Tools of a Search Marketer: The Tools You Need to Succeed in Search

Discover the key aspects of search marketing, including a comparison between SEO and SEM. Learn about the essential tools a search marketer should have in their toolkit to drive success in the industry.

Key Insights

Search marketing combines the strategies of search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM), with the aim to drive sales via search engines.
SEO provides long-term value for free but can be challenging, while SEM involves pay-per-click methods and requires ongoing investment.
An effective search marketer needs to be data-driven, using tools to measure and manage their SEO and Google Ads campaigns.
Google Analytics is a critical tool for digital marketing, aggregating data from various sources to enhance customer understanding, improve experiences, and strengthen search marketing strategies.
Keyword research is central to search marketing, helping to understand keyword volume, competition, and intent. Tools like Google's Keyword Planner and Search Console provide valuable insights for keyword research and performance data.
Page speed impacts SEO significantly, and tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and GTMetrix provide straightforward analysis for improving your site's speed.

Search marketing, both SEO and Google Ads, is extremely data-driven and you'll need to have the right tools set up to succeed. Thankfully there are a ton of free tools out there to help you with SEO and Google Ads.

Tool of Search Marketing Graphic

Search Marketing

Search marketing is the process of driving sales via the search engine. When we talk about search marketing we are generally referring to search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM)

SEO vs. SEM

There are a lot of factors when considering whether to use SEO, SEM, or a combined strategy when thinking about entering the search arena. At a high-level SEO can be a bit more challenging but it is free and can provide long-term value whereas SEM (Google Ads) requires you to pay-per-click forever. There are pros and cons to using each tool and if you are looking to figure out which one to use see our articles the case for SEM and the case for SEO.

The Toolkit of a Search Marketer

Search marketing is so data-driven these days and without data, you can fall behind. As the old adage goes “what gets measured, gets managed.” When we think about all our tips for SEO and Google Ads we need good tools to measure the components. Let’s walk through some of my favorite tools for search marketing

1. Analytics

Google Analytics

First off, for all of digital marketing, is Google Analytics. Google Analytics is known to be a web analytics tool but it can provide a lot more value than just that as it aggregates marketing and search data from a variety of sources. It can help you understand your customer journeys and create better experiences and improve search marketing. To learn more about why you should use Google Analytics and see our course offerings see our Google Analytics class page.

2. Keyword Research

If you have any experience with search marketing you know how important keyword research is. At the heart of search marketing is the keyword. Understand keyword volume, competition, intent, and more will make you a great search marketer and it is also the first step to setting up Google Ads campaigns. If you need a refresher, check out this article on keyword research for search.

Keyword Planner

Google offers a great tool for search marketer in its keyword planner within the Google Ads platform (completely free to use). There you can explore keyword volume and competition or generate new keyword ideas. The keyword planner is the perfect place to start if you are starting out on a new search project.

Google Search Console

GSC is another important tool for search marketing. Search Console gives you insight into the keywords your site is showing up for, the landing pages, the number of clicks, average position by keyword, and more. The keyword planner is a better tool to get started on a search project but once you are off to the races with your site, Google Search Console is a great free tool for keyword research and performance data.

You can also merge your Google Analytics account with GSC to feed the data into Analytics for more data by query.

Paid Tools

There are also a ton of paid tools out there like Moz, SEMRush, Wordstream, etc. that can add a lot of value as you get further into search. Personally, I use SEMRush, but I can’t say I’ve tried all the tools out there.

3. Page Speed

With SEO, page speed can be a big difference-maker so staying on top of this and measuring it regularly is important. There are lots of tools out there to measure page speed and thankfully a couple of great free ones.

Google PageSpeed Insights

Google, yet again, offers a very solid free option for measuring page speed. The tool is fairly easy to use, just pop in the URL and click analyze. It will provide you with information about the page on both mobile and desktop to help you make any enhancements.

GTMetrix

My personal preference for site speed is GTMetrix. It is just as simple to use, pop in a link and click analyze and offers great insight for improvements. I find the breakdowns from GTMetrix to be really helpful and straightforward, even with minimal development experience. It makes it easy to diagnose and solve page speed issues to improve your site.

Master Digital Marketing

To keep learning useful tools and techniques like these join us for digital marketing classes in NYC or see our new Digital Marketing Certificate program that covers SEO, Google Ads, Google Analytics, digital strategy, and social media marketing.