SEO

Top Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tools

24/05/2020
               

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to all the activities aimed at getting a higher ranking in the top results of search engines. Therefore, it’s an important component for meeting high-volume organic traffic goals, and it’s crucial for a sustainable digital marketing strategy.

When you prepare your marketing plans, you should not ignore SEO activities, which incorporate market and competitor data. Managing an effective SEO strategy needs a comprehensive knowledge of many practices and tools. 

SEO analysis tools help you to measure, analyze, and optimize your website’s ranking in Google search results and attract visitors which can lead to potential customers. So, which SEO tools should you use, and why? 

Here you can see the review of the best SEO tools that will help keep your brand’s website ranking on Google and guide you in building a successful SEO strategy:

 

1. Semrush – All-in-One Marketing Toolkit

SemRush is one of the best SEO tools for planning your marketing activities. It offers many valuable features such as the keyword magic tool, backlink auditing, search volumes, position tracking, site auditing, on-page SEO checker, organic traffic insights, and bulk analysis.

You can monitor all of your projects together in one panel to get daily, weekly, or yearly metrics and updates.

Overview of SEMRush Features

  • Organic Research
  • Advertising Research
  • Display Advertising Tool
  • Audience Insights
  • Backlinks
  • Keyword Research
  • Product Listing Ads
  • Traffic Analysis
  • Market Explorer

Enter a keyword and get a list of all related keywords and the total volume.

 

 

One of the most effective features of SEMRush is that it shows you your competitor’s top keywords and finds profitable keywords:

 

The tool’s free version only works with a single website but it includes basic site auditing, limited keyword, and domain reporting. The paid version offers more tools and detailed reports to support your marketing strategy. 

 

2. Moz

Another impressive SEO tool is Moz, which offers different versions like Moz Pro and Moz Local. Moz’s free version includes the following tools: 

  • Keyword Explorer
  • Link Explorer
  • Moz Bar
  • My Online Presence
  • Free Domain Analysis
  • Free Location Audit

On the other hand, Moz Pro offers site audits, rank tracking, backlink analysis, and keyword research.

Moz provides a wide range of different tools, supportive communities, and large amounts of data (links, pages, etc.).

 

 

Moz also presents industry-standard metrics, offers value-added suggestions on optimization, and has redesigned crawling. However, its user experience is not as intuitive as the other competitor tools.

Moreover, Moz provides great insights into how your website is performing and also how to improve it to get more organic search traffic.

 

3. SpyFu: The All-in-One Suite

SpyFu is an intelligence SEO tool for marketers who want to audit their websites. What separates Spyfu from its competitors is that it’s a solid tool for analysts who are running a campaign with deep insights into both SEO and PPC.  

When you search for a keyword, SpyFu allows you to find the domains that buy it, the domains that rank it, and how its rank changes over time.

With SpyFu, you have access to tools under four main categories: SEO Research, PPC Research, Keyword Research, and some extra features:

Apart from its wide selection of keyword management tools, SpyFu also has features such as interactive reporting skills, PPC advertising metrics, and the ability to track backlinks directly.

 

 

Some disadvantages of SpyFu are that it doesn’t offer web-wide crawling and that its ad metrics are complicated for beginner-level SEO users.

SpyFu is one of the best-known tools in the SEO game with its deep feature set and excellent reporting skills for digital marketers. While it might be a bit complicated for new users, it’s an excellent pick for building your SEO and marketing strategy.

 

4. KWFinder

KWFinder is a powerful keyword tool that is easy to use. It offers the advantages listed below:

  • Impressive ad hoc keyword searching element
  • Low pricing
  • Great keyword lists and good functionality
  • Helps the users to find long-tailed keywords that have lower levels of competition

This tool has a blog page that includes useful content about SEO and SEOpedia, which helps you understand the basics of SEO.

 

 

Many experts use KWFinder to find the relevant keywords and run analysis reports on backlinks and SERP (Search Engine Results Page). But KWFinder’s other advanced level SEO tools beyond keyword-specific queries are limited. These factors make the tool more suitable for small businesses.

 

5. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a professional-level SEO tool with powerful features from keyword management to site audits.  Here are the outstanding features that Ahrefs offers: 

  • Great crawling capabilities
  • Deep SERP analysis
  • Content research
  • Rank tracking
  • Web monitoring
  • Backlink research
  • Competitive analysis
  • There are many supported search engines in Ahrefs’ keyword explorer including Youtube, Amazon, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, and Baidu
  • You can also get total search traffic estimations for the top-ranking pages with the Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer
  • Content gap analysis between you and your competitors
  • Monitoring your website’s outbound links

Ahrefs also has good references from reputable companies like Facebook, Adobe, Linkedin, Uber, Netflix, and eBay.

 

 

6. DeepCrawl

As you can imagine from the name of the tool, DeepCrawl’s core capabilities are about site crawling. It’s a great tool, known as a crawl-as-a-service platform. It has no keyword research or position monitoring tools, but it does offer on-page recommendations. You can integrate Google Analytics and the Google Search Console by using DeepCrawl. It presents AMP metrics and backlink tracking and also has the ability to save settings while running crawls. 

 

 

Here are other important facts about this tool:

  • DeepCrawl categorizes its solutions for e-commerce, publishers, agencies, and enterprises.
  • DeepCrawl pricing starts at $14.00 per month and there is not a free version (only a free trial).
  • It has limited capabilities but high ratings with its features on many platforms voted by expert marketers.

 

7. Screaming Frog

This UK-based SEO agency offers the SEO Spider, which is one of the most popular data-centric SEO tools for desktop-based crawlers

 

 

It has a free version (for indexing with less than 500 website pages) and also a paid version for £149 per year.  It works on PC, Mac, and Linux. It has strong references from big companies such as Apple, Google, Disney, and Amazon. The tool has a 4.9 rating on Capterra. Screaming Frog calls its SEO tool “SEO Spider.” With this simple and fast tool, you can perform the actions below (and many more):

  • Finding Broken (404) Links
  • Analyzing Page Titles and Meta Descriptions
  • Creating XML Sitemaps
  • Crawling JavaScript Rich Website
  • Integrating Google Analytics, Search Console, and PSI
  • Finding Duplicate Content
  • Auditing Redirects
  • Redirecting and Fixing Canonical Issues
  • Custom Extraction

Screaming Frog saves you a large amount of time and gives you a deeper understanding of your website. It is very useful for the initial website audit when you want to check if the site has any major bugs. This tool allows you to crawl quickly, analyze, and audit an onsite SEO. One of the most liked things about Screaming Frog is that it is free up to a certain number of pages. It is also very user friendly for the beginner or advanced SEO analysts and marketers of all levels. Although the interface and tools feel somewhat out of date, it is still one of the top SEO tools for small businesses.  

 

8. Majestic

According to marketing and SEO experts, another amazing tool is Majestic, which has an excellent reputation as the world’s largest commercial Link Index database.

 

 

Majestic is generally used to analyze link profiles – both for your website and competitor websites. Majestic SEO has deep crawling capabilities and solid reporting skills. If you need SEO tips, you can use the help and FAQ resources of this tool. 

It also has a browser plugin that you can manage easily. The Majestic SEO tool has three pricing plan options that you can start working with: Lite, Pro, and API versions.

The tool focuses on backlinks but one of the most popular features is the Majestic Million, which shows the top ranking of 1 million websites. And here are our other notes on the tool:

  • Unfortunately, there are no keyword management tools (not effective in keyword research), SERP results, CPC, or PPC metrics. 
  • It only has custom Majestic metrics, which can be confusing. 
  • When outside of its own index, the platform does not present more SEO and marketing functionality and trying to generate reports is difficult.
  • Another negative user comment is that it runs slowly when it’s used as a Chrome plug-in.

We hope you gained valuable insights into the most popular SEO tools. 

 

Bonus: SEO Tactics

Here’s a wide range of SEO tactics we have prepared for you to implement in your growth marketing activities. You can choose the tactics according to your main goals (Brand awareness + traffic generation, conversion, and retention) as well as the difficulty level (beginner, intermediate, advanced).