6 best SEO tools for marketing newbies

This article originally appeared on PR Daily in April of 2018.

You have correctly determined that search engine optimization (SEO) is important for your business or organization.

However, SEO covers a lot of ground, so you should ease into learning best practices and strategies in phases. You might be familiar with some of these terms and tools already, but if not, here’s how you can dig in.

Onsite vs. offsite

There are two big umbrella terms for SEO: onsite and offsite.

The foundation of SEO is onsite, where you focus on tuning up your website (on the backend) so search engines can understand the content and structure of your website. The more your site adheres to search engines’ criteria regarding relevant content, keywords, meta-tags and other features, the higher you will rank on their indexes and ultimately meet the goal all of us have of being on page one of their search engine results page (SERPs).

Offsite SEO includes functions performed outside of your own website to impact your search engine rankings. These tactics range from backlinks in articles from well-respected and higher authority websites to your site to blogger mentions and links.

Both on and offsite are critical for site optimization.

Here are the tools you will need to maximize your SEO: