Technical SEO is a critical component of any successful SEO strategy. It ensures that your website can be properly crawled and indexed by search engines, providing a strong foundation for your content to rank. While the creative side of SEO tends to get more attention, neglecting the technical side can undermine all your other SEO efforts.
Fortunately, many excellent tools are available to help you audit your website, identify technical problems, and guide you on fixing them. In this post, we‘ll take an in-depth look at 15 of the best technical SEO tools on the market.
Whether you‘re an SEO beginner looking to learn the ropes or an experienced professional wanting to expand your toolbox, these tools can help take your technical SEO to the next level. Let‘s dive in!
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1. Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a powerful website crawler that you can install on your computer. It crawls websites‘ links, images, CSS, script and apps from an SEO perspective. It‘s particularly useful for finding technical problems that can hurt your site‘s SEO, like:
- Broken links (4XX errors)
- Server errors (5XX errors)
- Redirect chains and loops
- Duplicate content
- Missing or problematic meta descriptions/title tags
- Unoptimized images
To use it, simply enter a URL and hit "Start." The tool will crawl the site and provide a wealth of data for you to analyze. Notably, you can configure it to crawl specific subdomains, directories, or even a list of URLs that you provide.
The free version allows you to crawl up to 500 URLs, which is sufficient for smaller websites. For larger sites, you‘ll likely need a paid license.
2. Google Search Console
Google Search Console (GSC) is a free service offered by Google that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site‘s presence in Google search results. It‘s an indispensable tool for any website owner or SEO.
Some of its key features include:
- Confirming that Google can find and crawl your site
- Viewing which queries bring users to your site
- Identifying crawl errors
- Submitting new content for crawling and removing content you don‘t want shown in search results
- Viewing which sites link to yours
One of the most useful sections for technical SEO is the "Coverage" report, which shows you which pages Google has indexed from your site and any crawling or indexing errors it has encountered. Addressing these errors promptly is crucial for maintaining good technical SEO health.
3. Ahrefs Site Audit
Ahrefs is known for its expansive backlink database, but it also offers a robust Site Audit tool. The tool checks for over 100 pre-defined SEO issues related to performance, HTML tags, social tags, content quality, localization, internal and external linking, and more.
One standout feature is the "Content Quality" report, which uses machine learning to assess the overall quality and SEO-friendliness of your content. It looks at factors like word count, headings, internal and external links, and more.
Ahrefs also allows you to schedule automated crawls weekly or monthly, ensuring that you‘re always on top of any new technical SEO issues that arise.
4. Semrush Site Audit
Semrush‘s Site Audit tool is another comprehensive solution for monitoring your site‘s technical SEO health. It identifies issues related to crawlability, site performance, HTTPS implementation, international SEO, on-page SEO, and more.
One helpful feature is the "Thematic Reports," which group together related issues to help you prioritize your fixes. For example, the "Crawlability" report includes issues like broken links, incorrect directives, and orphaned pages.
Like Ahrefs, Semrush allows you to schedule regular site audits and track your progress over time. It also integrates with Trello, making it easy to assign and track tasks related to fixing SEO issues.
5. DeepCrawl
DeepCrawl is an enterprise-level web crawling and technical SEO tool used by major brands like eBay, Twitch, and Canva. It‘s designed to handle the complexities of large, enterprise websites.
Some key features include:
- JavaScript rendering to ensure all page elements are being crawled
- Custom extraction for tracking specific data points
- Integration with Google Analytics and Search Console for traffic insights
- Automated, scheduled crawls with change monitoring
- Detailed reporting with clear prioritization of issues
While DeepCrawl is likely overkill for smaller websites, it‘s a powerful tool for larger sites that need to monitor and optimize their technical SEO at scale.
6. Sitebulb
Sitebulb is a downloadable desktop software for Windows, Mac, and Linux that provides in-depth website audits. It‘s known for its user-friendly interface and clear, actionable insights.
Some notable features include:
- "Hints" that provide plain-language explanations of issues and how to fix them
- Audit scores and priorities to help you focus on the most important issues first
- Visualization tools like the crawl map and URL Explorer
- Integrations with Google Analytics, Search Console, and PageSpeed Insights
- Ability to white-label reports for client delivery
One unique aspect of Sitebulb is its "Pixel-Perfect Rendering," which allows you to see exactly what a web page looks like to a search engine crawler. This can be invaluable for diagnosing technical SEO issues related to rendering.
7. Screaming Frog Log File Analyser
Another tool from Screaming Frog, the Log File Analyser provides insights into how search engine bots are interacting with your website. By analyzing your server log files, it can help you understand and optimize your site‘s crawlability.
Some key things you can learn from log file analysis include:
- Which pages are being crawled most/least often
- Which bots are visiting your site (Googlebot, Bingbot, etc.)
- Identification of crawl budget wastage (e.g., from infinite redirect loops)
- Correlation of bot activity with website changes or Google algorithm updates
Screaming Frog‘s tool makes log analysis accessible even to those who aren‘t server experts. It visualizes log data in easy-to-understand charts and reports.
8. GTmetrix
Website speed is a crucial factor for technical SEO, and GTmetrix is one of the best tools for analyzing and optimizing your site‘s speed. It provides detailed reports on your page speed, including:
- Page load time
- Total page size
- Number of requests
- Recommendations for optimization
One standout feature of GTmetrix is its ability to test from multiple locations worldwide. This can help you understand how your site performs for users in different regions.
GTmetrix also provides a "Waterfall" chart, which visualizes the loading process of your webpage, showing which elements are blocking others and causing delays. This can be incredibly helpful for diagnosing speed issues.
9. Google‘s PageSpeed Insights
PageSpeed Insights is a free tool from Google that reports on the real-world performance of a page for mobile and desktop devices and provides suggestions on how that page may be improved.
The tool provides two main metrics:
- Performance score: A score from 0-100 based on how the page performs in terms of speed and usability.
- Field data: Real-world data on how a page performs, collected from users in Chrome‘s CrUX report.
In addition to these metrics, PageSpeed Insights provides detailed suggestions for optimizing your page speed, such as reducing server response times, minimizing main-thread work, and eliminating render-blocking resources.
As a tool coming directly from Google, PageSpeed Insights provides valuable insights into how Google itself views your page speed.
10. Google‘s Mobile-Friendly Test
Another free tool from Google, the Mobile-Friendly Test lets you enter a URL to test how easily a visitor can use the page on a mobile device. It checks things like whether the text is too small to read, if the tap targets are too close together, and if the content is wider than the screen.
With Google‘s increasing emphasis on mobile-first indexing, ensuring that your pages are mobile-friendly is more important than ever for SEO. This tool provides a quick and easy way to check individual pages.
In addition to the Mobile-Friendly Test, Google also offers a Mobile Usability report in Search Console, which shows which pages on your site have mobile usability issues and what those issues are.
11. Merkle‘s Schema Markup Generator
Schema markup is a code that you can add to your website to help search engines return more informative results for users. It allows you to provide detailed information about your content, such as reviews, recipes, events, products, and more.
Merkle‘s Schema Markup Generator tool makes it easy to generate and validate schema markup for your website. Simply select the type of content you want to markup, fill in the required information, and the tool will generate the appropriate HTML code for you.
The tool supports a wide variety of schema types, including articles, local businesses, products, restaurants, and more. It also provides real-time feedback on the validity of your markup.
12. Bing Webmaster Tools
While Google dominates the search landscape, Bing is still a significant player, especially in certain markets. Bing Webmaster Tools is the equivalent of Google Search Console for Bing.
Some key features include:
- Submitting your sitemap to Bing
- Checking your site‘s indexation status
- Identifying crawl errors
- Reviewing search keywords and traffic
- Analyzing backlinks
- Receiving notifications for website issues
If you care about your site‘s visibility on Bing (and you should), Bing Webmaster Tools is a must-use. It provides valuable insights into how Bing views and interacts with your site.
13. Ryte
Ryte is an all-in-one SEO tool that offers a comprehensive Website Success tool for monitoring and optimizing your site‘s technical SEO. It checks for issues related to indexability, link structure, server configuration, page quality, and more.
One unique feature of Ryte is its focus on providing actionable insights. In addition to identifying issues, it provides clear recommendations on how to fix them and estimates the potential traffic impact of each fix.
Ryte also offers a unique "Bot Log" feature, which logs all bot visits to your site and provides insights into their behavior. This can be incredibly valuable for understanding and optimizing your site‘s crawlability.
14. SEMrush Sensor
SEMrush Sensor is a volatility sensor that provides insights into Google‘s algorithm updates. It tracks daily changes in rankings across different industries and devices, providing a volatility score from 0-10.
While not directly a technical SEO tool, monitoring SERP volatility can be highly valuable for understanding the impact of technical changes on your site‘s rankings. If you see a significant drop in rankings that correlates with high volatility in SEMrush Sensor, it could indicate a technical issue that needs to be addressed.
SEMrush Sensor also provides insights into which industries and devices are most affected by volatility, as well as the average position change for each category.
15. Chrome DevTools
Finally, we have Chrome DevTools, a set of web developer tools built directly into the Google Chrome browser. While not specifically an SEO tool, understanding how to use Chrome DevTools can be incredibly valuable for diagnosing technical SEO issues.
Some key things you can do with Chrome DevTools include:
- Inspecting and editing page HTML and CSS in real-time
- Debugging JavaScript
- Analyzing page speed and performance
- Simulating mobile devices
- Checking for JavaScript errors
Learning how to use Chrome DevTools can give you a deeper understanding of how your webpages are constructed and help you identify and fix technical issues more efficiently.
Conclusion
Technical SEO is a complex and ever-evolving field. While it can seem daunting, especially to beginners, the tools listed in this post can greatly simplify the process of auditing, monitoring, and optimizing your site‘s technical SEO.
From comprehensive site crawlers like Screaming Frog and DeepCrawl to more specialized tools like Google‘s Mobile-Friendly Test and Merkle‘s Schema Markup Generator, there‘s a tool for every aspect of technical SEO.
The key is to choose the tools that best fit your needs and skill level, and to use them regularly to stay on top of your site‘s technical health. With the right tools and a commitment to ongoing optimization, you can ensure that your site has a strong technical foundation for SEO success.