Must-have SEO Tools for Your Business

Google Analytics

According to Search Engine Land, Google handles more than 2 trillion searches in a year. Most people have embraced the internet as their source of information. Besides, information is everywhere on online platforms.

As a business owner, you need to keep yourself updated with what is happening with search engines for your website to remain relevant. There are numerous SEO tools available to help you out, but which ones must you have?

This article will provide you with SEO software you need for your business to grow, how to choose and use them, their functions, and their price. Keep reading!

Table of Contents

How to Choose an SEO Tool

Selecting the right SEO tool for your website is essential because it helps you rank higher on search engines. You can choose the right tool for your business by understanding the critical features of each SEO software. Here are the 5 main features of SEO tools you need to consider.

Keyword Ranking

Keywords are one of the most crucial features in optimizing your content. Therefore, it is important to have a tool showing you which keywords will help you rank higher on search engines instead of spending time on unprofitable keywords.

A good SEO keyword tool should have a search volume feature to show how often a certain keyword is searched. Besides, it should show you your ranking to know where your site ranks in search engine result pages. Finally, it needs to indicate the changes to understand how your ranks are moving from time to time.

Mobile Optimization

Another key feature of SEO tools to consider is whether it shows your site’s mobile friendliness. According to Bridge Edge Mid-year Mobile Research Roundup, 57% of the online traffic in the US comes from phones and tablets. Therefore, a mobile-friendly website is likely to gain more traffic.

You should look for an SEO tool that helps you understand how your site behaves when someone uses it on their phone. For example, how long does a page take to load when accessing your website through a smartphone?

Backlink Analysis

Backlinks are crucial features that affect your website ranking on search engines. With a backlink analyzing tool, you can know which backlinks are profitable to your site and which ones are not.

These tools help you understand the quality of your backlinks and your competitor’s backlinks. This way, you can develop a backlink profile for your website.

On-page Auditing

An on-page auditor helps you check how search engines see your page and where you need to improve. It allows you to know whether your meta title and description are optimized, any of your metadata is duplicated across the website, the H1 and H2 tags are optimized, and if the keyword density is appropriate. Such SEO software crawls and analyzes every page on your website to help you understand the status of your content.

User-friendly Interface

As you check on the best SEO tools to use in your website, it is essential to consider their usability. This is because SEO can be complex, and hence, you need a tool that helps you understand your website’s status.

Go for a tool that gives you clear, actionable, and concise metrics depending on how your website performs on search engines. Also, the SEO tool should have a dependable help center to support you when you have queries or concerns. Finally, go for software that you can easily navigate and has a clear layout.

12 Crucial SEO Tools for Your Business

SEO Tool

Start Trial

Free version features

Paid version features

Pricing

KWFinder

10-days free trial

 N/A

Keyword suggestions

Historic search volumes with data

What your competitors’ rank for

Local keyword research and SERP analysis

Mangools Basic

$29 per month

$229.20 per year

Mangools Premium

$39 per month

$349.20 per year

Mangools Agency

$79 per month

$289.20 per year

Google Trends

N/A

Trending searches

Terms and topics suggestions depending on interest over time

Not available

N/A

Keywords Everywhere

Not available

Keyword widgets

Trend charts

YouTube metrics

Traffic metrics

Moz link metrics

On-page analysis

Competitor gap analysis

Everything in the free version plus;

Accurate monthly search volume and a 12-month trend data

Volume data in multiple eCommerce websites

Volume data in several Google properties such as Google Keyword Planner

Historic volume data in trends chart

The volume of data in multiple SEO tools

$10 per year

Screaming Frog

N/A

Find broken links, errors, and redirects

Analyze title pages and metadata

Review meta robots and directives

Audit hreflang attributes

General XML sitemaps

Site visualizations

500 URLs crawl limit

Everything in the free version plus;

Scheduling

Crawl configuration

Save crawls and re-upload

Crawl comparison

Spelling and grammar check

Custom extraction

Page speed insights integration

Link metrics integration

Store and view raw and rendered HTML

Unlimited crawl limit

Free technical support

£149.00 per year

Google Search Console

N/A

Alerts when Google encounters indexing, spam, or any issue on your site

Confirmation that Google can crawl your site

Fix indexing problems and re-index new or updated content

Shows sites that link to your site

N/A

N/A

Check My Links

N/A

Free chrome extension

It crawls through your website to show broken and valid links

N/A

N/A

LinkMiner

10-days free trial

N/A

Powerful backlinks from competitors

Find link placement in website preview

Save your favorite backlinks into a list

Mangools Basic

$29 per month

$229.20 per year

Mangools Premium $39 per month

$349.20 per year

Mangools Agency

$79 per month

$289.20 per year

Moz Pro

30-days free trial

N/A

Keyword explorer

Track your rankings

Crawl and audit your site

Optimize your pages

Find link opportunities

Custom reports

$179 per month plus applicable tax

SEMrush

7-days free trial

N/A

Keyword research

On-page SEO

Competitor analysis

Content marketing

Link building

Rank tracking

Pro- $119.95 per month

Guru-$229.95 per month

Business-$449.95 per month

Surfer

N/A, but you can get a 30-day money-back guarantee

Free keyword chrome extension for content and keyword research

Plan your content and generate a content strategy

Create an AI outline

Content editor with suggestions

Optimize existing pages

Basic- $49 per month

Pro- $99 per month

Business- 199 per month

Yoast SEO

N/A

All you need to start ranking on search engines

Site’s technical SEO aspects

6 free academy classes

Yoast Premium plugin

·         Keyword site optimization

·         Avoid dead links on your site

·         Facebook and Twitter previews

·         Content quality and link suggestions as you write

·         Full access to Yoast SEO academy

Plugin subscription

·         5 powerful Yoast plugins

·         All online SEO training courses

·         Full-year updates and 24/7 customer support

Yoast SEO premium- $89 per year exclusive of tax

Yoast Plugin subscription-$199 per year exclusive of tax

Ahrefs

7-day trial for $7

N/A

Site audit

Rank tracker

Site explorer

Content explorer

Keyword explorer

Alerts

Domain comparison

Lite- $99 per month

Standard- $179 per month

Advanced- $399 per month

Free vs. Paid SEO Tools

Some SEO tools are free, while others will cost you. The free options offer great insights into your website, but they can’t provide as much as the paid versions.

The free tools lack some features that paid versions do have. Therefore, you can consider using the free tools and have a paid version to get an in-depth overview of your site. 

Keyword Tools

An SEO keyword tool helps you know the right keywords to target. This is because keywords are one of the things that attract traffic to your site and affect your search engine ranking.

It is important to have an SEO tool that will help you discover keywords and trace the performance of each keyword. Here are 3 keyword tools you can consider.

1. KWFinder

KWFinder

This is an SEO keyword research tool that helps you find easy-to-rank keywords. With this tool, you will find seasonal keywords that will help you generate organic traffic to your site. Besides, it helps find long-tail keywords for a higher search engine ranking based on location.

Also, if you don’t know where to start, KWFinder will give you keywords from your competitors. You need to enter their URL, and the tool will show you which keywords they rank for. Hence, you can come up with your keyword phrases.

This SEO tool is easy to use. It has a straightforward layout. But first, you need to create an account to access its features. Once you log in, feed in your keyword on ‘Search by Keyword’ and click ‘Find keywords’. You will get keyword suggestions, their search volume, and difficulty. 

2. Google Trends

Google Trends

Google Trends is an SEO checker that provides you with keywords’ information. Besides, it helps with trends around a topic to give you insights on what to focus on. With the tool, you can search for keywords in any country and find top queries and rising queries around that keyword. If you’re not sure which trends are happening in your industry, this is the best SEO tool.

Besides, it is an easy tool to use. You don’t need to create an account with Google Trends. All you need to do is to go to the website and enter your keyword or topic of interest. The site will provide you with interest over time analysis of the keyword depending on your location, related topics, and queries.

3. Keywords Everywhere

Keyword Everywhere

Keyword Everywhere makes a keyword search easy and fast. You will find long-tail keyword phrases with their search volume, competition data, Cost Per Click (CPC), and Trend Data. Also, the tool has the ‘People Also Search For’ and ‘Related’ keywords section. These features help you get relevant keywords that will help you rank higher on search engines.

Once you get your keyword metrics on Keywords Everywhere, you can download the list in Excel, PDF, or CSV file formats. To use this tool, you need to sign up for an API Key, and they will email you the link to access it. Once you have it, you can add its extension to your browser.

Crawlers

Crawlers are SEO tools that determine the technical health of your website. They crawl through your pages to assess their speed, security issues, metadata, mobile-friendliness, and HTML setup.

Here are the best crawlers you need for your business;

4. Screaming Frog

Screaming frog is an SEO spider tool that helps you improve your website by providing you with data and audits regarding common SEO issues. It is suitable for small and large websites, gathers crucial onsite data, and helps you make informed decisions.

With this SEO software, you will find broken links, audit redirects, analyze page titles and metadata, and discover duplicate content. Besides, you can generate XML sitemaps and schedule audits.

It is also simple to install Screaming Frog SEO Spider by clicking on the download button for your operating system. Then, you run the installer. It is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Ubuntu Linux.

5. Google Search Console

Google Search Console

It is a tool offered by Google to help businesses maintain, monitor, and troubleshoot the site’s presence on Google search results. You can confirm that Google accessed your site and crawled it with this tool. Besides, you can fix any indexing problem on your site and request for re-indexing of new content. Lastly, you can troubleshoot your site’s AMP, mobile compatibility, and Search Features issues.

To have Google Search Console, you need a recent version of Google, Firefox, or Edge browsers. Also, you need to enable cookies and JavaScript and have a valid Google account. Finally, how you use this tool to check SEO depends on your site, your personal needs, and your role.

You should link your website to the tool to access the metrics. Google Search Console shows the keywords you rank for, daily clicks, impressions, average position, and backlinks. You can use the tool to remove any URLs you don’t want Google to index.

Link Building Tools

These SEO tools help you have powerful backlinks that will drive traffic to your site. The tools allow you to have an insight into your backlink profile and spam score, backlink prospects, and competitor backlink profiles.

Some of the best backlink tools that suit your business include;

6. Check My Links

This is a link checker that crawls through your pages and looks for broken links. Once it goes through your pages and checks on each link, it shows which ones are valid and broken. As a result, you can replace the broken links to improve your search engine results.

It is a simple-to-use SEO tool. You can add it as an extension to your browser once you download it.

Check My Links

7. LinkMiner

LinkMiner

LinkMiner is a backlink checker tool by Mangools. It helps you find backlinks from your top competitors. You can select to see all links, new links, or lost links from this tool.

As one of the best backlinks SEO tools, it is straightforward. Once you log into the site, type in a valid domain or URL on the main search window. Then, click the green button ‘Find backlinks’. You will find the Citation Flow, Trust Flow, Referring IPs, Referring domains, and Total backlinks of your URL.

All-in-one SEO Tools

These SEO tools allow you to analyze several aspects of your site that affect its ranking on search engines. They help in keyword research, site audits, backlinks audit, rank tracking, and other SEO metrics. A good all-in-one SEO tool should cater to most features, if not all, you need to optimize your website.

Examples of the best all-in-one SEO tools to consider for your business include;

8. Moz Pro

Moz Pro

It is an all-in-one suite SEO tool from Moz. Moz SEO helps you target the right keywords and provides keyword suggestions, search volume, and difficulty. With this tool, you can also track your rankings and your competition. You can also crawl and audit your site with Moz Pro. As a result, you can troubleshoot issues on your website and fix them on time.

This SEO tool also allows you to optimize your pages by assisting you in auditing your content and recommending specific improvements.

What about linking buildings? Moz Pro helps you to find link opportunities for your pages. Finally, you can create custom reports about your website to save time.

To access Moz pro, you need to create a Moz profile. Once your account is up, you can use all the features in the software. Besides, an expert will walk with you and access 24/7 customer support.

9. SEMrush

SEMrush is one of the SEO tools where you can do SEO, competitor research, content marketing, social media marketing, and PPC. With this tool, you can do an on-page SEO check, site audit, position tracking, and keywords search.

You can access more than 20 billion keywords for 130 countries. Besides, you can do an in-depth website audit on more than 30 checks. You can also track your PPC campaigns and get recommendations to improve your site.

In addition, you can analyze and track your competitors’ sites and marketing strategies to get some tips. Finally, SEMrush allows you to create and schedule branded or white-labeled reports.

To use the SEMrush SEO tool, you must create your account. Afterward, get to the search bar and insert a keyword, and click on the search button. You will get a table containing numerous keywords. Besides, you can generate competitors’ analysis reports.

10. Surfer SEO

Surfer SEO

Surfer is an SEO checker that helps you put your website at the forefront of search engines. It allows you to prepare a content strategy optimized for your domain, audience, and niche.

You can also build article outlines in minutes, thus saving you time and energy. Once you have your article outline, Surfer allows you to write on its website. Besides, you will get content suggestions to boost your search engine rankings.

Surfer has an audit tool too. Hence, you get a full audit of your content that helps you to realize any gaps and fix them for a better ranking on search engines. You can use this audit to build links and enjoy traffic to your site. Finally, this tool has a free keyword tool to provide you with keyword suggestions.

To start using Surfer SEO, you need to register for an account first. Once your account is up, you can use it to plan for content, write, get keyword suggestions or optimize your content.

11. Yoast SEO

Yoast is a WordPress plugin that helps you to improve your site performance on search engines. Besides, it has tools that allow your content to meet the highest standards of SEO.

First, the plugin helps you optimize your content by setting a focus keyword phrase for each article. Once you set it, you can see the keyword phrase distribution and density. Besides, you can set your meta description, and the tool will help you determine its appropriate length.

Yoast SEO tool also helps you to analyze the readability of your content. Additionally, the tool has Facebook and Twitter previews to help you get your content right on social media platforms. There is also a text link counter to show you how your pages interlink and an interlinking suggestion feature to help you add more links.

To analyze your content, go to the home page and then WordPress Plugins. Click on the Yoast SEO plugin and select Real-time Content Analysis. You will find a section to enter the content you want to analyze, and once you fill it, Yoast will analyze your content.

12. Ahrefs

ahrefs

Ahrefs is a software used for keyword research, rank tracking, competitor analysis, and site audits. It has a keyword explorer tool that helps you study what your customers are searching for on the internet. Besides, you will find top-performing content in your industry with its content explorer tool.

And what about tracking your ranking progress? This SEO checker helps you to know your ranking status. You can also analyze your competitors through the site explorer tool.

You need to create an Ahrefs account to access all these features. For example, if you want a site audit, log in to your account first. Then add in your project and set it up. The tool will crawl through your website and provide crawled URLs, health score, any issues, found links, and URLs by errors. Such a report can help you improve your site to rank better on search engines.

Conclusion

Having the right SEO tools is vital for your business growth. Several factors, such as keyword research and backlinking, affect your presence on the search engines. Therefore, an SEO tool that offers these features is crucial. Besides, you should understand how to use the tools, and some of them are free while others are paid. In a nutshell, the above tools will help your website meet the highest SEO standards.