In today’s post I am going to list 10 popularly used and effective local SEO tools along with some of their alternatives, that will drive you through local SEO success, much faster.
From on-page and off-page SEO (involving local keywords), Google Places, Google+ Local, other local citations to online reviews, we have entailed all these important local SEO ranking factors in our post How To Boost Your Local SEO.
We have also listed local SEO strategy for 2014, in one of our recent posts.
What you need now is a little assistance to improve your local SEO efforts with the help of local SEO tools.
So, let’s begin.
1. 5minutesite.com
5minutesite Local SEO Keyword Generator Tool (image credit -www.5minutesite.com)
Cost – Free
If you just started with keyword research for your local site or if you want to have variations of your local keywords for your blog, this is a great local keyword generator tool.
Using permutations and combinations of your target keywords along with your location was never easier, thanks to this simple yet effective tool.
2. Advanced Web Ranking
Advanced Web Ranking Keyword Research Tool (image credit – www.advancedwebranking.com)
Cost – $199 (for Lifetime)
I had listed out free keyword research tools in a WooRank blog post more than a year ago. Times have changed since then, the major change being the loss of free Google’s Adword keyword tool. But if you do own a Google adwords account you can access the new Google Keyword Planner tool.
I have chosen to list the Advanced Web Ranking tool for researching both generic and local keywords for your site since it accumulates data from Google Adwords, Google Webmaster API, Google Suggest, Word Tracker, Yahoo API, Google Suggest and a few others. It has a simple and easy-to-understand interface.
Alternatives to Advanced Web Ranking:
- Moz Keyword Difficulty Tool (30-day free trial, pricing starts from $99 per month)
- Keyword Spy (Lifetime free trial, pricing starts from $89.95 per month)
- SEMRush (Pricing starts from $69.95 per month)
- KeywordDiscovery (Lifetime free trial, pricing starts from $69.95 per month)
- Wordstream (Free)
- WordTracker (Free)
- UberSuggest (Free)
3. Moz Local
Moz Local Citation Score And Citation Finder Local SEO Tool (image credit – moz.com)
Cost – Free ($49 per year per location for enhanced listing features)
Moz.com recently acquired and relaunched this cool local citation finder tool that was originally and popularly known as GetListed. Now, the tool is more than just a citation finder tool. It offers you a listing score (as shown in the above screenshot), a profile completion percentage on each search engine, your latest online reviews, your incomplete profiles and duplicates found on the web, if any.
It offers you a CSV template that helps you manage and upload your listings with their partner sites (You can also use your Google Places CSV, if you have one). And if you have any listings that need FourSquare authentication, it shows you that information as well.
The only drawback with this tool is that it currently only works for local businesses located in the United States of America.
Alternatives to MozLocal:
- WhiteSpark Local Citation Finder (Limited version is free. Pricing starts from $20 per month.)
Take a look at a quick screenshot from the tool below:
WhiteSpark Local Citation Finder Tool For Local SEO (image credit – whitespark.ca)
4. Free Local Analysis
Free Local Analysis Local SEO Tool From 51Blocks.com (image credit – 51blocks.com)
Cost – Free
Taking into account some of the top Google Maps ranking factors, this tool was created for local businesses.
It gives you a quick summary of how optimized your Google+ local listings are for your business, the elements on your website that are optimized and not optimized for local SEO, a citation count along with duplicate citation information and a link count to your site.
It also gives you competitor information and compares your stats with that of your local competitors.
This tool is limited to US local businesses only.
5. Google Local ToolBox
Google Local ToolBox Free Local SEO Tool From 51blocks.com (image credit – 51blocks.com)
Cost – Free
Yet another tool from 51blocks.com, gives you readymade code that helps structure your website according to local SEO best practices. It provides you GeoTags to place on the header of your website and hCard format for the footer. GeoTags helps to add geographical metadata to photos, videos, SMS messages, RSS Feeds and QR codes while the hCard is a KML file format that helps display geographical data using Google Maps (for mobile and desktop) and Google Earth.
This tool also provides you schema that helps build a structured markup for your site which is supported by major search engines.
You can also download your site’s KML file and Geo Location XML from this tool.
Alternatives to Google Local Toolbox:
- Schema Creator (Free)
6. Google Alerts
Google Alerts Free Local SEO Tool (image credit google.com)
Cost – Free
As a local business, you are bound to receive online reviews and feedback from your customers, either on third party review sites or your site’s Google+ brand page.
To get alerts from every brand mention that occurs on these review sites, you can setup a Google Alert like this “keyword” site:xyz.com. For example, if you want to know who is talking about your online retail brand Zappos on Yelp, you can set a Google Alert for “Zappos” site:Yelp.com.
Alternatives to Google Alerts:
- Social Mention (Free)
- BuzzBundle (Free)
- FreeReviewMonitoring (Free)
- Reputology (Free)
- ReviewTrackers (30-day free trial, pricing on request)
- Mention (Free for limited version, pricing starts at 9.90 euros per month)
Shown below is a screenshot BuzzBundle showing brand mentions of WooRank (highlighted in yellow) in forum, blogs, Q&A sites, social networks and video sites.
BuzzBundle Free Local SEO Tool For Reputation Management (image credit – BuzzBundle app)
7. Rank Tracker
- Rank Tracker From Link-Assistant.com Free SERP Rank Tracker Tool (image credit – link-assistant.com)
Cost – Free
Download the tool for free, from the same host that provides BuzzBundle (mentioned above). This rank tracking tool gives you a free report on ranking positions for various local target keywords on search engines.
You can track your local keywords SERP rankings in 326 search engines, you can run reports for unlimited number of sites (including your competitors) for unlimited number of keywords, store historical data of your SERP rankings, create progress graphs and helps get keyword suggestions, as shown below:
Keyword Suggestion From Rank Tracker Free Local SEO Tool (image credit (link-assistant.com)
Alternatives to Rank Tracker:
- GeoRanker (free for 1000 credits, pricing starts from $99 per month)
- Analytics SEO (free for a limited period $19 per month)
- Authority labs (30-day free trial, pricing starts from $49 per month)
- BrightLocal (30-day free trial, pricing starts from $19.99 per month)
- RankTrackr (30-day free trial, pricing starts from $22 per month)
- SERPs (14-day trial, pricing starts from $99 per month)
- WhiteSpark (Pricing starts from $5 per month)
- RankWatch (Pricing starts from $10 per month)
- SERPScan (Pricing starts from $14.99 per month)
8. GetFiveStars
GetFiveStars Review Collecting Tool For Local SEO (image credit getfivestars.com)
Cost – $29.95 per month (15-day free trial)
In a previous post, we have discussed how to get online reviews and now you have access to the tool used to get these reviews in the most user-friendly ways. This tool is useful for local e-commerce businesses or local restaurants and other people-oriented businesses that will profit from positive reviews. Even if there are negative reviews you can manage them effectively and by hosting them on your own site you can avoid negative reputation from reaching third-party review sites (assuming the complaints are solved on time).
This tool gives you a system where you can ask your customer for feedback, monitor the reviews, embed them as testimonials on your site with Google-friendly search snippets and manage multiple businesses and locations as you expand.
Alternatives to GetFiveStars:
- Grade.us (Basic plan for free, pricing starts from $19 per month)
- ModernComment (2 weeks free trial, pricing is a one-time setup fee of $49)
- CustomerLobby (30-day free trial)
9. Google’s Gadgets Driving Directions
Google Gadgets Driving Directions Local Business Tool (google.com)
Cost – Free
Google Gadgets provides this free store locator that gives driving directions to your local business from the user’s location. Although, this tool does not directly affect your local SEO, it may help in bringing in more customers to your physical store who will then leave back a positive online review on a third-party site, hence enhancing your local SEO. This is just one way in which this tool indirectly influences local SEO.
Alternatives to Google’s Gadgets Driving Directions:
- Local SEO Plugin for WordPress (Pricing starts from $69) WhereToGetIt (Pricing on request)
10. Yext
Yext Power Listing Local SEO Tool (image credit – yext.com)
Cost – Depends on the number of listings to be fixed.
Other than being a business citation finder tool this tool also offers to list your sites on various other business listing sites that your business is not listed in. The tool also provides review monitoring and offers local search analytics to track your business’s local search performance.
Iit is advisable to check, claim and add your own business listing on popular and relevant business listing sites, some businesses may find it time-consuming or may not have enough manpower to look after it. In such cases, you can invest on tools such as Yext.
Alternatives to Yext:
- UBL (Pricing starts from $79 per year)
- Local Site Submit (Pricing starts from $199)
- ExpressUpdate ($59 per year for enhanced listings)
- Localeze ($297 per year)
These were the ten local SEO tools along with their worthy alternatives that will help you achieve your local SEO goals faster. However, if you do depend on a local SEO tool for a certain task related to your local business, make sure you manually check all the tasks done. Manual intervention will assure accuracy to your local SEO efforts.
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