There are many benefits to freelancing. Freelancers can set their own schedules and SEO rates while working from home with their pets, or while traveling the world.
However, freelancing also comes with its own challenges. As a freelancer, you are in charge of every department of your business. From finances to marketing, to operations. Therefore, managing your projects and keeping a balanced workflow can be demanding.
Plus, in the SEO world, algorithms, standards, and best practices are always changing. So, as a freelance SEO, you need to learn continuously and stay on top of the latest trends.
The right toolkit can change the way you run your freelance SEO business, make you more competitive, and reduce busywork. That’s why, in this post, we’ll share our list of the 14 best freelancer tools for SEO specialists.
We’ll cover:
- Project & client management
- SEO
- Content creation
Let’s get started.
Project Management Freelancer Tools
If you don’t keep things organized, multitasking can turn messy – especially as your business grows. Project mismanagement could compromise your finances, your relationships with your clients, or even your personal life. That’s why it’s critical for freelancers to establish scalable and replicable processes.
We’ve selected four apps that can help you:
- Streamline your workflow
- Stay on top of your projects
- Automate repetitive tasks
- Communicate asynchronously
Trello
Trello is very flexible and intuitive. It’s the ideal tool for those looking for something simple and visual, but with some useful extra features, such as integrations with third-party platforms. It offers a kanban planning system, where you can create boards, and add cards for each task you need to do. You can use it either to coordinate your workflow with your client’s team or for your personal planning.
Additionally, Trello has a generous free plan. But if you want some extra features, you can opt for a paid option, starting at $60 a year.
Zapier
Zapier is a “glue layer” that helps you integrate two or more platforms, and create automations. For example, you can use it to sync information between apps automatically.
Zapier lets you connect over 400 services, and create numerous combinations of triggers and actions. This makes it the ideal tool for automating your business’ most tedious and easily forgettable tasks.
For example, Zapier could automatically create an assignment in your project management system after a client pays their first invoice. Or automatically add someone to your email marketing platform when they fill out your contact form.
One of Zapier’s greatest advantages is that it requires no coding knowledge.
Zapier’s free tier is quite limited, allowing only 5 connections, and 100 actions per month. However, paid plans start at $ 19.99/month when billed yearly.
Loom
Loom is a Google Chrome plugin you can use to record your screen. It’s useful when you need to visually explain a process to your collaborators, or show a proposal to a client. It comes in especially handy when:
- Both you and your client are too busy to schedule a meeting
- Time zone differences make synchronous communication challenging
- You want people to watch the content as many times as they need to
Plus, once the tutorial or proposal is recorded, it’s very easy to follow up with new clients in real-time if they have any questions or concerns.
Loom’s free plan allows you to record up to 25 videos, of up to 5 minutes each. Paid plans start at $96 a year.
Twist
If you’ve already tried some real-time communication apps and found them a bit intense or overwhelming, Twist is for you.
Twist is a communication platform that is mindful of deep work and respects personal space. On Twist, every conversation is a thread. So, you can keep all information regarding a subject (or client) organized in one place.
Plus, unlike other apps, you don’t get to see whether a team member is online or not. This allows people to respond at their own pace. Twist is designed to have a smooth, non-invading, and stress-free/low-stress dynamic. This makes it our favorite Slack alternative.
Twist’s free plan is quite generous, allowing for up to 500 members and unlimited guests. The company also offers a paid tier, which allows you to access the full history of all your messages and comments. In addition, you will be able to welcome unlimited members into your workspace. Paid plans start at $6/month when billed yearly.
The Best SEO Tools for Freelancers
This list is for SEO specialists, so we couldn’t overlook this aspect of your business. In this section, we’ll share some of our favorite tools you can use to boost your SEO workflow.
We recommend:
- Google Search Console
- Screaming Frog
- SpyFu
- SEMRush Backlink Audit Tool
- SEORadar
- Rankmath
Google Search Console
While some SEOs prefer Google Analytics, our team can’t do without Google Search Console.
While Analytics focuses on analyzing the user base that visits your website and how they interact with it, Search Console focuses on how your website ranks on Google. It gives you tips on how to optimize your website’s visibility and shows you key information, such as the number of clicks you receive for specific keywords.
Plus, you can learn about your traffic performance over a period of time and be notified about basic site errors and accessibility problems. However, GSC can be unintuitive and limited. For instance, it doesn’t provide backlink data. So, it shouldn’t be the only tool you use for SEO.
You can level up your GSC by integrating it with third parties, such as SEORadar, via API.
Google Search Console is free.
Screaming Frog
Screaming Frog is a technical SEO tool that helps you understand how Google’s web crawlers will index your website. It provides a wide range of technical SEO data such as:
- Site speed insights
- A list of inbound and outbound broken links
- Meta tag analysis
Screaming Frog also allows you to compare past and current crawls.
The free plan has a crawl limit of 500 URLs and offers you half of its features. The paid plan grants you full access and costs $200 when billed annually.
SpyFu
SpyFu is one of our go-to tools for content planning and competitor analysis. It provides you with valuable information about your competitors, such as:
- What keywords they’ve bought on Google Adwords
- What PPC campaigns they are currently running
- What keywords they’ve ranked for organically
- How their position has changed historically
- What keywords they are ranking for
- How many monthly clicks do they get
Moreover, you can find out the number of times a keyword is searched every month. You can also determine its ranking difficulty, as well as related keywords and common questions. Overall, with Spyfu you can get a detailed SEO analysis, as well as some key insights for eventual PPC campaign planning.
Plans start at $396/year. However, sometimes they offer seasonal discounts, which discount the base plan to $96/year.
SEMRush Backlink Audit Tool
SEMRush is one of the most popular SEO tool kits out there. But their recently added Backlink Audit Tool is off-the-charts. It helps you analyze your backlinks in detail by generating reports about each domain. That way, it becomes very easy to spot low-quality backlinks that could be affecting your positioning. Plus, you can see the number of backlinks you’re getting from each website, as well as assess your competitors’ backlink profiles.
There are multiple SEMRush monthly plans for you to choose from, depending on your needs and budget. They range from $119.95/month to $449.95/month.
SEORadar
With SEORadar you can monitor your website’s code, automatically. SEORadar will notify you (right away) when it detects technical changes that could impact your SERP ranking.
These include:
- Noindex tags
- H1 & meta title changes
- Broken canonicals
- Redirects
- Changes in your sitemap
- Changes in hreflang tags
- Changes in your Robots.txt
- And much more
Unlike the rest of the auditing apps, SEORadar operates through HTML snapshots for in-depth code analysis. Monitoring can be set on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis. If any potentially problematic code changes are detected, you will receive an alert via email, Slack, or text.
Plus, if a code change occurs, SEORadar’s smart interface allows you to spot it instantly. It presents an old snapshot of your HTML versus the current one and shows the code change highlighted. That way, you can take care of it immediately, before it impacts your rankings.
By keeping you on top of your client websites’ code, SEORadar can help you protect SEO wins. Even after the project has ended.
SEORadar is also available as a WordPress plugin and can be used on staging websites.
RankMath
If you use WordPress, we recommend you check out RankMath. With this plugin, you can check if you are using your keywords correctly to optimize your posts and pages. Keep in mind that you will need to conduct keyword research beforehand.
In addition, it comes packed with extremely useful SEO features. For instance, you can use the platform to generate XML sitemaps and handle redirects.
RankMath’s paid versions also include:
- In-depth, SERP-focused analytics
- Support for over 840+ schema types
- Speakable schema generation
- Schema validation
- Google trends integrations
- And more
All these features make RankMath an SEO powerhouse for WordPress.
Plans start at $59 per year.
The Best Content Production Tools for Freelancers
Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to attract qualified leads and turn them into customers. Consequently, all brands are in constant need of SEO-optimized content for their websites. No matter if you are creating content for a client or your own business, here are some of the best freelancer tools for:
- Content writing
- Graphic design
Grammarly
Grammarly helps you improve your writing skills. Even if you are not a copywriter, you’re most likely writing emails, copy for your portfolio, and client presentations on a regular basis.
In all cases, coming across as articulate in your writing is key – especially if you are introducing yourself to a potential client.
With Grammarly’s free version, you can correct common grammatical errors in real time. Grammarly covers:
- Punctuation
- Modifier placing
- Spelling (based on context)
- Subject-verb agreement
Besides, this tool also explains why the correction was made, so you can continuously improve your writing. Plus, it also comes with a plagiarism-checking tool.
Moreover, the paid version offers advanced word suggestions that take into account tone, clarity, formality level, and more.
Grammarly’s free version has limited features, but no word count cap. Paid plans start at $12/month when billed yearly.
Wordtune
Wordtune is an AI-driven Grammarly alternative. While Wordtune also fixes grammar and punctuation issues, its value proposition centers around rewriting your sentences, to change their tone or length. Unlike other AI writing assistants, most of Wordtune’s suggestions are relevant and usable. This is a convenient option if you want to give your writing an extra boost while saving some time.
Wordtune’s free plan only includes 20 basic rewrites per day. Unlimited plans start at $119.88/year.
Canva
Canva is a great solution for those who have no graphic design background but still want professional-looking results. It has an intuitive interface, making it easy for almost everyone to use.
With Canva you can create a wide range of projects, such as:
- Infographics
- Social media posts
- Project presentations
- Logos
- Brochures
- Presentation cards
- PDF Documents
On Canva’s resource catalog, you’ll find a wide variety of templates, fonts, backgrounds, and images at your disposal. A significant number of these design items are free. However, many will require in-app purchases.
Canva offers a generous free plan for individuals and small teams who want to collaborate in real-time. But, if you want to get some advanced features or unique designs, paid plans start at $54.99 per year.
Figma
Figma is one of the most advanced and versatile design apps out there. It started out as a UX design tool but, at the moment, it’s being used for everything from conducting workshops to designing social media graphics and creating client proposals.
Figma’s free plan includes unlimited cloud storage and simultaneous work for up to 3 projects and 2 collaborators. Paid plans start at $144/year and grant you unlimited projects and collaborators, as well as some extra features.
Key Takeaways
There isn’t a one-fits-all solution. There are many tools available to help you grow your SEO business and optimize your workflow. In this list, we included the ones that have proven to work best for our team.
Still, keep in mind that none of these apps will figure out your workflow for you. Optimizing your processes is a continuous journey of trial and error until you find what suits you.
Interested in trying SEORadar? Start a free trial today, or book a demo.
