[2026 Updated Edition] 12 Recommended Free SEO Tools | A Comprehensive Comparison by Purpose (Keyword Research, On-Page Optimization, Site Analysis)

Hello. This is Lake and Moon Design.

“SEO tools seem kind of complicated, and the paid ones are so expensive that they’re out of reach…” There are surely quite a few people who feel this way. The term “SEO” itself sounds technical, and we often hear people say, “I don’t feel confident I can use the tools effectively” or “I don’t even know which one to choose in the first place.”

To get straight to the point: even with free SEO tools alone, you can implement highly effective strategies. It’s absolutely not true that you can’t achieve results without paid tools.

The key is to choose the tool from the many available that “perfectly matches your current goals.”Do you want to find keywords, optimize your site’s content, or improve page load speed? As long as your goal is clear, free tools can be a powerful ally. On the other hand, if you use tools haphazardly without a clear objective, you might get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information and end up stuck.

In this article, we’ve narrowed down the selection to 12 truly useful free SEO tools and organized them into four categories: “Site Diagnosis,” “On-Page Optimization,” “Keyword Research,” and “Page Speed.” For each tool, we’ll explain in detail its key benefits, how to use it, and the specific situations where it’s most helpful. To help you steadily grow your own site, please read on to the end and make the most of this guide.

Why “Free Tools” Are More Than Enough to Compete

Some paid SEO tools are full-featured and can cost tens of thousands of yen per month. They certainly offer convenient features, such as the ability to analyze millions of backlinks from competitor sites or automatically track ranking fluctuations on a daily basis.

However, for blogs, small-to-medium-sized websites, or the homepages of sole proprietors and local businesses, free tools alone can cover 80–90% of your basic SEO needs. Paid tools really come into their own once you reach the stage where you want to “handle even larger volumes of data more efficiently.”It’s perfectly fine to start by laying a solid foundation with free tools and then consider paid tools when you feel the need.

How to Choose an SEO Tool | 4 Checkpoints

Even if you know your “goal,” there are often multiple tools within the same category, so you may still find yourself unsure which one to choose. When selecting a tool, consider the following four points:

① Does it align with your current site’s “goal”?

This is the most important factor. The tool you should choose will vary completely depending on whether you want to “find ideas for articles” or “fix errors in published articles.” It’s not necessarily true that a tool with more features is better; the basic rule is to choose the tool with features that best match what you want to do right now.

② Does it match the size and growth stage of your site?

When you’ve just launched your site and have only a few articles, tools like Search Console or simple SEO diagnostic tools—which let you quickly get an overview of the whole site—are sufficient.On the other hand, as your article count grows to 50 or 100, it becomes difficult to check for any omissions without a tool like Screaming Frog that can crawl your entire site at once. By considering not only your current scale but also where you’ll be in six months or a year, you can reduce the hassle of switching tools later.

③ Can it be used without specialized knowledge?

Some SEO tools feature a lot of English text or display technical terms as-is. If you’re new to SEO, it’s best to start with tools that present results clearly in Japanese, such as Mizukagami SEO Diagnosis’s “Simple SEO Diagnostic Tool.” The biggest risk with tools that feel difficult to use is that, no matter how advanced their features are, you’ll eventually stop opening them.

④ Are the pricing and usage limits manageable?

Even free tools may have restrictions, such as a “maximum number of pages that can be crawled” or a “daily usage limit.” Be sure to check in advance whether your current usage patterns will cause you to hit these limits. If you frequently run into these restrictions, that’s a sign it’s time to consider switching to a paid plan or a different tool.

Clarify Your “Goals”

The key to effectively using free tools is knowing exactly what you want to achieve right now. While we often use the term “SEO” as a catch-all, it actually covers a wide range of activities.There’s keyword research, optimizing the internal structure of your articles, checking the overall health of your site, and improving page load speeds. Trying to handle all of these with a single tool can actually make it harder to understand how to use it effectively. So, start by selecting tools based on these four broad objectives:

• Keyword Research: I want to know what readers are searching for and what terms they’re using. This serves as the foundation for determining article topics and angles.
• On-Page Optimization: I want to quickly check whether article titles and headings are being correctly interpreted by search engines. This is a crucial step to ensure the value of the articles I’ve taken the time to write is properly conveyed to search engines.
• Site Diagnosis: I want to perform a comprehensive check to ensure there are no errors across the entire site and to assess its overall health. It’s easiest to think of this as something like a regular health checkup.
• Page Speed (Technical SEO): You want to make sure your pages aren’t loading too slowly and run more smoothly. This is a crucial factor for preventing readers from leaving and improving your search engine rankings.

With these four objectives in mind, let’s take a look at some recommended free tools, organized by purpose.

3 Recommended Tools for Site Diagnostics and On-Page Optimization

First, let’s look at tools for assessing the overall health of your site and optimizing the internal structure of your articles. By making it a habit to check these regularly, you can prevent your site’s ranking from dropping without you even realizing it.

① Google Search Console

First up is this one. It’s an official channel for communicating directly with Google—an absolute must-have if you run a website. Among the many SEO tools available, this is arguably the most fundamental and the most important.

Key Benefits

You can clearly see how Google views your site, what keywords people are searching for, and how many times your site has been clicked. You can review detailed data, including the number of times your site appeared in search results (impressions), the number of actual clicks, and the click-through rate (CTR).Additionally, if an article you’ve worked hard to write isn’t recognized by Google (i.e., it hasn’t been indexed), you can use this tool to send a request saying, “I’ve written this article—please come take a look.” It also features a notification system that alerts you to any pages with errors, helping you identify issues early on.

Here’s how to use it

To start, simply open the “Search Performance” screen and take a look at the search terms people are using to find your site.Discovering things like, “Oh, so readers are coming to my site using these keywords,” can provide inspiration for your next article. Once you get the hang of it, I recommend using the time-period comparison feature to see how traffic has changed between last month and this month. It’s a steady, methodical process, but by sticking with it, you’ll begin to see the “patterns” of your site.

https://search.google.com/search-console

② Mizukagami SEO Diagnosis “SEO Quick Diagnosis Tool”

Search Console is a fantastic tool, but because it provides so much data, it’s not uncommon to feel lost and wonder, “So, what exactly do I need to fix on my site right now?” This tool is perfect for those moments—it offers a more intuitive, quick overview of the big picture.

Key Features

With the click of a button, it performs a comprehensive diagnosis of key SEO elements—such as missing titles or descriptions, or whether the order of headings is incorrect.The results—showing what’s “OK” and what “needs fixing”—appear instantly on the screen, clearing your mind so you can focus on the next steps. Designed to be intuitive even without specialized knowledge, it’s perfect for anyone who feels intimidated by SEO.

Here’s how to use it

Try entering your site’s URL after a weekend when you’ve published a few articles. It explains errors in simple, easy-to-understand language—no technical jargon—so you can tidy up your site without overcomplicating things, just like completing a mission in a game. If you make it a habit to run a diagnostic regularly—say, once a month—you’ll find it easier to notice changes in your site.

No registration is required—you can use it for free right now. Why not enter your site’s URL and give the “Site Health Check” a try?

https://kototsuki.com/tools/seo-checker/

③ Bing Webmaster Tools

Although this is the official tool for Microsoft’s search engine “Bing,” it’s actually a very reliable free diagnostic tool. While Google dominates the market share in Japan, traffic from Bing is by no means something you can ignore.

Key Benefits

Not only does it serve as an alternative to Search Console, but it also features an extremely easy-to-understand “SEO Report” function. It scans your site and gently points out specific areas for improvement—such as “You’re missing an H1 tag” or “Your meta description is too short”—along with the reasons why. One of the unique benefits of this tool is that it provides advice from a perspective you wouldn’t get from Google’s tools alone.

Here’s How to Use It

Since it integrates with Search Console to import data, setup takes just a few clicks. It’s reassuring to have it as a second set of eyes when you feel a bit uneasy relying solely on Google’s tools. By using both tools together, you can gain a more comprehensive understanding of your site’s health.

https://www.bing.com/webmasters/

[On-Page Optimization] 4 Recommended Free SEO Tools

Next, I’ll introduce three handy browser extensions (for Google Chrome and others) that let you peek “behind the scenes” of the page you’re currently viewing with just one click, like a pair of X-ray glasses. Simply installing them will make your daily routine checks much easier.

④ SEO META in 1 CLICK

Key Features

The title of the currently open page, the structure of its headings (H tags), and image settings (OGP) for social media sharing are displayed in an easy-to-read list at a glance. Since you no longer need to go out of your way to open the HTML source code, your daily routine checks will become much easier.

Try Using It This Way

Of course, use it for a final check after publishing your own articles, but also try opening a page from a rival site that ranks high in search results and giving it a click. You can secretly learn from them by thinking, “Ah, so that’s how they structure their headings.” Comparing multiple rival pages can also help you discover perspectives that your own articles might be missing.

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/seo-meta-in-1-click/bjogjfinolnhfhkbipphpdlldadpnmhc?hl=ja

⑤ Detailed SEO Extension

Why We Recommend It

This is a very popular extension overseas. In addition to the features mentioned in ④, it lets you check slightly more in-depth details, such as how many links are on the page and whether images have proper descriptions (alt attributes).

Here’s how to use it

It includes a feature that extracts only the “headings” from a page so you can copy them directly. This saves a tremendous amount of time when you want to compile and analyze the structure of a competitor’s article in Excel or a spreadsheet. I highly recommend this feature to anyone who wants to conduct competitive analysis efficiently.

https://detailed.com/extension/

⑥ Ahrefs SEO Toolbar

Key Benefits

This is a free feature offered by the well-known paid tool “Ahrefs.” It lets you quickly perform technical checks, such as verifying whether a page displays properly, whether it’s being correctly redirected to another page, or whether it’s sending a “noindex” instruction to search engines telling them to ignore the article.

Try Using It This Way

Give it a try the next time you think, “For some reason, this is the only article that isn’t showing up in search results.” You might have accidentally enabled a setting that blocks search engines from indexing your page. This tool instantly spots technical configuration errors like that. It’s especially reliable when you’re struggling to figure out the cause of a problem.

https://ahrefs.com/ja/seo-toolbar

⑦ Screaming Frog SEO Spider

While the browser extensions introduced so far are tools for checking “the single page you’re currently viewing,” Screaming Frog is software that crawls the “entire site” at once and identifies any gaps in on-page SEO all at once. It’s a slightly more advanced tool that you install on your computer to use.

Why We Recommend It: Simply enter your site’s URL and start the crawl to get a comprehensive list of all pages’ titles, headings (H tags), meta descriptions, image alt attributes, broken links (404 errors), and more. Since you no longer need to manually check pages one by one, this tool is especially powerful for sites with a growing number of articles.Even the free version can crawl up to 500 URLs, so it’s more than sufficient for individuals or small-to-medium-sized websites within the free plan’s limits.

Try using it this way: Give it a try before or after a site redesign, or once your site has more than 50 articles.You’ll be able to identify omissions and errors that are hard to spot manually—such as “This page actually had a duplicate title” or “There were this many pages missing image descriptions”—all at once. We recommend using it as a “site-wide health check” during your regular maintenance cycles.

→ Screaming Frog SEO Spider

[Keyword Research] 3 Recommended Free SEO Tools

What concerns do your readers have, and what terms do they type into the search bar? These tools help you understand the mindset of “the people on the other side of the search.” No matter how good your articles are, if you choose keywords that no one searches for, they won’t reach your audience. Finding keywords with demand is essentially the first step in SEO.

⑧ Google Keyword Planner

Why It’s Recommended

Although originally designed for Google Ads, this is the “gold standard” for keyword selection. It tells you how often a particular term is searched per month (search volume) and what other related keywords exist. The fact that you can verify demand with concrete numbers gives it a level of reliability that other tools lack.

Here’s How to Use It

When deciding on a topic for an article and you’re wondering, “Are there really people searching for this term?” try entering it here first. Since you can verify the level of demand with actual numbers, this helps you avoid the mistake of writing an article that no one will read. Another recommended approach is to list multiple keyword candidates side by side, compare them, and prioritize them based on search volume.

https://ads.google.com/intl/ja_jp/home/tools/keyword-planner/

⑨ Rakko Keyword

Key Benefits

Simply enter your main keyword, and it instantly returns hundreds of “search suggestions” from Google and other search engines. It’s a tool that lets you peek directly into the “list of things readers want to know” that’s in their minds.

Here’s how to use it

For example, if you enter “SEO tools,” you’ll see a long list of terms like “free SEO tools,” “recommended SEO tools,” and “how to use SEO tools.” The correct way to use this tool is to use these terms as inspiration—saying to yourself, “Okay, then I’ll write an article about recommended free SEO tools”—and build the outline of your article from there.Using the suggested terms directly as headline candidates is also an efficient approach.

https://related-keywords.com/

⑩ Google Trends

Key Benefits

It displays the “changes” in the number of searches for specific terms using a wave-like graph. It’s useful for finding terms that see increased searches depending on the season or topics that are currently trending.

Try Using It This Way

It’s very helpful when comparing two terms side by side to see which one is more popular. For example, if you’re comparing “moving” and “relocation,” the graph makes it immediately clear which term to use in your article title to reach a wider audience.When covering seasonal topics, checking past data to identify peak periods can help you determine the best time to publish your article.

https://trends.google.co.jp/trends/

[Page Speed & Technical SEO] 2 Recommended Free SEO Tools

If a page is slow to load, readers will quietly close it. No matter how good the content is, it’s a real waste to lose readers just because the page takes too long to load. These tools help ensure your “storefront” opens smoothly and effortlessly.

⑪ PageSpeed Insights

Why We Recommend It

This is Google’s official page speed check tool. Enter a URL, and it will score the page’s speed on both mobile and desktop devices on a scale of 100, providing specific suggestions for improvement—such as “Images are too large” or “There are unused scripts.” The clear, easy-to-understand score makes it easier to see the results of your improvements.

Here’s How to Use It

Don’t be discouraged if your score is low at first. Start by making small changes to the most straightforward areas—such as “serving images in next-generation formats” or “reducing image file sizes.” Watching your score go up can be surprisingly rewarding. Keep a record of your scores before and after each improvement to see the tangible results of your efforts.

https://pagespeed.web.dev/

⑫ GTmetrix

Why We Recommend It

This is another tool for measuring speed, but it allows you to examine the page load sequence and identify which files are slowing things down in greater detail using graphs (waterfall charts). It’s ideal for those who want to perform more in-depth, technical analysis than what PageSpeed Insights offers.

Try Using It This Way

This tool comes in handy when the PageSpeed Insights report alone doesn’t tell you “exactly which images are causing slowdowns.” It’s useful for those who want to systematically and meticulously resolve site performance issues one by one in a more technical manner. By combining these two tools, you can more reliably improve your site’s loading speed.

https://gtmetrix.com/

Tool Implementation Roadmap | In What Order Should You Use Them?

With 12 tools introduced, you might be wondering, “Which one should I start with?” We recommend implementing them in the following order, depending on the maturity of your site.

Recommended Tool Combinations by Site Type

Even though they’re all “homepages,” blogs, e-commerce sites, and corporate websites for physical stores each have slightly different areas that require focus. Please refer to the section that best matches your site type.

For Blogs and Owned Media

These are sites where the number of articles serves as an asset. Above all, the key to success is ensuring that “articles on topics with high demand are written correctly.”

• Core Tools: Rakko Keyword (topic research) → SEO META in 1 CLICK (pre-publication check) → Search Console (verifying results)
• Once your article count grows, it’s a good idea to use Screaming Frog to periodically review your archive for duplicate titles or broken links in older posts.

For E-commerce Sites and Online Stores

These sites are characterized by a large number of product pages, where similar text tends to appear frequently. Since duplicate content and reused titles can easily lower your SEO ranking, you’ll want to place a strong emphasis on on-page optimization and site audits.

• Key Tools: Screaming Frog (comprehensive audit of all product pages) → Simple SEO Diagnostic Tool (regular checkups) → PageSpeed Insights (checking for slow loading speeds caused by product images)
• Since sites with a large number of product images are more prone to slow loading speeds, we also recommend regular checks using GTmetrix.

For Retail and Corporate Websites

These sites are often searched for using a “region name × service name” format, such as a city name or industry term. Rather than specialized analysis, the priority is to first get the basics right.

• Core Tools: Search Console (registration required) → Simple SEO Diagnostic Tool (monthly checkup) → Rakko Keyword (identifying keywords that lead to inquiries)
• Rather than forcing yourself to adopt too many tools, prioritize consistently using these three first.

Examples of Monthly and Weekly Operational Routines

Tools aren’t something you “set up and forget”; their effectiveness builds gradually through consistent use. Incorporating them at the following pace will make it easier to turn them into a habit without feeling overwhelmed.

You don’t have to do everything meticulously. If you can make it a habit to do just these two things—"checking Search Console once a week" and "checking before publishing an article"—you’ll lay a solid foundation for your site.

Common Mistakes When Using Free Tools

Since free tools are so convenient, they can easily lead to the following common pitfalls—it’s good to be aware of them in advance.

• Getting complacent just by installing the tool: Cases where you look at the diagnostic results, think “Ah, I see,” and stop there without actually making any fixes. Get into the habit of fixing at least one error within the same week you find it.
• Getting stuck trying to fix every single error perfectly: Tools like Screaming Frog and Search Console can sometimes flag a large number of issues. It’s enough to start with the high-priority ones (such as duplicate titles or broken links).
• Getting caught up in discrepancies between different tools’ metrics: Since tools use different calculation methods, some variation in numbers is natural. Focus on identifying “trends” rather than worrying about exact numerical matches.

[Comparison Chart] Feature List for 12 Free SEO Tools

We’ve compiled a list of each tool’s strengths. We recommend combining several tools based on your specific goals. You don’t need to master every tool perfectly. Start by gradually incorporating the ones that best fit your needs.

A Mini Glossary for SEO Beginners

When using these tools, you may come across unfamiliar technical terms. Here’s a simple summary of the terms that tend to trip people up.

• Impressions: The number of times your article appeared on a search results page. These are counted even if the article wasn’t clicked.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of impressions that were actually clicked. This serves as a measure of how appealing your title and description are.
• Indexed: When Google recognizes the content of an article and registers it as ready to be displayed in search results. If an article is “not indexed,” it won’t appear in search results at all.
• noindex: A setting used to tell Google, “Please do not display this article in search results.” If this setting is enabled unintentionally, the article will not appear in search results.
• Meta Description: A summary of the article displayed below the title in search results. It affects the click-through rate.
• H Tags (Heading Tags): Tags such as H1, H2, and H3 that indicate the hierarchy of an article’s headings. If the order is disrupted, search engines will have difficulty correctly understanding the content.
• 404 Error: An error indicating that a page cannot be found. This is a common sign of a broken link.
• Crawling: The process by which search engine bots or diagnostic tools traverse the pages on a site to collect information.

When to Consider Paid Tools

While we’ve explained that free tools are sufficient for most needs, as your site grows, you may start to notice signs that it’s “about time” to upgrade.

• You want to analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles in detail: Since free tools primarily focus on your own site’s internal data, paid tools come into play when you want to conduct in-depth comparisons with other sites.
• Checking ranking fluctuations daily has become too time-consuming: Free tools generally rely on manual checks. As the number of target keywords increases, you may want to consider using a paid tool with automated tracking to reduce the workload.
• You’re frequently hitting the 500-URL limit on the free version of Screaming Frog: This is a clear sign that your site has grown in size.
• You’ve started wanting to make decisions as a team while viewing the same data: Many free tools are designed primarily for individual use and tend to lack robust team-sharing features.

If any of these scenarios sound familiar, it’s a sign that your site is growing steadily. There’s no need to rush into a paid tool at an early stage; it’s sufficient to consider it when the need arises.

How to Optimize “Internal Links” Using These Tools

Many of the 12 tools introduced here are actually useful for checking the status of “internal links.” Internal links are links that connect articles within your own site. They not only increase reader engagement but also serve to signal to search engines that “this page is important.”

• When you crawl your site with Screaming Frog, you’ll see a list showing which pages link to which other pages. This is especially useful for finding “orphan pages”—pages that aren’t linked to from anywhere else on your site.
• You can also use the “Links” report in Search Console to identify trends in which pages are frequently linked to within your site.
• Simply making it a habit to include one or two links from relevant past articles whenever you write a new one will gradually improve your site’s overall ranking.

If you find an orphan page, try to naturally incorporate a link to it within other relevant articles. This makes it easier for readers to find “next articles” to read, which also helps improve bounce rates.

Checkpoints for Mobile Optimization and Smartphone Display

Search engines now use a system called “Mobile-First Indexing,” which prioritizes the mobile version of a site over the desktop version when evaluating it. It’s surprisingly common for a site to look fine on a computer but appear broken on a smartphone.

• PageSpeed Insights provides separate scores for mobile and desktop. If the mobile score is extremely low, this should be your top priority for improvement.
• Get into the habit of opening your site on your own smartphone at least once a month to visually check whether “the text is too small,” “the buttons are hard to tap with your finger,” or “the layout is so broken that you have to scroll horizontally to read tables.” Don’t rely solely on tool metrics—it’s also important to trust your own hands-on experience.

Basics of Structured Data (Schema)

The mechanism known as “structured data” or “schema” is essentially a form of “labeling” designed to convey the content of an article more accurately to search engines. It may sound technical, but it doesn’t hurt to know the basics.

• For example, if you set up structured data for a recipe article, cooking time and calorie information may appear in search results. For articles in an FAQ format, they may be treated as “rich results,” where the questions and answers are displayed directly in the search results.
• Implementing structured data often requires specialized coding knowledge, and there are cases where attempting to implement it on your own leads to display issues. It’s perfectly fine to start by prioritizing the basic measures introduced in this article using the tools mentioned, and then consult an expert once you have the time and resources.

A “Local SEO” Perspective for Local Businesses

For those operating businesses rooted in their local communities—particularly within Shiga Prefecture—it’s essential to optimize for searches that combine a “region name” with a “service name” (e.g., “Otsu City café,” “Kusatsu construction company”). The tools introduced here can also be utilized for this type of local SEO.

• Use Rakko Keyword or Google Keyword Planner to check how often the “region name + service name” combinations are searched.
• In Search Console’s Search Performance section, you can see exactly which terms containing specific place names are being used to find your site. You might even discover that your site is being found through place names you hadn’t anticipated.
• Including location names in article titles and headings—as long as it doesn’t sound unnatural—is another small but effective strategy for reaching local customers.

3 Specific Steps for Analyzing Competitor Sites

Surprisingly, comparing your site to competitors’ can often reveal areas for improvement. Even with just the tools introduced here, you can perform a thorough basic competitor analysis.

1. Try searching for your target keywords: Check the headline structures used by the sites appearing at the top of the search results.
2. Use tools like “SEO META in 1 CLICK” or “Detailed” to examine how top-ranking sites structure their titles and headings: This can reveal angles your own articles may be missing.
3. Use Rakko Keyword to identify related keywords that top-ranking sites likely cover: If you find important perspectives missing from your own article, consider adding them.

While you should avoid directly copying the text from competitor sites, using them as a hint to understand “what questions readers have when searching” is a sound SEO practice.

Troubleshooting When Your Rankings Drop or Traffic Declines

Even if you’re consistently managing your site, traffic can suddenly drop one day. Don’t panic—try checking the following points in this order.

In many cases, the cause is often simply an “oversight.” If you take your time and check each point one by one, you should be able to pinpoint the cause. If you still can’t figure out the cause, don’t try to diagnose the problem on your own—consulting an expert is a good option.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About Free SEO Tools

Q. Are free SEO tools sufficient? A. Yes, if you’re running a blog, a small-to-medium-sized website, or are just starting out with SEO, free tools alone are more than enough to get you started. Basic error checking and keyword selection are fully covered even with free tools.It’s never too late to start by building a solid foundation with free tools and then consider paid tools once you feel the need.

Q. What’s the difference between free and paid tools? A. The main differences are the “amount of data you can view at once,” “detailed analysis of competitor sites,” and whether the tool offers “automatic ranking tracking.” When you’re using free tools and find yourself thinking, “I’d like to analyze this in more detail,” that’s a good time to consider a paid tool. There’s no need to jump into paid tools right from the start.

Q. Which tools should beginners start with? A. First, you must register for Google’s official “Search Console.” After that, try “Rakko Keyword” for tips on writing articles, and “SEO Quick Diagnostic Tool” by Mizukagami SEO, which gently points out errors on your site. We recommend starting with these three and gradually getting used to them.Don’t try to learn everything at once; deepen your understanding by actually using each tool one at a time.

Q. Is there a recommended frequency for using these tools? A. Most people seem to check site diagnostic tools about once a month and Search Console about once a week. Keyword research tools are generally used before writing a new article or when you’re unsure about a topic. It’s best to find a pace that’s sustainable for you without overdoing it.

Q. For how many pages should I start using Screaming Frog? A. There’s no hard and fast rule, but once you have more than 50 articles, manually checking them becomes quite a task. At that point, we recommend running a crawl to take stock of any duplicate titles or broken links.Even the free version supports up to 500 URLs, so it covers the needs of most small and medium-sized websites.

Q. What should I keep in mind when using multiple tools together? A. Since each tool uses different calculation methods, the numbers for impressions and rankings may not match exactly. Rather than getting too caught up in minor differences in the numbers, prioritize identifying trends—such as “Is this better than last month?” or “Which pages seem to have issues?”

Q. Should I treat page speed optimization differently for mobile and desktop? A. Yes, PageSpeed Insights displays separate scores for mobile and desktop. Since many websites now receive the majority of their traffic from mobile devices, we recommend prioritizing improvements to the mobile score.

Q. Should I set up structured data (Schema) myself? A. Since this often requires specialized coding knowledge, trying to implement it on your own can risk causing layout issues. It’s perfectly fine to first focus on the basic tools introduced here and then consult an expert once you have the time and resources.

Q. Is it better to include a lot of place names in article titles? A. If you cram them in unnaturally, it can actually make the text harder to read and may lower your search engine ranking. It’s easier to strike a balance by including place names only once or twice within a context that feels natural to readers.

Q. What should I check first when traffic suddenly drops? A. First, use Search Console to verify that the page in question hasn’t been removed from the index or accidentally set to “noindex.”Next, I recommend using Screaming Frog to identify errors across the entire site, and finally, check the page load speed. In many cases, the cause can be found in simple issues like configuration errors.

Summary: Choose the Right Tool for Your Goal and Grow Your Site Steadily

In this article, we’ve introduced 12 recommended free SEO tools tailored to specific goals.

There’s no magic tool that can do everything perfectly on its own. The fastest way to success is to combine them as shown below.

• Site Diagnosis: Search Console, Mizukagami SEO Diagnosis “SEO Quick Diagnosis Tool,” Bing Webmaster Tools
• On-Page Optimization: SEO META in 1 CLICK, Detailed, Screaming Frog
• Keyword Research: Rakko Keyword, Keyword Planner
• Speed Optimization: PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix

SEO doesn’t produce immediate results. However, the more you use these tools to properly maintain your site, the more it will become a valuable asset that works for you. Don’t rush—take your time, engage with each tool one by one, and grow your site at your own pace.

To get started, why not use Mizukagami SEO’s “Quick SEO Diagnostic Tool” to quickly check the current health of your site?