SEO – where to start?

Search engine optimisation (aka SEO), when done well, is an artform of its own. But not every entrepreneur or startup necessarily has the time or money to invest in it from the start.

When that’s the case, there are two tools which can help you keep on top of SEO basics easily.

Without further ado, here they are!

Rank Math

Rank Math is a WordPress SEO plugin. It sits at the bottom of each page or post you create, giving you a handy checklist of elements you should include (choose central keywords, add alt text to images, add metadata etc). Best of all, you can also configure from there different types of schema markups (aka telling search engines what your data means) without needing to know the first thing about html.

Math Rank in action

If you’ve been using Yoast, like I used to, then you’ll be delighted by Rank Math (and the good news is that in one click you can migrate all the SEO work you’ve done with other plugins to Rank Math).

Why?

To some extent it boils down to personal preference. I find Rank Math’s modular interface more intuitive, and with more options than the free version of Yoast. I like that you can select up to 5 keywords rather than be restricted to one, and that it suggests long tail keywords. I like that it integrates seamlessly with Search Console. I like that it’s much (much) lighter than Yoast and so affects the performance of your website less.

And, well, it’s free.

There’s a paid pro version in the works and as you get more comfortable with SEO you should consider upgrading to give back to this great tool.

But for the moment it’s free and fabulous.

Fabulous dahling !

Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest

If you spend any kind of time on Linkedin then you’ve probably heard of Neil Patel, but have you tried out his Ubersuggest tool?

I used the free version for a while and a few months ago upgraded to the paid version (29€ a month) because I found myself increasingly using it.

Ubersuggest is an intuitive SEO research & tracking tool.

Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest

You can use it to find out how easy it would be to rank in certain keywords, find out which keywords your competitor websites are ranking in, what the top content is for certain keywords, and much more…

On the paid version, you can track your website’s SEO too and get a report every week to see how your chosen keywords are performing on your website, as well as get alerts about SEO issues in your site.

There are obviously many tools out there for keyword research, some of the most famous ones include Moz, Ahref, SEMrush, Spyfu.

Whilst these are incredibly strong tools in their own right, they have two main disadvantages: a steep learning curve (or outdated user interface), and, generally speaking, they are on the expensive side.

This is why I recommend Ubersuggest over the others to startups – it’s great value for money, and incredibly easy to use.