Made with love by your friends at Hackingtons
The best free tools and strategies to rank higher on Google. Keyword research, on-page SEO, technical fixes, page speed, backlinks, and content — organized by what actually moves the needle.
| Tool | Free? | Keywords | Technical | Backlinks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | ✓ 100% Free | ✓ | ✓ | limited |
| Google Analytics | ✓ 100% Free | limited | ✓ | — |
| PageSpeed Insights | ✓ 100% Free | — | ✓ | — |
| Google Keyword Planner | ✓ 100% Free | ✓ | — | — |
| Ubersuggest | ✓ Free tier | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| AnswerThePublic | ✓ Free tier | ✓ | — | — |
| Screaming Frog | ✓ Free (500 URLs) | — | ✓ | — |
| Ahrefs Free Tools | ✓ Free tools | ✓ | — | ✓ |
| Moz Link Explorer | ✓ Free tier | limited | — | ✓ |
| GTmetrix | ✓ Free tier | — | ✓ | — |
Made with love by your friends at Hackingtons
Google processes over 8.5 billion searches per day and uses over 200 signals to decide which pages to show — and in what order. Understanding the most important signals is the foundation of everything else.
On-page SEO refers to everything you can control directly on your webpage. Get these right on every important page:
The most important on-page element. Put your primary keyword near the beginning. Keep it under 60 characters so it doesn't get cut off in search results. Make it compelling — it's your ad headline. Every page should have a unique, descriptive title tag.
Google doesn't use the meta description as a ranking signal, but it directly affects your click-through rate — how many people who see your listing actually click it. Write a 150–160 character summary that explains exactly what your page offers and why it's worth clicking. Include your primary keyword naturally.
Use exactly one H1 per page — it should contain your primary keyword and describe the page's main topic. Use H2s for major sections and H3s for subsections. Google uses headings to understand your content's structure and hierarchy. Headings also improve readability, which keeps people on your page longer.
Keep URLs short, descriptive, and keyword-focused. Use hyphens to separate words. Avoid long strings of numbers or parameters. Good: /how-to-bake-sourdough. Bad: /article?id=2847&cat=3. Once you publish a URL, avoid changing it — broken links hurt rankings.
Link between your own pages using descriptive anchor text. This distributes "link equity" across your site, helps Google discover all your pages, and keeps visitors reading more of your content. Every important page should have other pages linking to it.
Page speed is both a ranking factor and a user experience issue. A one-second delay in page load time can reduce conversions by 7%. The biggest culprits: unoptimized images (compress and convert to WebP), render-blocking JavaScript (defer non-critical scripts), and no browser caching (set cache headers). Use PageSpeed Insights to identify exactly what's slowing you down.
Google uses mobile-first indexing — it primarily uses the mobile version of your site to determine rankings, even for desktop searches. Your site must be fully functional on a 375px-wide phone screen. Use Bootstrap or another responsive CSS framework, avoid fixed-width elements, and ensure tap targets are large enough (at least 48×48px).
Google has used HTTPS as a ranking signal since 2014. If your site is still on HTTP, it will be marked "Not Secure" in Chrome and rank below HTTPS equivalents. HTTPS certificates are free through Let's Encrypt and most hosting providers.
Make sure Googlebot can find and read your pages. Check your robots.txt file — it should not accidentally block important pages. Ensure key pages are not set to noindex. Submit an XML sitemap in Search Console. Use the URL Inspection tool to check any page's indexing status.
If the same content is accessible at multiple URLs (common with www vs non-www, HTTP vs HTTPS, or paginated pages), Google may split ranking signals between them. Use canonical tags (<link rel="canonical">) to tell Google which version is the primary URL.
The #1 reason pages fail to rank is that they don't fully answer the search query — they're either too thin, too generic, or answer a slightly different question than what people are actually searching for.
Most SEO changes take 3 to 6 months to produce meaningful results. Technical fixes — like resolving crawl errors or improving page speed — can show results faster, sometimes within weeks. Brand new domains generally take 6 to 12 months to rank competitively for anything. SEO is a long-term investment: the compounding value of organic traffic over time far exceeds what paid advertising can provide at the same cost.
Google page ranking is the position your webpage appears in Google search results for a given query. Position 1 receives approximately 28% of clicks; position 10 gets under 3%; anything past page 1 gets almost none. Google uses over 200 signals to determine ranking — including content relevance, page quality, Core Web Vitals, backlinks, and E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).
Yes. Google officially confirmed page speed as a ranking factor in 2010, and Core Web Vitals became a ranking signal in 2021. Slow pages rank lower than fast pages when content quality is otherwise equal. More importantly, slow pages drive visitors away — the majority of users abandon a page that takes more than 3 seconds to load. Use PageSpeed Insights to measure your Core Web Vitals scores.
Domain Authority (DA) is a 1–100 score created by Moz that estimates how likely a website is to rank in search results, based primarily on the quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to it. Google does not use DA directly, but higher DA correlates with better rankings because both are driven by quality backlinks. A new site starts at DA 1; established sites typically range from DA 20–50; major sites like Wikipedia are DA 90+.
Add your site to Google Search Console, then submit your XML sitemap. Use the URL Inspection tool to request indexing for individual pages. Ensure your robots.txt doesn't block Googlebot and that your pages aren't set to noindex. Getting a link from any already-indexed website will also speed up discovery. Google typically crawls and indexes new sites within days to a few weeks.
Structured data (schema markup) is code you add to your page's HTML that explicitly describes your content to Google — a recipe, product, FAQ, event, article, etc. Google uses it to display rich results in search: FAQ dropdowns, star ratings, recipe cards, event dates, and more. Rich results typically get 2–5× more clicks than standard blue links. Add structured data using JSON-LD in your page's <head> section and test it with Google's Rich Results Test.
There's no magic number. What matters is the authority and relevance of the sites linking to you, not just the quantity. One backlink from a major news outlet or respected industry site is worth more than hundreds of links from low-quality directories. Focus on creating content valuable enough to earn links naturally, and reach out to relevant websites in your space with genuinely useful resources.
Google Search Console. It's completely free, requires no budget, and provides data straight from Google itself — the exact queries people use to find your site, which pages are indexed, Core Web Vitals scores, and any crawl errors Googlebot encounters. Set it up on day one of any new website. Pair it with Google Analytics to understand what visitors do after they land, and you have a complete picture of your SEO performance at zero cost.