If you’re interested in ranking a website with the major search engines, you’re going to need the assistance of tools. Lucky for you we complied an extensive list of the best tools on the market.
Watch a video on top SEO tools or read the full article below.
SEO Analysis Tools, the Massive List Only the Best Consultants Use
There are simply too many numbers to crunch, statistics to analyze, and metrics to follow for you to try to handle it all manually. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of software out there to help move your site to the top of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
Here’s a comprehensive list of the finest tools that only the best consultants use.
Google Analytics
Free
Google is the most popular search engine on the planet, so why not start by using a tool that was created by the tech giant? Not only is Google Analytics an indispensable tool in providing you with insights about a particular website’s traffic, it’s also free.
Using Google Analytics, you can glean insight about your audience demographics, how visitors arrived at your site, and the pages on the site that are the most popular. The tool will also provide you with bounce rate statistics and suggestions for speed improvements.
The bottom line: Google Analytics should be your starting point for SEO analysis.
Google Webmasters
Free
Google Webmasters is an excellent source to show you how often, and in what position, pages on your site appear in the SERPs based on keyword queries. It will also give you the click-through-rate (CTR) of links that appear in the search results, so you can see if people are just glossing over your links or clicking on them. The tool will also show you the top countries of people who access your site as well as the devices used to click on your links.
Finally, Google Webmasters will also provide you with a profile of your backlinks, so you can see which sites are providing links back to your site.
Bing Webmaster Tools
Free
Don’t forget Google’s little brother, Bing. Although the Microsoft search engine isn’t nearly as popular as Google, there are people who use it.
Bing Webmaster Tools is another free tool that provides a wealth of analytics that are important to SEO professionals. The application will show you how people arrived at your site and offer pointers about how to increase your traffic. It will also offer advice about how to improve your website.
Google Page Speed Insights
Free
Remember, at least part of your page rank is determined by your site speed. That’s why it’s important to have a lighting fast website.
Once again, Google is your best friend. The search engine company has provided a tool, Page Speed Insights, that will not only check your site for speed results, it will also offer recommendations about how you can improve your site speed.
GTMetrix
Free
In a multitude of counsellors there is safety. Even though Google provides some insights about your page speed, you might want to get a second opinion. To that end, consider using GTMetrix.
GTMetrix is a tool very similar to the aforementioned Google Page Speed Insights. You simply plug in your URL to a text field and click a button. After a few moments, the application will give your site a grade on page speed and provide you with actionable insights.
Google Trends
Free
Never be afraid to stand on the shoulders of giants. If there’s a trending topic on Google, you might be able to use it for content marketing purposes to drive some traffic to your own site.
Google Trends will show you what’s trending on Google right now. If you see a subject that you think might be a good fit for your niche, why not write an article about it and add some exposure for your own business?
Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool
Free
One problem that could adversely affect your ranking is a web page with malformed markup. If you have a tag that isn’t closed somewhere, even a sophisticated bot like Google’s spider might have trouble deciphering the contents of your site.
Fortunately, Google provides a Structured Data Testing Tool that will allow you to be certain that your site is in line with prevailing standards.
Web Sniffer
Free
If you’re a power user, then you already know that you can right-click on a web page and view its source code. However, even with that trick you won’t be able to view the response header of the web page. That’s why Web Sniffer is so valuable.
Just plug your URL into a text field on the Web Sniffer web page, fill out the Captcha box, and click “Submit.” The tool will fetch your page and present you with both request and response headers.
Web Sniffer is valuable because it shows you if your page is being cached by the browser. If it isn’t, then the page could take longer to display as frequently used resources are loaded over the network instead of being loaded from the browser’s cache.
SEMRush
$69.95 – $549.95 monthly
SEMRush is one of the most popular premium tools available for digital marketers. That’s because it brings so much to the table.
For starters, SEMRush offers insight into how your competitors are gaining traffic (whether it’s by paid search, organic search, banner ads, etc.). That will give you some insight as to what works, and what doesn’t work, in that space.
SEMRush also features backlink analysis, keyword research, video advertising research, and a site audit tool. It’s a great weapon to have in your arsenal if you’re serious about maintaining a competitive advantage in a digital marketplace.
Majestic SEO
Free – $399.99 monthly
It’s not likely that you’ll spend too much time in an online SEO forum without seeing Majestic SEO being mentioned. It’s considered by many professionals to be an indispensable tool for outstanding optimization.
Of particular interest to many experts are the Trust Flow (TF) and Citation Flow (CF) metrics for a particular domain offered by the Site Explorer tool – measurements that you simply won’t find anywhere else. The higher the TF and CF numbers are, the more likely it is that you want a backlink from the site.
Majestic SEO also offers backlink and keyword analysis.
Ontolo
$47 – $297 monthly
If you’ve got some great content and you’re looking to pitch it to someone else for a potential backlink, look no further than Ontolo.
Ontolo isn’t free, but it offers some great analysis to help you find out where your content might be welcome. That way you can build a healthy backlink profile and improve your rank for a particular keyword.
Moz Open Site Explorer
Free
Another excellent brand in the SEO space is Moz. Fortunately, that company provides a free tool that will give you some insight about a particular URL.
With Open Site Explorer, you just plug in a URL and click the “Search” button. The tool will provide you with some insight about that URL, most noticeably its domain authority (DA) and page authority (PA). These are metrics that, as the names imply, describe the authority level of the site on a scale between 0 and 100. The higher the number, the better it is to receive a backlink from the site.
Robots.txt Checker
Free
It’s useful to know that your robots.txt file isn’t blocking the search engines. Otherwise, you’ll never rank anything.
The Robots.txt checker is a handy little tool that you can use to validate your robots.txt and view its contents. You’ll have to know where the file is located to use this tool, though.
SEO Browser
Free
At some point, it might become useful to view a web page exactly as a search engine sees it. If you’d like to do that, use SEO Browser.
With SEO Browser, you just plug a particular URL into a text field and click either the “Simple” or “Advanced” button, depending on the types of results you’d like to see. Then, you’ll be shown the contents of that URL just as the search engine bots see it.
SEO Quake
Free
SEO Quake is a plugin that’s currently available for every major browser except Internet Explorer. It’s tool that many SEO professionals use regularly.
The plugin provides key metrics for a site as you’re visiting it. You can view the page rank, Alexa ranking, Google index, and other information. You can also use the tool to view the keyword density for an article you’re viewing.
SEO Site Checkup
Free
There could be any number of things wrong with your website. To learn about some of them, consider using SEO Site Checkup.
SEO Site Checkup will give you grades (A-F) based on various categories about your site. The site speed, for example, will be given one grade. The browser caching used by the site will be given another grade.
The tool is free to use on a limited basis. If you’d like to use it without delays, you’ll have to upgrade to a premium service.
Moz SEO Toolbar
Free
The Moz SEO Toolbar is a plugin that’s available for both Google Chrome and Firefox. It’s another way to view key metrics about a website while you’re accessing it.
SERPMetrics
$.62/thousand keywords
Long-time practitioners of SEO are all too familiar with the so-called “Google Dance.” That’s when a keyword is ranked at one position on one day, and then at a higher position the next day, and then at a lower position on the following day. Enter SERPMetrics.
With SERPMetrics, you can get a chart of how a particular keyword has performed over time. That will give you some insight as to whether or not the trend is your friend.
Screaming Frog
Free to try, £99 annually to buy
Ask any SEO professional to name the top 10 best tools of the trade and you’re likely to hear Screaming Frog in the list. It’s that good.
Screaming Frog is a tool that you’ll need to install locally to use. In other words, it’s not something that you access via a web page like many of the other tools mentioned here. Fortunately, the tool is written in the Java programming language, which is platform independent, so it should work on your system whether you’re using a Mac, PC, or some flavor of UNIX.
The tool will provide you with a wealth of SEO-relevant information about a particular URL, such as page errors, redirects, external links, meta description, word count, response time, redirect chains, inbound links, and overall file size. It’s fabulous software if you’re looking for a bird’s-eye analysis of a particular page from an SEO perspective.
Advanced Web Ranking
$49 – $499 per month
You’d like to know where your site is ranked for a particular keyword, right? That’s why a tool like Advanced Web Ranking is so important.
Advanced Web Ranking will provide you with instant, accurate rankings about specific keywords. It also offers customized reporting so that you can show your clients how you’re progressing in your SEO efforts. If you’re a power user, the tool also offers an API.
YouTube Analytics
Free
SEO professionals already know about the importance of using YouTube in their optimization efforts. That’s why it’s a great idea to have YouTube Analytics bookmarked.
Use YouTube Analytics to see how well your videos are performing. You’ll not only see data about the number of times they’ve been viewed, but also how many minutes people spent watching your videos and the average view duration.
Ahrefs
$0 – $179 per month
Ahrefs is another tool that’s loved by much of the SEO community. Fortunately, you have the option to try it for free.
Ahrefs will provide you with key information about a particular domain, such as how many other domains are referring to it, how many of those come from unique IPs, and how many the links are from domains that end in .edu or .gov. Also, you can use the tool to determine the extent of natural link growth over time.
DeepCrawl
$80 – $150 per month
DeepCrawl might not be as popular as some of the other tools mentioned here, but that’s not for a lack of a feature set. It offers some very handy utilities.
With DeepCrawl, you can crawl test environments to get an idea of how a search engine would view them. You can also check that your tags are correctly applied in your international sites so that search engines deliver results to users in the proper language. DeepCrawl will also audit your redirects and alert you about thin content.
AccuRanker
$19.95 – $499 per month
AccuRanker offers the ability to track keyword rankings for your domain. Starting at under $20 per month, you can track keywords for an unlimited number of domains. The tool will also provide you with automated reports, daily rank updates, and white label reporting.
If you fork over more cash, you’ll be able to track more keywords and gain access to the tool’s API.
SERPBook
$9.95 – $329.95
Last, but certainly not least, is SERPBook. This is a tool that many SEO professionals consider to be their “go to” option for checking the rank of a keyword for a particular domain.
With SERPBook, you simply type in a domain followed by one or more keywords that you’d like to check. Then, the tool will give you a list of where those keywords appear for that domain in multiple search engines.
When SEO consultants provide reports to their clients about keyword ranking, those reports often contain graphs that are created by SERPBook.
BuzzSumo
Free – $499 per month
BuzzSumo is a tool that allows you to search for influential people in your domain. Armed with that info, you can reach out to those individuals in hopes that they’ll help you promote your brand.
HubSpot
$200 – $2,400 per month
How’d you like to build a marketing and sales platform online? HubSpot enables you to integrate a suite of marketing tools so you can do just that.
Rio SEO
Price varies
Rio SEO is an automated SEO service that helps you with retargeting, social sharing, mobile search and Local SEO.
Conductor
$1,995 – $3,750 per month
Conductor is a pricey but effective tool. It helps you find customers with compelling content and also gathers data so that you can fine-tune your brand.
Search Metrics
Free – $449 per month
Search Metrics is powerful tool that offers tailor-fit recommendations for on-page and off-page SEO. It also helps you with targeted strategies for cross-channel campaigns.
AuthorityLabs
$49 – $450 per month
If you’re looking for daily search ranking reports, look no further than AuthorityLabs. The tool also enables you to automate your marketing campaigns, track local keywords, and spy on competitors.
Raven Tools
$99 – $249 per month
Raven Tools is a comprehensive digital marketing solution. With its suite of SEO, PPC, social media, and content marketing tools, you might not need to look anywhere else.
Spy Fu
$79 – $999 per month
Want to know what your competitors are doing to rank? Take a peek at their strategies with Spy Fu. Once you’ve unlocked their strategies, you can imitate them.
Advanced Web Ranking
$199 – $2,999 (lifetime)
Advanced Web Ranking offers a wealth of information, including local and mobile rank tracking, competition monitoring, and white label reports. The company boasts that you’ll spend more time optimizing and less time analyzing with its easy-to-use tool.
SEO PowerSuite
Price varies
SEO PowerSuite offers yet another “all-in-one” solution. The company claims that its 4 tools will deliver everything you need from a digital marketing perspective. If you’re not convinced, you can always download the free version and check it out for yourself.
Whitespark
Price varies
Whitespark offers a link prospector, a local rank tracker, and a local citation finder within its pool of services. The company also boasts of a review generator that can help you with local rank and social proof.
SERPS.com
$99 – $1,999 per month
As you can probably guess from its name, SERPS.com is a rank tracker. The tool offers conversion metrics as well.
Positionly
$19 – $99 per month
Once again, the name gives it away. Positionly is a rank tracker that also offers competitor analysis. The tool also enables you to monitor media mentions from around the web so you can respond to what people are saying about your brand.
RankRanger
$49 – $249 per month
For the third time in a row, the name of the tool tells you what it’s all about. RankRanger provides you with daily rank info. It also enables you to monitor social signals.
AgencyAnalytics
$49 – $499 per month
Another comprehensive SEO tool is the appropriately named AgencyAnalytics. It offers SEO, PPC, and social media analytics in one dashboard. The tool also prints out PDF reports.
SheerSEO
$7 – $40 per month
SheerSEO is an automated online marketing solution that offers rank tracking and link building. The tool also generates reports with a variety of important analytics data, including SERP tracking, social mentions, link analysis, and alerts.
SEO Rank Monitor
$19 – $199 per month
SEO Rank Monitor unsurprisingly offers rank tracking. However, the tool also enables you to spy on competitors.
GeoRanker
$99 – $490 per month
The name says it all. GeoRanker offers regional ranking reports. The tool also helps you find local citation sources for a specific industry and city. Developers will love the fact that GeoRanker also comes with an API.
Microsite Masters
See site for details on pricing
Microsite Masters boasts that it’s a “smarter rank tracker.” It also allows you to share results with other people while keeping some info private.
Sistrix
100 – 400 euros per month
Sistrix offers yet another “all-in-one” solution. Use the tool to learn from competitors, evaluate link risk, and improve on-page optimization.
BrightEdge
Pricing available upon request
BrightEdge is a platform that helps you maximize your content marketing ROI. It also enables you to unlock your competitors’ strategies.
Marketing Samurai
Pricing varies
Marketing Samurai is a marketing automation solution that, simply put, helps you find more customers. The website also offers SEO courses.
GetSTAT
Pricing available upon request
GetSTAT offers unlimited keyword tracking from anywhere with metrics that are constantly updated. The service also provides competitor analysis.
SEO Diver
Pricing varies
Another company that offers competitor analysis is SEO Diver. The tool also helps you optimize your site for maximum results.
ZoomRank
Pricing available upon request
ZoomRank offers organic rankings, mobile rankings, local rankings, and social metrics.
SERPFox
$10 – $200 per month
If you’re looking for an automated search engine tracking system, you should check out SERPFox. The tool offers advanced reporting over customized timeframes. You can also use it to receive alerts.
Tiny Rocket Lab
Pricing available upon request
Tiny Rocket Lab is an excellent tool that you can use to do an onpage SEO checkup. The tool also offers a rank tracker.
Rankinity
Pricing varies
How would you like to see visual representations of your SEO performance? If so, then Rankinity is the tool you’re looking for. It checks your keyword performance across multiple search engines and shows you how you rank compared to competitors.
Web CEO
Pricing varies
Web CEO offers not only a suite of tools, but training as well. If you’re a greenhorn SEO, this is a great tool to start with.
CognitiveSEO
$99 – $499 per month
CognitiveSEO is a bit pricey, but it offers a lot. The company’s tools include a backlink checker, link analysis, and a daily rank checker.
Ezee Rank Tracker
Pricing varies
Ezee Rank Tracker doesn’t just live up to its name. The tool also tracks social signals from 9 social media channels and YouTube.
SERPWoo
$20 per month
SERPWoo offers rank tracking, competitor tracking, and niche tracking. It’s billed as an integrated SEO solution with data feeds from multiple third-party sources (Ahrefs, Moz, etc.).
SpyRanks
Pricing depends on subscription length and the service purchased
SpyRanks is really just another tool that helps you spy on your competition. It also acts as a rank tracker for your own keywords.
GinzaMetrics
$1,000 – $3,000 per month
GinzaMetrics offers marketing intelligence that’s designed to get your website discovered. The highest price listed above ($3,000 per month) isn’t even the enterprise-level quote. So be prepared to open your wallet for this service.
AlloRank
29 – 449 euros per month
As the name implies, AlloRank is yet another rank tracker. You can view results hourly, daily, or weekly. The tool is offered as a service, so there’s no need to install any software.
Collibr.io
$95 – $995 per month
Collibr.io exists to help you find opportunities in social media and the search engines. The tool also helps with conversion analytics, competitor analysis, and lead collection.
SERPScan
$100 – $400 per month
Once again the name says it all. SERPScan is a tool that helps you track your rankings. It also reveals actionable insights that can help you further optimize your site.
SERP Mojo
$3.99
How would you like to track your rank on an Android device? If so, then SERP Mojo is just the tool you’re looking for. It’s cheap and it has a good rating: 4 out of 5 stars.
Iconosquare
Pricing available upon request
Iconosquare is a tool that offers Instagram analytics. It also helps you improve audience engagement with sponsored photo and video contests. Iconosquare can be connected to Hootsuite.
Curulate
Pricing available upon request
“We connect discovery to commerce.” So says Curulate, a company that offers an all-in-one social media management tool.
Sprout Social
$59 – $500 per month
If you’re looking for a way to quickly publish to a number of social media channels, then check out Sprout Social. The tool supports Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Brandwatch
$800 – $3,200 per month
Brandwatch offers advanced social media marketing analysis. You’ll pay a steep price for it, but it gives you the opportunity to learn what people are saying about your brand.
Woobox
Free – $249 per month
Woobox is a great platform for running contests on social media. The tool also offers some Facebook analytics.
Hootsuite
Pricing varies
Very few digital marketers don’t know about Hootsuite. It’s a tool that allows you to publish content to 35 different social media platforms from a single interface.
Simply Measured
$500 – $800 per month
Another tool that’s designed for hardcore social media marketers is Simply Measured. It offers advanced analytics, visual results of your marketing efforts, and competitor analysis.
SocialMention
Pricing available upon request
SocialMention is another tool that lives up to its name. Just plug in a keyword and find out where it’s mentioned on social media.
ViralTag
$24 – $249 per month
ViralTag allows you to publish visual content to multiple social media channels at once. The company claims it has more than 40,000 users.
Tailwind
$10 – $399 per month
Tailwind offers a Pinterest management and analytics tool. It lets you schedule pins, track comments, determine key influencers for a niche.
ViralWoot
Pricing varies
ViralWoot is another Pinterest management and analytics tool. The tool also helps you gain followers because your user name is displayed in its database.
MixPanel
Free – $2,000 per month
MixPanel is a tool that offers engagement metrics beyond simple page views. You can use the tool to help boost your social engagement.
SimilarWeb
$199 – $799 per month
SimilarWeb is the secret weapon used by savvy digital marketers all over the world. It allows you to collect insight from any website on the Internet.
Lucky Orange
$10 – $100 per month
If you want to see how visitors actually use your site, check out Lucky Orange. The tools offers a heatmap that you can use to determine which parts of your site get the most attention.
Optimizely
Pricing available upon request
Optimizely is the go-to tool for marketers who are firm believers in testing. It offers a code-free visual editor that makes it a snap to display variants to different visitors.
Crazy Egg
$9 – $99 per month
Crazy Egg is another tool that shows you how people are using your site. It offers heatmaps and visual analytics.
Megalytic
$5 – $180 per month
Megalytic is a tool that streamlines the analytic reporting process.
Cyfe
$19 per month
Cyfe bills itself as an “all in one” solution that enables you to monitor social media, marketing, analytics, and infrastructure info all in one place.
IBM Watson Analytics
Pricing available upon request
If you’re looking for ways to improve, manage, and sort your data, be sure to check out IBM Watson Analytics. You’ve probably already seen a commercial for Watson on TV, so why not check out what it can do for your business?
Kissmetrics
Pricing available upon request
Kissmetrics is an oldy but a goody. If you’re looking for a tool that can increase conversions, drive engagement, and help you retain customers, then be sure to check it out.
Wrapping it Up
It’s important to work smarter, not harder. Select the right tools for your SEO efforts and you’ll make your life a lot easier while still ranking those keywords.
