I was inspired to post this after a discussion over on X the other day in which SEOs were asked, if they could only use 5 tools for the remainder of their SEO career which would they be?

Obviously I responded with 6 because I WILL NOT BE CONTAINED

But it did make me want to share my common SEO toolkit as it gives a little insight into how I approach the problem of getting websites to rank well.

Bear in mind there are no right answers, and my focus is very much SEO for Ecommerce which skews my approach in a specific direction.

So what do I generally rely on day to day and why?

The Google Essentials

• Search Console – How is Google currently seeing your site, are there any issues blocking indexing, first party ranking and click data from Google
• Google Analytics 4 – Yes I know it has a bad rap but trust me, if you get this right it’s far more useful than Universal Analytics ever was. Most SEOs seem to ignore GA4 as much as possible but I am something of an evangelist & even offer dedicated GA4 consultant and training services
• Merchant Center – It’s amazing how often I’ll take on an ecommerce SEO client and find that the previous agency ignored the product feed. This is far more than just a PPC tool my friends. Make use of it
• Google Sheets – for quick exports and manipulation of data from GA4 you can’t beat Google Sheets

The Google Essentials for the Hardcore SEO

• Big Query – Now we’re getting serious! You really want to make the most of GA4 and Search Console then you want to be exporting all that lovely data to Big Query. If nothing else it allows you to get around the 1000 row export limit in the Search Console web interface
• Google Cloud – On demand computing power with a load of useful services built in. I mainly use this to create connections between other tools such as accessing the Google Indexing API or to get data in/out of Big Query
• Google Colaboratory – I use these as a quick and easy way to run python scripts for bulk actions but there are loads more use cases I’m discovering all the time

The Non-Google Stuff

• Screaming Frog – I’ve seen this referred to as “The Annual SEO Tax” and it’s not far off. One of the most essential tools for crawling and extracting data from a site. Back in the day I used to build my own crawlers using PHP, glad I no longer have to do that. Screaming Frog does it all and more
• SEMRush – Every serious SEO needs at least one of the big tools to call home. For me SEMRush just fits my workflow and requirements the best
• Notepad++ (Windows) / CotEditor (Mac) – a really versatile text editor is a really underrated tool. I love Notepad++ on my Windows machines but when I’m on my Mac the closest I could find is CotEditor which does the job 95% of the time

So there we have it, the stuff that makes my life as an SEO that much easier. What’s in your toolkit?