Top 14 Search Engine Marketing Tools That You Should Know In 2022

Introduction to Search Engine Marketing

Almost everything nowadays is getting online and that is among the primary reasons why most businesses are now having a website associated with their business. However, marketing the website is not that easy. It takes enhanced efforts to give your website an edge for your website from its competitors. All these factors make search engine marketing a necessity in the ever–growing digital world.

What are search engine marketing tools?

Let’s take a look at the top 5 search engine marketing tools that help promote a website by enhancing its visibility on different search engines.

Search Engine Marketing Tools

Let us start with keyword research first.

Keyword Research Tools

Keywords are an important thing that users make use of while searching for a website and that is what they type in the search column of the search engines. You should get the right keywords if you want your website to get searched for by users online. The keywords have to be selected after considerable research.

Some of the most popular keyword tools are as mentioned below.

• Google Traffic Estimator
• Google AdWords Keyword Tool
• SEO Book Keyword Tool

Search Engine Ranking Tools

Basically three aspects are taken into consideration while working on a website by successful SEOs. The parameters are profit, traffic trend, and conversions. It helps you give an insight regarding how the popularity of a specific keyword has grown over time. The most popular rank checking tools include SEO Book Rank Checker and Advanced Web Ranking etc.

Search Analytics Tool

It is one of the important tools for search engine marketing. It gives a graphical representation of how popular a website is among the users. It helps you make correct decisions while posting ads online and give you an insight into how far your marketing efforts were successful so far. The popular search analytics tools are Google Analytics, Mint, and Clicky.

Link Analysis Tool

It gives you an overview of the fresh links on the blog and also the samples of inbound link data. You can also download all the links that are directed towards a specific website or blog.

Popular Link Analysis tools are,

• Google Webmaster Central
• SEO Link Analysis
• Advanced Link Manager

Competitive Research Tool

You will be provided with top keywords of various categories of data with a competitive research tool. You will also get an overview of the percentage of traffic that has been driven by a specific keyword on the web. It helps you differentiate the traffic generated by paid search ads or organic search.

Some of the most popular competitive research tools are,

• SEO Digger
• Key Compete

There are many search engine marketing tools available today to execute the above-marketing methodologies. Let us take a look at a few of them.

Top 14 Search Engine Marketing Software Digital Marketers Need

 

Our list starts with the best pick of the search engine marketing software! Yes, it is SEMRush.

1. SEMrush

This popular SEM tool helps digital marketers to go strong with their SEM marketing by enabling them to do the following things:

• Page metrics
• Keyword research and rank tracking
• Website and backlink audit
• Competitor backlink audits
• Traffic analysis

You can use the following incredible SEMrush features to improve your marketing campaigns.

• Keyword Analysis

The search engine marketing software provides an Ad research report that helps you analyze the keywords your competitors are bidding on. Also, you can track their spending on the same.

Moreover, they also provide trend graphs that you can forward to clients that help them decide on the PPC investments.

• Discover high-value keyword gaps

This keyword gap tool helps you compare and analyze your top 5 market contenders’ keywords.

With the corresponding report generated, you can figure out the top ones competitors are bidding on the most, but you are missing. 

• Identify your competitors’ high-performing ad copy.

Find out the bid history of your competitors for each keyword on the Ad History section. Identify which keywords are benefitting your competitors in the long run.

• Monitor your competitors’ paid traffic conversion.

The SEMRush Ad copies provide the marketer with all keywords of the ad copy the competitors are using. Moreover, with this search engine marketing software, you can even see through the competitors landing page URLs to find keywords they are targeting and converting. 

2. Wordstream

Wordstream is a complete advertising management solution that helps you with:

• PPC campaigns analysis and suggestions to improve it
• Ad-performance optimization
• Figure out positive and negative keywords
• Build campaigns
• Budget adjustments
• Landing page optimization
• Build data conversion reports

Moreover, this tool has the best integrations with leading ad platforms like Bing Ads and Google Ads. If you are a small business owner, go for Wordstream, which experts recommend.

3. Optmyzr

Are you a large agency with huge budgets? Do you run several PPC campaigns? Do you need a tool that offers advanced automated features? Then Optymzr is the right choice for you.

With the Optymzr tools for search engine marketing, you can Automate reports and scripts. 

This marketing software has in-built ML techniques that help you create the best digital marketing strategy for your business. Remember, figuring out the positive and negative keywords can make your business successful in the long run.

4. Microsoft Clarity

Do you want to know more about visitors’ interactions with your site? Then this free tool from Microsoft grabs the visitors’ journey with session recordings and heatmaps monitored by a super-impressive dashboard.

The data on the user interactions enables the developers to enhance their websites from the user suggestions.

5. SpyFu

As the name suggests, do you want to spy over your competitor’s keywords? Or pick the ad tests that worked them?

Then go for SpyFu! One of the best search engine marketing tools!

Not much, but a simple domain search is enough for Spyfu to provide you with information about

• The keyword rankings for the selected domain on Google that includes SEO and PPC
• Your market contenders in SEO and SEM (PPC)
• Inbound link numbers for that specific domain search

With SpyFu, you can get the best click rates for your SEM campaigns. How? As the tool does all the keyword research and offers you the best ones, the chances of hitting the target are greater.

A wow tool that helps marketers frame the best marketing tactics and produce sales.

6. SuperMetrics

Supermetrics is the best marketing analytics software that provides report automation for SEO and PPC.

Supermetrics tools for search engine marketing grab vital marketing information for you to generate performance reports. The best part is that it integrates with all platforms like Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Google Analytics, SEMrush, Quora, Bing, Reddit, LinkedIn, and much more.

Moreover, you can integrate the data generated from Supermetrics with applications like Excel and Google Sheets.

7. Google Data Studio

Marketing and data are inseparable. So, if you want to overcome the maze of figures and get the information you are looking for without much effort, then say hello to Google Data Studio.

This free data visualization tool from Google collects data from different resources to generate insightful reports, charts, and graphs that you can edit, read, share, update.

Many marketers fancy this marketing tool for its potential to retrieve data from more than 750+ data sets.

8. Google Keyword Planner

Do a quick search online to find the best SEM tools? Can you find a list that does not include Google Keyword Planner? The answer is no. 

It is a simple keyword research tool, but why do many prefer this one. The data you receive comes out from a legit source called Google.

With Google Keyword Planner, you can shortlist relevant keywords that suit your niche without climbing mountains.

This pretty little tool gives you the best bid estimates based on which you can pick the right keywords and budgets to work with. Later you can also launch your marketing campaign with this handy tool.  

9. Google Ads Editor (former Adwords Editor)

This simple, affordable, easily-downloadable Desktop application from Google can:

• Do A-Z for your Google Ads
• Save lots of time for your large marketing campaigns
• Help with bulk changes to several ads
• Do draft mode ad previews before on-air
• Edit or build ads in offline mode
• Let users assign campaigns-specific bid strategies
• Measure and track metrics like CTRs and conversion info

10. HubSpotAds

Do you know that Hubspot offers dedicated software for Ad tracking? With this tool, you make your prospects move down the bottom of the sales funnel.

HubSpotAds, the A-Z ad management tools used for search engine marketing, provides some unique features like

• Ad targeting with automated lists helps your right content reach the right audience.
• Integrates with their CRM tool that helps to pull email data and target them
• Execute ad campaigns on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Google
• Generate lead and ROI from your ad-sharing platforms
• Figure out your audience behavior by looking at those who showed ad-engagements
• CRM generates campaigns data that can be handy enough to determine which ads have the potential to convert the visitors into paying customers

With Hubspot Ads, you can find the ads that work best for your campaigns that boost your entire marketing efforts. 

11. PPC Protect

Well! It is not a keyword research tool, nor does it helps with PPC management. But this best search engine marketing tool has something different to offer from the rest on the list.

What is that? They help you earn the most from your PPC budget. 

How? When a visitor clicks on your PPC ads, you have to spend for it even though they convert or not. With increased web traffic, it is challenging to figure out genuine customers.

But the catch here is that you can identify the authentic customers once they have clicked and you have spent on it. Sounds not good? Right?

To overcome this issue, you can deploy PPC protection for your campaigns that watches every click and stop any proxy or malicious IPs from doing it. It prevents your spending on non-fruitful ones.

12. Unbounce

Do you have high-ranking target keywords? Do you have a best-in-the-industry ad copy? Are you still struggling to earn conversions? There might be some optimization issues with your landing pages.

So, it is now time to welcome Unbounce, which can do wonders for your landing pages like

• Create responsive and conversion-centric landing pages with simple drag and drop features 
• Library of pre-built templates that you can import/copy-paste into your pages via simple integrations
• One-click-publish of landing pages to WordPress site
• Replicate-and-edit previously successful landing pages
• Test run different variations of your landing pages to identify which works better with your audience/visitors
• Simple-to-use script managers that help with easy configuration of goal-tracking with a single click
• Easy to integrate with numerous third-party tools like Hubspot, Hotjar, Google Ads, Gmail, Crazy Egg, Salesforce, Zoho CRM

13. Answer the Public

This simple keyword research tool enables you with keyword analysis to identify the questions the public is querying around Google.

Answer the Public tools help you with content strategies, SEO, and paid search. 

When you know what users are looking for, it lets you create PPC strategies that match them. It, in turn, helps you place bids on more appropriate keywords.

It is a win-win SEM tool that saves you time and improves the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.

14. Optimizely

You cannot expect more from this CRO best friend tool. With Optimizely, you can launch your A/B test directly from your page. The tool monitors and tracks any event on your page. It is the best UI functionality of Optimizely that wins the trust of all marketers.

Whoa! That was a long list of best SEM tools! Let us move into our final section of best practices for search engine marketing tools.

Top 4 Search Engine Marketing Best Practices

The best practices can vary for each campaign. But the undermentioned are a few common ones that you can use wherever applicable:

1. Targeting Right Keywords

With search engine marketing, it does not mean that you have to focus only on conversion. Make sure the same attention goes for targeting the right keywords. Keep high-volume keywords as your target to earn more conversions.

The best practice would be to use long-tail keywords which have narrowed down focus and  

• Are less competitive due to their niche-specificity
• Are cost-effective
• Improves conversion rates
• Increase your Quality Score

2. Step up Audience Targeting

Do you have the right keywords, engagement, and timing? Well! They are not stand-alone factors to attract your prospective customers.

Your goal should be to reach unique visitors through audience targeting. 

How to do it? Let us jump into a few steps.

Step 1: Create buyer personas with the following factors in mind:

• Demographics: 

Gender, age, and location do influence the customers buying preferences.

• Contextual:

Customers perform random searches, so identifying how and when of their search patterns can inspire you to create more influential ad campaigns.

• Behavioral:

Analyzing their past purchase history helps you comprehend the users’ interests around a particular product or service.

Step 2: Pick the best keywords that align customers’ mindsets during each stage of the marketing funnel

• Initiate: 

When customers visit your website for the first time, use the keywords that focus on “whats” and the “benefits” of your product/services.

• Research stage: 

Use keywords like best models or best guides

• Comparison stage: 

Words like features or reviews can hit the sweet spot.

• Transaction stage:

Keywords like discounts and coupons get this stage going.

• Experience stage:

Wordings like support go well with this stage.

3. Conversion-centric Design Principles

When your ad has reached the optimal performance level and earned more customer clicks, the next phase is to go for the best UX design practices. It secures success for your search engine marketing campaigns.

Some conversion-generating best UX practices are as follows:

• Provide your USP in your headline
• Use the best visual hierarchy that grabs the user attention in the desired manner you planned 
• Focus on using contrasting colors for your CTAs that helps earn the required attention to the online forms
• Improve the readability of your copy with bullet points, headers, subheadings, bold, and italics. Like the one, you find in this article.
• Make your form short and easy to fill out. Include any specific instructions for each field (if required) to gather appropriate information
• Come up with the correct placements of images or video content that do not divert the visitor’s attention.
• Ensure the linking ad and the relevant landing pages communicate the same message to the visitors

Adhering to these design principles increases the chances of your prospects taking the desired actions.

4. Frequent Testing and Optimization

There is no shortcut to frame a CRO for your pages. It needs constant testing and optimization to figure out the formula that works for you for that campaign.

Best practices will help you navigate the right path. But they cannot replace testing. 

These tests can bring surprising conversion rates for your ads and pages.

Two types of testing exist: 

• A/B testing 
• Multivariate testing 

The right blend of these two variants can help you discover results that you can deploy for your future marketing campaigns.

Final words

Search engine marketing is not apply-once, and you can see the result for a lifetime kind of technique. It evolves with time, business trends, people’s interests and buying preferences, and many more things. Always go with the software that works best for your business or clients. Focus on long-term results rather than shorter ones. 

Remember, when you provide value to your audience/customers via your products or services, you get conversions in the form of loyal customers. 

That was a list of free and paid SEM tools in the market with a few best practices to help you with the marketing campaigns. 

So, we would like to hear from your side,  What is your pick of these best SEM tools? Did we miss out on any marketing tools here?  Do you want us to include any new ones on this list? What are your thoughts on these best SEM tools?

Whatever be the query, do let us know in the comments section below! 

Happy reading!