Google Search Console

With the Google Search Console, formerly Google Webmaster Tools, you are informed directly by Google about the quality of your own website. Among other things, information on 404 errors, crawling status and blocked resources is displayed here. You also get an overview of the number of clicks, impressions and positions for important keywords. The free tool is freely accessible to all webmasters. You can enter your own website at https://www.google.com/webmasters/. Google then shows several options for confirming ownership. After implementation, the data is analysed.

Particularly useful: The webmaster is informed about all important events concerning the website via “Notifications”. Here you can quickly find out whether your own site violates guidelines and is penalised with a penalty.

SEO Screaming Frog

The SEO Screaming Frog is the classic SEO technology tool. You can download the tool from https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/ and install it on your desktop. In the free version, up to 500 URLs can be crawled and analysed. Screaming Frog provides a wealth of SEO information after the crawl:

• Status codes
• Titles
• Meta descriptions
• Canonicals
• Noindex attribute
• Image labelling
• and much more.

The large amount of relevant information in particular makes the popular Screaming Frog a powerful and indispensable analysis tool for search engine optimisation.

Ryte Free

The Ryte analysis tool is another highlight that we can recommend for comprehensive data collection. The data collected is divided into three main categories:

• Structural optimisation
• Content optimisation
• Technology optimisation

The webmaster is informed about the degree of optimisation of the respective area. With the help of this tool, problem areas can be quickly identified and countermeasures initiated. A free version with up to 100 subpages is available for small websites. You can register for this at https://de.ryte.com/product/free/.

The following functions are available in the free version:

• Project dashboard: Comprehensive information about the status of your own website is available here at a glance.
• Website success: A list and breakdown of important technical and structural SEO aspects, including optimisation potential.
• Content success: Helpful for content optimisation, important topic-specific keywords can be identified that can contribute to a good ranking.

Sistrix Smart

Search engine optimisers receive another all-in-one SEO package with the Sistrix analysis tool. The visibility index is a particular trademark here. The rankings of a domain are calculated according to weighting from a pot of 500,000 terms and term combinations – the index value is made up of the sum of all top 100 rankings of a domain.

The free version can be obtained at https://www.sistrix.de/smart/ and is called “Sistrix Smart”. This visibility index is not available in the free version. However, up to 100 keywords can be defined and used to calculate a personal visibility index. This allows the performance for relevant search terms to be tracked over time.

In addition, numerous other data are available for analysis purposes:

• Notes on status codes of individual subpages
• Meta information such as title and description
• Notes on non-indexable contents
• and much more.

Pingdom

One SEO factor that is becoming increasingly relevant is the loading speed of websites. Among the numerous tools available, Pingdom is particularly worthy of mention. Pingdom is available in a free version and is ideal for detailed page speed measurement. The URL to be tested can be entered at the following address https://tools.pingdom.com/. In the next step, it is important to enter the nearest server for the measurement – and the test can begin.

In the summary, the performance level of the tested page, the number of requests and the page load speed can be determined. The following data is also available for analysis purposes:

• The number of redirects
• The number of JavaScript and CSS files used
• Status regarding browser caching
• and much more.

Pingdom shows the status quo of your own website in detail and suggests important optimisation potentials.

Top 5 free SEO tools – Our conclusion

Almost all relevant SEO aspects can be analysed with the free tools. The Google Search Console in particular is part of the basic equipment for every webmaster and is available to everyone, regardless of website size. As each tool uses its own crawl techniques, a combined use of various tools is recommended.