2020

EDITION

The Hoth presents:

The best
se0 and ppc
Tools
 TOP SEO Tools Guide
by The HOTH

There are lots of tools we’ve used over the years to build the HOTH, and many we still
use every single day.

We put together our favorite tools in this list so that you can use them to research your
competitors, find loads of new keywords, optimize your site, and more!

Some of the tools are paid tools and are WELL worth the money spent, but we also
tried to include free or low cost versions of each.

If you have any suggestions about this guide or anything you’d like to see from us, just
shoot us an email at [email protected]

-The HOTH

P.S. We also offer 10+ FREE SEO tools on our site if you sign up for a free HOTH
Account here.

Table Of Contents

1. Keyword Research Tools

2. Content Optimization SEO Tools
3. Site Enhancement Tools
4. Website Analysis Tools
5. Link Building Tools
6. SEO Analytics & Tracking Tools
7. Local Specific Tools
8. Penalty Research Tools
9. Agency Building Tools
10. PPC Advertising Tools
Keyword
Research
Tools
Here are the best tools for keyword research.
Spy On Competitors With SEMRush
SEMRush is a great website research tool. You can check search engine or PPC stats
on any website, see your rankings or your competitors rankings. I love using it for
keyword jacking. Here are 2 ways you can use this tool in just a few min:

1. Easy Wins Method: Put in your website URL. Under Organic Research on the left,
click positions. See what you’re ranking for on page 2, re-optimize your pages or
add links (internal or external) to boost your rank.
2. Keyword Jacking Method: Get your competitors domains and run a keyword report
on them. Sort the report by kw volume, jack their keywords and either add them to
your existing pages or build out new pages. BOOM.

Here’s a quick example video for reference.

Get Fast Keyword Suggestions With
KWFinder
Quickest keyword tool ever! This will show you how tough the competition is for
keyword (including TF & CF from Majestic), & Unique linking IPs for the top 10 results
to give you a nice overview of what each SERP result looks like. You can use this in
combination with all the keyword ideas you got from Semrush (item #1).
Get FREE Keyword Research With The
HOTH Keyword Research Tool
This is basically a free version of SEMRush - Just put in a seed keyword and it will give
you all kinds of variations as well as traffic, CPC, and more.
Get Keyword Ideas With “Google Suggest
Scraper” UberSuggest
When you go to Google and search a term, Google will often suggest variations to help
you complete your search. This tool pulls in all the suggestions and finds related
keywords as well. This is a great free tool for finding keyword ideas, volume, and more!
Research gaps in competitive niche’s for
FREE with The HOTH Keyword Gap
Analysis Tool
Compare your domain with up to 3 competitors to always stay ahead of the curve.
Get Actual Customer Questions Answer
The Public
Similar to Ubersuggest, but with even more! You can use this to find out what kinds of
questions people are search for.
Do Killer Keyword Research With Ahref's
Keyword Explorer
The Ahrefs keyword explorer is great for keyword research. Since ahref’s link database
is arguably the largest, they have what I consider the most accurate keyword difficulty
rating of all the tools. One of the best features of this keyword research tool is that it
will tell you approximately how many links you’ll need directly to a page to rank for
more keywords.
Search For Youtube, Amazon, and Ebay
Keywords With KeywordTool.io
This is another very popular tool but the difference here is you can actually get
keywords for other major search engines like YouTube.
Content
Optimization
Tools
Here are the best tools to optimize your website to rank highly in Google.
Surfer SEO
Surfer SEO has quickly become the new favorite throughout the SEO community. It’s
the easiest way get a plethora of 500+ on-page SEO data points. But don’t let that
overwhelm you: they display the data in an easily digestible manner, showing you
exactly what needs to be fixed on your site.
SEO Meta in 1 Click
This Google Crome extension effortlessly displays all meta tag data and general SEO
information in the dropdown. Install this free extension to better manage your on-page,
improve your rankings, and grow your visibility across the Internet.
RankMath
The Rank Math all-in-one SEO plugin helps you optimize your website’s content for
SEO and bring in more traffic to your website.

This plugin makes technical SEO much more user-friendly and is easily applicable for
any WordPress user. Compared to other plugins, RankMath is thoroughly detailed and
includes new-age features with convenient plugin-UI.
Fully Optimize Content For Topical SEO
With Clearscope
Google is now moving towards looking at topics over keywords - They want to see that
you are fully covering a topic in order to rank you. So how do you know what google
considers a topic fully covered? Clearscope will analyze the search results and give
you suggestions on the types of keywords and content you need to include in your
page to make sure it’s fully optimized to rank.

This isn’t some lame LSI tool that spits out useless variations, this is a killer content
analysis tool that will help you capture more traffic and optimize your entire page!

Get The Golden Standard For OnPage
Optimization With The Yoast Wordpress
Plugin
This Wordpress plugin will help you make sure your site is properly optimized. It will
help you change your title tags and meta data as well as help make sure you use your
focus keyword in all the right places. This is probably the most popular and best plugin
for on page optimization.
Get A FREE Quick OnPage Analysis With
The HOTH Free SEO Analyzer
This free tool will check any page on your site against 10+ points of data and give you
suggestions on optimizing your page.
Find Opportunities and Improve Your
Traffic With Can I Rank
This tool was a bit hard to categorize because it does a few things. First it will show
you big opportunities that you have in terms of where to get links from. It will also
show you where your missing out on optimization and ways you could improve.
Check Your Site Speed With Google
Pagespeed Insights
See how fast your website loads and how you can improve it.
Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile Friendly
With A FREE Google Mobile Friendly Test
Google has put a big See if Google considers your website mobile friendly.
Generate blog headlines for FREE with The
HOTH Headline Generator Tool
Instantly generate several headlines to choose from that will help guide you towards

writing the best content for your site.

Site
Enhancement
Tools
Here are the best tools for enhancing your site.
Broken Link Checker WordPress Plugin
Broken links can drastically effect a site’s SEO. It’s important to monitor any broken
links and make any necessary fixes. This WordPress plugin is the easiest way to audit
broken links and fix them in a few clicks.
Kraken
A fast and easy way to optimize images to help speed up your WordPress or Magento
website. Once the plugin is installed, all new image uploads will be automatically
optimized on-the-fly. You can even optimize existing images with their bulk tool.
ImageOptim
While the idea of downsizing your website images is nothing new, with ImageOptin it
has never been easier.  Simply drag and drop your photos inside the tool and the
images automatically downsize with no exporting required.  By cutting out metadata,
embedded thumbnails, comments, and unnecessary color profiles, ImageOptin
drastically reduces image sizes.
CloudFlare
Security and performance software that now offers an SSL and CDN security option.
Their new CDN strategies help reduce vulnerabilities by using SSL/TLS encryption and
other specialized encryption hardware.
 


Seo
Analysis
Tools
Here are the top tools to analyze your site and your competitors - from backlinks, to keywords,
and more.
Check Your Backlinks With Ahrefs
In my opinion, Ahrefs is the #1 backlink checking tool because they currently have the
largest database. It’s the perfect solution to audit your website, explore competitors,
research keywords & backlinks all in one place. It’s powered by some serious big data
& trusted by top SEOs all around the world.
Check out your sites performance with
HubSpot’s Website Grader Tool
A free tool from Hubspot that grades your website based on its performance, on-page
SEO and mobile optimization.
MOZ SEO Toolbar
This cool toolbar will automatically run stats for you on all the websites you visit and
put an overlay in search results if you want. This is the quickest way to check stats as
you’re browsing around.
HOTH Bulk Moz DA Checker
Want to check a bulk group of domains? With this free tool, you can easily check the
domain authority of a group of domains at the same time.
Link
Building
Tools
Here are the best tools for link building.
Ahrefs
I had to include this here because Ahrefs has stepped up so much in the last year. If I
were to pick one tool, this might be it. They are trusted by SEO’s all around the world
and they even have an extensive library for all aspects of SEO including the best link
building techniques.
Ninja Outreach
This tool makes link outreach very easy. Ninja Outreach specializes in influencer
marketing and blogger outreach software that streamlines your lead generation
process with automated outreach and organization. It makes it super convenient to
search for influencers and reach out to them, all in one tool.
Pitchbox
A very highly rated outreach tool. Use Pitchbox to help with link building, influencer
outreach and content promotion if you’re an agency, publisher, and brand.You can use
this to score guest posts, submit to link roundups and more!

Link Building Services
Shameless plug - If you just want someone to build links for you, we have it all. Over
the years we’ve created a suite of 16+ products and services to help with all facets of
getting your business ranking in the search engines. Browse our products today if
you’d like to leave the SEO to the pros!
HOTH Learning Hub
The HOTH Learning Hub packs over 30,000 words of pure marketing training for free
on SEO, Local Marketing, Content Marketing & more! Pick the chapter you’re interested
in and start working your way through all the modules and lessons.

Seo
Analytics
& tracking
Tools
Here are the best tools for tracking your results.
Improvely
Use this to track all your campaigns and get a detailed look at what's going on with
your visitors.
Google Analytics
The golden standard. I just use it on all my money sites
Clickly
A Google Analytics alternative.
HOTH Rank Tracker
Nice & easy tool for rank tracking. Just plop in your URL, keywords and location and it
will do all the tracking for you. They have a free plan as well if you’re just getting
started.
Local
Seo
Tools
Here are the best tools for local SEO specifically.
WhiteSpark Local Citation Finder
This is the industry standard tool and it’s awesome. Basically you can drop in your
main keyword and city, it will go out and find your competitors and see what citations
they have, rank the citation sources by DA (Domain Authority) and show you which
ones you are missing. This is the tool we use in HOTH Local.
Local SEO Checklist
Nice and easy checklist to make sure you have the bases covered + more.
Rich Snippet Validator (Google)
Validate that rich snippets are working on your local site.
Local SEO Quick Check (Moz)
Quickly check where you stand with citations, duplicates, errors etc.
Get More Reviews With HOTH Stars
This software will help you acquire, monitor, and promote your reviews. This is the
same software we use at The HOTH for our own reputation.
Local Citation Audits & Custom Citation
Building
Doing local the right way. No cookie cutter solutions. Every campaign is customized
and researched. As close to push-button local as you can get.
Call Fire
Call tracking, text messaging, voice response, and more.
Free Review Checker
Check your reputation with this free customer review audit!
Penalty
Research
Tools
Here are the best tools for checking and reversing penalties.
Panguin Tool
You can connect your Google Analytics account and it will display when google
updates happened so you can see if drops in traffic match any Google updates.
Ultimate Guide To Google Update History
All of the Google updates + what really happened + case studies.
Removeem Anchor Text Over Optimization
Checker
You can check to see if you’re over optimized for any of your anchors.
Agency
Building
Tools
Here are the best tools for building your agency.
Service Provider Pro
If you're selling services, you know it's one of the most difficult kinds of businesses to
grow because it requires several different components.  SPP combines the best
features into one platform including Shopping Cart, Helpdesk & Messaging, Client
Management, Form Builder, and more! This platform is perfect because it’s designed
specifically for SEO and other productized services.
join.me
The easiest online screensharing app. Once you have the app, you can just give the
client the link and they don’t have to download anything (wow… right?)
Calendly
You can use this to avoid the dreaded back and forth of finding a time to meet. This
will let clients book meetings with you.
Create Landing Pages and Funnels Quickly
With ClickFunnels
I love this tool and we use it constantly to create quick landing pages, collect emails,
create courses and more. This has probably the best page builder I’ve ever seen and
it’s 100% worth every penny.

Additionally, you should check out Russel Brunson’s DotCom Secrets Book because it’s
some of the best marketing advice out there and my #1 favorite book I’ve ever read on
marketing.
close.io
This is the CRM we use at The HOTH after checking out a bunch of different ones. It
can be expensive, but this has the features you’re looking for. One of the best things
about this is that it creates a very customizable searchable database.
Salesforce
The industry standard CRM in the cloud. Integrates with lots of other apps as well.
The Ultimate Guide To Attracting Clients &
Selling SEO Services
You’ll learn everything there is to know from attracting clients, to what to say on the
phone, to pricing your services, closing the deal, and keeping clients.
 


PPC
Advertising
Tools
Here are the best tools to help with your PPC campaigns.
Adwords Wrapper
This is hands down the best and easiest way to wrap keyword phrases in quotation
marks (phrase match) and square brackets (exact match). Speed up your campaign
planning and execution with Adwords Wrapper.
HOTH PPC Calculator
Use this tool to calculate the return on your PPC campaigns. Simply adjust the sliders
to match the details of your campaign and the calculator will do the rest!
Call Rail
Call Rail is your one stop tool for all tracking and analytics when running call and form
fill campaigns. Optimize your marketing and increase ROI by seeing which ads,
keywords, and campaigns bring in the most leads.
Keywords Everywhere
Keywords Everywhere is a Google Chrome extension that lets you easily see search
volume, cost per click, and competitor data. Save time in your campaign research and
planning by using this awesome extension.
Want To Get Access To 10+
FREE SEO Tools From
The HOTH?
Including Keyword Research, Backlink Checker,
Bulk Domain Authority Checker and more!

Sign up for a FREE HOTH Account here!

Want to speak to us 1 on 1
about your SEO?
Click here to book a Free SEO consultation with The HOTH!

Thanks for reading!

We’re looking forward to getting to know you.
Do you have tools that you love that you want to add to this list?
Just email [email protected]