SEO tools: the best ones for beginners

SEO tools allow you to plan a SEO strategy and make an analysis of the performance of websites on search engines. These tools are essential for building a SEO-friendly website, as they help improve it, solve its criticalities, increase visitor traffic, improve its positioning, and obtain an increasing number of conversions.

There are some relevant trends on SEO tools, such as:

70% of device owners already shop by voice or expect to in the future
Videos appear in 23% of mobile results and 22% of desktop results

Therefore, you should start optimizing your content for voice search and creating videos to have more chances of search engines indexing your video and other contents related to that video.

Benefits and features of SEO tools

Knowing SEO tools and learning how to use them is essential if you want to bring a website to have traffic and to occupy relevant positions on search engines.

But which are the benefits of these tools? Let’s see them:

All tasks in one interface: a comprehensive dashboard can help you monitor SERP rankings and trends, analyse how you rank against competitors, and assess your overall website authority.
Automated reporting in real time: SEO tools provide highly customizable reporting capabilities for various KPIs, objectives, and priorities to make reporting faster and easier.
Better search rankings: once you have analysed the results of your reporting, you can next implement strategies to improve search rankings. To achieve this, you must optimize your website, drive strong backlinks, and make use of social media marketing integration.

In addition, these tools usually have some common features that you can find out below:

Reporting: you can generate status and performance reports of your SEO strategies.
SEO tracking: monitor key metrics to evaluate if your SEO strategy needs to be changed.
Site Audit: crawl and analyse pages on your website to uncover any technical SEO issues that require improvements and fixes.
Keyword research: discover highly relevant keywords to better target your audience.
Competition analysis: get an informed view of the activity of your competitors and what you can do to stand out.

Do you ever find yourself in doubt when you have to purchase something new? Don’t worry, we want to help you in this decision-making process by giving you a list of considerations to do before the purchase:

Search volume calculation: Determine how updated the search volume numbers on the SEO tools are.
Report customization: Determine the types and formats of metrics.
International search capabilities: Some platforms only focus on specific search engines and metrics, which may not be ideal for international businesses or if you are trying to rank in different countries and in different languages.
Type of support: Find out what type of support (email, phone, chat, etc.) the vendor offers.
Pricing: SEO tools are usually priced on a per month basis, and its starting price range is $13 – $99.

A short list of the best 5 SEO tools in our opinion

We have selected for you the best SEO tools, but if you do not find the right one for your needs, please see below a larger list of 18 tools where we hope you will find it.

Let’s see our short list!

AgencyAnalytics

AgencyAnalytics is an enterprise marketing dashboard that offers many different features, integrations, and reports. Among the features offered, for example, there are custom dashboards, white label, automated reports, user access and SEO tools. The last one includes rank tracker, backlink monitor, site auditor and competitor analysis.

The advantages of AgencyAnalytics are:

Monitoring of your client’s search engine ranking daily
Flexible search engine rank tracking
Perform keyword research
Analyse competitors’ SEO performance

AgencyAnalytics offers a free trial or 3 paid plans:

Freelancer: $10 per month or $8.33 per month billed annually
Agency: $15 per month or $12.50 per month billed annually
Enterprise: the price must be requested

Semrush

Semrush is a SaaS platform that includes tools for search, content, social media, and market research available in more than 140 countries. The SEO tools that you can find on this website are keyword research, on-page SEO, local SEO, rank tracking, link building and competitor SEO analysis.

The advantages of Semrush are:

Monitor and manage your organic rankings
Develop persuasive and creative PPC campaigns
Higher level of content marketing
Creation of simplified reports
Analysis and tracking of social media effectiveness

Semrush offers a free trial or 3 paid plans:

Pro: $119.95 per month or $99.95 per month billed annually
Guru: $229.95 per month or $191.62 per month billed annually
Business: $449.95 per month or $374.95 per month billed annually

SEO PowerSuite

SEO PowerSuite is composed by 4 tools to optimize websites, improve content, run backlink campaigns, and track your progress. This SEO tool allows to have all your backlinks in one place, know your backlink history, customize backlink reports, monitor competitors, and get API access.

The advantages of SEO PowerSuite are:

It finds keyword opportunities with the best chance to rank
It helps with content changes that make a difference in ranking
It checks your site for technical issues and suggest fixes for them
It finds backlinks for your website
It helps you with all four areas of SEO: On-page, Off-Page, Technical and Experiential
It helps your organize project data and tasks in easy-to-use columns and filters
It helps you setup automatic checks on your SEO campaigns to stay updated

SEO PowerSuite offers a free trial, a free version or 2 paid plans:

Professional: $299 per year
Enterprise: $699 per year

SEO Tester Online

SEO Tester Online is an all-in-one platform available in 45 countries worldwide. It represents the best choice for agencies, marketers, and SMEs, as it guarantees the increase of organic traffic. It offers a wide range of SEO tools, such as the SEO checker, the SEO spider, the SEO editor, etc.

The advantages of SEO Tester Online are:

It is easy to use
It is an all-in-one platform for SEO and SEM
It is convenient
It is great to perform an analysis of market, competitors, and keywords

SEO Tester Online offers a free trial or 3 paid plans:

Lite: €26 per month or €18 per month billed annually
Pro: €38 per month or €26 per month billed annually
Plus: €56 per month or €38 per month billed annually

Squirrly SEO

Squirrly SEO is a SEO tool that provides personalized routes to rank each page of your website in Google top 10. In fact, it offers an expert level advice through an AI-powered SEO consultant.

The advantages of Squirrly SEO are:

+ 300K keywords ranked in Google top 10
+ 285% increase in traffic by users
Find and choose the right keywords
Get a SEO green light to publish your content
Detailed SEO audit

Squirrly SEO pricing starts from $29.99 per month.

Our shortlist of SEO tools: comparative table with key features

Other SEO tools available on the market

Are you looking for an alternative? Explore the following SEO tools to discover the best option for your business.

Conclusions

Be curious! Do not limit yourself and do not stop at our proposal of tools! Check out our article Software Discovery platforms: the top 9 for us to find the one that best suits your needs.

If you are interested in SEO, please read more on: SEO and SEM: introduction and tips for beginners

For more information read also the related white paper that you find on this page Digital Marketing for Startups