Technical SEO: 11 tools for greater insight [Free & Paid]

You can think of the technology of a Web site as the foundation of your house. You can't build a good house without a foundation.

And without a good technical foundation, you can't rank well in Google. But what needs to be adjusted in terms of technology?

And where are the areas for improvement? With these 11 free and paid tools, you can find out all by yourself!

Before we begin...

Of course, there are many tools in the field of technical SEO that can help/support you. And every SEO specialist and every business owner has a preference for the tools they like best.

But these 11 toppers I use weekly and have more than proven themselves during several SEO projects. Small disclaimer: The order of the list is random and has nothing to do with which tool I like best.

Let's start quickly with the list.

1. Semrush [7 days free & Paid].

Semrush is an all-in-one SEO tool that can tell you everything you need to know about all elements of SEO. So, technique, content and authority.

Semrush has by far the most comprehensive site audit of all the tools I mention in this article. Similar to Serpstat, but 10 times better.

You will find everything about the different problems, the pages that have been checked, technical statistics of your website and much more. Semrush's Site Audit is only fully usable if you have a paid account, but with a free Semrush account you can test up to 100 pages.

That will look like this:

For Semrush, I have two more tips for you:

Tip #1: Should you want to know what such a free Site Audit from Semrush looks like, I have a downloadable PDF for you here: Semrush audit Online Marketing Agency

Tip #2: Should you want to try Semrush for free, you can do so for 7 days when you click on this link!

2. Screaming Frog [Free & Paid].

Screaming Frog is the SEO tool that ranks 9/10 in the top 3 most popular SEO programs by SEO specialists or online marketing agencies.

You can find out an immense amount of information with just a few clicks. You can do so much with this tool that I could not even explain it all.

Screaming Frog can come in handy within every part of SEO, and the paid version is a must. I dare say rock solid that you will have that purchase of Screaming Frog out of your pocket within a few weeks.

Because:

• The tool saves you an awful lot of time
• You get a lot of insights

Screaming Frog I use mostly for:

• Figuring out all the On Page SEO elements
• Before, during and after migrations of websites
• Figuring out the structure/design/pages of a website
• Studying competitors

And much, much more.

In case you would like to know what such a Screaming Frog printout looks like? Here is the Screaming Frog printout from my website for you: Screaming Frog printout

3. GTMetrix [Free]

A crucial part of technical SEO, and by now a very important ranking factor, is the load time of your website. Some of the tools I mention here analyze that load time for you.

Do you really want to know all the tools/possibilities to measure your website load time? Then I recommend you read my blog '9 tools to test your website speed'.

Back to GTmetrix. GTmetrix is a tool that tells you all about:

• The loading time of your website
• How your website loads (The order and different files)
• What the concrete areas for improvement are
• What you are currently already doing well

So incredibly useful! I mainly use four functionalities of GTmetrix. I would like to explain these after showing you the following image.

1. Here you will find the full load time and size of your website.
2. Here is a list of recommendations to make your website faster (O.b.v. PageSpeed)
3. Here is a list of recommendations to make your website faster (Based on YSlow)
4. Here is an overview of how your website is loaded using a waterfall model.

Of course, it is almost impossible that you can immediately figure out what everything means and what to do, but what I want to give you is that GTmetrix can tell you what is not right or where things are not going right.

You can then google, put your website builder to work or, for example, fine-tune the setting of a plug-in. Want to see what GTmetrix's reporting looks like sometime?

Then click here: GTMetrix reporting

4. Serpstat [Paid]

Due to a very nice offer, I have now had an account with Serpstat for over a year for less than €40. One time only!

I was such a fan of Serpstat at the time that I even wrote a review about it. You can find that one here: Serpstat Review! My unvarnished opinion after 3 months of use.

By now I don't use 90% of Serpstat's functionalities because:

• I now use better tools
• Serpstat has made adjustments that I don't like

But what I do still use extensively is the "Site Audit.

This is tool that checks your website for an awful lot of technical SEO points and then tells you what to adjust, on which pages the problem is occurring, which task has the highest priority and what you are doing right.

5. Google Page Speed [Free]

In November 2018, Google completely revamped its Page Speed Insights tool . With the old version, you could easily get your WordPress website into the green with a few plugins.

Now that's no longer the case! Google Page Speed Insights gives you all the improvements you can make to make your website faster.

The disadvantage of Page Speed is that you can't do over 90% yourself because you have to be a web developer for that. My advice: check your website and if you rank poorly you should contact your developer or hire a developer.

6. SEO Site Checkup [Free & Paid].

SEO Site Checkup is often the very first tool on technology that I use when I start working for someone.

Within SEO Site Checkup you will find many technical points such as: loading speed, sitemap, robots.txt, caching, minification, structured data, canonicalization and much more. The nice thing is that SEO Site Checkup gives a score from 0 to 100.

The rule of thumb I have is that all my clients must score at least 85. And the advantage is that SEO Site Checkup is free to use once a day.

In case you would like to know what such an SEO Site Checkup report looks like, click here: SEO Site Checkup report Online Marketing Agency

7. SEO Powersuite - Website Auditor [Free & paid].

SEO Powersuite is a package and umbrella name for four different SEO tools. One of these tools is Website Auditor, a technical SEO program.

The advantage of the Website Auditor is that, like a Semrush, the tool is terribly comprehensive. You can really find ALL the information you need.

In addition, the program can also create a visualization of your website's structure, can tell you all about the pages within your website, can do a very nice content analysis (did someone say TF-IDF?) and Website Auditor can tell you all about your domain strengths.

Add to that the fact that the tool shows very good reporting (see picture below) and you have one of the best tools in the field of technical SEO on your hands.

8. SEOptimer [Free & Paid]

SEOptimer is a similar scan to SEO Site Checkup and is used by many online marketing agencies as a lead generator. By entering your email address, you will receive the SEOptimer scan with the marketing agency's logo.

The advantage is that SEOptimer is very strong visually and works with graphs. That just looks so nice!

Whether SEOptimer is better or worse than SEO Site Checkup is up to you. It has purely to do with your own preference.

Should you want to know what a white label report looks like from SEOptimer, I have the PDF for you here: Seoptimer audit

9. MOZ [Paid]

Ah, there we have Semrush's biggest competitor: MOZ. In terms of user-friendliness and look-and-feel, I have to say that MOZ works finer.

But, in terms of features, technical SEO and information, I like Semrush better. MOZ is also an all-in-one SEO tool that can support you within every part of SEO and offers tremendous insights.

I do have to add that MOZ focuses more on content and authority than on technology. Which of course is not a problem in principle, but is important for this article.

The technical SEO tool within MOZ is called the On-Demand Crawl and if you're curious about what it looks like you can find it here: MOZ On Demand Crawl

10. Pingdom [Free & Paid]

Pingdom is the counterpart of GT Metrix. And if you start looking at the information you get from the tools, they are virtually the same.

Personally, I think the action items are more concrete with GTMetrix and with GTMetrix they also explain very well what everything means. Pingdom doesn't really do that and that makes it a little less accessible for novice SEOs.

Furthermore, Pingdom is visually powerful and gives you all the information you need to test and analyze the loading speed of your website.

11. Google Search Console [Free]

Were you expecting Google Search Console in this list? I don't think so!

But, Google Search Console is the tool when it comes to finding out (coverage) problems and other technical errors within your website. Think structured data, 404s, noindex, canoncial, crawl errors, duplicate pages, mobile usability and much more.

Google doesn't tell you how to fix this within Search Console, but does indicate within which page the problem is. Then Search Console also allows you to resubmit the page to Google if you think you've fixed the problem.

So, 11 tools you can use to better understand the technical SEO of your website yourself.

If you miss any tools, be sure to let us know in comments!

Reading Tips:

• 10 tools that are better than the Google Keyword Planner [Free & paid]
• 5 reasons why you shouldn't buy the best SEO tools right now
• 10 useful Chrome extensions that make online marketing easier

This article was written on August 18, 2019 and updated on March 30, 2023.