SEO research, crawling and monitoring
- Ahrefs — keyword research, backlink data and competitor analysis. My first stop for what a market actually searches for and who already ranks for it. Used in every keyword research engagement.
- Semrush — a second opinion on keyword and competitor data, plus position tracking. Two tools disagree often enough that checking both changes decisions.
- Screaming Frog — desktop crawler. The workhorse for technical SEO: redirect chains, broken links, duplicate titles, orphan pages, and crawling a staging site before a migration goes live.
- Sitebulb — crawling with clearer visualisation and prioritisation than a raw export, which makes it the better tool when the output has to be read by a client rather than by me.
- Google Search Console — the only source of truth for how Google actually treats your site: indexing, queries, clicks and Core Web Vitals from real users. Free, and the first access I ask for on any SEO audit.
- Google Business Profile — for local businesses, the profile itself is a ranking asset. See Google Business Profile optimization.
Paid media
- Google Ads Editor — bulk building and editing offline. Restructuring an account, adding hundreds of negatives or rewriting ad groups is done here, then uploaded, rather than clicked through the web interface.
- Meta Ads Manager — campaign management for Facebook and Instagram, with the Meta Pixel Helper browser extension for confirming events fire as intended.
- Optmyzr — rule-based checks and bulk optimization on larger Google Ads accounts, where the volume of routine changes justifies the licence.
The channel pages describe how these are used day to day: Google Ads management and Meta Ads management.
Measurement and reporting
- Google Analytics 4 — behaviour and conversion data, configured with events that match the business rather than the defaults. Setup is GA4 setup.
- Google Tag Manager — every tag and event goes through GTM, including server-side setups and the Conversions API, so tracking is maintainable and does not need a developer for each change. See Google Tag Manager setup.
- Looker Studio — the monthly report, built on your own GA4, Search Console and ad platform data, leading with enquiries and cost per enquiry. See dashboards and reporting.
- Supermetrics — connectors for pulling platform data into reports where the native connectors are not enough.
- CallRail — call tracking for businesses whose leads arrive by phone, so calls are counted as conversions instead of disappearing.
How the whole measurement layer fits together is on analytics and tracking. If you are not sure whether yours is trustworthy, the free tracking audit checks it.
Website and content
- WordPress — the platform behind almost every site I build or maintain, on a light theme and the block editor rather than a heavy page builder. See WordPress development.
- Rank Math or Yoast — whichever the site already runs, for titles, descriptions, schema and sitemaps. Neither does SEO for you; both stop you forgetting the basics.
Automation
- n8n — self-hosted workflow automation, the default when data should not sit on a third-party service or when the volume would be expensive elsewhere. See n8n automation.
- Make — visual workflows with more branching than a simple trigger and action, used where a client prefers a hosted tool. See Make automation.
- Zapier — the fastest way to connect two apps that already have connectors, and the right choice for small volumes. See Zapier automation.
Typical uses: routing a lead from an ad form into a CRM with an alert, assembling the monthly report, and moving enquiry data between systems that were never designed to talk. That is described on marketing automation and reporting automation.
Which of these you should pay for yourself
| Tool | Who should own the account | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics 4, Search Console, Tag Manager | You | They hold your historical data; a consultant who owns them owns your history |
| Google Ads, Meta Ads accounts | You | Account history, learning and billing should stay with the business |
| Google Business Profile | You | It is your business listing, and recovering access from a third party is painful |
| Ahrefs, Semrush, Screaming Frog, Sitebulb | Me | Research licences; there is no reason for you to pay for them separately |
| CallRail, Optmyzr, Supermetrics | Depends | Owned by whoever will still be using them next year |
This is not a technicality. The most common damage I see when taking over an account is not bad campaign structure but lost access: analytics under a former agency’s email, a Business Profile nobody can claim, years of conversion history gone.
What I do not use, and why
- Automated audit generators that produce a 90-page PDF of warnings. They list everything and prioritise nothing, which is the opposite of useful.
- Rank-tracking dashboards as the main report. Rankings are evidence, not the outcome. A report that leads with keyword positions is usually hiding the enquiry numbers.
- Link marketplaces and private blog networks. They buy links that work until they do not, and the cleanup costs more than the links did. My approach is on link building.
- Tools nobody will maintain. A clever workflow that only I understand is a liability the day the engagement ends.
Free tools on this site
I have built a few small calculators and checkers so you can do specific jobs without a subscription: a Google Ads budget calculator, a ROAS calculator, a UTM builder and a meta title and description checker. The full set is on the free tools page, and the checklists that go with them are in resources.
A tool is not a strategy
Every tool here is available to anyone with a card. What decides the outcome is which question you point it at and what you do with the answer. If you want a second opinion on the stack you are paying for, or on whether your tracking can be trusted, get in touch for a free 30-minute call. I reply within 4 business hours on business days. More about how I work is on the about page.
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