Best SEO Tools for Small Business
If you’re going to get the most out of your business website, you will need to invest some time and money into Search Engine Optimisation. Here’s our best SEO software to help you increase your SEO game and digital marketing efforts:
- Keyword domain & backlinks analytics
- Create reports
- Track mobile rankings
- Keyword tracking & more
- Site audits to optimise your site
- Analyse competitors keywords & backlinks
- Explore content, keywords & track rankings
- Free learning materials & community support
- Competitor analysis
- Rankings tracker
- Backlinks builder
- Keyword research & comparisons
The ability to boost your rankings, analyze your site(s), compare competitors, and find profitable keywords that drive higher conversions are all part of what you get when you sign up for one of the best SEO tools.
But it’s not a sign-up, and the tools will do it for you solution. If you want that, you’ll need an SEO agency. What you have here are the search engine optimization tools and resources that you can buy (usually for a monthly fee) where you’ll have to put the hard work in.
If you’re an SEO beginner, it might take some time to learn all the jargon and get to grips with how each SEO tool works, but thankfully most have great support to answer any questions and offer free tutorials.
For the SEO specialist, this software is a way to continue providing a service that gives the best chances of results, whether to increase your keyword rankings or backlink profile.
My pick of the best SEO tools
1. Semrush – all-in-one SEO tool
One of the main competitors in the SEO industry is Semrush. They offer over 50 different tools to help you find keywords, check backlinks, watch your rankings, and offer recommendations on your content via their content analyzer.
- Keyword domain & backlinks analytics
- Create reports
- Track mobile rankings
- Keyword tracking & more
With a database of over 20 billion keywords, you’ll be able to run in-depth website audits and create reports for your business or clients. You can make recommendations and make on-page SEO changes based on keyword suggestions and structure.
Depending on which package you choose from will determine how many of the Semrush tools you have access to. The package also limits how many keywords you can track. Their Guru and Business packages let you keep track of historical data like keyword ranking and gain access to their Content Marketing Platform with Social Media scheduling included.
They have one of the most comprehensive guides to SEO and their toolkit with Webinars, Ebooks, Podcasts, and an Academy where you can enroll in courses to help further your SEO knowledge.
Packages don’t come cheap, with their Pro package at $119/month, Guru Plan at$229.95 per month, and their Business plan at $449.95 per month. Pay for your plan annually, and you’ll save yourself 17%.
Great news, though, Semrush gives you a 7-day free trial with full access to all their toolkits, giving you the ability to test them out and see which plan is best for you, if at all.
2. Ahrefs – packed full of SEO features
Another major player in the SEO tools market and Semrush competitor is Ahrefs, who use their own web crawler processing up to 8 billion web pages every single day.
- Site audits to optimise your site
- Analyse competitors keywords & backlinks
- Explore content, keywords & track rankings
- Free learning materials & community support
Sign up for one of their plans, and you’ll get access to their Site Explorer, Site Audit, Keyword Explorer, Rank Tracker, and Content Explorer, which is all you need to help grow your business and visibility in search engines.
Whether you take the Lite, Standard, Advanced, or Agency plans, you’ll be able to crawl your site to check for errors, and broken links, track your keywords, and keep an eye on your rankings online and mobile.
You’ll also be able to explore your competitors’ sites to get keyword ideas and see who is linking to them, giving you the opportunity to up your keyword game and reach out to those same backlinking sites.
The price for Ahrefs SEO starts at just $99 for their lite plan, standard at $179, advanced at $399, and their agency plan at $999. With those plans, you’ll also get access to their knowledgable customer support and access to the Ahrefs Academy, which offers training on website SEO, Blogging, and Digital Marketing.
Unlike Semrush, which offers a free trial, to test out the full functionality of Ahrefs, you’ll have to pay $7 for a 7-day free trial, which is not much, especially if you’re looking for an SEO tool that has enough features to keep your SEO expert busy for months.
3. Moz Pro SEO Tools & Software
Like Semrush and Ahrefs, Moz has dedicated its time to producing one of the best SEO tools for beginners and experts alike.
- Keyword explorer & suggestions
- Rankings tracker
- Audit your sites
- Content optimisation
Take one of their plans, and you’ll have access to many of the same features of other SEO software.
These features include Keyword Research tool, Rank Tracking, Link Research, Analytics, their Site Audit tool, and the chance to boost your online presence with Content Optimisation thanks to on-page SEO.
These features will let you identify any SEO issues your site might suffer from, like duplicate content, bad link building, and technical SEO fails, helping you quickly fix the situation.
Whether you’re a freelancer, small business, enterprise-level business, or agency, Moz Pro has a plan for you, starting at just $99 for their standard plan up to $599 for their premium plan.
You’ll be able to track keywords across Google, Yahoo, and Bing, with the addition of the all-important Google Mobile, too, with a knowledgable 24/7 support line accessible.
What’s great is you can try the full suite of tools that Moz Pro offers with a free 30-day trial, giving you some great tools and 24/7 support and a personalized walkthrough of their software with one of their experts.
If the Moz Pro features aren’t for you. In that case, the selection of Moz free SEO tools, including link tracker, keyword tool, domain analysis, and their instant metrics Moz Bar (available on Google Chrome browser), has plenty to keep you busy.
4. Majestic SEO – find backlink opportunities
Unlike the other SEO Tools above, which focus on a variety of different areas like keyword tracking and ranking, the Majestic SEO tools suite is more focused on links. Specifically the backlinks you get from other websites.
- Analyse your websites links
- Find new linking opportunities
- Track competitors
- See links by context
They gather data on Trust Flow, Citation Flow, Visibility Flow, and Topical Trust Flow and give you Flow Metric scores to help you get a step up on the competition.
Each plan comes with a long list of features, including their updated Fresh Index, Site Explorer, Link Context, and Related Sites, and lets you see the referring domains to your site. Their Pro and Agency plan lets you leverage up to 5 years of historical data, giving you a complete backlink profile over time.
Plus, you’ll get the newly added Keyword Generator and Link Graph, which use the extensive data sets that Majestic has to provide you with content and advertising ideas and see how discovered sites all link together.
We all know that backlinks are essential for search engine optimization, and if that’s a key area you’re currently focusing on for your business, then Majestic might just be the right fit for you.
You can try their Lite and Pro plans with a 7-day money-back guarantee giving you full access to their tools so you can see what it’s all about.
5. SpyFu – analyze your competitors PPC campaigns
With an easy-to-use dashboard, SpyFu focuses on delivering you the best experience possible to help boost your business.
- Competitor analysis
- Rankings tracker
- Backlinks builder
- Keyword research & comparisons
You’ll get all the basics you do from other SEO tools, including a whole SEO Marketing suite giving you access to backlinks, rankings, SERP analysis, keyword research, and the ability to compare domains.
SpyFu differs from the competition as they give you access to their PPC tools. These tools let you see what Google Ads your competitors are running and which keywords they are targeting, helping you create your PPC campaigns quicker and with direction.
Like many of the other SEO companies on this list, you’ll also get access to video tutorials to help guide you on how to use the software and many of the SpyFu features.
Plans start from $39 per month with their unlimited plan for $129 per month, offering unlimited projects, up to 20,000 keywords to track, API Access, and unlimited US and UK data. Pay annually, and you can get some huge savings.
With a 30-day money-back guarantee on all plans, you’ll be able to trial SpyFu risk-free to see if it’s the right search engine tool for you.
What are the best SEO tools?
SEO software can be a magic tool in your online marketing toolkit if you know how to use it. Many, including some of the above, can take time to master. Many SEO professionals are still learning new ways to make content rank better in Google’s SERP and more engaging to gain those all-important links.
If you’re looking for quick gains, then the site audits that many of these tools let you conduct will give you actionable areas to focus on.
The rest of the features let you dive deeper into specific SEO metrics, whether that’s the technical side, on-page, competitor analysis, backlink analysis, etc.
My advice, if you can, use the free trials (or Moz’s free SEO tool suite) that many offer, take a look around and see if it’s the best fit for your business.
If you can’t yet afford any of the above then Google offer a range of analytical tools.You can gain insights into how you site performs online & mobile via the Google Pagespeed Insights, use Google Search Console to see which terms your currently ranking for, Google Analytics for visitor behaviour, and find new ideas for content via the Google Trends site.
If you’re site uses WordPress then Yoast SEO is a good WordPress SEO plugin to use with a free option available, while Screaming Frog SEO Spider can help analyse many aspects of your website with a free and paid version on offer.
SEO isn’t easy, and you will have to put time and effort in to see any results.
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