A good SEO tool is your ultimate website assistant — it researches the best-ranking keywords for your business, runs website audits to keep your site nice and healthy, and helps analyze your competitors. The best SEO tools let you do all this and more with accurate data and smart recommendations.
I looked at some of the top SEO tools available and evaluated them based on their features, usability, performance, and value and usefulness for content marketing. As a content marketer myself, the following are my personal best of the best.
- Semrush: Overall best SEO tool for keyword research and website maintenance
- Ahrefs: Best for analyzing competitor traffic and keywords
- UberSuggest: Best keyword clustering tool
- SE Ranking: Best for tracking SERP keyword rankings
- Moz Pro: Best for tracking domain authority and backlinks
- SurferSEO: Best for on-page website audits
An overview of the best SEO tools
Keyword research
Website audits
AI search/AI overview monitoring
My score
On-page and off-page
4.93/5
On-page and off-page
4.20/5
On-page and off-page
4.16/5
Off-page only
4.09/5
Off-page only
3.91/5
Off-page only
3.61
What SEO tools do & why they’re worth the investment
SEO marketing tools are a handy addition to your tech stack if content marketing is central to your marketing strategy, particularly in building your brand reputation. For any content strategy that involves publishing blogs, SEO tools are your best guide to finding the best keywords and monitoring your site performance.
Generally, you can expect SEO tools to:
- Research and suggest keywords
- Analyze your website traffic (and sometimes your competitors’)
- Audit your website
- Analyze search engine results pages (SERPs) to see the type of content that’s ranking and give suggestions
These are the basic functions of any SEO tool, but I’m also seeing many tools add more functions to their platforms in response to Google’s algorithm changes. No surprises here: AI’s consistently been the biggest development, whether for giving smarter content recommendations or generating blog drafts.
That’s really all it comes down to on whether online SEO tools are worth the investment. For as long as people are searching (and starting their buyers’ journeys) on Google, and it’s still a primary source of traffic and leads for your business, an SEO tool will be a valuable addition to your tech stack.
Semrush: Overall best SEO software for keyword research and website maintenance
Overall Score
4.93/5
Pricing
2.75/5
General SEO features
5/5
Advanced SEO features
4.63/5
Support
2.25/5
Expert score
4.06/5
Pros
- Covers every corner of SEO, from keyword research to AI chatbot sentiment analysis
- Comprehensive and updated data from Google
- Copilot AI Assistant gives a daily rundown of SEO issues and recommendations
Cons
- Only sources data from Google; not helpful for other search engines
- Not always up-to-date with Google’s algorithm changes
Semrush has long been my number one SEO tool. It has all the SEO research parts covered, with tools for everything from keyword research to website audits to backlink analysis. But it also has tools to create content based on those insights to target your keywords more accurately, including an AI-powered blog draft generator.
I’ve tried it, and while no AI writer is perfect, it’s a good starting point for publishing content more efficiently — helpful if you have an SEO content strategy and blogs are the main source of traffic.
The other reason Semrush is still my number one recommendation is the comprehensiveness of its data. Aside from having pretty much every SEO tool you need, it also dives deep into the data you request.
For example, the Keyword Overview tool doesn’t just give each keyword’s search volume (SV) and keyword difficulty (KD) but also its search intent, CPC, and related keywords and questions — the most comprehensive keyword overview I’ve seen by far. The same goes for its SEO audit, which covers both on-page and technical SEO and all its other toolkits.
Semrush works for just about any business, and no other tool has been able to top it yet for me. Plus, its recent update makes it a whole lot easier to navigate (thankfully). Its payment structure is on a toolkit-by-toolkit basis, meaning you’ll only pay for the toolkits you need, making Semrush easy to adapt to changing business needs.
- AI brand sentiment analysis: One of Semrush’s unique tools that shows how your website ranks across AI search engines, including ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity
- SEO Brief Generator: Generates a full content brief from a keyword that includes suggestions for secondary keywords, top-ranking SERPs, and a blog title and outline
- Keyword Strategy Builder: Groups related keyword searches together into keyword clusters for easier content planning
Integrations: Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Ads, Monday, Wix, Zoho, WordPress, Zapier, and more
SEO Toolkit
- Pro: $139.95 a month for five projects, 500 tracked keywords, and 10,000 results per report
- Guru: $149.96 a month for 15 projects, 1,500 tracked keywords, 30,000 results per report, ChatGPT search tracking, and content marketing tools
- Business: $499.95 a month for 40 projects, 5,000 tracked keywords, 50,000 results per report, plus Share of Voice tracking and keyword cannibalization reports
Visit Semrush to see pricing for its other toolkits.
Ahrefs: Best for analyzing competitor traffic and keywords
Overall Score
4.20/5
Pricing
2.75/5
General SEO features
5/5
Advanced SEO features
2.5/5
Support
2.75/5
Expert score
3.44/5
Pros
- Comprehensive competitor data for top keywords and content gaps
- Includes data for different SERP features, including AI Overviews and featured snippets
- Shows day-by-day keyword ranking changes
Cons
- Doesn’t provide recommendations, just data
- Fairly complicated interface
- All plans only accommodate one user
Ahrefs is often cited as Semrush’s biggest competitor, but honestly, it’s only better than it when it comes to competitor analysis.
Site Explorer, its most unique feature, is a competitor analysis tool that lets you see your competitors’ website traffic, top-ranking keywords, backlinks, and active Google Ads to see the content gaps your site can fill — both in rankings and in other SERP features like featured snippets or AI Overviews.
Moreover, Ahrefs also shows the top-ranking pages from competitor websites (or any website) and their total traffic and top-performing keywords over different points in time.
It’s the most comprehensive competitor analysis tool I’ve used by far and will be helpful for any business in a highly competitive online space. However, be forewarned that Ahrefs does not, unfortunately, offer recommendations for improvement, just the data for you to analyze (which is pretty comprehensive).
There are also tools for researching keywords and conducting website audits, although nothing the other SEO tools above haven’t already covered. It’s the competitor analysis data, more than anything, that makes Ahrefs one of the best SEO audit tools.
- Site Explorer: Analyzes your competitors’ top website pages, keywords, backlinks, paid ads, and site structure
- Calendar: Shows day-to-day website traffic changes in a calendar format
- Keyword Explorer: Keyword research tool with instant keyword clustering for parent topics
Integrations: Screaming Frog, BuzzStream, Spamzilla, Agency Analytics, Google Sheets, and more
- Starter: $29 a month for one project, 100 credits, five keyword lists, and limited access to Site Explorer and Keyword Explorer
- Lite: $129 a month for five projects, 500 credits, six months of historical data, 750 tracked keywords, limited access to Site Explorer and Keyword Explorer, and competitive analysis
- Standard: $249 a month for 20 projects, two years of historical data, unlimited credits, competitive analysis, and full access to Site Explorer and Keyword Explorer
- Advanced: $449 a month for 50 projects, five years of historical data, advanced searches, and Looker Studio integration
UberSuggest: Best keyword clustering tool
Overall Score
4.16/5
Pricing
4/5
General SEO features
4.25/5
Advanced SEO features
1.75/5
Support
2.75/5
Expert score
4.38/5
Pros
- Automatically generates cluster maps of a keyword’s related questions, prepositions, and comparisons
- Has an AI writer for SEO meta tags (and ad copies and social media captions)
- Chrome extension analyzes Google searches and websites in real-time
Cons
- Very few technical SEO tools
- Only tracks organic Google traffic, not paid traffic
- No integrations with sales or project management software
UberSuggest is the brainchild of SEO expert Neil Patel, and it’s one of the best SEO optimization tools specifically for keyword research and mapping.
A standout feature is the Keyword Visualization tool, which maps out all the related keywords of a certain primary keyword, organized by questions, prepositions, comparisons, and any other related phrases. This gives a more comprehensive and nuanced view of what people are searching for online versus a simple list.
Another highlight is the Content Ideas tool, which lists the most-visited websites for any given keyword as well as the specific keywords and backlinks leading to those visits. This is helpful for researching the competitive landscape of a keyword and planning content around what people are asking about it.
UberSuggest is probably the most comprehensive keyword research tool I’ve used after Semrush, and I would have ranked it higher on this list had it had equally comprehensive technical SEO tools. Currently, its SEO audit mostly covers on-page and content SEO, with very little to the technical aspects like sitemaps and links.
- Keyword Visualization: Visualizes a keyword’s related keywords, including questions and prepositions, in a cluster map
- Content Ideas: Lists the top websites by traffic for a certain keyword and the specific keywords and backlinks that brought in traffic
- SEO Opportunities: Crawls and suggests SEO improvements for your website, like keyword ranking opportunities or missing title tags
Integrations: Google, Shift, Desktop.com
- Individual: $12 a month for one user, one website, 150 daily searches, and 50 analyzed keywords at a time
- Business: $20 a month for two users, up to seven websites, 300 daily searches, and 200 analyzed keywords at a time
- Enterprise: $40 a month for five users, 15 websites, 900 daily searches, and 1,000 analyzed keywords at a time
SE Ranking: Best for tracking SERP keyword rankings
Overall Score
4.09/5
Pricing
2.88/5
General SEO features
4.63/5
Advanced SEO features
2/5
Support
2.75/5
Expert score
4.06/5
Pros
- Tracks keyword rankings on AI Overviews (as well as regular SERPs)
- Automatically audits websites on every login, covering both on-page and technical SEO
- Monitors dropped keyword rankings
Cons
- No SEO recommendations, only analyses and data
- Only has traffic data from Google, not from other sources
The best thing about SE Ranking is it lets you track keyword rankings right upon onboarding so you can monitor how they change over time and their average ranking positions.
What’s also helpful is it notifies when your keywords enter or exit the top 10 Google rankings and how they appear in SERPs — whether from reviews, videos, etc. It’s a convenient way to track your keywords’ SERP visibility and see which ones are ranking the highest and which ones are worth trimming.
Whereas Semrush and UberSuggest are all about content planning, SE Ranking tackles the performance analysis part of your keywords’ actual ranking on SERPs.
I find it a handy addition to either of those two former tools to see how well the content you publish actually ranks for your chosen keywords, especially with Google’s recent algorithm changes. It also has keyword research tools, including for AI Overviews, so it’s a very capable SEO research and analysis platform overall.
- Rankings data: Tracks keyword positions across time, their average ranking, traffic forecast, and the SERP features they appear in
- Backlink checker: Analyzes the total backlinks to your website over time and identifies toxic and broken backlinks harming your ranking
- AI Rankings Tracker: Tracks your keyword rankings on AI Overviews over time
- Essential: $52 a month for five websites, 500 tracked daily keywords, website audits, backlink checkers, and keyword analysis
- Pro: $95.20 a month for 30 websites, 2,000 tracked daily keywords, plus AI Overviews tracker and on-page SEO checker
- Business: $207.20 a month for unlimited websites, 5,000 daily tracked keywords, plus API access and unlimited historical data
Moz Pro: Best for tracking domain authority and backlinks
Overall Score
3.91/5
Pricing
2.75/5
General SEO features
4.63/5
Advanced SEO features
1.13/5
Support
3/5
Expert score
4.38/5
Pros
- Tracks gained and lost backlinks (and their sources) over time
- Scores brand and domain authority based on Google’s Quality Rater,
- Analyzes the common theme of searches leading to your website
Cons
- Doesn’t give recommendations on improving backlink strategy, only data
- Keyword data is not super comprehensive
- Only does technical website audits (not content)
Moz Pro is a decent SEO tool. It does both keyword research and website audits, and it’s not a headache to navigate.
It’s particularly my best tool for all things backlink research and domain authority because it gives a more comprehensive analysis than most by including the sites linking back to yours and new vs lost backlinks over time. The graph makes it easy to see fluctuations over time and monitor your SEO growth from backlinks.
The Domain Overview tool is also a little different from others in that it evaluates individual page authority and overall brand authority. The latter two are unique features of Moz Pro — I find them useful for keeping track of brand authority. It even analyzes the common theme of searches leading to your website, which, as a content marketer, is really helpful.
Rather than focusing solely on keyword rankings (though it also does that), Moz Pro goes a step further and analyzes overall online sentiment about your brand. Unfortunately, the overall platform misses a few key features, like audience insights and keyword clustering, for which I docked a few points.
- Brand Authority: Scores your overall brand authority based on Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines
- Link Research: Gives an overview of your website’s domain authority and top backlinks, pages, and anchor text
- Compare Link Profiles: Makes a side-by-side comparison of competing websites’ domain authority, spam score, and internal and external links
Integrations: AgencyAnalytics, Screaming Frog, HubSpot Marketing Grader, Klipfolio, and more
- Starter: $49 a month for one tracked website, 50 tracked keywords, 20 Domain Overview requests, and 75 backlink queries a month
- Standard: $99 a month for three tracked websites, 300 tracked keywords, 50 Domain Overview requests, 5,000 backlink queries a month, plus link tracking
- Medium: $179 a month for 10 tracked websites, 1,500 tracked keywords, 100 Domain Overview requests, 20,000 backlink queries a month, more tracked links, plus scheduled reports
- Large: $299 a month for 25 tracked websites, 3,000 tracked keywords, 180 Domain Overview requests, 70,000 backlink queries a month, tracked links, and scheduled reports
SurferSEO: Best for on-page website audits
Overall Score
3.61/5
Pricing
2.38/5
General SEO features
3.75/5
Advanced SEO features
1.75/5
Support
2.75/5
Expert score
4.06/5
Pros
- Does content audits on individual site pages
- Compares website content against top-ranking SERPs for certain keywords
- Suggests site content improvements to rank higher on Google
Cons
- Doesn’t do technical site audits
- Needs to connect with Google Search Console before doing keyword research
- No data for tracking website traffic or sources
Any of the SEO tools above can do a website content audit, but I’m giving the “best one” title to SurferSEO because I’m impressed with how it takes them a step further.
Aside from checking keywords and links, it lists your top pages and their ranking positions and — my personal favorite — evaluates your published content against the top SERPs and suggests improvements, which is helpful for anyone with a blog.
SurferSEO functions like an all-in-one on-page website auditor and AI assistant. It also has keyword research tools, although only up to 100 searches a day, and it doesn’t give any data beyond search volume and keyword difficulty.
Its keyword research is pretty much just surface-level compared to a tool like Semrush that provides the CPC and competitive density of each keyword. But what it can do, it does pretty well. It’s also unique, even among other SEO tools, and will be useful for maintaining and improving blogs.
- Content Audit: Audits website content (including individual pages) and evaluates them against top SERPs for the same keyword
- Topical map: Automatically groups related keywords into topic clusters for easier content planning
Integrations: Zapier, Jasper, WordPress, Google Docs, Contentful, ChatGPT
- Essential: $99 a month for 200 pages on the Content Audit, 30 monthly articles on the Content Editor, and 100 daily searches on Keyword Research and Topical Map
- Scale: $219 a month for 1,000 pages on the Content Audit, 100 monthly articles on the Content Editor, and 100 daily searches on Keyword Research and Topical Map
Custom enterprise plans are also available.
Choosing the right SEO tool: A matter of priority
Unfortunately, there is no single SEO tool that does it all, at least in my experience and research. Each platform has its own specialty. For example, Semrush is great at regular keyword research, while SurferSEO does a good content analysis. These differences are why choosing the best one for your business comes down to priority.
As a website that publishes content, keyword research and website maintenance are our top priorities, which is why Semrush is our SEO tool of choice. Meanwhile, a business building brand authority might find more use with Moz Pro, which is great at monitoring domain authority.
- What are your primary SEO goals? This is always the first consideration when choosing an SEO tool. The best SEO tool for researching and planning keywords is different from the best one for conducting website audits. Although most platforms have features for both, each one has a specialty.
- What kind of data do you need most? Is it website traffic data? Keyword search volumes? Or it might be your site’s domain authority score and number of backlinks. You’ll want a tool with the exact data you need most.
- How competitive is your online space? I’ve always found that the competitiveness of a brand’s online space counts towards its SEO strategy and, therefore, its SEO tools. The more competition you have, the more competitor analysis tools and precise page-by-page website data you’ll usually end up needing.
How I evaluated the best SEO tools (my criteria)
As a content marketer, I’ve used a few different SEO tools, and the frustrating part about them is they rarely cover every aspect of SEO at once. Some specialize in keywords, others in website audits.
So when I looked for the best SEO tools, I prioritized the ones that covered as much ground as possible and could do both basic tasks like keyword research and advanced ones like providing audience insights and traffic sources.
But I also wanted tools that did their tasks well and provided comprehensive, actionable data. The best SEO audit tools balance both quantity and quality.
I also took into account their pricing, customer support, and my personal experience with each platform.
General SEO features: 30%
These cover the most basic SEO tasks: keyword research, website traffic insights, SERP analysis, website audits (both content and technical), competitive research, identifying keyword search intent, and checking backlinks. The more capabilities a tool has, the higher its score.
Advanced SEO features: 25%
Most of the tools on this list cover all the aforementioned general features, but because I wanted to showcase specifically the best of the best, I also looked at the more advanced and niche SEO capabilities. These include things like audience insights, local SEO data, keyword clustering, traffic source data, audience insights, and data for AI search engines or Google’s AI Overviews.
Pricing: 15%
Every platform has its own pricing structure, but I did give extra points to the ones with a free plan and starting plans below $50 a month. I also gave points to platforms with multiple payment methods and unlimited data reports.
Customer support: 10%
Not all platforms’ support is equal. I gave higher scores to platforms that offered round-the-clock support as well as more support avenues (phone, email, live chat, and an online help desk).
My expert evaluation: 20%
As mentioned, I didn’t just focus on quantity but also the quality of each tool’s capabilities. I personally tested each SEO tool and evaluated the comprehensiveness of its SEO data, value for money, ease of use, and overall usefulness for marketing.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
