Mastering SEO can be difficult, especially if you're just starting out. Luckily, finding the best SEO tools is easy, we've compiled them all on this list. We contacted over 30 SEO experts to find out which SEO software is best and which keyword tracking tools impress SEO experts. You don't need to try all of these tools, you just need to find the one that works best for your business.
Why Use SEO Tools?
SEO tools save you from tedious keyword research and data analysis. With these SEO tools, you're able to see what's working and what parts of your strategy could use some tweaking. The best SEO tools also provide reports on how you stack up against your competitors and where the best opportunities are. Plus, they allow you to measure search performance by country, region, or language.
And that's not all. If you manage multiple websites, SEO tools can help you evaluate the performance of each site on the fly. Many entrepreneurs with multiple websites end up putting a lot of data into spreadsheets and analyzing it manually. But this quickly becomes overwhelming and increases the risk that the reports will be inaccurate. Fortunately, you can use SEO software to save hours of effort and generate accurate reports with one click.
Best SEO Marketing Tools / Search Engine Optimization
1. Ahrefs: SEO Keyword Tool
Ahrefs is one of the most recommended SEO tools online. It is second only to Google in terms of most website crawlers. SEO experts can't get enough of Ahrefs' site auditing feature, as it is the best SEO analysis tool available. The tool highlights the parts of your website that need to be improved in order to get better search engine rankings. From a competitive analysis perspective, you'll probably use Ahrefs to determine your competitors' backlinks to use as a starting point for your own brand. You can also use this SEO tool to find the most related content to your niche, check and fix broken links on your website, and get an overview of your top performing pages (so you know which information attracts the most visitors).
Syed Irfan Ajmal, Growth Marketing Manager at Ridester, loves the Ahrefs keyword tool. He says, "Ahrefs is definitely our favorite tool when it comes to various facets of SEO, such as keyword research, ranking tracking, competitor research, SEO auditing, viral content research, and more. We add our site and those of our competitors. The tool then shows us the sites that have linked to our competitors but not to us. This helps us find great link opportunities. But it wouldn't have been so easy if Ahrefs didn't have the largest database of backlinks. Ahrefs has been instrumental in getting our site ranked for several important keywords, and has helped us reach 350,000 visitors per month."
2. Google Search Console: Best SEO Tool
Available for free to anyone with a website, Google Search Console allows you to monitor and report your website's presence in Google's SERPs. Simply check your website by adding a code to your site or through Google Analytics and you can submit your sitemap for indexing. While you don't need a Search Console account to appear in Google's search results, you can control what is indexed and how your website is represented with this account. As an SEO monitoring tool, Search Console can help you understand how Google and its users perceive your website and allow you to optimize your performance in Google search results. It is especially useful for new websites, as it allows site owners to submit web pages for search indexing.
3. SEMRush: SEO Marketing Tool
SEO marketing tools like SEMRush tend to be fan favorites in the SEO community. Experts like the fact that they allow you to easily evaluate your rankings and identify changes and new ranking opportunities. One of the most popular features of this SEO tool is the Domain vs. Domain analysis, which allows you to easily compare your website to your competitors'. If you're looking for analytical reports to help you better understand your website's search data, traffic, or even your competitors, you'll be able to compare keywords and domains. The On-Page SEO Checker tool allows you to easily monitor your rankings and find recommendations on how to improve your website's performance.
Liraz Postan, Senior SEO & Content Manager at Outbrain, recommends SEMRush as one of the best SEO tools. She says, "My favorite SEO tool is SEMrush with the organic traffic insights feature. This feature allows me to see all of my top articles in one dashboard, with associated keywords, social shares, and word count. This gives me a quick overview of what's working and where to optimize. I generally use SEMrush in my day job, I love the tool and like to use its site audit to optimize the health of our site. We've improved our site health by 100% more since we started using SEMrush, and we've increased conversions by 15% more from our content pages."
4. KWFinder: SEO Keyword Tool
A keyword SEO tool like KWFinder helps you find long-tail keywords that have a low level of competition. Experts use this SEO tool to find the best keywords and produce backlink and SERP (Search Engine Results Page) analysis reports. Their Rank Tracker tool helps you easily determine your ranking while tracking your improvement based on a key metric. Plus, if that's not enough, you'll get a ton of new keyword ideas to help you rank your website even higher.
George Perry, an SEM specialist at Bandwidth, has nothing but praise for KWFinder. "I like the fact that it not only shows me information about the keyword I was looking for, but offers good suggestions for related terms, and how they compare (volume, CPC, difficulty, etc.) to the term I originally looked at. I've been able to help my clients target not only those big vanity terms but also better target terms that are lower in the funnel and more likely to convert, which allows me to target them with targeted content that answers the questions they're actually asking."
5. Moz Pro: SEO Software
Moz Pro SEO software keeps emerging as one of the best SEO tools that experts actually use. Some experts rave about how Moz is always up to date despite Google's regular algorithm changes. Others have praised Moz's chat portal for always getting an insightful answer to every question asked. Whether you're looking for keyword recommendations or site exploration, Moz is a complete service powerhouse. You can get great information on how your site is performing, but also how to improve it. Moz also has a free MozBar toolbar that you can download to see your website metrics while browsing any page. If you're interested in learning more about SEO, you can also check out MozCon, their annual conference.
Keri Lindenmuth's favorite SEO tool, Director of Marketing at Kyle David Group, is none other than Moz Pro. She says, "My favorite feature of the tool is the page optimization feature. It tells you exactly what steps you can take to improve the SEO of each page on your website. For example, it will tell you to include your keyword in the title of that page or add an image with an alt tag containing a keyword. This tool has dramatically improved our clients' business, simply because it offers greater transparency. We can compare their website traffic and optimization to that of their competitors. We can see which pages and search terms their competitors are doing well on and modify our web practices to compete with theirs. Without a tool like Moz, SEO really becomes a guessing game. You have no idea what you're doing well and what you can improve on."
6. Ubersuggest: Keyword Tracking Tool
Ubersuggest, developed by Neil Patel, is a free keyword research tool that helps you identify keywords and also the search intent behind them by showing the top ranked SERPs. From short phrases to long-tail phrases, you can find the right terms to use on your website with hundreds of suggestions from this great free keyword tool. The metrics Ubersuggest includes in its reports are keyword volume, competition, CPC, and seasonal trends. Ideal for both organic and paid search, this tool can help you determine if a keyword is worth targeting and how competitive it is.
7. Answer The Public: Free SEO Tools
Free SEO tools like Answer The Public make it easy to find topics to write about for your blog. I've used this tool in the past to create content around specific keywords to rank better online. Let's say you're in the "fitness" niche. You can use this free SEO tool to create content around keywords such as fitness, yoga, running, Crossfit, exercise, and cover the whole spectrum. It's great for finding featured snippet opportunities. If you hire a freelancer to create content for you, all you have to do is upload this list and send it to them. It will only take you five minutes, making it one of the most effective ways to find SEO topics for new websites.
Matt Jackson, content manager at Wild Shark, loves free SEO tools like AnswerThePublic. He shares, "One of my favorite tools for compiling SEO content for a site is AnswerThePublic.com. The best feature of this tool is that it presents a list of questions that people ask about a particular keyword. If I'm running out of really useful content ideas, or compiling a FAQ page, it provides valuable insight into exactly what people are looking for. This isn't just useful for SEO content, it means our clients can answer questions on their site, minimizing the number of customer service calls they receive and giving more authority to a page and the company as a whole. And here's a little tip: Avoid the neck ache by hitting the data button, rather than straining to read the question wheel."
8. SpyFu: Free SEO Tools
Although SpyFu has an amazing premium version, many of our experts have praised its free features. If you're just starting out, you can easily upgrade to the paid features as you become more successful. You can easily see how many times a keyword is searched for each month while easily determining the ranking difficulty for that keyword. You can also research your competitors to determine what keywords they are using. In addition, you can research your competitor's website or your own to easily see how many organic keywords they have, how many monthly clicks they get, who their paid and organic competitors are, what campaigns they are running with Google Ads, and much more. It is one of the most detailed SEO analysis tools on the market.
Adele Stewart, senior project manager at Sparq Designs, can't get enough of SpyFu SEO software. She says, "I've used SEMrush and Agency Analytics in the past, but SpyFu is a step ahead of my client's competitors. All of SpyFu's features are great, but my favorite is the SEO search feature. You can enter a competitor's domain name and get information about their own SEO strategy. You can see what keywords they are paying for in relation to their organic positions, look at their top keywords, and even evaluate their keyword groups. Using SpyFu has been integral to my clients' SEO success. There is so much more to track and report, and I don't have to do as much research as with other SEO software. SpyFu pulls the information I need and organizes the reports in a way that is presentable and understandable to my clients. I've already seen an increase in indexing and ranking for keywords we hadn't even thought of."
9. Woorank: SEO Ranking Tool
As the best SEO marketing tool, Woorank offers free and paid options to track and report your marketing data. You can plug in your competitors to discover what keywords they are targeting so you can overlap with theirs. Try to understand how keywords perform over time to best optimize for users and search engines. And most importantly, understand what your website is missing, both from a technical and content perspective. Woorank can help you identify duplicate content, downtime, and security issues and provide guidance on how to fix them.
10. Majestic: SEO Marketing Tools
Majestic is one of the best SEO marketing tools according to experts. It has countless useful features, such as The Majestic Million, which allows you to see the ranking of the top one million websites. Has your site been selected? The Site Explorer feature allows you to easily see a general overview of your site and the number of backlinks you have. It also works as a keyword SEO tool to find the best keywords to target, while offering site comparison features and tracking your rankings.
Ryan Scollon, the SEO consultant at RyanScollon.co.uk, recommends the Majestic SEO tool. He says, "My favorite SEO tool is Majestic, whose main feature allows you to check the backlinks of a website you specify. My favorite feature is the ability to add your own client's site and a bunch of competitors, which allows you to easily compare a variety of SEO metrics such as trust flow, number of referring domains, and number of external backlinks. Not only does this help us understand the weaknesses of [the client's optimization], but it also provides a simple chart that we share with our clients, so they can also understand the issues and how they stack up against their competitors. We also use Majestic to audit competitor backlinks, as we can sometimes find a handful of easy opportunities to address before moving on to other link building tactics."
11. Google Trends: SEO Checker Tool
Google Trends has been around for years, but it's underutilized. Not only does it give you information about a keyword, but it also offers insight into the trends around the topic, which can be invaluable at any point in a company's growth. Search for keywords in any country and get information about them, such as the most frequent queries, rising queries, interest over time, and geographic locations by interest. If you're not sure what trends you're interested in, this is the best SEO tool to use.
12. SEOQuake: Free SEO Tools
SEOQuake is considered one of the best free SEO tools. This Chrome extension acts as an SEO auditing tool that performs on-page site audits, evaluates your internal and external links, and also does website comparisons to determine how you are performing against your competitors. Other features of this SEO analysis tool include keyword analysis such as keyword density, an easy-to-read SEO dashboard, and an export feature that allows you to easily download and send data to key people on your team.
Brin Chartier, a digital marketing expert and SEO content creator, loves the free SEO tool SEOQuake. She says, "I love a good browser extension, and SEOquake is the best free SEO tool for getting instant SEO metrics on any website or SERP. I can instantly perform an on-page SEO audit for myself or my competitors, and the SERP overlay feature is an awesome visualization of key page metrics that I can export to CSV and share with my team. This tool saves me hours of manual work that I can use to get things done by creating SEO optimized content."
13. Siteliner: SEO Analysis Tool
Siteliner is an SEO checker that helps you find duplicate content on your website. What is duplicate content? Content that is identical to that of other websites. And Google penalizes sites that contain it. With SEO tools like this one, you'll be able to analyze your entire website to find duplicate content, broken links, average page size and speed, number of internal links per page, etc. It also compares your website to the average of websites checked with this tool to help you better understand where you stand.
Tieece Gordon, a search engine marketing specialist at Kumo Digital, recommends the Siteliner SEO tool. He explains, "Siteliner is one of my favorite SEO tools when I'm faced with a new site. Identifying and resolving potential issues almost automatically improves quality and value, reduces cannibalization, and adds more context to a specific page if done correctly, which is the very reason to use this tool. For a free tool (with the paid version offering more possibilities) that offers the possibility to check for duplication levels, broken links, and reasons why pages were ignored (robots, no-index, etc.), we can't complain. The key feature of Siteliner, which I have never encountered, is the duplicate content table. It simply and easily presents URLs, matching words, percentages, and pages. And since it's smart enough to ignore pages with no-index tags, it's a safe bet that most pages with a high percentage need to be addressed. I've seen a lot of e-commerce sites that rely on manufacturer descriptions, service sites that want to target multiple domains with the same text, and sites with pages that are just plain thin - sometimes a combination of those things too. I've found that adding valuable, unique content has improved rankings and, as a result, sessions, and conversions for customers. This is all thanks to Siteliner. It may not be the enterprise software that promises the world, but its simplicity is perfect."
14. Fat Rank: SEO Tools
Chrome SEO extensions like Fat Rank allow you to easily analyze the performance of your website. This keyword SEO tool allows you to see how your keywords are ranking. You can add keywords to your search to see your rank per page for each keyword you've optimized for. If you are not in the top 100 results, the tool tells you that you are not ranked for that keyword. This information allows you to better optimize your website for that keyword and make any necessary adjustments.
Project Build Construction SEO expert Blake Aylott's favorite free SEO tool is one that no one really talks about. "The SEO tool is called Fatrank. It's a Chrome extension that shows the rank of any search query you type in for a URL, as long as you're on that URL. If I need to know how I'm currently ranking for a keyword, I can just type it in and see. It's extremely accurate and lives. This tool is a lifesaver for me when clients want to know their current ranking for something, and I can tell them with 100% accuracy. Fat Rank is free and should be part of every SEO's arsenal of tools."
15. Keywords Everywhere: SEO Keyword Tool
Keywords Everywhere is another great Chrome extension for SEO that aggregates data from various SEO tools such as Google Analytics, Search Console, Google Trends, and more to help you find the best keywords for your rankings. Free SEO tools like these simplify the process of determining the best keywords for your website. So instead of checking multiple websites every day, you can use this one tool that will save you a lot of time.
Eagan Heath, an owner of Get Found Madison, is a big fan of the Keywords Everywhere SEO tool, a Chrome extension. He explains, "This tool allows me and my clients to see the monthly volume of keyword searches in the U.S. directly from Google, which is great for coming up with blog topic ideas. It also allows you to bulk upload keyword lists and see the data, which Google now hides behind huge ranges unless you pay for Google Ads. Amazing value for a free tool!"
16. Screaming Frog: SEO Tools Online
Ribbit, Ribbit. Screaming Frog is considered by experts as one of the best SEO tools online. They love the time they save with this tool that scans your website very quickly to perform site audits. In fact, every single person we spoke to said that the speed at which Screaming Frog gives you information is faster than most online SEO tools. This tool also informs you of duplicate content, errors that need to be fixed, bad redirects, and areas that need improvement for link building. The SEO Spider tool is considered the best feature by top SEO experts.
Jon Hoffer, director of content at Fractl, loves the Screaming Frog SEO tool. He says, "I couldn't do my job without it. It allows me to scan client and competitor sites and get a bird's eye view of what's going on. I can see if pages are returning 404 errors, find word counts, get a list of all the title and H1 tags, and analytics data all in one place. At a glance, I can find quick fixes and see which pages are driving traffic. Maybe meta descriptions are missing, title tags are duplicated across the site, or someone accidentally unindexed some pages - it's all there. I also like the ability to extract some data from the pages. Recently I was working on a directory and needed to know the number of listings on each page. I was able to extract that information with Screaming Frog and look at it alongside the analytics data. It's great to know what competitors actually have on their sites. It's great for content ideas. Overall, Screaming Frog allows me to do a quick audit and understand what's going on. It reveals easy win opportunities and actionable insights. I can determine if site migrations have gone smoothly, which is usually not the case. With the inclusion of traffic data, I am also able to prioritize tasks."
17. Serpstat: All-in-one SEO platform
Serpstat is a growth-hacking platform for SEO, PPC, and content marketing purposes. If you are looking for an affordable all-in-one tool to solve SEO tasks, analyze competitors and manage your team, Serpstat will be a great choice. Many experts are now turning to this tool, as it has collected keyword and competitor analysis data for all Google regions in the world. Moreover, Serpstat is known for its impressive features. The most popular is the "Missing Keywords" feature, which identifies keywords for which your competitors are ranking in the top 10 search results, but you are not.
Dan Taylor, senior technical SEO consultant, and account manager at SALT.agency, switched to Serpstat after trying other tools: "I've used a lot of keyword research and analysis tools over the years I've worked in digital marketing, and a lot of them have become really ineffective and tried to diversify into different things, losing sight of what people primarily use the tool for. Serpstat is a great tool for research, performance tracking, and monitoring multiple data points. It is also user-friendly, and the fact that it allows multi-user on the third level is a game-changer. To sum up, Serpstat is a great addition to the suite of tools we use and is a high performance, lower cost, and lower waste alternative to other popular platforms."
18. Bonus Tool: Incognito
Switching to Incognito mode and doing Google searches will give you unbiased, "clean" searches that allow you to understand what your user is seeing and what results they are getting when they search for keywords. Using the auto-fill options will give you semantic keyword suggestions to use. Among the best free SEO tools, the "Incognito" search is useful because it lets you know where you really stand on a results page for a certain term.
Conclusion
The best SEO tools on this list are gold. They give you information that would otherwise take ages to generate. That said, you're going to have to work hard to get the results you want. That means producing SEO optimized content, rewriting all your product descriptions, and using what you've learned from these SEO tools to make adjustments. Check out this SEO checklist to make sure all the bases are covered. If you're on a budget, most of these tools offer free features or trial versions. Try them out. Do it. Find out what you need to improve to rank higher in the SERPs. And follow the tool's suggestions to get your growth off the ground. Your success depends on you. Take the next step.
