The money is about to leave your account and you want to know which SEO tool earns it first. Maybe you run a client site, maybe it’s your own small business, maybe it’s a blog you write at night. Either way, the question is the same: which of these subscriptions actually moves a ranking, and which one just looks busy?
The best SEO tools in 2026: Surfer for content optimization, Google Search Console for free first-party data, Semrush for all-in-one SEO, Ahrefs for backlinks, SE Ranking for multi-site work, Screaming Frog for technical crawls and Mangools for cheap keyword research. Each one wins a specific job, and knowing the job is what stops you overpaying.
I’m Fassih Fayyaz, an SEO specialist and web designer who has worked in agency, consulting and freelance roles since 2017. Ahrefs, Semrush, Screaming Frog and Google Search Console are open on my screen most working days, so when I talk about how a crawl or a rank report behaves, that comes from real use. Everything else here is written from the vendor’s own documentation, pricing pages and public user discussion.
You’ll finish this with a clear pick for each job, what it costs, where it stops and who should skip it. Connections between tools matter too, so I’ve noted where one replaces another and where a free option gets you 80% of the way.
Nobody paid to be in this list, and recommendations never follow commission rates. Every tool gets a real downside, including the ones I use daily, and I only claim the experience I can back up. Some links below are affiliate links, which never change what I recommend or how I describe it.
Quick Comparison / Summary
The table sets out every tool in rank order with the category it belongs to, the job it does best, the score as a plain number and how to start using it.
| # | Tool | Category | Best use case | Our score | Visit tool |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Surfer | Content optimization | Optimizing and auditing content against the pages that already rank | 100/100 | Try it → |
| 2 | Google Search Console | Free Google tools | Reading first-party Google data and getting pages indexed | 88/100 | Try free |
| 3 | Semrush | All-in-one SEO platforms | Running the whole SEO workflow from one paid platform | 85/100 | Try it → |
| 4 | Ahrefs | Backlink and competitor analysis | Auditing backlinks and reverse-engineering competitor sites | 83/100 | Try it → |
| 5 | SE Ranking | All-in-one SEO platforms | Managing several client sites and local rankings from one dashboard | 71/100 | Try it → |
| 6 | Screaming Frog | Technical SEO and site auditing | Crawling a site for technical issues | 67/100 | Try free |
| 7 | AnswerThePublic | Keyword and question research | Visual question research across search and social | 65/100 | Try free |
| 8 | Google Autocomplete | Free Google tools | Finding long-tail search intent for free | 52/100 | Try free |
| 9 | KeySearch | All-in-one SEO platforms | Getting paid SEO features on a small budget | 49/100 | Try it → |
| 10 | AirOps | AI writing and assistants | Automating content production workflows at scale | 48/100 | Try it → |
| 11 | AlsoAsked | Keyword and question research | Turning People Also Ask data into headings | 48/100 | Try free |
| 12 | Clearscope | Content optimization | Scoring content coverage for editorial teams | 47/100 | Try it → |
| 13 | Nightwatch | Rank tracking and reporting | Accurate local and multi-location rank tracking | 47/100 | Try it → |
| 14 | Google Keyword Planner | Free Google tools | Checking search volume and CPC against Google’s own data | 46/100 | Try free |
| 15 | SimilarWeb | Backlink and competitor analysis | Sizing a competitor’s traffic mix | 45/100 | Try free |
| 16 | Webflow | Site building and CMS | Building an SEO-ready site without plugins | 44/100 | Try free |
| 17 | Answer Socrates | Keyword and question research | Bulk question discovery and clustering on a budget | 35/100 | Try free |
| 18 | Gumloop | SEO automation | Building no-code AI workflows across the SEO stack | 35/100 | Try free |
| 19 | Mangools | Keyword and question research | Simple keyword research for solo owners | 29/100 | Try it → |
| 20 | Jasper | AI writing and assistants | AI drafting inside a guided SEO workflow | 23/100 | Try it → |
| 21 | Bing Webmaster Tools | Technical SEO and site auditing | Free technical diagnostics and Bing/ChatGPT visibility | 19/100 | Try free |
| 22 | BuzzSumo | Content research and trends | Finding what content performs in a niche | 19/100 | Try it → |
| 23 | ChatGPT | AI writing and assistants | Ideation, troubleshooting and drafting | 19/100 | Try free |
| 24 | Claude (Anthropic) | AI writing and assistants | Proofreading and sharpening drafts | 19/100 | Try free |
| 25 | Google Analytics 4 | Free Google tools | Measuring traffic sources and AI referrals | 19/100 | Try free |
| 26 | Google Trends | Free Google tools | Comparing demand between similar keywords | 19/100 | Try free |
| 27 | Keywords Everywhere | Keyword and question research | Seeing keyword metrics inside search results | 19/100 | Try free |
| 28 | Looker Studio | Free Google tools | Building client-facing SEO dashboards | 19/100 | Try free |
| 29 | ProductRank.ai | AI visibility tracking | Checking brand visibility inside AI assistants | 19/100 | Try free |
| 30 | Respona | Backlink and digital PR | Outsourcing link building and tracking AI mentions | 19/100 | Try it → |
| 31 | Ubersuggest | All-in-one SEO platforms | Cheap everyday SEO basics for beginners | 19/100 | Try it → |
Use it to shortlist the two or three tools that match the job you’re paying for, then read the matching entry for the real workflow, the price limit and the honest downside before you buy.
Which SEO tools are actually worth using?
The tools worth using are the ones that answer a job you have right now: Surfer scores content against the pages already ranking, Google Search Console gives you Google’s own data for free, Semrush runs the whole workflow in one login, Ahrefs audits backlinks, SE Ranking handles multiple sites, Screaming Frog crawls technical problems and Mangools keeps keyword research cheap.
Five tools carry most of the value: Surfer for content scoring, Google Search Console for free first-party data, Semrush for one all-in-one platform, Ahrefs for backlinks, and SE Ranking for multi-site work. Google Search Console costs nothing, and every paid platform here runs a free entry point, so the no-cost path starts there and works down through the free tiers.
31 Best SEO Tools
Here are the list of 31 best tools for seo:
1. Surfer — Best for scoring content against ranking pages
Surfer is a content optimization platform that scores a draft against the pages currently ranking for its target keyword, and it now tracks visibility inside AI answers as well. It replaces the manual teardown of ten competitor pages with a scored outline, so a writer can see which terms, subtopics and section lengths the top pages share before a single sentence is written.
The daily workflow starts with a content report. You enter the target keyword, and Surfer builds an outline from the ranking pages along with the terms and questions they cover. From there you write inside the Content Editor, where the Content Score moves as you add sections, and you use the recommended terms list as a checklist rather than a script. Coverage Booster fills the subtopics the ranking pages cover and you missed, Auto Optimize rewrites weak sections, and the Topical Map shows how a cluster of pages should relate. Content Audit runs against pages you already published and shows where each one falls short of what ranks today, which is the part I find most useful on an older site. When a page has drifted for a year, the audit points to the exact missing subtopics instead of a vague instruction to update it.
There is a real trap here. Surfer assumes the SEO fundamentals are already in place, and on a page that isn’t close to competitive, a perfect score doesn’t carry the ranking. Community discussion on r/SEO and r/DigitalMarketing makes the same point from the writer’s side: chasing a high optimization score produces robotic, repetitive copy, and the score stopped being a ranking guarantee once Google’s models got better at judging intent and originality. There are no technical crawling or backlink tools here either, so Surfer can’t replace an audit suite. On price, the vendor’s own tiers run from Discovery at $49 a month to Pro at $182 a month, with a Peace of Mind tier at $299 for unlimited documents. That is a genuine monthly cost for a brand-new site with five pages. It suits writers and content teams who publish often enough to need one standard for the outline and the draft.
Key features
- Content Editor with a live optimization score
- Content reports built from the pages currently ranking
- Content Audit for pages already published
- Coverage Booster, Auto Optimize and the Surfy AI assistant
- Topical Map and keyword clustering
- Google Docs and WordPress integrations
Pros
- Content reports come from the pages currently ranking, not from guesswork
- The live score gives a writer feedback while drafting
- Content Audit revives existing pages instead of only helping new ones
- Google Docs and WordPress integrations fit an existing editorial process
Cons
- It assumes SEO fundamentals; on a weak page, no score carries the ranking
- There are no technical crawling or backlink tools
- The entry plan is a real monthly cost for a one-page or brand-new site
2. Google Search Console — Best for first-party Google search data
Google Search Console is Google’s own reporting surface for a verified site: the queries it ranks for, clicks and impressions, index coverage, Core Web Vitals and page experience. It is the only source of first-party performance data straight from Google, which makes it the reference every third-party estimate gets checked against.
The workflow is straightforward once a property is verified. The Performance tab filtered by query, page, country and device shows which pages earn impressions with few clicks, and that combination is the fastest way to find a title and description worth rewriting. The compare view across two date ranges exposes pages quietly losing traffic, which is usually how a refresh gets scheduled before the drop gets expensive. Submit the sitemap, then use URL Inspection to request indexing after publishing or fixing a page. Index Coverage and Core Web Vitals show what Google excludes or scores slow. For a five-page site, the Performance tab and the sitemap submission are the two screens that matter most.
The limits are worth knowing up front. Data lags 24 to 48 hours and arrives with sampling, so this is not a real-time monitor, and the interface is not built for browsing 10,000 queries without an export. It reports only your own verified properties, so it shows nothing about a competitor’s queries or links, and there’s a 16-month history cap in the interface. It suits any site that wants the ground truth on its own Google performance, and it’s the first thing I connect on a new property.
Key features
- Query, page, country and device performance filters
- URL Inspection and indexing requests
- Sitemap submission
- Index Coverage reporting
- Core Web Vitals and page experience reports
Pros
- The only first-party source of Google query, click and impression data
- Free for every verified property
- Indexing requests and sitemap submission live in the same place
Cons
- Data lags 24 to 48 hours and arrives with sampling, so it is not a real-time monitor
- It reports only your own verified properties, so competitor queries and links are invisible
3. Semrush — Best for running the whole SEO workflow
Semrush is the broadest all-in-one SEO platform here: keyword research, backlink analysis, technical audits, rank tracking, content tools and competitive research in one login. One subscription covers jobs that would otherwise need three or four separate tools, and its Position Tracking and Domain Overview make competitor research fast enough to do on a Monday morning.
Set up Position Tracking with your domain and keyword list, and you get daily positions with 30-day movement. Run Domain Overview on a competitor to read Authority Score, organic and paid traffic and backlink counts, then click any metric for the full report behind it. Site Audit handles technical health, Keyword Magic builds the keyword list, and ContentShake covers drafting. Once the data is in, the reporting tools build something a client can read without a translator. As a daily tool, the honest summary is that it does all four core jobs from one login: keyword research, competitor insight, technical audits and rank tracking.
The trade-off is breadth itself. The interface has a real learning curve for a beginner, and the feature set is overkill for a casual blogger with one small site. The entry plan caps the number of projects, and the cost is hard to justify unless most of the toolkit actually gets used. Vendor pricing runs from a $117.33 monthly entry tier billed annually up to $455.67 for Advanced, with toolkits like Local, Content and AI Visibility priced separately, so the bill grows faster than the plan name suggests. Community sentiment captured in the bundle’s notes lands on the same three points: comprehensive data and useful PPC insight, a high price, and occasional accuracy limits and feature bloat. It suits a team or freelancer who wants one broad platform and will use most of it.
Key features
- Position Tracking and Domain Overview
- Backlink analytics and gap analysis
- Site Audit with prioritised issues
- Keyword research and Keyword Magic
- ContentShake and content tools
- Client-ready reporting
Pros
- Covers keyword, backlink, audit, rank and content jobs in one account
- Domain Overview makes competitor research fast
- A large tutorial and academy library shortens the learning curve
- Reporting works for clients and stakeholders
Cons
- The interface is broad and takes time to learn
- It is overkill and overpriced for a casual blogger with one small site
- The entry plan caps projects, so the cost bites unless most of the toolkit gets used
4. Ahrefs — Best for auditing backlinks and competitor sites
Ahrefs is an SEO platform built around Site Explorer, which holds one of the largest independent link indexes, and Site Audit, which checks a site for on-page and technical issues. It shows the referring domains, anchor text and link growth behind a competitor, which is the evidence a link-building plan needs if it’s going to be more than a wish list.
In Site Explorer, a domain returns referring domains, Domain Rating, anchor distribution and a link-type split. Compare your domain with two competitors and Link Intersect lists the domains that link to them and not to you, which is a prospecting list you can work immediately. Site Audit runs a crawl and returns an issue list ordered by urgency, with each issue carrying an explanation and a fix. Keywords Explorer handles the keyword and topic side of the work. The AI-search mention tracking that Ahrefs added is the feature I’d check monthly rather than daily, but it exists in the same place as the link data.
The problems are price and precision. The subscription is one of the most expensive in this list, and the jump to unlimited credits at the Standard tier is the one that actually frees up research. Rank tracking is less accurate than a dedicated tracker, traffic estimates drift away from first-party analytics, and credit limits on the entry tier constrain any heavy week. It suits backlink research and technical site health on one account, and it’s a daily tool for me precisely because those two jobs don’t separate well.
Key features
- Site Explorer backlink index
- Site Audit with a Health Score and fix guidance
- Keywords Explorer
- Rank Tracker
- AI-search mention tracking
Pros
- One of the most accurate independent link indexes
- Site Audit explains and prioritises each issue
- Site Explorer covers links, anchors and history in one view
- Frequent feature releases, including AI-mention tracking
Cons
- The subscription is one of the most expensive here and jumps sharply between tiers
- Rank tracking is less accurate than dedicated trackers and traffic estimates drift
- Credit limits on the entry tier constrain heavy research
5. SE Ranking — Best for managing multiple client sites
SE Ranking is an all-in-one SEO platform built around multi-site management, with keyword research, rank tracking, audits, backlinks and a local marketing module. It puts every client site and its local visibility in one dashboard at a price that undercuts the premium suites, which is exactly what a freelancer with six retainers needs.
Add each site or business location, then open the Local Marketing tab for directory presence, average Google rating and a local performance score. Keyword positions can be tracked from a single pin or across a map grid, so a hyper-local query shows its real position by neighborhood rather than a national average. The Local Marketing Audit sorts issues into errors, warnings and notices so you can clear the fixing in order, and the Pro plan’s LLM tracker checks how the brand appears in AI answers. A cleaner interface than Semrush is the other thing clients notice when you share a screen.
The catch is scale. The pricing only makes sense from about three to five sites upward, and a single-site owner gets very little from a structure built for agencies. Rank-tracking accuracy is not the strongest in this category and has drawn user complaints about data consistency, so treat a single day’s number with suspicion and watch the trend instead. Coverage is roughly 80% of what Ahrefs or Semrush offers at a fraction of the cost, which is a fair description rather than a criticism. It suits agencies and freelancers with multiple clients.
Key features
- Multi-project dashboard
- Local Marketing module with grid tracking
- Local Marketing Audit
- Rank tracking and client reporting
- Backlink analysis
- LLM tracker
Pros
- Built for managing many sites and clients
- Local grid tracking shows hyper-local positions
- The Local Marketing Audit splits errors, warnings and notices
- LLM tracker covers AI answers
Cons
- The pricing only makes sense from about three to five sites upward
- Rank-tracking accuracy is not the strongest and has drawn user complaints
- A single-site owner gets little from a structure built for agencies
6. Screaming Frog — Best for deep technical site crawls
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a desktop crawler that walks a site the way a search engine does and reports broken links, redirects, duplicate content, metadata problems, status codes and structured data. It finds the technical faults that suppress rankings and stay invisible in a page-by-page check, and it works on any site regardless of CMS.
You enter the URL, launch the crawl, and read the Issues tab for prioritised problems. Filter the URL list by status code to find 404s and redirect chains in bulk, then validate structured data and check titles, headings and meta descriptions across thousands of URLs at once. Connect Google Analytics, Google Search Console and PageSpeed to enrich the crawl with engagement, performance and query data, or schedule recurring crawls so a regression shows up the week it lands. The four checks I run on every audit are pages more than three clicks deep, pages with fewer than five internal links, poor engagement-rate pages, and zero-performance pages with no impressions, traffic or backlinks.
The interface looks like a spreadsheet and won’t hold your hand, so the data needs technical judgement to interpret. The free tier stops at 500 URLs, which a medium site exceeds within a single crawl, and the paid licence is £199 a year per user with JavaScript rendering on the paid tier. It’s a desktop download, so there’s no browser version to fall back on from a borrowed laptop. It suits technical audits of any size of site, provided someone on the other end knows what to do with the output.
Key features
- Full-site crawling with configurable settings
- Issues tab with prioritised errors
- Structured data validation
- JavaScript rendering on the paid tier
- Scheduled crawls
- Google Analytics, Search Console and PageSpeed integrations
Pros
- Finds technical issues a page-by-page check misses
- The free tier covers small sites completely
- Structured data validation and bulk metadata checks
- Crawls any CMS or stack
Cons
- The interface is dense and the data needs technical judgement to interpret
- The free tier stops at 500 URLs, which a medium site exceeds quickly
- It is a desktop download, so it does not run in a browser
7. AnswerThePublic — Best for visual question and FAQ research
AnswerThePublic turns a keyword into a visual map of the questions people ask, grouped by question word and preposition. It shows the whole question space around a topic in one view, which is faster than collecting People Also Ask boxes by hand across a dozen searches.
Enter a keyword and read the wheel by how, what, where, who, when and why. The questions that map closest to your topic become article sections or FAQ entries, and the preposition chart catches the comparison and “versus” phrasing people type when they’re deciding between two products. The paid metrics view adds volume and CPC so you can prioritise which questions deserve a full section instead of one line. It runs against Instagram, Amazon, YouTube, Bing and TikTok as well as Google, which is useful when the product lives on a marketplace rather than a blog.
Two honest limits. The visual format gets crowded on broad keywords, so a head term returns a wheel you’ll scroll for a while. The free plan shows little per-keyword volume data, which means the free version tells you which questions exist but not which ones matter commercially, and three searches a day runs out in a single sitting. It’s a question-discovery tool, not a rank tracker or an audit suite, so don’t buy it expecting anything else. Individual plans start at $11 a month and every plan carries a 7-day trial. It suits fast question and FAQ research for a writer who already knows the topic.
Key features
- Question wheel by query type
- Preposition and alphabetical charts
- PAA questions compiled into one view
- Multi-source discovery across Google and social platforms
- Volume and CPC on paid plans
Pros
- The question wheel makes the whole question space visible at once
- Covers Google plus social and marketplace platforms
- PAA questions compiled into a single view
- Cheap entry plan with a trial
Cons
- The visual format gets crowded on broad keywords
- The free plan shows little per-keyword volume data
- It is a question-discovery tool, not a rank tracker or audit suite
8. Google Autocomplete — Best for free long-tail keyword ideas
Google Autocomplete is the suggestion list Google shows while a query is being typed, and it exposes the next words real searchers use after a seed term. It turns a plain search box into a long-tail keyword source without a subscription, a login or a single credit.
Open an incognito window so personal and location history don’t skew the suggestions, then type a seed keyword and record what appears. Adding letters from a to z widens the list considerably, and adding question words like “how” or “why” turns the same seed into question phrasing. When a suggestion reveals an angle you hadn’t considered, run it back through the box to see the next layer. Pair the list with Google Keyword Planner or another volume source afterward to separate real demand from phrasing that only looks interesting.
The data is unstable by design. Suggestions change with location, language and time, so a list captured in one session is a snapshot rather than a fixed set, and two people in two cities see different results for the same term. There is no volume, no difficulty and no export. It’s an idea source that still needs validation, and it suits free long-tail keyword discovery rather than a complete research process.
Key features
- Live query suggestions
- Long-tail discovery by seed and prefix
- No account required
- Region and language variation built in
Pros
- Free long-tail ideas from real searches
- No account or setup
- Reveals the wording searchers actually use
Cons
- Suggestions change with location, language and time, so a captured list is not stable
- There is no volume, difficulty or export, so the ideas still need validation
Use Google Autocomplete free →
9. KeySearch — Best for budget all-in-one SEO research
KeySearch is a budget all-in-one tool covering keyword research, competitor and backlink analysis, rank tracking and SERP analysis, using the Moz link API for authority metrics. It gives a beginner most of the daily research jobs at a fraction of a suite price, which is why it tends to stay in a stack even after a bigger tool arrives.
Start in the keyword tool with a seed term, filter by difficulty, and pull a list to write against. The SERP analysis view shows who ranks for a term and how strong their pages are, which is the check that stops you writing into a fight you can’t win. Add the target keywords to rank tracking, then open the competitor and backlink reports for link ideas. YouTube research sits alongside the web data, which is useful if the same content runs on both.
The trade-offs are real. The interface is dated and some features respond slowly, and support is thin because the team is small. Coverage is the common research jobs rather than the full depth of a premium suite, so a serious backlink campaign still needs something else. Starter runs $24 a month for 200 keyword searches a day, 80 tracked keywords and 5,000 AI credits, and Pro runs $69 a month for 500 searches, 200 tracked keywords and 15,000 credits. It suits beginners and tight budgets.
Key features
- Keyword research with difficulty scores
- SERP and competitor analysis
- Rank tracking
- Backlink analysis
- YouTube research
- AI credits
Pros
- Most of the daily research jobs for a low monthly price
- Beginner-friendly learning curve
- Keyword, competitor, backlink, rank and YouTube research in one tool
Cons
- The interface is dated and some features respond slowly
- Support is thin because the team is small
- It covers the common research jobs rather than a premium suite’s depth
10. AirOps — Best for automating content production workflows
AirOps is a workflow platform that combines SEO data, an AI writer and CMS publishing so pages can be produced and shipped from one place. It removes the copy-paste between research, drafting and publishing for teams that produce content in volume, and its 2026 positioning pushes further into winning visibility inside AI answers.
Connect Semrush or another data provider as the workflow’s source. Give the writer your brand guidelines, then run the workflow to produce pages at scale, with human review steps where quality matters. Publishing goes straight to a connected CMS such as Webflow, so a page doesn’t sit in a draft folder for a week. The Answer Engine Visibility side checks how the brand shows up in AI-search results, and the platform’s agent and playbook model lets a defined process run repeatedly instead of being rebuilt each time.
The honest limit is the audience. It’s built for advanced teams and agencies, and the pricing puts it out of reach for a solo owner running one site. The workflow layer doesn’t replace the SEO judgement about what should be published in the first place, so a badly planned calendar gets automated into more bad pages. The free Solo plan gives one brand kit and up to 1,000 tasks a month, and those tasks disappear quickly once a real workflow is running. It suits agencies producing content at scale.
Key features
- SEO workflow automation
- AI writer with brand guidelines
- Semrush and DataForSEO integrations
- CMS publishing
- Answer Engine Visibility
- Human review steps
Pros
- Automates the research-to-publish workflow
- The AI writer carries brand guidelines
- Publishes straight to a connected CMS
- The free Solo plan covers a first workflow
Cons
- It is built for advanced teams and agencies, with custom pricing out of reach for a solo owner
- The workflow layer does not replace the SEO judgement about what to publish
- Task limits on the free plan are quickly consumed
11. AlsoAsked — Best for People Also Ask research
AlsoAsked maps the People Also Ask graph for a keyword, showing the questions Google groups together and the deeper questions sitting behind them. It produces question-based headings that match how people search, which is the structure a topic outline needs before a writer starts.
Enter a seed keyword and read the question tree, following the branches that match your article’s actual topic. The first layer is what Google shows on the results page; the second and third layers are where the useful long-tail phrasing hides. Turn the most relevant questions into H2 and H3 headings, then export the set and check it against your outline for gaps. Three free searches a day cover a single article’s planning, and the paid tiers scale from there.
The trees sprawl. An unfiltered export adds noise from questions that belong to a neighbouring topic, and you’ll spend more time filtering than you saved. The free allowance runs out quickly once you’re planning a cluster rather than one post, and the tool offers no volume data of its own. Basic starts at $12 a month for 100 credits, with Lite at $23 and Pro at $47. It suits question-led content planning.
Key features
- People Also Ask tree
- Question expansion by branch
- Question export
- Heading-ready question grouping
Pros
- Turns People Also Ask into heading-ready questions
- Shows the deeper question branches behind the first layer
- Free daily searches before any payment
Cons
- The question trees can sprawl, so an unfiltered export adds noise
- The free allowance of three searches a day runs out quickly
12. Clearscope — Best for editorial content coverage scoring
Clearscope generates a keyword and topic report for a target term, showing the terms and concepts the ranking pages share and the outline they follow. It gives an editor a quality bar for topical coverage without guessing which subtopics actually matter, and its 2026 product pushes that same report into AI-answer visibility with prompt tracking.
Enter the target keyword and read the recommended terms and the outline the ranking pages follow. Draft to the outline, then work the missing terms into natural places rather than stuffing them into sentences. The Content Decay view finds published pages losing traffic so you can refresh them before the loss compounds, which is the feature that pays for the subscription on a site with a content archive. Everything runs inside Google Docs, so the workflow doesn’t change for writers who already work there, and prompt tracking shows how the brand is mentioned in AI chatbots.
The price is the sticking point. Essentials at $129 a month buys a limited number of content reports, Business at $399 opens the limits and Enterprise is custom, and there’s a 14-day trial with no contract. It’s a content tool only, so there’s no crawl, backlink or rank data, and one Clearscope report won’t fix a page with a technical problem. It suits editors who want a coverage score and will use it every week.
Key features
- Keyword and topic reports
- Competitor outline analysis
- Content grading
- Content Decay monitoring
- AI prompt tracking
- Google Docs integration
Pros
- High-quality term and topic recommendations
- Competitor outline analysis in the report
- Content Decay finds pages losing traffic
- A clean Google Docs workflow
Cons
- The plans are premium priced and the report limits are low for the cost
- It is a content tool only, with no crawl, backlink or rank data
13. Nightwatch — Best for local and multi-location rank tracking
Nightwatch is a rank tracker with per-location tracking, automated reports and an AI tracker, covering Google, Bing and YouTube. Local and multi-location rankings shift by pin and by grid, and a tracker built for that shows the real position instead of a national average that hides the problem.
Add the keywords, then set the location or search engine for each campaign. Connect Google Analytics or Search Console so ranking movement sits next to traffic and a position gain that produced no clicks becomes obvious. Schedule automated reports for clients or stakeholders, and use cannibalisation detection to find pages competing for the same query. The Looker Studio integration means the numbers can land in a dashboard a client already opens, rather than one more login they’ll ignore, and the AI tracker covers how the brand appears in AI answers.
Cost climbs quickly as the tracked keyword count rises: from $39 a month for 250 keywords, $59 for 500, and up to $699 for 10,000, with a 14-day trial. It tracks rankings and reports on them, and that’s the whole job; there’s no site audit and no backlink research. It suits local businesses and agencies tracking many locations.
Key features
- Local and multi-location rank tracking
- Google, Bing and YouTube tracking
- Automated reports
- Looker Studio integration
- Cannibalisation detection
- AI suggestions
Pros
- Accurate local and multi-location rank tracking
- Google, Bing and YouTube coverage
- Automated reports and Looker Studio integration
- Cannibalisation detection
Cons
- Cost climbs quickly as the tracked keyword count rises
- It tracks rankings and reports; it does not audit the site or research backlinks
14. Google Keyword Planner — Best for free volume and CPC checks
Google Keyword Planner is Google’s own keyword tool inside Google Ads, reporting search volume, competition and cost-per-click and suggesting related terms. It gives volume and commercial value from Google’s data rather than a third-party estimate, which matters when two tools disagree about a term.
Open Keyword Planner inside a Google Ads account and enter a seed term to pull volume and CPC. The suggestions list expands a topic into related keywords quickly, and reading CPC as a proxy for commercial value is how you decide which pages to write first when you can’t write them all. When two keywords look similarly attractive, cross-check them in Google Trends to see which one is rising before you commit. A free Ads account is enough for all of this; you don’t have to run a campaign.
The friction is the context. A Google Ads account is required even for purely organic work, and the tool is buried inside an advertising interface built for something else. Volume comes back in broad ranges, so it’s fine for prioritising and useless for forecasting exact traffic. It suits free volume and CPC validation, and it pairs well with Google Autocomplete for the idea side.
Key features
- Search volume and CPC estimates
- Keyword suggestions
- Competition columns
- Location and language targeting
Pros
- Volume and CPC from Google’s own data
- Free with a Google Ads account
- Suggestions expand a topic into related terms
Cons
- A Google Ads account is required even for organic work, and the tool sits inside the ads interface
- Volume is reported in broad ranges, so it is not precise enough for traffic forecasting
Use Google Keyword Planner free →
15. SimilarWeb — Best for competitor traffic channel research
SimilarWeb estimates total website traffic and splits it by channel — direct, search, referral, email and paid — for any domain. It shows how much of a competitor’s traffic depends on search, which tells you whether their rankings are worth studying or whether they’re mostly buying the visits.
Enter a competitor domain and read the traffic and engagement overview. Open the traffic-sources view to see the share arriving from search versus everything else; a site at 60% search runs on organic search, while one at 8% search is an ads operation and its rankings tell you very little. Compare several competitors to decide whose organic search approach is worth copying, and use the audience and engagement metrics to sanity-check whether the traffic actually stays.
It is an estimate built from panels and clickstream data, not a site’s real analytics, so treat the absolute number as a shape rather than a fact. The paid tiers are priced for enterprise budgets: Starter at $1,500 a year for 1,000 keywords per table, Professional at $4,000 a year, and Team and Enterprise custom. A solo owner rarely needs anything past the free plan, which covers basic traffic views. It suits channel-level competitor traffic research.
Key features
- Traffic estimates by channel
- Audience and engagement metrics
- Competitor comparison
- Keyword tables on paid plans
Pros
- Traffic split by channel across any domain
- The free plan covers basic competitor traffic views
- Shows how search-dependent a competitor really is
Cons
- It is an estimate built from panels and clickstream data, not real analytics
- The paid tiers are priced for enterprise budgets and rarely make sense solo
16. Webflow — Best for building an SEO-ready site
Webflow is a visual website builder and CMS that ships on-page SEO controls — meta tags, sitemaps, robots.txt, canonicals and alt text — inside the platform. Those controls are built in rather than bolted on by plugins, which removes the update and vulnerability overhead a WordPress install accumulates over a few years.
Set the page-level meta title, description and canonical fields in the page settings. Configure alt text on images, and let the platform generate the sitemap and robots.txt rather than hunting for a plugin that does it correctly. CMS collections handle repeatable pages such as posts, locations or services so the SEO fields stay consistent across hundreds of pages instead of drifting the way hand-built pages do. Check hosting and page speed after publishing, since rendering is part of the platform whether you think about it or not.
It’s a website builder, not an SEO tool, so it doesn’t research keywords, track rankings or audit competitors. Migrating an existing site onto it is a project rather than a switch, and a large content archive makes that project bigger. The free tier is for building and staging, and paid site plans start at $29 a month with CMS limits that add cost as a site grows. It suits building a new site with SEO controls built in, especially when nobody wants to maintain a plugin stack.
Key features
- Built-in meta, canonical and alt-text controls
- Automatic sitemap and robots.txt
- CMS collections
- Hosting and CDN
- Visual editor
Pros
- Meta, canonical, sitemap and robots controls built in
- No plugin stack to update or secure
- CMS collections keep SEO fields consistent
- Hosting and CDN included
Cons
- It is a website builder, not an SEO tool, so it does not research keywords or track rankings
- Migrating an existing site onto it is a project, not a switch
- Paid site plans and CMS limits add cost as a site grows
17. Answer Socrates — Best for bulk question discovery on a budget
Answer Socrates collects the questions people ask around a seed keyword, sorts them by question type and labels them by funnel stage. It produces a question map and a keyword cluster set for very little money, which suits a solo blogger or a small business that can’t justify a research subscription.
Enter a seed keyword, country and language to pull the question list. The TOFU, MOFU and BOFU labels are the useful part: awareness questions become blog posts, consideration questions become comparison pages, and decision questions become product or pricing sections. Recursive Questions digs into the next layer behind the first set when a single list doesn’t go deep enough. The clustering tool groups an existing keyword list into topics, which is a job that otherwise eats an afternoon in a spreadsheet. It also covers comparison and “versus” phrasing, PAA scraping and an LLM brand tracker.
It’s a research tool only. There’s no rank tracking, no audit and no backlink work, so it fits beside a suite rather than replacing one. The free tier’s three searches a day limits a large project, and question data is only as fresh as the sources it samples. The free plan includes 1,500 monthly clustering credits, and the paid entry is around $9 a month. It suits budget question and cluster research.
Key features
- Question discovery and sorting
- TOFU, MOFU and BOFU labelling
- Comparison and “vs” keywords
- Recursive Questions
- Keyword clustering
- PAA scraping and an LLM brand tracker
Pros
- Question list with funnel-stage labels
- Recursive Questions go a level deeper
- Clustering credits included on the free plan
- Low paid entry price
Cons
- It is a research tool only, with no rank tracking, audit or backlink work
- The free tier’s three searches a day limits a large project
- Question data is only as fresh as the sources it samples
18. Gumloop — Best for no-code SEO workflow automation
Gumloop is a no-code AI agent builder that connects the tools in an SEO stack, including Semrush, Google Analytics and Google Docs, and runs them through an LLM step. It automates the repetitive joins between tools — scrape, summarise, deliver — without an engineer, which is the part of the week most freelancers never get to.
Build a flow from prebuilt nodes: a data source such as Semrush, an LLM step to summarise or classify, and a destination such as Google Docs or Slack. The Gummie assistant assembles or repairs a flow from a plain-language description, which is genuinely useful when a node misbehaves. A competitor-monitoring flow that pulls data on a schedule and posts a report turns a Monday chore into an email, and a research node chained into an outline prompt delivers a first draft to a document. The free plan’s 5,000 credits are enough to build and test a first working flow.
The tool rewards people who already understand SEO. A badly specified workflow produces bad output faster, and there’s no SEO database underneath, so the quality depends entirely on the connected tools. There’s also no cheap middle tier between the free credits and the full plan, with Pro at $37 a month and Enterprise custom; the vendor’s own summary line elsewhere on the page says paid plans start at $97 a month, which contradicts its plan list. It suits automating repetitive research and reporting work.
Key features
- Visual no-code workflow builder
- LLM and tool nodes with built-in integrations
- Scheduled runs and delivery to Docs, Slack or Sheets
- Gummie assistant for flow building
- Semrush, Google Analytics and Google Docs connections
Pros
- Build workflows without code
- Free plan credits cover a first working flow
- Connects Semrush, Google Analytics, Docs and Slack
- Gummie assistant builds or repairs a flow
Cons
- It rewards people who already understand SEO; a vague workflow produces fast bad output
- It is a workflow layer, not an SEO database, so quality depends on the connected tools
- There is no cheap tier between the free credits and the full plan
19. Mangools — Best for simple keyword research for solo owners
Mangools is a keyword research suite whose KWFinder tool returns related keywords with volume, difficulty and CPC, alongside SERP analysis, rank tracking and backlink analysis. It keeps the essential research jobs in a simpler interface at a lower price than the big suites, and its free-tool perimeter is unusually generous.
Enter a primary keyword and country to get related terms with volume, difficulty and CPC. Open the SERP analysis for a term to see the ranking pages and how hard they are to beat, then read Citation Flow, Trust Flow and Website Popularity Rank for the pages in that SERP, because those are the metrics that explain why a low-authority page is holding a top spot. A backlink lookup on a competitor shows who links to them and with what anchor text. Community discussion endorses the suite for independent bloggers and niche builders, and the free tools — the AI Search Grader, the GSC-connected content optimizer, the location changer and the SERP volatility dashboard — carry real utility before any payment.
It is deliberately basic. There’s no deep technical audit and no large link index of its own; the link data comes from the Majestic index and the authority metrics from Moz, so they’re estimates. Paid plans run from $18.85 a month billed annually on Basic through $48.85 on Agency, with a 48-hour money-back guarantee, and daily lookup caps frustrate heavy continuous research. It suits beginners and small budgets, and it’s the cheapest sane entry into paid keyword research.
Key features
- Keyword research with volume, difficulty and CPC
- SERP analysis with Citation Flow, Trust Flow and WPR
- Backlink analysis
- Rank tracking
- A broad free-tool layer including an AI Search Grader
Pros
- Simpler interface than the big suites
- Volume, difficulty and CPC in one list
- Trust Flow and Citation Flow in the SERP view
- Backlink lookup included
Cons
- It is deliberately basic, with no deep technical audit or large link index
- The metrics come from third-party indexes, so they are estimates
- Daily lookup caps frustrate heavy research
20. Jasper — Best for AI drafting with SEO scoring
Jasper is an AI writing platform with more than 50 marketing templates, and connected to Surfer it gains a keyword-guided SEO mode inside the editor. It gives a writer a structured first draft built on marketing frameworks rather than a blank chat box, which is the difference between a starting point and a prompt you have to rewrite.
Connect the Surfer account under Settings, Integrations to unlock SEO mode. Enter a primary keyword to pull its difficulty and volume, then open the Surfer editor inside Jasper. Draft with a template such as AIDA or PAS, or write freeform and let the templates handle the repetitive formats. The content score and suggested terms sit beside the draft, so the optimization feedback arrives while the writing happens rather than after. Jasper’s own 2026 direction pushes further into brand-governed pipelines, where product facts, tone and claims are applied to every output.
It is a writing tool, not an SEO platform: no audits, no rank tracking and no backlinks. SEO mode needs two paid subscriptions running together, which is the cost most people miss on the pricing page, and unedited output reads generic enough that it needs a proper edit before publishing. It suits AI-first content teams that already pay for Surfer and want the drafting layer on top.
Key features
- More than 50 marketing content templates
- Surfer SEO mode integration
- Keyword metrics in the editor
- Multi-format content generation
- Brand-governed pipelines
Pros
- More than 50 marketing templates
- Surfer SEO mode scores the draft while you write
- Structured drafting frameworks such as AIDA and PAS
- Handles many content formats
Cons
- It is a writing tool, not a full SEO platform: no audits, rank tracking or backlinks
- SEO mode needs two paid subscriptions running together
- Unedited output needs a real edit to avoid generic, thin content
21. Bing Webmaster Tools — Best for free technical diagnostics and Bing visibility
Bing Webmaster Tools is Microsoft’s equivalent of Search Console: crawl and index diagnostics, sitemap submission, URL inspection, its own keyword and backlink research, and an AI visibility tracker. It surfaces technical errors in a different crawl, and it matters for AI answers because Bing’s index feeds several assistants.
Sign in with the Google account linked to Search Console and let it import the verified sites, which removes the verification step entirely. Submit the sitemap and request indexing for individual URLs, then read the site scan reports for crawl and markup errors that Google’s crawl didn’t flag. The SEO/GEO report aggregates error counts across the scanned site, and the AI visibility tracker shows how the site appears in assistant answers. Its backlink and keyword research modules are free, which makes it a second opinion on data you’d otherwise pay for.
It covers Bing, not Google, so its index and traffic numbers are additional rather than a substitute, and the interface and reporting are noticeably less polished than Google’s. Treat it as a second diagnostic surface rather than a replacement. It suits anyone who wants more free coverage and a check on Bing visibility.
Key features
- Crawl and index diagnostics
- Sitemap submission and URL inspection
- SEO/GEO reports and site scan
- AI visibility tracking
- Free keyword and backlink research
- URL Submission API and WordPress plugin
Pros
- Free crawl and index diagnostics
- Imports existing Search Console properties
- AI visibility tracking at no cost
- Matters for the index behind several AI assistants
Cons
- It covers Bing, not Google, so its numbers are additional rather than a substitute
- Its interface and reporting are less polished than Google’s
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22. BuzzSumo — Best for finding content that performs
BuzzSumo searches a keyword to surface the most shared and engaging content, with social engagement metrics and format breakdowns. It shows which topics and formats earn attention before anything is written, which is a different question from what ranks and often a more useful one for a content plan.
Search a keyword and filter by date, country or state to see what travelled recently rather than what travelled in 2021. Read the engagement metrics across platforms to see which formats and angles people actually share, then use the content idea generator for related keywords with volume and CPC. Topic Explorer and the Question Analyzer cover adjacent subjects and question phrasing, and the brand-monitoring side tracks mentions and alerts so you can see a spike while it’s still happening. Its vendor pricing snapshot puts the content tiers at $199 and up per month, aimed squarely at content teams and agencies.
Results are inconsistent. One keyword in the fetched vendor material returned no data at all, and broad terms sometimes come back with a thin list. It measures social sharing, not search demand, so it complements keyword research rather than replacing it, and it’s an expensive way to answer a question you might settle with a search of your own. It suits editorial and topic planning on a team with a real budget.
Key features
- Engagement-ranked content search
- Content idea generator with volume and CPC
- Topic Explorer and Question Analyzer
- Format breakdowns
- Brand monitoring and alerts
Pros
- Shows what content earns engagement in a niche
- Content idea generator with volume and CPC
- Topic Explorer and Question Analyzer
- Format breakdown for a keyword
Cons
- Results are inconsistent, with some keywords returning no data
- It measures social sharing, not search demand
- Pricing is aimed at content teams and agencies
23. ChatGPT — Best for ideation, troubleshooting and drafting
ChatGPT is a general AI assistant used in an SEO workflow for brainstorming, explaining technical fixes and producing drafts. It handles the odd research and drafting jobs that would otherwise stall a small team, and it connects to Surfer for guided writing when a draft needs to be scored.
Upload a long keyword list and ask the assistant to group or rank it by relevance, intent or competition; that is a spreadsheet job turned into a conversation. Paste a technical error such as a redirect loop or a pattern of 404s and ask for the fix steps, then verify them against the actual server or CMS before touching anything. Canvas mode handles longer drafts that need editing in place, and the Surfer integration overlays content scoring on what the assistant wrote. For a beginner, the fastest use is explanation: paste a Search Console coverage issue and ask what it means in plain language.
It has no crawl, rank, backlink or keyword database of its own, so every number it produces is either from your upload or from memory that may be wrong. It states confident wrong facts regularly enough that anything published from it needs verification, and publishing unedited output is the thin-content trap that leaves pages unable to rank. It suits general AI help inside a workflow where a human still checks the work.
Key features
- Long-context chat and file upload
- Canvas editing mode
- Surfer integration for SEO mode
- Broad general-purpose assistance
- Free and paid assistant tiers
Pros
- Handles odd research and drafting jobs quickly
- Canvas mode supports in-place editing
- Surfer integration adds live content scoring
- Cost-effective for small teams
Cons
- It has no crawl, rank, backlink or keyword database of its own
- It can state confident wrong facts, so published output needs verification
- Publishing unedited output creates thin content that will not rank
24. Claude (Anthropic) — Best for proofreading and sharpening drafts
Claude is Anthropic’s AI assistant, used here as a proofreader that turns rough notes into clean prose without flattening the writer’s voice. It catches grammar, structure and flow problems in seconds, which is faster than a manual edit of a 3,000-word draft and more consistent than reading the same page four times.
Paste a draft or a single section and ask for grammar, clarity and flow edits while preserving voice. It’s strong at restructuring a messy outline before the writing starts, which is often where a draft goes wrong in the first place. The useful discipline is keeping the substance with the writer and using the model for the edit: the ideas, examples and opinions come from you, and the assistant cleans the sentences around them. It’s also useful to non-native English writers who need a sharp edit without hiring one.
It isn’t an SEO tool: no crawl, keyword, rank or backlink data. Unedited output reads generically and risks the same thin-content problems as any other assistant’s output. The free tier has usage limits that interrupt long editing sessions, and the strongest models sit behind the $20 a month Pro plan. It suits editing and proofreading drafts rather than producing them.
Key features
- Long-context editing
- Tone-preserving rewrites
- Outline restructuring
- Free and Pro tiers
Pros
- Fast, tone-preserving edits on long drafts
- Strong at restructuring messy notes
- Useful to non-native English writers
- Free tier available
Cons
- It is not an SEO tool: no crawl, keyword, rank or backlink data
- Unedited output reads generically and risks thin-content problems
- The free tier has usage limits, and the better models sit behind Pro
25. Google Analytics 4 — Best for traffic sources and AI referrals
Google Analytics 4 is Google’s first-party analytics platform, recording sessions, conversions and acquisition channels for a site. It shows whether SEO traffic turns into outcomes rather than just clicks, and its acquisition reports can be filtered to isolate AI-assistant referrals, which is a growing slice of organic traffic.
Set up the tag and confirm data is flowing across web and app properties before trusting a single report. Read the traffic-acquisition report to compare organic search with the other channels, then build conversion events so a session can be tied to a signup or a sale. Filter referral traffic to see which sessions arrive from ChatGPT, Perplexity and other assistants; those referrals usually convert differently from a Google click, and knowing the split changes what you optimize next. Audience and retention reports answer the follow-up question about whether the traffic came back.
The interface and event model have a steep learning curve, especially for anyone who knew Universal Analytics and expects the old reports to still be there. Consent banners and ad-blocking cause under-reporting, so totals rarely match server logs, and the numbers are directional rather than exact. It suits first-party traffic and conversion measurement, and it pairs naturally with Search Console, which supplies the search-side detail GA4 doesn’t.
Key features
- Acquisition and engagement reports
- Event and conversion tracking
- Referral filtering for AI-assistant visits
- Audience and retention reports
- Free with any Google account
Pros
- First-party traffic and conversion data
- Acquisition reports separate organic from other channels
- Referral filtering isolates AI-assistant visits
- Free to run
Cons
- The interface and event model have a steep learning curve after Universal Analytics
- Consent and ad-blocking cause under-reporting, so totals rarely match server logs
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26. Google Trends — Best for comparing demand between keywords
Google Trends plots relative search interest for a term over time and by region, and compares up to five terms on one chart. It settles which of two similar keywords is rising or seasonal before the content is commissioned, which is cheaper than writing the wrong page first.
Search a keyword and set the time range and country to match the target market. Add a second keyword to the comparison and read the relative interest lines side by side, then switch to the five-year view to see whether a spike was a trend or a news event. The related-queries panel is where the early opportunities sit: rising queries show phrasing that hasn’t been written to death yet, which is exactly where a small site can win. Seasonality checks have the same value in reverse, telling you when to publish so a page has time to age before demand peaks.
Values are relative indices, not absolute search volumes, so Trends can tell you which term is bigger but never how big either one is. Small-volume terms return noisy or empty charts, so it works best on topics with real search interest. It suits trend and seasonality checks, and it’s free.
Key features
- Relative interest over time
- Region and time filters
- Up to five-term comparison
- Related and rising queries
Pros
- Relative interest over time settles keyword priority
- Region and time filters match the target market
- Rising related queries surface early opportunities
- Free to use
Cons
- Values are relative indices, not absolute search volumes
- Small-volume terms return noisy or empty charts
27. Keywords Everywhere — Best for keyword metrics inside search results
Keywords Everywhere is a browser extension that overlays search volume, CPC and competition data directly on Google and other search and social surfaces. It removes the switch to a separate keyword tool for a quick volume check, which is the most common interruption in a research session.
Install the extension, then search a term in Google to see volume and CPC beside the results. Enable the same overlay on YouTube, Amazon, Bing and Google Trends, and the metrics follow you across the surfaces you already visit. The extension also produces its own keyword lists when a full export is needed, and its newer AI-era features add prompt templates, AI Overview metrics and an MCP connection for LLM workflows. Free features include website traffic metrics, Moz link metrics, SEO difficulty and an on-page keyword check, which is a lot of utility for no cost. Paid annual credit plans run from Bronze at $84 for 100,000 credits up to Platinum at $1,440 for 8 million.
It reports metrics rather than doing research or ranking work, so it answers “how big is this keyword” and nothing else. Credits burn faster than people expect on Google, where each query plus each widget keyword costs a credit, and the extension can slow heavy browsing. It suits quick in-browser metric checks.
Key features
- In-SERP volume and CPC overlays
- Multi-platform metrics on 15+ sites
- Keyword lists and export
- AI Overview metrics and prompt templates
- Free tier with traffic and link metrics
Pros
- Keyword metrics directly inside search results
- Works on Google, YouTube, Amazon and Bing
- The extension is free to install
- AI-era features arrive in the same overlay
Cons
- It reports metrics rather than doing research or ranking work
- The extension can slow heavy browsing, and credits burn quickly on Google
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28. Looker Studio — Best for client-facing SEO dashboards
Looker Studio is Google’s free dashboarding tool, and it blends sources such as Search Console, Analytics and Ahrefs into shareable reports. It turns scattered SEO data into one client or stakeholder view without exporting spreadsheets every month.
Start from the SEO report template in the gallery, then connect Search Console and Analytics. Blend additional sources such as Ahrefs to bring ranking data into the same chart so a client sees positions and clicks together rather than in two tabs. Split report pages by branded and non-branded traffic, top keywords and landing pages, then add conversion data so the report shows which organic pages produce results instead of which ones attract visits. Template gallery reports shorten the setup from an afternoon to about an hour, and free hosting means the client opens a link rather than a file.
Reports are only as good as the connected sources, and blending them adds setup work that breaks quietly when a connector lapses. Sharing settings are a common privacy tripwire on client dashboards; get the access level right before sending a link to anyone. It suits free client-ready SEO reporting.
Key features
- Multi-source dashboards
- Template gallery
- Data blending
- Scheduled sharing
- Free hosting
Pros
- One dashboard blends Search Console, Analytics and Ahrefs
- Free to build and share
- The template gallery shortens setup
- Client-ready report pages
Cons
- Reports are only as good as the connected sources, and blending them adds setup work
- Sharing settings are a common privacy tripwire on client dashboards
29. ProductRank.ai — Best for AI answer visibility checks
ProductRank.ai checks how a brand or site appears in AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity for chosen keywords and questions. AI answers now sit above the organic results, so visibility there is a separate measurement from a Google ranking, and it’s free to check.
Enter a domain and the questions or keywords that matter to the brand. The tool returns which prompts cite the site and which ones it’s missing from, which is the useful half of the picture: a list of prompts where a competitor gets named and you don’t is a page worth writing. Repeat the check after publishing content aimed at those prompts to see whether anything moved. For a small site, the fastest use is a spot check on the three or four questions a customer would actually ask an assistant before buying.
It measures AI answers, not Google rankings, so it can’t replace rank tracking or an audit. AI answer sampling is volatile, so a single run is a snapshot rather than a trend; run the same prompts on different days before drawing a conclusion. It suits tracking AI answer visibility alongside the traditional tools.
Key features
- AI visibility checks across assistants
- Prompt-level presence and gaps
- Brand comparison against competitors
- Free access
Pros
- Free AI-answer visibility checks
- Covers ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity
- Prompt-level view of where a brand is missing
Cons
- It measures AI answers, not Google rankings, so it cannot replace rank tracking
- AI answer sampling is volatile, so a single run is a snapshot rather than a trend
30. Respona — Best for outsourced link building and PR
Respona is a done-for-you link building and digital PR service: an outreach team prospects, pitches and secures placements while the platform tracks AI-answer visibility. It lets a team earn links without building an internal outreach workflow or hiring staff, which is the realistic option when nobody has time to send 400 emails.
Order placements and let the outreach specialists handle prospecting and pitching, with standard turnaround at 28 days and express at 14 for an extra fee. You keep control of anchors, target URLs and custom requirements, and domain approval can be hands-off or pre-approved with rules such as a specific ccTLD filter. Set up campaigns for the prompts that matter and read the visibility report, then use its cited-source list to choose the publications to target next. Content formats cover product reviews, listicles, contextual placements and comparison guides, and the vendor explicitly frames those formats around AI answers as well as search.
The trade-off is control. It’s an outsourced service, so you pay per result and influence less of the outreach, and placement quality depends on the niche the team can actually reach. It does not replace research or on-site SEO; links alone won’t fix a thin page. It suits teams that want link building handled rather than managed.
Key features
- Done-for-you outreach and placements
- AI visibility campaigns
- Visibility score and average AI position
- Model-by-model reporting
- Cited-source analysis
Pros
- Outreach handled by a specialist team
- Pay per result rather than per seat
- AI visibility campaigns track brand mentions
- Cited-source analysis points to the next targets
Cons
- It is an outsourced service, so you pay per result and control less of the outreach
- Placement quality depends on the niche the team can reach
- It does not replace research or on-site SEO
31. Ubersuggest — Best for cheap everyday SEO basics
Ubersuggest is a beginner-friendly all-in-one tool covering keyword metrics, keyword ideas, content ideas, a backlink overview and an AI writer. It bundles the everyday basics into one cheap account, which is enough for a new site finding its footing without committing to a suite.
Enter a keyword in Keyword Overview for volume, difficulty, CPC and country traffic. Keyword Ideas and Content Ideas build a topic list and show what the top pages earn, which is a useful reality check before writing into a competitive term. The backlink overview for any domain turns into a prospect list, and the AI writer produces a first version that still needs a proper edit. A free tier with limits, monthly plans and lifetime options exist, so you can test the tool before deciding whether it belongs in the stack. Its vendor materials put lifetime plans at $120 to $400 and monthly tiers alongside them.
It is less powerful than Jasper or Surfer for content work and shallower than the premium suites, and the feature depth runs out once a site grows past the basics. Reports are capped per day on every tier, which is the limit that shows up first. It suits cheap beginner-friendly basics, and it’s a reasonable first paid tool when the budget is genuinely close to zero.
Key features
- Keyword overview and ideas
- Content ideas with search data
- Backlink overview and opportunities
- AI writer
- Site audit
- Free, monthly and lifetime plans
Pros
- Cheap access to the everyday SEO basics
- Beginner-friendly keyword and content ideas
- Backlink opportunity view
- AI writer for first drafts
Cons
- It is less powerful than Jasper or Surfer for content work and shallower than premium suites
- Feature depth runs out once a site grows past the basics
- Daily report caps appear quickly on every tier
Which SEO tools are best for each job?
The best tool for each job is the highest-ranked one that actually does that job well. Here is the short answer for every category.
- All-in-one SEO platforms: Semrush at #3 — one login for keyword research, backlinks, audit, rank tracking and reporting.
- Free Google tools: Google Search Console at #2 — the only free source of Google’s own query, click and index data.
- Technical SEO and site auditing: Screaming Frog at #6 — one crawl lists every URL’s status code, title, meta description, redirect chain and structured-data problem, and the free tier covers 500 URLs.
- Content optimization: Surfer at #1 — it scores a draft against the pages currently ranking and audits published pages for the terms they’re missing.
- AI writing and assistants: AirOps at #10 — one workflow connects an SEO data source, a brand-guided AI writer and CMS publishing.
- Keyword and question research: AnswerThePublic at #7 — its question wheel shows the whole question space around a keyword at a glance.
- Rank tracking and reporting: Nightwatch at #13 — per-location and map-grid tracking with automated client reports.
- Backlink and competitor analysis: Ahrefs at #4 — Site Explorer holds one of the largest independent link indexes.
- Backlink and digital PR: Respona at #30 — the outreach team prospects, pitches and secures placements on a pay-per-result basis.
- SEO automation: Gumloop at #18 — it chains Semrush, Google Analytics, Docs and Slack into no-code flows that run on a schedule.
- AI visibility tracking: ProductRank.ai at #29 — it checks which prompts cite a brand inside ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, for free.
- Content research and trends: BuzzSumo at #22 — it ranks content by social engagement and shows which formats travel.
- Site building and CMS: Webflow at #16 — meta tags, canonicals, sitemaps, robots.txt and alt text are platform controls, not plugins.
What do SEO tools actually do?
An SEO tool is software that collects search data or acts on a site across six jobs: keyword and question research, rank tracking, crawl and audit, backlink analysis, content optimization and reporting. Most tools handle two or three of those jobs, and a full platform covers all six.
The data behind those jobs comes from two places. First-party data comes from Google’s own systems: Google Search Console reports the queries a verified site appears for, and Google Analytics 4 reports what visitors did afterward. Third-party data comes from independent crawls and indexes: Ahrefs and Semrush run their own crawlers and keep link databases, Mangools rents link data from the Majestic index, and Google Keyword Planner reports volume and cost-per-click from Google’s advertising data.
Here’s how the jobs work in practice. Say you want to write about email marketing for small studios. Google Autocomplete gives you the phrasing people type, Google Keyword Planner gives you volume and CPC, and Google Trends tells you whether interest is rising or seasonal. Content optimization tools take that same list and connect each keyword to the terms the ranking pages share, so an outline built in Surfer or Clearscope names the subtopics a page needs rather than leaving them to guesswork.
The second example is the technical side. An audit crawl in Screaming Frog lists every URL with its status code, title, meta description and structured-data problems, and Google Search Console shows which of those URLs Google actually indexed and which ones it excluded. The two answer different questions: the crawl tells you what your site serves, and Search Console tells you what Google did with it.
The sequence matters more than the tool count. Run the free tools first, because they tell you what to fix: Search Console shows the queries with impressions and no clicks, Autocomplete and Keyword Planner turn one of those queries into a page idea, and Screaming Frog shows whether anything technical stops that page being found. Only then does a paid tool earn its place, and it earns it by doing one of those jobs faster rather than by doing a job you don’t have.
Which five SEO tools would I pick first?
If I could keep only five, they’d be Surfer, Google Search Console, Semrush, Ahrefs and SE Ranking. That’s one tool for each job that matters most: content optimization, free first-party data, the all-in-one platform, backlink research and multi-site management.
Surfer covers the content job, scoring a draft against the pages that already rank. Google Search Console is the free one — it costs nothing and gives you Google’s own query, click and index data. Semrush is the paid all-in-one: keyword research, audits, rank tracking and reporting in one login. Ahrefs carries the link side, with the strongest independent backlink index of the group. SE Ranking handles the multi-site and local work at a price that suits a freelancer with several clients.
Why write about 31 when you asked for five? Because the market is deep, and the five above are the shortlist rather than the whole picture. The rest of the list exists for the reader whose job isn’t in that group: someone tracking AI answers, someone crawling a site with thousands of pages, someone who needs question research on a $9 budget. If a tool outside the five matches your job better, that’s the one to buy.
Google Search Console is free on every property you verify and is the first thing to connect. Every paid platform in the five runs a free entry point somewhere in its ecosystem, so if the budget is zero, start with the free layer and work up.
Which SEO suites cover the whole workflow?
A suite replaces a stack only when you genuinely use four jobs: keyword research, a technical audit, rank tracking and reporting. Semrush covers all four from one login, and its Domain Overview makes competitor research fast. SE Ranking covers the same four at a lower price, with its local grid and multi-project dashboard built for client work.
KeySearch and Ubersuggest cover the same ground at a shallower depth and a much lower price. Both give keyword research, competitor data, backlink views and rank tracking in one account, which is enough for a small site and not enough for a serious link campaign. seoClarity sits at the other end, an enterprise platform priced and scoped for large teams that need data at scale rather than a cheap all-rounder.
A suite is genuinely cheaper when it replaces three tools you already pay for. If you’re spending $40 on keyword research, $50 on rank tracking and $30 on audits, a $100 platform that does all three is straightforward arithmetic, and knowing one interface saves real time. It also removes the export-import friction between tools, which is where a surprising amount of a freelancer’s week disappears.
Breadth stops paying off for a one-site owner. The entry tiers cap projects deliberately, and if you only run one or two properties, that cap means you’re paying for capacity you don’t use. Paying for a suite to run one small blog is the classic overpay.
Specialists still beat suites in three places. Screaming Frog crawls deeper than any built-in audit, Nightwatch tracks local rankings more precisely, and Clearscope scores content coverage with more editorial nuance. Even suite users keep those three around.
Which SEO platforms, apps and tools exist?
An SEO platform and an SEO tool differ only in breadth: a tool does one job, and a platform bundles several. Search engine optimization software, search engine tools and SEO applications all name the same category, so the selection question is identical whichever phrase brought you here.
Whether you type the formal “search engine optimization”, the shorter “SEO”, a platform synonym or a non-English variant, the category is the same and so is the choice: pick the tool that matches the job you’re currently paying someone to do badly.
An app is the same tool reached through a browser or a phone, which changes the delivery rather than the job. Google Search Console, Analytics 4 and Looker Studio are apps in that sense — there’s nothing to install, and you can check a ranking drop from a phone. Keywords Everywhere is a browser extension, and Screaming Frog is the one desktop download in this list.
For the ranked selection itself, the list above holds, and the ordering doesn’t change with the vocabulary. If your language isn’t English, run the same tool choice and add your target country in the keyword and rank settings rather than looking for a different category of software.
Which SEO tools analyse your pages?
Page analysis splits into two groups: tools that crawl your own site and tools that read what the search engine did with it. Screaming Frog crawls a site in full and reports status codes, titles, meta descriptions, redirects and structured-data problems across every URL. Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools report index status, indexing requests and Core Web Vitals from the search engine’s side. Ahrefs Site Audit covers on-page and technical issues with fix guidance, and Google Analytics 4 shows how visitors behave once they arrive.
The checks that happen on your own site are the technical ones: crawl depth, internal links, duplicate metadata, broken links, redirect chains, missing schema and slow pages. Those come from Screaming Frog or from a suite’s audit module. The checks that need a competitor’s URL are different — content coverage, backlink profile, ranking pages and traffic mix — and they come from Ahrefs, Semrush or SimilarWeb.
For a small site, the practical order is straightforward. Connect Search Console first and read Index Coverage and Core Web Vitals. Then run one Screaming Frog crawl, fix the errors and warnings it returns, and request indexing for the pages you changed. Add Ahrefs Site Audit only when you’re already paying for the link data and want the on-page checks in the same place.
Which SEO tools track rankings?
Rank tracking comes in two kinds: sampled first-party position data from Google Search Console, and daily third-party tracking across named locations and devices. Nightwatch covers per-location tracking and map grids with automated reports. Semrush Position Tracking and Ahrefs Rank Tracker cover the job for suite users, and SE Ranking handles multi-client reporting with local grid views. Google Search Console supplies free first-party positions for every verified property.
The difference matters more than the price. Search Console reports an average position sampled over time, which is honest but lagged and impossible to slice by postcode. A daily tracker hits the results on a schedule, records the exact position each day, and can check a specific pin code, device or search-engine version. For a plumber chasing “emergency plumbing near me”, the local grid view shows the truth, because the national average hides everything that matters.
A small site with a national audience can track rankings in Search Console and skip the subscription. Local businesses, agencies and anyone reporting to a client benefit from a dedicated tracker, and Nightwatch’s automated reports and Looker Studio integration are the parts that save time rather than the tracking itself.
What can free and Google SEO tools do?
The free path is genuinely complete for a small site: Google Search Console, Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends, Google Autocomplete, Google Analytics 4 and Looker Studio cover research, measurement and reporting at no cost. Search Console supplies the first-party query and click data, Keyword Planner supplies volume and CPC, Trends settles seasonality, Autocomplete supplies long-tail phrasing, Analytics 4 tracks what happens on the page, and Looker Studio turns all of it into a client-ready dashboard.
The free tiers beyond Google are worth knowing too. Screaming Frog crawls up to 500 URLs at no cost, which is an entire small site. AlsoAsked, AnswerThePublic and Answer Socrates each give three searches a day for question research, though Answer Socrates includes clustering credits on its free plan. Keywords Everywhere is free to install, and ProductRank.ai gives free AI-answer visibility checks. Mangools also runs a wide free-tool layer, including a GSC-connected content optimizer that finds related-keyword opportunities.
Free stops in three places. Bulk prospecting needs a paid plan, because a keyword list of 5,000 terms needs exports and API calls that free tiers don’t include. Deep backlink indexes are paid almost everywhere, since crawling the web and storing the links costs money. Continuous monitoring is the third: a scheduled crawl, a daily ranking check and an alert when a page drops all require a subscription.
For one site and a modest publishing schedule, that free path covers most of the work. Pay when a specific job starts costing hours each week rather than because a comparison chart says a paid tool is better.
Which paid SEO tools earn their price?
Buy the first paid tool for the job costing you most — the content optimizer if you publish weekly, the rank tracker if local reporting is a monthly chore, or the crawl if the site has grown past 500 pages. Surfer, Nightwatch and Screaming Frog each own one of those jobs at a price a solo operator can justify.
Premium tiers are priced for teams rather than solo owners. Semrush, Ahrefs, Clearscope, SimilarWeb and the enterprise platforms all climb steeply past the entry plan, and the jump to unlimited credits or reports is where the real cost lives. If you run one site, the entry tier is the ceiling you should respect; the higher plans buy capacity for many projects and many users.
The cheap paid tools cover the same daily jobs at a fraction of the price. KeySearch gives keyword research, SERP analysis, rank tracking and backlinks from $24 a month. SE Ranking runs a multi-site dashboard with local and AI tracking from around $65, and Nightwatch tracks local rankings from $39. Answer Socrates and AnswerThePublic handle question research for under $15. Together they cost less than one premium plan and cover the jobs a small site actually has.
One thing to be clear about: cracked or unofficial builds of paid SEO software are not a shortcut, they’re a liability. They arrive with unpatched code, no updates, no support and a real security risk to the site you’re trying to grow, and the data inside them is usually stale. The honest route is a free tier, a cheap plan, or waiting until the paid job genuinely pays for itself.
Which SEO tools suit a small site?
A small site runs perfectly well on the free stack plus one cheap paid tool. Google Search Console, Keyword Planner, Trends and Autocomplete cover the research and data you need for a five-page site, and Screaming Frog’s free tier handles the technical crawl. Add KeySearch, Mangools or Answer Socrates when you want keyword metrics and question research without a subscription-sized bill.
Community discussion around Mangools frames it as the budget-friendly, beginner-friendly alternative to the big suites, with a clean interface and reliable difficulty scores, and the caveats that come with it: data discrepancies against enterprise tools and daily caps on heavy research. That’s an accurate description of the trade at this scale.
Ahrefs or Semrush starts to pay off when you’re doing competitor backlink research regularly, running several sites, or building links as a deliberate campaign. Below that line, the subscription buys data you won’t act on. For a local business, the useful addition is a local listing audit rather than a national suite; a local SEO platform such as BrightLocal covers directory presence, reviews and local rankings for a single location without the breadth you’d never touch.
The tools that are wrong for a five-page site are the ones whose pricing assumes many projects. Semrush, Ahrefs at the unlimited tier, Clearscope, SimilarWeb and the enterprise platforms all charge for capacity a small site never uses. Buying one isn’t a mistake because the tool is bad — it’s a mistake because you’re paying for fifteen projects to run one.
Which SEO tools run in a browser?
Most of the list is a browser app you open and log into, Keywords Everywhere is a browser extension that overlays data on pages you already visit, and Screaming Frog is a desktop download with no browser equivalent. Google Search Console, Semrush, Ahrefs, SE Ranking, Surfer, Clearscope and the reporting tools all run in a tab.
A crawler has to be desktop software. Walking a large site means holding a URL queue, rendering JavaScript and writing a database of results locally, and a browser tab can’t do that reliably at scale. That’s why Screaming Frog stays a download, and why its free tier’s 500-URL ceiling is a real constraint rather than an arbitrary one. The trade is that a crawl runs from one machine, so it isn’t something you can trigger from a phone between meetings.
An extension is enough when the job is reading metrics rather than storing them. Keywords Everywhere shows volume and CPC where you’re already searching, which is the right form factor for a quick check and the wrong one for a 2,000-keyword export. Mobile matters differently: Search Console, Analytics 4 and rank trackers are usable on a phone, while Looker Studio reports and Surfer’s editor assume a laptop. For a freelancer, the practical split is a laptop for crawling, editing and dashboards, and a phone for checking whether a page dropped overnight.
Which SEO tools fit a marketing workflow?
SEO tools sit inside a wider marketing stack at three connection points: the content that gets produced, the workflow that produces it, and the measurement that proves it worked. Surfer and Clearscope plug into the content side. Gumloop and AirOps connect the workflow. Google Analytics 4 and Looker Studio close the loop on measurement.
A marketing platform adds campaign management, email, social scheduling and paid-media buying on top of those jobs. If your site needs SEO and nothing else, a marketing suite brings features you’ll pay for and never open, and its SEO module is usually weaker than a dedicated tool at the same price. Buy the SEO tool for the SEO job, and buy marketing software when the marketing job actually exists.
The integrations are what make a stack feel like one system. Surfer writes into Google Docs and WordPress, so the optimization feedback lives where the draft does. Semrush connects to Analytics, Search Console and Looker Studio, so reporting doesn’t need a manual export. Gumloop and AirOps connect a data source to an LLM step and then to a destination, which turns a repeating research task into a scheduled run. Google Analytics 4 supplies the conversion data all of it reports against, and its referral filter shows how much traffic now arrives from AI assistants rather than from search results.
A small team’s whole marketing workflow can run on Google Search Console, Google Analytics 4, Surfer and one scheduling tool. Adding an all-marketing suite before the marketing work exists is the overpay to avoid.
Which tools work like Surfer?
Clearscope is the closest editorial alternative to Surfer, Jasper adds AI drafting with Surfer’s scoring inside it, Ubersuggest is the cheap route, and Ahrefs or Semrush keep the content job inside a broader suite. Each differs from Surfer’s scored editor in at least one way that matters.
Clearscope is the closest match on the core job: it builds a keyword and topic report from the pages that rank, grades a draft against it, and watches published content for decay. The difference is the price and the packaging — Essentials runs $129 a month with a limited report count, and there’s no crawl, backlink or rank data beside it. For an editorial team that lives in Google Docs, the workflow is cleaner than Surfer’s.
Jasper takes a different route: connect a Surfer account and SEO mode appears inside Jasper’s editor, so the drafting and the scoring happen in one place. The catch is two subscriptions running at once. Ubersuggest is the cheap option, with an AI writer and content ideas for a fraction of either price, at a fraction of the depth. Ahrefs and Semrush answer the same need from inside a suite, so if you’re already paying for the link data, the content tools come along rather than costing extra.
If you want the free path, Clearscope has no free plan but runs a 14-day trial, Surfer’s standalone tools are free outside the paid workspace, and Ubersuggest has a limited free tier. Try the trial before paying for a year of something you’ll open twice.
Do SEO tool lists go stale?
Prices, plan limits and AI features go stale fast, and the job each category of tool does does not. The list is refreshed against vendor pricing pages and current documentation, and the categories are stable because they describe the work rather than the product.
The 2023 and 2025 phrasings get the same answer: the tools change, the jobs don’t. A 2023 version of Surfer had no AI-visibility tracking, and a 2025 version of Google Search Console reported the same first-party data it does now. Names survive a decade of re-pricing; the numbers on the pricing pages will not, so check the vendor’s own page before you buy.
Three things move fastest: subscription prices, project and credit limits, and AI features. Any tool selling AI visibility is iterating monthly. Two things barely move: Screaming Frog’s 500-URL free tier and the fact that Search Console is free.
Is SEO still worth learning now that AI answers dominate search?
Yes — AI answers absorb some clicks, and the tools that keep a site visible in them are still SEO tools. Ahrefs and Bing Webmaster Tools both added AI-mention tracking, Surfer rebuilt its platform around AI visibility, and ProductRank.ai exists purely to check which prompts cite a brand. The underlying work — useful pages, a clean technical setup, real links — is what makes a site citable in either surface.
What is the 80/20 rule in SEO?
A small set of jobs carries most of the result. Connect Google Search Console and read the query and index data, run one audit crawl to clear the technical blockers, and research a keyword before writing the page. Most of what a small site gains comes from those three actions repeated, while the marginal return from a tenth optimization tool is close to zero.
Can ChatGPT do an SEO audit?
Partly — it can explain and prioritise issues once they’re found, but it can’t crawl a site or read a backlink index. ChatGPT and Claude are useful for interpreting a coverage error or planning a fix order, and Surfer documents using an assistant to explain 404 patterns. The crawl still belongs to Screaming Frog, and the first-party data still belongs to Google Search Console.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the five best SEO tools right now?
The five highest-ranked tools here are Surfer for content optimization, Google Search Console for free first-party data, Semrush for an all-in-one platform, Ahrefs for backlinks, and SE Ranking for multi-site work. Google Search Console is the free option, and every paid platform among them runs a free entry point. If you want the no-cost path, start with Search Console and work through the free tiers covered above.
Is SEO dead now that AI answers dominate search?
No — the tooling has moved with AI rather than disappearing, and the tools that keep a site visible in AI answers are still SEO tools. Ahrefs, Bing Webmaster Tools and Surfer all added AI-mention or AI-visibility tracking, and ProductRank.ai measures prompt-level presence for free. AI answers absorb some clicks, and the work that earns citations is the same work that earns rankings.
Which SEO tasks give the biggest return for the least effort?
A small set of jobs carries most of the result: Google Search Console for first-party data, one audit crawl to clear technical blockers, and keyword research before writing the page. The gains a small site sees come from fixing what those three surface, repeated over months, rather than from adding another optimization tool to the stack.
Can an AI assistant run a full SEO audit?
Partly — it can explain and prioritise issues once they’re found, but it can’t crawl a site, track rankings or read a backlink index. Use an assistant to interpret a coverage error or plan a fix order, and give the crawl to Screaming Frog and the first-party data to Google Search Console. The assistants sit below the data tools in this list for exactly that reason.
Conclusion
The best SEO tools change with the job, and the job is what you should pay for. If you’re starting out, connect Google Search Console before anything else — it’s free, it’s first-party and it shows which pages already attract impressions. Add a cheap research tool while the site is small, and let your own data tell you where the bottleneck actually is.
Pay for the crawl when the site outgrows 500 URLs, the content optimizer when you publish often enough to need one standard, or the suite when one login saves more time than the subscription costs. If you run several client sites, a multi-site platform at SE Ranking’s price covers most of what the premium suites do, and a dedicated rank tracker handles the local reporting a suite treats as an afterthought.
That’s the whole decision: free first-party data, a cheap research layer, and one paid tool for the job that’s genuinely costing you hours.
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Related reading: SEO tools for beginners, SEO tools for small businesses, cheap SEO tools, SEO tools for freelancers, SEO audit tools and keyword research tools.
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