I don’t believe in gated content anymore. If you look hard enough, you can pretty much always find what you need for free on the internet. Of course, there are plenty of bad apples on the web, but in the SEO field, there are scores of free SEO resources and tools at your fingertips.
Whether you’re just starting out in SEO, trying to take the next step in your SEO career or are a veteran looking to try out new tools and learn more from Google’s eye, the following 35 free SEO tools and resources will elevate your career.
The Best Free SEO X Accounts
1. Barry Schwartz: @rustybrick
Barry is the founder of the Search Engine Roundtable and news editor of Search Engine Land. The man is synonymous with SEO news and Google updates. If Google is testing even the smallest item — such as a new button color or new symbol in search that few people would even notice — Barry will report on it. If you want to keep up with SEO news, Barry is a must-follow.
2. John Mueller: @JohnMu
John is a search advocate at Google and one of the top SEOs at Google. When people have questions about their Google traffic, an algorithm update or want to learn the basics of SEO, they go to John. John has worked at Google for more than 13 years. Lately, he’s been more accessible via X, podcasts and video series. You will see his name quite a bit in this article.
3. Danny Sullivan: @dannysullivan
Danny co-founded Search Engine Land and has been in the digital reporting field for more than 20 years. He joined Google in 2017 as its public liaison between the search engine giant and the public. His job is to help people better understand search and Google better hear public feedback. As you can imagine, he gets plenty of negative feedback when an SEO’s Google traffic goes down.
4. Gary Illyes: @methode
Gary’s official title is Google webmaster trends analyst, but he is the comic of the group. Along with John and Danny, Gary helps people build better websites. Pre-Covid, Gary was regularly at the conference scene, helping attendees with their technical SEO. Gary typically joins John on podcasts, although half the time he just gives John a hard time.
5. Martin Splitt: @g33konaut
Martin is a developer at Google and the resident JavaScript expert. JavaScript and SEO historically did not mesh well, but modern-day websites require JavaScript. Martin’s job is to help webmasters build JavaScript-based websites that Googlebot can read, understand and render. If you ever have a JavaScript question, Martin is your man.
6. Daniel Waisberg: @danielwaisberg
Daniel is a search advocate at Google and really focuses on SEO training. Whether it be Google Search Console (GSC) training or security training, Daniel can help you grasp what various SEO tools are telling you about how to fix a particular problem. Given the magnitude of website security warnings, it’s vital to listen to what Daniel has to say.
7. Google Search Central: @googlesearchc
The Google Search Central account is essentially the all-in-one Google Search X account. Whether it’s a new blog post, YouTube video or conference from Google, this account will let you know. If you followed only one X account from this list to get the most bang for your buck, this would be it.
8. Google Search Liaison: @searchliaison
Google Search Liaison used to just cover Google search news and the blog posts Google writes, but it’s also become the go-to source for broad core updates. These are big upgrades Google makes to its algorithm about four or five times a year. Knowing when they hit is key for any SEO, as you must be prepared for traffic changes thereafter.
9. Google Trends: @GoogleTrends
Google knows what people are searching, and Google Trends tells you just that. Based on industry, people, location and more, Google Trends lets you see what your users and potential users are searching. Using Google Trends is a terrific source for content planning or spotting the hottest SEO trends of the year.
10. Lily Ray: @lilyraynyc
Lily Ray is a senior director of SEO and head of organic research at Amsive Digital, an agency in New York. Having access to so many clients and being willing to share those insights online is rare, but Lily does it better than anyone in the business. Her SEO expertise is second to none, and she frequently speaks at SEO conferences, along with the Googlers above.
11. Glenn Gabe: @glenngabe
Glenn is an SEO consultant at G-Squared Interactive. He focuses on technical SEO audits, but on X, he provides an incredible amount of value after Google updates. Glenn will spot what websites improved or regressed after an algorithm update and share what he thinks Google targeted. Knowing what hurt you after an update is very hard to diagnose, but Glenn’s analysis makes it much simpler.
12. Kristina Azarenko: @azarchick
Kristina is another SEO consultant to follow. She focuses on e-commerce SEO and even wrote the book on it. If you sell products on your website and want more people landing directly on those products from Google, Kristina is your expert.
The Best Free SEO YouTube Playlists
13. Google Search Central: Google Search Console Training
Google Search Console is Google’s way of messaging you about your website. GSC provides site analytics, speed analytics, security updates, sitemap access, structured data updates and the all-important coverage update. Fortunately, Daniel Waisberghosts a GSC training series on YouTube to get you up and running with GSC and goes into detail on every single tool within.
14. Google Search Central: #AskGooglebot
John Mueller answers specific SEO questions ranging from sitemaps and GSC reports to redirects and subdomains. Most videos are under two minutes, and given the access to one of Google’s top SEOs, following this playlist is a no-brainer. Plus, you can submit your own SEO questions.
15. Google Search Central: JavaScript SEO Office Hours
Martin Splitt, Google’s JavaScript SEO expert, used to host office hours via YouTube. While this playlist still has tons of useful information for anyone doing SEO on a JavaScript website, it has not been updated recently. However, Martin does host live JavaScript SEO Q&A via his X and the Google Search Central YouTube channel fairly often. See how to join office hours.
16. Google Search Central: English Google SEO Office Hours
English SEO office hours is your chance to ask the pros what you want. Like the JavaScript office hours above, you can submit questions to John and other SEOs at Google. Luckily for all of us with busy schedules, all office hours are recorded and can be viewed via this playlist. Of course, you can also join one yourself.
17. Google Search Central: Google Search News
Every few weeks, John sums up the news at Google. He really takes his news reporting to the next level with this as they try to imitate a real news broadcast. From conference recaps and algorithm updates to upcoming Google changes and link-building, John covers the essential items all SEOs need to know.
18. Google Search Central: Search Central Lightning Talks
Google holds a lot of in-person conferences, but when Covid hit, like much of the event industry, everything went digital. In a great pivot, Google created these conference-style talks. The Google search team covered mobile-first indexing, HTTPs, JavaScript and much more. Even better, they’re still releasing these videos, which are free.
The Best Free SEO Podcasts
19. Search Off the Record
This SEO podcast features the big dogs at Google. John, Gary and Martin banter about behind-the-scenes workings at Google search, why some decisions are made, conference highlights and more. In addition, Gary tends to bicker with all other members, adding a comic flair to it.
20. Duct Tape Marketing
Duct Tape’s podcast branches out beyond SEO, into all marketing topics. They interview top marketers such as Seth Godin and Ben Shapiro, and always focus on users. Remember, what’s good for the user is good for Google, so chances are, you will pick up a few SEO tricks with every episode.
21. Search Engine Journal Show
SEJ also goes beyond SEO, but as the PPC and SEO leader in news, reporting and analysis, what they say matters. In addition to these topics, they also discuss social media, content marketing and digital marketing with the top industry experts. Any digital marketer is doing themselves a disservice if they’re not listening to this podcast.
The Best Free SEO Help Docs
22. Quick Guide to SEO
If you’re running a site but don’t have time to learn the SEO basics, this Google guide will set you up for success. From learning how Google search works to measuring performance via GSC, this short guide will give you the basics to get up and running.
23. Advanced SEO Techniques and Strategies
Once you graduate from the above, it’s time to really get your hands dirty. This advanced SEO guide goes into the weeds such as robots.txt files, XML sitemaps, site migrations, international SEO, structured data and more. It also focuses on content SEO such as video, images and news. There is a lot here, but if you master it all, consider yourself an SEO expert.
The Best Free SEO Help Forum
24. Google Search Central Help Community
If you ever have a question about your site, SEO or Google, but you can’t find it in the help docs above, this help forum is a lifesaver. Those answering are trained professionals who are Google-appointed experts (even though they do not work at Google).
The Best Free SEO Newsletters
25. Search Engine Roundtable
As mentioned above, Barry Schwartz is synonymous with SEO news and Google updates. If you don’t want to miss an update, A/B test or bug, then you need to sign up for Barry’s weekday newsletter. It recaps all stories published, no matter how minuscule the update may be. This one newsletter can save you hours digging through X or the Google Search Central blog.
26. Search Engine Land
Search Engine Land dives deeper into updates and changes around Google, Bing and social media. Those of who handle paid and organic channels need to get this newsletter to stay ahead of the competition. It comes out a few times a week and focuses on many of the same topics as Search Engine Roundtable.
27. SEOFOMO
SEOFOMO is a weekly newsletter that goes beyond Google updates. They also touch on SEO resources, guides, tips, jobs and events. This newsletter covers Google and SEO news, but it goes more in-depth with its analysis and also helps SEOs change jobs and networks.
28. #SEOForLunch
This weekly newsletter touches on all of the above, but it also focuses on content strategy, link-building, reviews and giveaways. This newsletter may be more for SEO beginners, but an SEO of any level will certainly find value in it. It’s a simple read that anyone, no matter their experience, can understand.
29. Google Search Central
The Search Central blog is Google’s way of scalably communicating with webmasters. Here, Google product managers are essentially sharing their release notes with the world. While nearly all their blog posts will be covered by the newsletters above, it’s still good to see how Google shares what they share so you can grasp it yourself.
The Best Free SEO Tools
30. Google Search Console (GSC)
If you’re an SEO or are just entering the field, you’d better learn and get access to your company’s GSC account. This is Google’s way of communicating how your site is doing with search. From coverage and performance to speed and security issues, GSC is theoretically the only SEO tool or resource you need. As such, it’s vital to set it up and check it daily.
31. Google Analytics (GA)
GSC does provide analytics from search, but if you want to see how people are getting to your site from Bing, email, paid, social and other channels, then you should also set up a GA account. Like GSC, you may need developer help to get going, but once you’re in, there will be mountains of data to parse. GA has a paid version that provides no sampling, but plenty of big brands get away with using the free version.
32. Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing doesn’t need much attention because nearly everything you do for Google also works for Bing. Nonetheless, you can’t ignore the second-biggest search engine entirely. As such, set up a Bing webmaster account and check it weekly to ensure there are no security, indexing, crawling or traffic issues. It acts much like GSC, but for Bing.
33. Screaming Frog
If you need to audit a website, both from a content and technical point of view, then you need a crawler to extract the most important information. Screaming Frog does just that and has a free version that can crawl up to 500 URLs. If you just created a site or are running a smaller site, the free version will do wonders, as it can crawl and find internal links, external links, title tags, metas, robots.txt files, images, alt text, schema and so much more. However, Screaming Frog does not tell you what’s wrong with anything. It merely spits back all the information into sheets that you can export. You then have to analyze the data and know what errors to look for.
34. Semrush
Whether you’re content planning, analyzing competitors or seeing how your website currently ranks in Google and beyond, Semrush is the best out there. The company offers free accounts where you can track only 10 keywords. However, with this account, you can still see how your website is ranking 10 times per month. That may be enough for many, but if you’re serious about SEO, you’ll need more access to keywords. Their paid plans start at $129.95 per month.
35. Moz
Moz has a 30-day free trial before they force you to upgrade to their Pro campaign. Moz, much like Semrush, can greatly help with content planning, content strategy, keyword research, content optimization and link research. Moz can also crawl your site for technical help. Standard plans start at $79 per month.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I teach myself SEO?
Yes, anyone can teach themselves SEO. Taking advantage of free SEO resources can accelerate the learning process.
Is SEO still relevant?
Yes, SEO still plays a major role in increasing web traffic and raising the profitability of a website.
