When you open five SEO tools, you will almost certainly get five lists of problems. One wants a shorter title, another more copy, a third a link, and a fourth flags something in red that means nothing to your business.
SEO is not a competition to collect green check marks. A tool should answer a specific question: can Google find an important page, what does it rank for, what do people search for, where does the site fail, and what is worth fixing first?
1. Google Search Console: what is really happening in search
Search Console is my starting point. It shows clicks, impressions, queries, pages, and indexing issues. URL Inspection lets you check a specific URL and test the live version. Google also notes that the Performance report does not show every anonymised query and some reports use samples. See the official description of Search Console data.
Practical questions:
- Which important pages have high impressions and weak CTR?
- For which unexpected queries does the website appear?
- Which URLs does Google consider canonical?
- Has the whole site, a cluster, or a single page declined?
Search Console is not analytics of behaviour on the website. I explain how to connect both views in the article on Google Analytics 4.
2. Google Trends: is the website changing, or demand?
A drop in clicks does not have to mean a technical error. A trend or season may have ended. Google recommends comparing Search Console queries with Trends when investigating organic-traffic drops. Its diagnostic procedure for drops distinguishes a change in positions, interest, a technical problem, and a search update.
Trends shows relative interest, not an exact number of searches. Compare topics in the same region and period, and watch for different meanings of the same word.
3. Keyword Planner: ideas and rough demand, not a content plan
Google Ads Keyword Planner can find ideas from words or a website, filter them, and work with location and period. The current procedure is in the official Keyword Planner help.
The data is primarily intended for advertising. Competition means advertising competition, not organic SEO difficulty. Grouped volumes are not accounting either. I use them to expand vocabulary and compare orders of magnitude, then verify queries in Search Console, the SERP, and customer conversations.
4. Sklik Keyword Suggestions: a second Czech perspective
For the Czech market, it makes sense to complement Google with Sklik data. Not to glue the numbers into one "exact" volume, but to discover different wording and seasonal differences. Sort results by intent: information, comparison, purchase, support.
5. PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse: why a page is slow or hard to use
PageSpeed Insights combines available field data with laboratory diagnostics. Lighthouse helps uncover particular technical causes. The score itself is not the goal. More important is whether the main content appears quickly, the page responds, and nothing jumps around during loading.
web.dev summarises current Core Web Vitals and the difference between measurement of real users and a laboratory. You can find a specific repair process in the article on technical website checks.
6. Chrome DevTools: evidence instead of assumptions
In the Network, Performance, and Console tabs, you can find what loads, what blocks the main thread, and where an error occurs. DevTools are not an "SEO tool" in the catalogue sense. They are, however, the best way to verify that a problem really exists.
- Filter failed requests and large files.
- Enable a slower mobile profile.
- Look for long JavaScript tasks.
- Check layout shifts and the main LCP element.
7. Rich Results Test and Schema Markup Validator
Rich Results Test verifies which supported rich results a page may be eligible for. Schema Markup Validator verifies general Schema.org validity. Google distinguishes both tools in its structured-data testing documentation.
Valid markup is not a promise of display. And markup must not claim something that is not on the page — for example, a rating without real reviews.
8. Your own spreadsheet: where the decision is made
I put exports into one spreadsheet with the URL, topic, intent, clicks, impressions, business role, content state, and recommended action. Only here can data be connected to what the company sells. A tool knows the page. It does not know your priorities.
A process without the tool circus
- In Search Console, choose an important page or cluster.
- Record queries, clicks, impressions, and trend.
- Verify indexing and the canonical URL.
- Review the actual search result and intent.
- Measure technical issues only where they can slow users down.
- Propose one change and a metric by which you will evaluate it.
- Wait for enough data; do not change the page every third day.
What a free tool will not decide
It will not tell you whether a topic matters commercially, whether you have the right to speak about it authoritatively, or whether a new article should be created. It does not know margin, team capacity, or lead quality. I therefore always translate a tool recommendation into impact: what happens if we fix the error, what will it cost, and how will we recognise the result?
If you are starting with SEO, continue with SEO for beginners. For a systematic review, go through the online marketing checklist. And if you have ten reports but no clear work order, you can describe the situation you need to decide.