When I first started, I had almost no budget for marketing. Paid tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush looked amazing, but dropping $100+ per month wasn’t an option. So I made a decision: if I was going to grow my website, I’d do it using only free SEO tools.
Fast forward six months, and my organic traffic grew by 300%—without spending a dime. Here’s exactly how I did it.
Instead of paid keyword tools, I used a mix of:
Google Keyword Planner – great for finding search volume and related terms.
AnswerThePublic – to uncover the real questions people ask.
Ubersuggest (free version) – for keyword ideas and competition overview.
👉 The hack? Don’t just go for high-volume keywords. I focused on long-tail, low-competition keywords that I actually had a chance to rank for.
For optimization, I used:
Yoast SEO (free) – to make sure my posts had proper title tags, meta descriptions, and readability.
Google SERP Snippet Tool (free online generators) – to preview how my titles looked in search results.
Grammarly (free) – because clean, readable content matters for SEO.
I made sure every article targeted one keyword, but also included natural variations and semantically related terms.
You don’t need Ahrefs to spy on competitors. Here’s what I used:
Moz Link Explorer (free checks per month) – to see competitor backlinks.
Google Search Operators – to find where competitors got mentioned (e.g., intitle:"keyword" + site:.com).
SimilarWeb (free version) – to get traffic insights.
This helped me spot content gaps where my competitors were missing out.
Backlinks were a huge traffic driver. I got them by:
Writing guest posts (found opportunities using “write for us” + keyword).
Answering questions on Quora and linking back naturally.
Using Help a Reporter Out (HARO) to get featured in articles.
Consistency here made all the difference.
Finally, to measure growth, I relied on:
Google Analytics (GA4) – to track traffic.
Google Search Console – to monitor impressions, CTR, and keyword rankings.
Every week, I checked what was working and doubled down on it.
When I first started, I had almost no budget for marketing. Paid tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush looked amazing, but dropping $100+ per month wasn’t an option. So I made a decision: if I was going to grow my website, I’d do it using only free SEO tools.
Fast forward six months, and my organic traffic grew by 300%—without spending a dime. Here’s exactly how I did it.
Instead of paid keyword tools, I used a mix of:
Google Keyword Planner – great for finding search volume and related terms.
AnswerThePublic – to uncover the real questions people ask.
Ubersuggest (free version) – for keyword ideas and competition overview.
👉 The hack? Don’t just go for high-volume keywords. I focused on long-tail, low-competition keywords that I actually had a chance to rank for.
For optimization, I used:
Yoast SEO (free) – to make sure my posts had proper title tags, meta descriptions, and readability.
Google SERP Snippet Tool (free online generators) – to preview how my titles looked in search results.
Grammarly (free) – because clean, readable content matters for SEO.
I made sure every article targeted one keyword, but also included natural variations and semantically related terms.
You don’t need Ahrefs to spy on competitors. Here’s what I used:
Moz Link Explorer (free checks per month) – to see competitor backlinks.
Google Search Operators – to find where competitors got mentioned (e.g., intitle:"keyword" + site:.com).
SimilarWeb (free version) – to get traffic insights.
This helped me spot content gaps where my competitors were missing out.
Backlinks were a huge traffic driver. I got them by:
Writing guest posts (found opportunities using “write for us” + keyword).
Answering questions on Quora and linking back naturally.
Using Help a Reporter Out (HARO) to get featured in articles.
Consistency here made all the difference.
Finally, to measure growth, I relied on:
Google Analytics (GA4) – to track traffic.
Google Search Console – to monitor impressions, CTR, and keyword rankings.
Every week, I checked what was working and doubled down on it.