    Make sure your XML sitemap is submitted in Search Console and does not include pages you have marked noindex. Contradictory signals confuse crawlers.

    Check your robots.txt file. I have seen sites accidentally block Googlebot from crawling entire sections of their site. Visit yourdomain.com/robots.txt and confirm nothing important is blocked.

    Fix broken internal links. A tool like Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs) will crawl your entire site and flag any 404 errors. Each broken internal link wastes crawl budget and kills user experience.

    Step 2: Sharpen Your On-Page SEO

    Once your technical foundation is solid, on-page optimization is where you can move fast.

    Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

    Your title tag is the single most important on-page SEO element. Every page should have a unique title that includes the primary keyword close to the front and stays under 60 characters.

    Do not write your title for Google alone. Write it for the person deciding whether to click your result over the ten others on the page. Ask yourself: would I click this?

    Meta descriptions do not directly affect rankings, but they absolutely affect CTR. A compelling meta description at position 12 can outperform a lazy one at position 8. Keep it under 155 characters, include your keyword, and end with something that makes the reader feel like they need to click.

    Header Structure

    Every page should have one H1 that matches the intent of the target keyword. Your H2s should cover the main sub-topics of the page. H3s go under H2s for more specific points.

    I see a lot of writers using bold text or random caps for subheadings instead of proper header tags. Google cannot parse those as structure. Use actual H2 and H3 tags in your CMS.

    Internal Linking

    Internal links are how you pass authority from one page to another within your site. They are one of the most underused levers in SEO.

    Every time you publish a new piece of content, go back through your existing posts and add contextual links to it from relevant pages. Use keyword-rich anchor text, not “click here” or “read more.”

    Your most important pages, pillar guides, service pages, and high-converting posts should have the most internal links pointing to them. This tells Google which pages matter most.

    Image Optimization

    Every image on your site should have a descriptive alt text that includes a relevant keyword where natural. File names matter too. “how-to-increase-seo-score-google-search-console.jpg” beats “image1.jpg” every time.

    Compress everything before upload. A 3MB hero image is one of the fastest ways to tank your LCP score.

    Step 3: Create Content That Actually Ranks

    This is where most SEO advice from 2020 falls apart. Google has fundamentally changed how it evaluates content since the Helpful Content Update rolled out in 2022 and continued through 2024 and 2025.

    Match Search Intent Precisely

    Before you write anything, search your target keyword and look at the top five results. What format are they using? What questions are they answering? What angle are they taking?

    If the top results are all step-by-step guides and you write a listicle, you are fighting the SERP instead of working with it. Google has already told you what it thinks searchers want. Give them that. My SEO content writing guide goes deep on how to read and match search intent for any keyword.

    Build E-E-A-T Into Your Content

    E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It is the framework Google uses to evaluate content quality, and it is now more important than any keyword tactic.

    Experience means showing that you have actually done the thing you are writing about. I do not just write about SEO in theory. I have been doing it for clients since 2013. When I mention that, and back it up with specific results or examples, it signals real-world experience to both readers and Google’s quality evaluators.

    Expertise means demonstrating deep subject knowledge. Go beyond the surface. Explain the why behind your recommendations, not just the what.

    Authoritativeness comes from external recognition. Being published on Search Engine Journal, Niche Pursuits, and Blogging Wizard builds this over time. Every byline you earn on a recognized publication reinforces your authority in the eyes of Google.

    Trustworthiness comes from accurate information, transparent sourcing, clear authorship, and a site that does not make people feel like they are about to get scammed. Author bios, testimonials, and privacy policies all contribute here.

    Keep Content Fresh

    Google rewards freshness, especially in competitive niches. If you have posts that have not been updated in two or more years, they are probably losing ground to newer content that covers the same topic.

    Refreshing content does not mean rewriting from scratch every time. Sometimes all it takes is updating statistics, removing dead links, adding a new section that covers something competitors have started covering, and changing the publish date.

    I check my top-performing posts at least once a quarter and update anything that has aged badly.

    Step 4: Build Authority the Right Way

    Authority is the slowest part of SEO to build but one of the highest-leverage. A single link from a high-DR publication in your niche can move a page more than dozens of on-page tweaks.

    Focus on Quality Over Volume

    The era of building hundreds of low-quality backlinks to rank is over. Google is significantly better at detecting and discounting manipulative link patterns. One link from Search Engine Journal carries more weight than a hundred links from random blog networks.

    The most reliable ways to build quality links in 2026 are guest posting on industry publications, creating original research or data studies that others want to cite, and digital PR that gets you mentioned in news articles and roundups.

    Reclaim Unlinked Brand Mentions

    This is one of the easiest wins most sites leave on the table. Search for your name and your site’s name on Google. Find any mentions that do not include a hyperlink. Reach out to the site owner and ask them to add one.

    These are warm outreach targets because they already know who you are. Conversion rates on unlinked mention outreach are typically 20 to 30 percent.

    Build Topical Authority

    In 2026, Google rewards sites that comprehensively cover a topic over sites that have one great post surrounded by unrelated content. This is the whole argument for pillar content and content clusters.

    If your site covers SEO and content writing, every supporting post should connect back to your pillar guides through internal links. The cluster of related content tells Google that your site is a serious resource on the topic, not just a collection of random posts.

    Step 5: Optimize for AI Search (GEO)

    Generative Engine Optimization is not replacing SEO. It is extending it into a new channel. AI Overviews appear in a significant portion of Google searches. ChatGPT and Perplexity are now referral traffic sources for many sites. Getting cited in these systems requires a slightly different approach to content structure.

    Lead With Direct Answers

    AI systems pull content from the opening section of your page when generating answers. If your first paragraph is a story or a hook, you miss the citation window. Put a concise, direct answer to your target question in the first 60 to 80 words of every post.

    Add FAQ Schema

    FAQ schema markup tells Google exactly what questions your page answers and in what format. AI systems use structured data to identify authoritative answers. Add five to eight Q&A pairs to your most important posts using FAQ schema.

    Every FAQ question should mirror the conversational phrasing people use when asking AI assistants. “What is an SEO score?” gets you further than “SEO score definition.”

    Include Citation-Worthy Data

    Research shows that AI systems preferentially cite content that includes statistics from credible sources, expert quotes, and original data. Include at least one cited statistic per major section of your content. Link to the primary source, not an intermediary article.

    Tools to Measure Your SEO Score

    You do not need to pay for six tools to track your SEO health. Here is what I actually use:

    Google Search Console is free and the most accurate source of truth for how Google sees your site. Use it to track impressions, clicks, CTR, average position, Core Web Vitals, and indexing issues.

    Google PageSpeed Insights is free and gives you Core Web Vitals data per URL with specific improvement recommendations.

    Semrush or Ahrefs for a comprehensive site audit score, backlink tracking, and keyword rank monitoring. Either one is worth the investment if SEO is central to your business.

    Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs) for crawling your site to find broken links, missing meta tags, duplicate content, and redirect chains.

    You do not need all of these on day one. Start with Search Console and PageSpeed Insights. Add a paid tool when you are ready to go deeper on backlinks and keyword tracking.

    SEO Score Improvement Checklist

    SEO Score Checklist

    Use this to work through your site systematically. Start from the top and move down.

    Technical SEO

    • Connect site to Google Search Console and review index coverage
    • Check Core Web Vitals report and fix any “Poor” pages
    • Run site through PageSpeed Insights for mobile and desktop scores
    • Fix broken internal links with Screaming Frog or a similar crawler
    • Verify XML sitemap is submitted and does not include noindex pages
    • Confirm robots.txt is not blocking important pages

    On-page SEO

    • Every page has a unique title tag under 60 characters with primary keyword
    • Every page has a unique meta description under 155 characters
    • One H1 per page that matches the target keyword intent
    • H2 and H3 tags used for all subheadings (no bold text substituting for headers)
    • Internal links added from related posts to each new piece of content
    • All images have descriptive alt text and compressed file sizes

    Content quality

    • Each post directly matches the search intent of its target keyword
    • Author bio is present with credentials and experience
    • Content includes first-hand examples, personal experience, or original data
    • Statistics are cited with links to primary sources
    • Posts reviewed and refreshed at least once a year

    Authority

    • Backlink profile checked for any toxic or spammy links
    • Guest post strategy in place targeting industry publications
    • Brand mentions monitored with Google Alerts
    • Internal links funnel authority to pillar pages and key service pages

    GEO

    • First paragraph of each post includes a direct, extractable answer
    • FAQ schema added to pillar guides and high-traffic posts
    • Content tested manually in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews
    • AI referral traffic tracked in Google Analytics 4

    Improving your SEO score is not a one-time project. It is a system you build and maintain. Fix the technical issues first because those are the foundation. Then sharpen your content to match what searchers and AI systems are actually looking for. Then build authority through links and brand recognition that compounds over time.

    I have been doing this for clients and for my own site for over a decade. The fundamentals have not changed that much. What has changed is the bar. The sites winning in 2026 are the ones that do all of it well, not just one part of it.

    If you want help with any of this for your own site, my SEO audit and content reoptimization services are a good place to start.

  • What Is Keyword Grouping And How To Do It The Right Way

    What Is Keyword Grouping And How To Do It The Right Way

    By now, you should know that you can rank for more than one keyword for your blog post or web page.

    The problem is, most of the time, people optimize their content using a focus keyword.

    This is not wrong by any means. However, you don’t get to maximize the organic traffic potential of your page if you don’t optimize it for related terms.

    This is where keyword grouping, or keyword clustering, comes to the rescue.

    In this post, I will discuss keyword grouping and its benefits. Also, I will show you how you can group your search queries in different ways.

    In the end, you should be able to do keyword grouping to help your blog post rank for multiple keywords on SERPs.

    What is keyword grouping?

    The keyword grouper method is the process of researching a list of keywords and grouping search terms closely related to one another. They help you build a silo that covers different user intent for each search term in the cluster.

    Most conduct keyword research by finding a search term with a high search volume that they will use to optimize the content. There are different tools you can use for this.

    With keyword grouping, you can unearth thousands of keywords and organize them into keyword groups.

    Benefits of a keyword group

    So, what’s the big deal with coming up with keyword clusters?

    Below are its advantages:

    Increase organic traffic

    By coming up with clusters of keywords, you can optimize for them in your content.

    Since they are related to your target keyword, you shouldn’t have any problem mentioning them in the post. Simply use them as synonyms to your main keyword to mix things up.

    By doing so, you increase your chances of ranking for your target keyword on search results and closely related keywords on search results.

    And by ranking on top of search engine results for all those keywords in a single page, you can increase traffic coming from search engines!

    Organize your content structure

    Aside from using a keyword group for a single page, you can use the keywords to create a silo in your website.

    A silo is a structure where a category or a folder in a website contains pages related to the topic of the category.

    For example, if the category is “running shoes,” then the pages in it can optimize for the following keywords:

    • Running shoes for men
    • Best running shoes in 2020
    • Nike running shoes

    Basically, keyword groups can help you come up with relevant content ideas for categories in your site.

    By doing so, you create semantically relevant content about a topic, which plays a big role in your content marketing strategy.

    Focus on topics, not keywords

    In relation to the benefit above, keyword grouping allows you to approach your site as a source of information about a topic.

    Again, if your website is about running shoes, creating content about woodworking for it doesn’t make sense.

    Even if the search terms for woodworking have generally higher quality scores (high search volume and low difficulty), it adds nothing to the topic of your website.

    So, if your visitors see content optimized for irrelevant keywords, expect them to leave right away.

    It’s about time webmasters create topically relevant content instead of chasing profitable keywords left and right. 

    This way, they create authority and credibility for your website about their topic.

    Start keyword grouping with SE Ranking!

    If you want to make the most out of keyword grouping, use SE Ranking. It’s an all-in-one SEO platform that lets you conduct keyword research, competitor analysis, monitor website changes, and more. Below, you will see how you can effectively use SE Ranking to cluster keywords. But if you want to learn more about the tool, check out the SE Ranking review I wrote to shows how powerful the tool is.

    How to use Keyword Planner for creating keyword groups

    You can use tools like Long Tail Pro if you want a paid tool to help you find keyword ideas. But Google Keyword Planner is a free keyword tool mainly used for Google Ads and PPC.

    For SEO, however, you can use it to find keyword suggestions for building your keyword strategy.

    But for the purpose of this post, you can use Keyword Planner as a keyword grouping tool to help you cluster related keywords together.

    If you have a Google account, login from Google Adwords to access the tool.

    Once in, type in your topic on the text bar.

    keyword planner - discover new keywords

    The tool will then generate keyword ideas that you can include in your campaign.

    From the Keyword ideas page, click on Grouped ideas on the sidebar.

    keyword planner - grouped ideas

    It will show you the keywords organized into groups.

    keyword planner - grouped ideas results

    To view the keywords for each group, click on the arrow button to show them.

    From here, you can download the keywords ideas and organize them further manually onto a spreadsheet.

    keyword planner - download keyword ideas

    Now, using the Keyword Planner is the easiest and simplest way to group your keywords. It also doesn’t provide you with the most value.

    For one, the tool doesn’t tell you how it grouped the keywords together (more on this later).

    It also lacks features to help you analyze the clusters properly.

    So while Keyword Planner is good enough to help you group keywords together, it’s not useful enough.

    SE Ranking is an all-inclusive SEO tool that helps you rank your websites higher on organic search. You can use its features like link building, competitor analysis, PPC keyword research, and more to formulate your SEO strategy.

    But its keyword grouper feature lets you come up with keyword lists for optimizing your websites with topically relevant keywords.

    SE Ranking is a paid search marketing tool but you can sign up for a 14-day free trial to test its features.

    But before you can use its keyword grouper feature, you must upload a number of keywords manually to the tool.

    You can use the keywords you downloaded from the Google Adwords tool.

    While they are already clustered together, it doesn’t hurt to run them again using SE Ranking. You could get different and possibly better results in the process.

    Or you can also use SE Ranking’s keyword tool to find ideas and suggestions for your topic. I personally feel it’s one of the better keyword research tools in the market.

    To begin, go to Tools > Keyword Suggestions from the menu.

    Then enter your topic on the text bar. Change the source and country database if necessary before hitting “Start search.”

    what is keyword grouping - se ranking - keyword suggestions

    On the overview page, scroll down until you reach the Similar keywords section. Click on View detailed results to see the entire list of keywords.

    se ranking - similar keywords

    From here, click on the Export button and choose .csv or .xlsx format to download the list.

    export similar keywords from se ranking

    Once you have downloaded the file, go back to the dashboard and go to Tools > Keyword Grouper.

    keyword grouper se ranking

    Next, enter the title of the keyword group and change the settings as you see fit.

    keyword grouper search engine settings

    Next, and perhaps its best feature, is the ability to organize the keywords according to accuracy and method.

    keyword grouping accuracy and method

    If you want to create accurate keyword groups, you need to set it at a higher setting.

    What happens is the tool will be stricter regarding clustering keywords. 

    Therefore, the higher the accuracy is, the fewer search queries there will be in each group.

    Regarding the method of grouping, choose between soft and hard.

    In a nutshell, the soft method groups together a much larger set of keywords. However, there’s a chance that each group will have irrelevant keywords in there.

    The hard method clusters fewer keywords compared to the soft method. But there’s a low chance you will see unrelated search queries in each group.

    keyword grouper search volume checker upload

    After choosing the settings, confirm if you want to include the search volume of each keyword. Then upload the file where your keywords are.

    Also, you must understand that keyword grouping is an on-demand SE Ranking service. This means it’s not part of your subscription of the tool.

    Each keyword query check costs $0.004, while the search volume check is at $0.005.

    Once you start grouping the keywords, wait for a couple of minutes. The length of time clustering your keywords depends on how many you uploaded.

    The keyword group on SE Ranking should look like this:

    keywords grouping results in Google USA

    If you expand the group, you will see the keywords included, their search volume, the Top 10 matching URLs, and the highlighted keywords on the top 10 results.

    keyword group details

    You can export the groups and explore each of them more in detail from a spreadsheet.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    What is keyword grouping in SEO?

    Keyword grouping is an effective method for optimizing content. The process involves making clusters of related keywords and using those groups to create posts or pages optimized with several terms from a particular keyword group.

    What is keyword with example?

    In SEO, a keyword is the term that people use to search for products and services online. For example, if I want to search for Nike basketball shoes, I type in “adidas basketball shoes” or “best Nike basketball shoes for guards.” Keywords are part of an optimization strategy called on-page SEO.

    How do you organize keywords?

    You can organize content according to their intent. Some people use keywords to learn more about a specific topic (informational), while others type in keywords with the intent of purchasing something (commercial and transactional). Organizing keywords according to these categories allows you to create topically relevant content for each group.

    How do you do keyword clustering?

    It would be best if you researched for keywords that are closely related to your niche or topic. From here, you can group them together according to their respective variants, subtopics, and others.

    Conclusion

    Grouping keywords is not really reinventing the wheel. However, the best SEO strategies happen to be the simplest.

    In this case, clustering your keywords is one of the easiest ways to organize your content according to topic. 

    This way, you can rank your pages for multiple keywords at the same time. You also create semantically relevant content based on keywords.

    Google Keyword Planner is a great place to start keyword grouping. But if you want a leg up on the competition, try out SE Ranking.

  • 5 Reasons Why You Need a Marketing Plan for Better SEO

    5 Reasons Why You Need a Marketing Plan for Better SEO

    Every business needs a plan to succeed.

    And when it comes to maximizing your online reach, you will need a marketing plan.

    But you have to be even more specific than that as there are different ways to promote your business.

    Therefore, if you want to rank higher on organic search for your keywords, an SEO marketing plan is the ticket!

    In this post, you will learn:

    • What a marketing plan is all about
    • The different goals of a marketing plan
    • Reasons you need one for your small business

    What is a marketing plan?

    A marketing plan is a road map on how you propose to promote your products or services to your target market.

    There are many types of plans for different small businesses. With SEO, a great example is found in SE Ranking.

    se ranking - small business marketing plan

    Alt text: SE Ranking business marketing plan

    Its marketing plan covers the following SEO factors:

    • Keyword research – Identify keywords related to your business that you should optimize for your website
    • On-page optimization – Set up tracking codes to analyze and measure your site’s traffic and conversions. Also fix your site structure to help search spiders crawl your pages much easier.
    • Mobile optimization – Ensure that visitors can properly view your website on mobile devices. That means your site must have a responsive design to adjust to the size of the device’s screen size.
    • Content strategy – Learn how to create content that search engines and your target audience will love. Includes developing a content marketing strategy using your blog.
    • Off-page optimization – Increase off-page signals such as building backlinks and citations. These help the search engine to index your pages faster and better
    • Social media strategy – Leverage social signals to your site that could help increase your organic search rankings

    These factors help you gain a better understanding about your site’s SEO.

    From here, you can develop a marketing campaign based on what you’ve accomplished in the checklist.

    SE Ranking is more than just an SEO marketing plan!

    Find out how this software can improve your site’s SEO performance from top to bottom. Check out my SE Ranking review by clicking on the link.

    Purpose of the marketing plan

    The goal of a marketing plan is to increase your visibility in your market. If done right, you can see an uptick in engagement with your brand, if not an increase in sales and revenue.

    Unlike others, the great thing about an SEO marketing plan is the ability to scale and measure the fruits of your labor. We will talk about this in a bit.

    Why you need a marketing plan

    I already touched upon some of the reasons why you need a marketing plan for your business. But it’s best to list them down here so you know the benefits of a successful marketing strategy.

    Leverage online assets

    If SEO isn’t part of your marketing mix yet, then now’s the time to integrate it.

    Almost everybody uses their mobile devices and laptops to find solutions for their problems.

    And if your site is what they’re looking for, then they can visit your site and become your clients.

    But that won’t happen unless you don’t optimize your website for organic search!

    By creating a marketing plan geared towards improving your SEO (if not your digital marketing campaign), your website can shoot on top of Google search.

    As a result, more people will see your site on search engine results pages (SERPs), leading to more clicks to your site.

    Fortify your site’s foundations

    For starters, you want your site to have a clear hierarchical structure and pages optimized for low-hanging fruit keywords.

    However, doing that without a step-by-step process to guide you is tough.

    An SEO marketing plan will lay out the details for you so you don’t have to scramble for information.

    The marketing plan should also be easy enough to understand and follow even if you have zero experience in SEO.

    Because setting up an optimized site is hard enough.

    Plus, you don’t want to conflicting information about SEO in your research. Best to have the details in your marketing plan so you can simply worry about improving your site.

    Using SE Ranking, you can click on the “How to” button to show the exact process of doing a task.

    why you need a marketing plan using SE Ranking

    Establish clear business goals

    But before you develop your website, you need to have a goal in mind.

    Answer this question:

    What do you want visitors to do once they’re on your website?

    As you know, visitors don’t amount to anything if you don’t have a call to action.

    So, if they’re not on your site to subscribe to your email marketing list or buy a product or service, then what’s the point?

    You want to assign a dollar value on your SEO campaign.

    Therefore, a marketing plan helps you determine measurable goals to make sense of your small business marketing.

    From here, you can use the data gathered by your analytics tools to track your process.

    See in the results if you are hitting your goals. If not, tweak your campaign to make sure it is going according to plan.

    Develop marketing strategies

    By breaking down the factors in your SEO marketing plan, you can scale your business using different strategies.

    Bulk of your marketing strategy will deal with off-page optimization.

    Backlinks are the most crucial ranking factor for your site. The more high-quality links you can generate for your site, the better your site will rank.

    However, links from authoritative sites take time to acquire. You’ll have to jump through several hoops to earn that link.

    While link building presents certain challenges, your marketing plan should help make things easier.

    It provides you a full view of your site’s current progress in SEO. Therefore, having access to your plan gives you ideas on how to approach your upcoming strategies.

    For example, you can compare your existing link profile with your competitors and see links they have that you don’t yet.

    You can then plot up a campaign where you try and acquire missing backlinks to boost your link profile.

    Ensure the success of your business

    Simply put, your marketing plan helps you achieve your goals and grow your business faster.

    Without a plan, you don’t have marketing objectives laid out for you.

    Therefore, you do not know which factors to prioritize and strategies to run for your site.

    Not to mention, an SEO marketing plan allows you to track and measure the organic traffic you’re generating.

    Use the data available at your fingertips to determine which campaigns to launch and maximize your growth.

    Turn your marketing plan for SEO into action with SE Ranking

    Now you know the value that a small business marketing plan brings to the table. But you should also know a plan isn’t the same as a marketing campaign for your site’s SEO.

    The plan only gives you an idea of what you need to do to attract more organic visitors to your website. So, if you want to put your plan into action, you need a strategy or campaign.

    As business owners, however, developing an SEO marketing campaign requires you to have access to data about your website.

    You must know how much traffic you are generating, where you’re getting them, and how you can get even more.

    From here, you will have all the information you need to help you achieve business growth online.

    Aside from giving you access to an SEO marketing plan, SE Ranking also does:

    Track your rankings

    se ranking rank tracking

    See how high you’re ranking for your target keywords over time based on your current SEO campaign

    Monitor your backlinks

    Identify the most valuable backlinks your site has and keep track of their status. If you lose the link, avoid losing your site rankings by asking the site owner to restore it.

    Analyze your competitors

    Check out how your competitors are faring, which keywords they are ranking for, and how strong their link profiles are. You can also spy on their strategy and figure out why they are so successful so you can emulate it on your site.

    Research for keywords

    Find low-hanging fruit keywords that your site should optimize for to rank for them and increase your organic traffic.

    Run an on-site audit

    se ranking site audit

    Let the tool analyze your site for errors and areas of improvement. This ensures that your site is in tip-top shape and is optimized to rank for SERPs.

    The audit also paves way for the tool to monitor the changes on your website. Doing so lets you keep track of all the changes in a period and revert back to the old version if necessary to restore a page’s ranking.

    se ranking site audit

    SIGN UP FOR A 14-DAY FREE TRIAL OF SE RANKING

    Optimize your website and develop your SEO campaign in one place! Click on the link below to get started.

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