If you have been running your website for a while and you are in need of more traffic then you are probably wondering what are the best SEO tools?
Well don't worry, we have got you covered.
But there are so many different tools available now that it's an overwhelming process deciding which tools you should be using.
In this guide, I aim to solve your SEO inertia and help you pick up some tools to help you report on your performance and seek out easy wins to generate more traffic to your website in no time.
We are going to evaluate a list of the most useful SEO tools for different types of business with a focus on budget, performance, and user-friendliness to help you can build the best toolkit for your needs.
We are going to be looking at a mixture of free, freemium and paid SEO tools that you can start using straight away.
It's worth noting that tools aren't the complete solution to your prayers and you will need to employ the right tactics to get the best return.
Many people adopt too many tools without learning how to use them properly, this is a bad idea and something that should be avoided at all costs.
I recommend picking up one or two new tools at a time and learning them thoroughly before complicating your SEO stack with yet more tools.
It's also worth noting that you should consider whether your audience is global, national, or local because your local SEO research will depend heavily on which tools you use and how you use them if your focus is local only.
So what are the best SEO tools to use in 2023?
I'm going to break down the best SaaS products, Software, and services available by their purpose and capabilities.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is an essential component of effective search engine optimization. If you don't know what your customers are searching for and what is driving traffic to your competitors you are at a massive disadvantage,
Keyword research can also teach you a lot about your customers and how they discover the kind of product or service you are offering.
Moz Keyword Explorer
A tool available from Moz.com that allows users up to 20 keyword searches per month for free and if you upgrade to Moz Pro you can perform many more searches below. The amount will depend upon the package you sign up for though.
Moze Keyword Explorer gives you information on the monthly keyword search volume, the difficulty rating, the organic click-through-rate and then gives you a priority score based on these data sets.
You can then take a look at the first page of SERP results for that specific keyword and dig into related keyword suggestions so you can look through and find other keyword variations and opportunities. This can be a great way to discover long-tail keyword alternatives to your primary keyword.
This tool is simple but effective and a great tool for beginners who don't want to be overwhelmed with too much info at once.
Visit: https://moz.com/explorer
Google Keyword Planner
A free tool from Google that has been an essential keyword research tool since the early days remains a useful tool to this day however used to contain a lot more data before the big G made major changes to how their data was collected.
Google Keyword Planner requires you sign up for a Google Adwords account and while you are required to add a credit card you can use this tool to your heart's content without having to actually start an ad campaign and spend any money, so it's still free. This is because the tool is designed to be used in conjunction with your AdWords campaign.
While the tool hasn't evolved and added features over the years it is still essential in any SEO Toolkit because the data is coming directly from Google, not a third party tool.
One useful bonus of using the GKP is that by having the bid amount and competition for each keyword you can easily surmise which keywords are "money words" that drive buying customers to websites.
Add this dataset to your decision making and you will be able to increase your conversion rate and target the right kind of search intent.
Visit https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner
SEMRush
SEMRush falls under our SEO Essentials and is a tool we recommend to anybody taking their website and SEO seriously.
SEMRush has many uses but the ability to see your competitors keywords as well as which keywords are driving the most traffic to their websites and the percentage of their total search traffic a keyword is bringing in are extremely powerful tools to have at your disposal.
SEMRush provides lots of other data on each keyword your competitor is ranking for including the position they are currently ranking in, keyword difficulty, cost per click, the total number of results for that keyword, and the search trend for the term over previous months.
You can quickly see which pages gross the total number of visits from search by going to the "pages" section under "Organic Research".
It also tells you the number of keywords or phrases that are driving traffic to these specific pages. Often this will show you that it's not only one or two search terms that are bringing in all of the traffic, usually its a combination of ranking well for a couple of primary terms as well as a long list of longtail keywords.
The results can often be surprising, but this is why it's so interesting and can lead to lots of content ideas for your own website.
SEMRush operates a freemium model with limited use for free users and a pro version for those who want to unlock the full features.
Visit: SEMRush
KeywordTool.io
This is another great keyword research tool that gives you some great long tail keyword ideas.
The free version hides the data and only shows you a list of related search terms the system detects but this is still useful information you can then go and plug into other tools.
Or sign up for their pro version as this is one of the best tools of it's kind giving you additional insight into keyword research for other platforms like YouTube, Bing, Amazon, and eBay.
So if you want to rank your videos or products natively on the platforms you publish this tool will come in handy.
Don't underestimate the power of YouTube SEO on how it can bring a lot of traffic to your website.
Visit: https://keywordtool.io
Ahrefs
Like SEMRush this is an SEO essential for anyone who is serious about their SEO strategy and taking their website and online business to the next level.
Unfortunately, there is no free version however you can sign up for a free 7-day trial then after that, it's 100% pay to play with Ahrefs.
Fortunately, it makes up for it by being by far the best backlink analysis tool available on the market and that doesn't look to be changing anytime soon.
Ahrefs also has a keyword research tool called "Keyword Explorer" that provides in-depth insights into any keyword you want to analyze.
Keyword Explorer displays a large number of keyword suggestions, supports data from 100+ countries, keyword difficulty, number of clicks, search volume and more.
Ahrefs contains advanced metrics like return rate, clicks per search % of clicks and % of paid clicks, the information you won't find on any of the alternative keyword tools.
If you only have $99 on an SEO tool each month Ahrefs should be your go-to.
Visit https://ahrefs.com
KWFinder by Mangools
KWFinder is an essential part of Mangools SEO tools. Besides Moz Keyword Explorer or Ahrefs, KWFinder perfectly utilizes quality and value. It's great for newbies, but also easy to use by professional marketers or SEO experts.
You can start with a seed keyword or long-tail keyword and see how difficult is to rank for them. Its interface is not bloated with tons of data. Instead, you'll get tons of related keywords with their search volume, PPC and keyword difficulty, which shows how hard it is to rank for the keyword. On the right side of the dashboard, there is a live SERP overview.
You can also track your competitors and see the keywords they rank for. Just enter their domain or URL and KWFinder will show you the top-ranking keywords.
The tool is very affordable and easy to use, yet very powerful. Despite that, KWFinder is one of 5 SEO tools made by Mangools. With a basic subscription, you'll get 200 keywords suggestions daily and also access to other 4 tools. You can try it for free with 10 days trial, where you can get 10 lookups per 24 hours, 50 related and 5 competitor keywords per lookup.
Visit https://kwfinder.com
SpyFu
SpyFu made its name as a great PPC keyword research tool that allowed you to see where your competitors are spending their ad budget but over time it has evolved into a more thorough SEO suite of tools.
SpyFu SEO Keywords section gives you an overview of your competitor's keywords so you can analyze the opportunity vs difficulty of each and then dig deeper by searching for those terms in other keyword tools.
While SpyFu is focussed on competitor research you can, of course, analyze your own website and keyword performance too.
SpyFu's Keyword Groups lets you get a holistic view of your competitor's keywords by topic before you drill down to see which keywords within each subject are driving the most traffic.
SpyFu has a feature called Kombat for looking at shared organic keywords between multiple websites. It will automatically find a couple of relevant websites to compare with that it has detected share keyword ranking similarities but also allows you to then change them and add custom URLs.
SpyFu offers limited features for free and has a pro version.
Visit SpyFu
Keyworddit
Dubbed as "The Reddit Keyword Research Tool" Keyworddit is a very clever service that harvests data from specific Subreddits to give you keyword suggestions based on the data that's scraped ordered by the number of times a particular word or phrase is mentioned.
This is one of the best ways to find LSI Keywords, that's latent semantic index keywords and refers to keywords that are related to your primary keyword. Google takes these terms into consideration and they can also help you rank on Google for longtail keywords that can drive additional traffic to your website.
Reddit is a great source of information on pretty much any niche or subject and as such, it acts as a great hive of keywords just waiting to be tapped into.
Keyworddit is also completely free.
Visit http://www.keyworddit.com
SECockpit
SECockpit is one of the more advanced keyword research tools in this list and gives you a considerable amount of information other tools lack.
With SECockpit you plug in your seed keyword and it generates you the data for that keyword while also showing you a list of relevant LSI keywords.
One of the handy features is how it highlights low competition keywords which can be easy wins when you are starting out. We all like the low hanging fruit!
SECockpit also shows you if there is an Amazon, YouTube or eBay link in the first page for your search term, the reason that's useful is that you are up against strong competition to make a sale when you are trying to appear alongside these juggernauts.
SECockpit also scrapes the "searches similar to" feature that appears at the bottom of the Google search results that can lead to finding some more great keyword opportunities.
Visit https://secockpit.com
UberSuggest
A tool that has been around for a number of years and comes from the famous digital marketer Neil Patel UbersSuggest scrapes Google Autocomplete data so you can use it for keyword analysis and looking for keyword opportunities like LSI Keywords.
You simply input your seed keyword and then select the country of interest and press the "lookup" button.
UberSuggest gives you the search volume, cost-per-click and a competition score for each keyword it generates from your seed word.
You can also change your search from web results to image, shopping, YouTube, and news. YouTube is especially handy if you are also doing video SEO.
Visit UberSuggest
Seed Keywords Tool
SeedKeywords is a different tool in that it helps you to find out what people are typing into the search box by creating campaigns.
You create a mock scenario for a search query and then share a custom link with your contacts and ask them to complete the search based on the suggestion at the top of the campaign.
When people complete the search it then logs their query along with everyone else.
You then get a list of search terms your contacts would use when searching for the product you advised of in your campaign.
This of it as a modern vox pop approach to doing keyword research with a little help from your existing contacts and customers.
Visit https://www.seedkeywords.com
Content Optimization & On-Site SEO
Optimizing your content on site is an important aspect of any SEO strategy, here are my favorite tools for analyzing my own content and the content of competitors for ways to improve.
BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is a great tool for finding the best content for a specific keyword based on how it's performed on social media.
Ever wanted to find out what content works best for any topic or competitor? BuzzSumo is all you need to do just that.
When you search a website or search phrase Buzzsumo will break down a list of articles ordered by their combined number of social media shares and links.
Buzzsumo counts Facebook engagements, LinkedIn Shares, Twitter Shares, Pinterest Pins and the number of links it is able to detect and while that latter number may not be wholly accurate you can rest assured the rest of the data probably is and can act as a good indicator as to what the best content is.
BuzzSumo is a fantastic tool to use as part of your content marketing strategy and when doing a content audit and looking for ways to improve your existing content.
Visit https://buzzsumo.com/
Yoast SEO Plugin
Since WordPress powers as much as 30% of the web and Mazepress is built using WordPress I'm going to assume you are using this CMS too.
While WordPress is known for being SEO Friendly, in general, there are several areas where it falls short out of the box and that's where Yoast SEO comes in.
Previously known as WordPress SEO plugin, Yoast allows you to fine-tune every aspect of your WordPress website but most important is the content analysis tool that allows you to analyze and optimize your content for a specific primary keyword.
Yoast also analyses various parts of the way you have edited your page or post and the metadata, images and other criteria that could impact the SEO friendliness of your content.
Yoast is free however they do have a premium plugin that I have only used once or twice and don't think is necessary.
The free version is more than enough to make a massive difference in your WordPress install and how you edit content for search engines before hitting the publish button.
Yoast also includes other essential SEO features like the ability to edit your meta titles and descriptions and adds a comprehensive XML sitemap solution.
Visit Yoast on the WordPress repository.
Moz Pro Page Optimizer
Moz Pro is a premium SEO tool that features a full suite of different tools which includes Page Optimizer.
Page Optimizer allows you to type in the URL to your post or page and then add your primary keyword so it can analyze your content for keyword density and other on-site content ranking factors.
Moz generates a page optimization score out of 100 where it evaluates similar criteria to Yoast, however, it can probably get a better idea of the rest of the web page beyond just the content section.
Moz evaluates page title, description, permalink, your content, readability, and other factors to determine your score and will detect if you are underutilizing a keyword or stuffing keywords.
That said the idea of keyword density is somewhat antiquated in the modern world of SEO and obsessing over finding the optimal density % is a lost cause,
Of course, including your primary keyword, a few times is still a no-brainer and I am certainly not recommending you don't mention the words at all.
Visit https://moz.com
SEO & Website Analysis Chrome Extension by WooRank
A useful free Chrome Extension from WooRank that allows you to view important information in the Google Chrome web browser.
You can use this extension to analyze your own content or you can use it to check competitor's websites.
This WooRank extension saves me a lot of time when I want to quickly check things on a website including SEO factors, Mobile responsiveness, local search and usability scores.
Simply click the extension icon in your browser and it will pop open with a window of SEO analysis on the web page you are currently viewing. It's really as simple as that.
Estimate traffic, traffic rank, AdWords traffic and monitor social activity including likes, comments, and shares across various social networks.
The tool also includes lots of on-page ranking factors such as mobile compatibility, accessibility such as font sizes and much more.
Since it's free this is a great tool for beginners who don't yet have a budget but also something I still keep installed to this day despite using premium SEO tools because it's handy to quickly check the SEO of a competitors site or an article on my own websites when digging back through doing a content audit.
Get SEO & Website Analysis Chrome Extension
Google Search Console
Google Search Console or Webmaster Tools doesn't specifically analyze your page content but does give you insights on onsite SEO technical issues like 404 errors and other problems you might need to fix.
It also allows you to find opportunities where you could improve the content and get some easy wins by looking at Search Traffic and taking a look at where you are ranking on page 2 or 3 for a target keyword that is generating a good number of impressions.
Consider taking a look at that content and seeing if you can improve it.
This is when you can run it through one of the content analysis tools to get more insights on where to improve.
Visit Google Search Console
Siteliner
Siteliner is an interesting and free tool for doing some on-site quality checks.
Siteliner looks for things like broken links, duplicate content and related domains.
What I really love about Siteliner is the benchmark comparisons with the rest of the web where it compares your site to others based on average page size, average page load time, number of words per page and other comparative metrics like internal and external link averages.
The tool is simple but easy to use and allows you to quickly make some improvements and spot issues with your duplicate content.
Visit Siteliner
Structured Data Markup Helper
A tool from Google that helps you check that any structured data markup you add to your web pages is valid.
WordPress and Yoast SEO both add certain structured data to your pages but you may want to add custom review microdata and other types of semantic data to help tell search engines and other websites more context about the page.
This, of course, doesn't work unless the code is implemented properly, so always use this tool to check your pages are set up properly with structured data.
Visit Google's Markup Helper
Grammarly
Okay, I see your raised eyebrow at this one but seriously, optimizing your content also includes ensuring there are no spelling mistakes, typos, grammatical errors or sentences that should actually be broken up into 3.
If you want optimized content your readers are going to love, share and link to then it needs to be readable and flow.
If you have mistakes and confusingly long sentences than you will quickly lose the attention and respect of your audience.
So use the free Grammarly extension for Chrome and make sure you scan all of your articles before you hit publish. It's worth noting they do have a premium version you can upgrade to but the free version is sufficient for most.
This is like having a professional proofreader working for free, so use it.
Visit: Grammarly
Also, check out our full guide on Grammar and Punctuation tools.
Panguin
Panguin is an interesting tool that is an amalgam of Panda and Penguin, two names given to Google algorithm updates that shook the industry a few years ago.
This tool was designed to help people detect Google algorithm changes on a timeline with your Google Analytics traffic data superimposed on top.
You can then look for correlations between massive drops of traffic or improvements and updates that have happened at the same time to help you work out the cause.
One of the best tools to check if you have experienced a downturn in traffic recently and want to pinpoint a certain event.
Visit Panguin.
Search Analytics for Sheets
Google Search Console as good as it is, unfortunately, only stores data for the past 90 days and in the world of SEO 3 months isn't a whole lot of data.
With Search Analytics for Sheets, you can export your data to Google Sheets and keep a record for as long as you are exporting the data.
Search Analytics for Sheets comes in the form of a Chrome Extension and is free.
Install to Chrome here.
Ranking Trackers
Modern SEO is less about tracking your keyword rankings than it used to be but that doesn't mean you don't look, it just means you can't obsess over them as they are not the be all and end all of SEO.
Google makes daily updates to the algorithm and your rankings will be in constant flux even if you aren't doing anything wrong. If you are constantly chasing your tail trying to work out why you dropped a few places you might be wasting your time and causing more harm than good.
With that said it's still a great way to track performance and seek new opportunities so here are the best tools for tracking your rankings.
Google Search Console
The most accurate tool for finding out which keywords are driving traffic to your website and where you are ranking comes from the big G.
Google Search Console, formerly Webmaster Tools gives you lots of insights on your website but arguably the most common use is for seeing where you are ranking on Google search for your target keywords and to find other keywords you are naturally ranking for.
After setting up Google Webmaster Tools simply go to Search Traffic > Search Analytics and you will be presented with a list of the search terms that are bringing traffic to your website.
You can turn on clicks, impressions, click-through-rate (CTR) and your position.
A great way to find new opportunities here is to look at keywords that are getting a lot of impressions and you are ranking between position 10-30 with little effort.
Consider going back and doubling down on this keyword and you can easily climb up those low competition search terms.
This tool also keeps historic data so you can get an idea as to if your search rankings are improving or not and in good Google fashion the tool is completely free.
Visit Search Console
Moz Pro
The Moz Pro service includes a good rank tracking tool that essentially grabs data from your Google Search Console to present it in a more intuitive fashion.
Moz Pro Rankings tool gives you weekly and monthly updates on how much your rankings have moved up or down and warnings when it spots an issue with a lot of keywords.
This is a tool I have used quite a lot over the years and find it gives you a great overview of your wins and losses in the SERPs each week or month.
The ability to track your rankings on both a national and regional basis is great for those looking to refine their local SEO strategy. This is where the tool really excels for me.
If you spot a ranking you want to improve you can click the page optimization tool which is also part of Moz Pro and get to work analyzing what you could do to climb the rankings.
Visit Moz Pro
SERPS.com
SERPS.com has been going for a long time and for those unfamiliar SERPS stands for Search Engine Results Pages. So it would make sense that they are in the business of tracking keyword rankings on search engine pages wouldn't it?
Similarly to Moz SERPS.com gives you a breakdown of the keywords you are tracking including your current position in Google and other information like the daily, weekly and monthly change, traffic from the keyword, cost per click and the nation you are tracking the SERPS for.
The test tool allows you to perform tests after making changes to your website so you can report on how these changes impacted your rankings.
Visit SERPS.com
SEMRush
SEMRush has a great keyword ranking tracker tool that provides insights on both your own website and that of your competitors.
SEMRush's ranking tool is under Domain Analytics > Organic Research > Positions and sheds light on all of the usual criteria but interestingly also gives you information about the % of your total traffic that a specific keyword is bringing your site.
You can see the trend data for the keywords you are ranking for and various other details but unfortunately, it doesn't have the historical information and how much you have gone up or down each week or month for each keyword like Moz and SERPs do.
Visit SEMRush
SEO PowerSuite
SEO PowerSuite is a desktop tool that is comprehensive and as well as including a rank tracker tool also features backlink analysis, content audit and keyword tools.
This tool offers both a free and paid subscription version and while I haven't used it recently has always done the job well as a rank checker tool and for analyzing technical issues with your page content from missing titles and alt text to other more critical problems.
Visit PowerSuite
Competitor Analysis & Research
One of the greatest skills to master in the world of marketing and SEO is competitor analysis and research. If you can learn to reverse engineer your competitors wins you can grow your website much faster by taking inspiration from competitors who have already discovered the best sources of traffic and easiest keywords to rank for.
SEMRush
SEMRush is one of the best competitor research tools that allow you to enter any website and pull up lots of performance metrics and information on which keywords are driving the most traffic to their website.
If you are looking to improve your content strategy then this tool is a must-have.
There is a free version which gives you limited information and the top 10 results from the sites you search which gives you a good taste of what to expect.
To get the most out of this tool you really need to be using the full premium version which gives you a full view of your competitors winning content and keywords.
You can also analyze your competitor's backlinks and use other factors that you can reverse engineer.
SEMRush is one of those tools that after using for 30 minutes will leave you with an endless list of actionable ideas and content to work get to work on.
Visit SEMRush
SimilarWeb
If you want to get a quick idea of your competitor's gross traffic and the sources that are sending the majority of it then SimilarWeb and their free Chrome Extension are the tools for you.
If you are looking at a handful of competitors and unsure who to dig into, run the sites through SimilarWeb and see which are performing the best and compare the sources to help you find out how and why.
SimilarWeb is one of the best competitive analysis tools and while it has a free Chrome Extension and web tool there are limitations to the data unless you upgrade to their premium service.
Compare criteria including a websites global rank, country rank, and category rank to find who the real market leaders are.
Get an idea of the traffic overview and trend over the previous 6 months, total visits, as well as a list of the websites sending the most traffic.
SimilarWeb also includes social metrics and helps you to find other similar websites.
Visit SimilarWeb
SpyFu
SpyFu made its name as the best tool for pay per click advertising analysis as it allows you to find out where your competition is spending their paid ad budget.
If you want to invest in Google Adwords or other PPC advertising campaigns like Facebook Ads, utilizing this tool will give you a massive advantage and save you from wasting money on A/B split testing and trial and error when you are first experimenting with these campaigns.
SpyFu breaks down your competitor's traffic and keywords by organic search vs paid search and also gives you information on the top competitors in the same niche.
In terms of organic search data, it gives you a breakdown of how many keywords have just made it to the first page vs the number of keywords that have fallen off. A great indicator as to if a website is quickly climbing up the search engine rankings.
The combined estimated monthly click value is an interesting metric that can give you an idea as to whether a niche can generate a sizable income.
Last but not least SpyFu also allows you to see the backlinks they have been able to detect for each site you want to monitor.
Visit SpyFu
BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo allows you to weigh which content is performing best for a specific niche, keyword or competitors website.
Simply enter a keyword, niche or URL and click go and you will be presented with a list of the best content rated by virality and the total number of shares on social media.
BuzzSumo's score system aggregates the number of Facebook engagements, LinkedInShares, Twitter Shares, Pins on Pinterest and the number of backlinks it can find to give a total and then lists the posts in order.
This is one of the best tools to quickly get ideas to write about that might work like gangbusters for your website.
You can filter by the last 24 hours, week, month all the way through to much longer time ranges if you are looking for something that is truly evergreen and not just hot today and not tomorrow.
BuzzSumo has a limited free version but to get the most use out of this tool a premium subscription is required.
Visit BuzzSumo
Want more tools like this? See our guide on Competitive Analysis and How to Evaluate a Website.
Backlink Tracking
Backlinks have been the lifeblood of any SEO campaign since the early days of SEO and that remains true to this day.
While link building has gone through many overhauls over the years as Google ups the ante and moves the goalposts gaining quality backlinks remain a staple of any good SEO strategy.
and reporting on where you are getting backlinks from and how many is an important exercise.
The only way to effectively do this is to use a backlink tracking tool and there is no shortage of options to choose from but as this article is only about the best we aren't going to cover every tool under the sun.
Ahrefs
When it comes to backlink analysis tools Ahrefs is in a class of its own.
Ahrefs boasts an index of backlinks that dwarfs most of the alternatives out there and it's updated on a daily basis.
Ahrefs not only has the largest dataset they also have an extremely easy to use interface that is intuitive and I think the reason for their success and longevity as the best SEO tool for backlink tracking and analysis.
Ahrefs is also a fantastic tool for link building and keyword research and if you are going to pay for just one tool and have $100 per month budget to spend make sure it's this one.
Visit Ahrefs
Moz Pro - Link Explorer
One area Moz has never been great at is backlink analysis and reporting however in 2023 they have added an updated link tool called "Link Explorer V2".
You can still do all of the things you used to be able to like see the links detected, their PA, DA, Spam Score and Linking Root domains but now you use some new features too.
It is still too early to tell if the link index has increased significantly but the new tool has more features that include the ability to drill down into looking at patterns in your link anchor text, your top pages by links, recently discovered and lost backlinks, and a compare backlink profile tool.
These look like big improvements that could make the Moz Pro backlink tool a more serious contender in this category.
Visit Moz Pro
Moz Bar
A browser extension from the folks at Moz that allows a certain amount of information for free and overlays the domain authority and page authority of search engine results in the results pages.
Simply install the extension, turn it on and then search Google like you normally would and this time you will see a little bar underneath each search result with various details including DA, PA, backlinks and more.
All useful features to make sure your overall backlink profile is in check and you can report on your progress.
If you are a Moz Pro user and logged in the Moz Bar will give you more information such as spam score, and the number of linking root domains.
Add MozBar for Chrome.
Majestic SEO
Majestic has been known for a long time as one of the best link analysis tools and boasts a massive index.
A freemium tool with both a basic free version and a paid version Majestic is worth the money if you really want a tool that focusses strongly on having a deep index of the links pointing to your website.
Majestic will break down your number of links, a Trust Flow Link Quality score, Citation Flow Link Volume, number of fresh backlinks and also shows you the number of unique IP addresses that are linking to your domain.
The premium version is required to see a large amount of data as well as tools like the Link Profile Report.
They also have a great tool for finding sites that link to your competitors that aren't currently linking to you so you can create a list of these sites to approach with some outreach tactics later.
Visit Majestic
SEO Tools for Excel
If you are the kind of person who likes to work in spreadsheets then SEO Tools for Excel is ideal for you.
SEO Tools for Excel, as the name suggests is a tool that brings SEO reporting tools into your Excel environment so you can pull data into spreadsheets and then save it for later.
In the word of SEO spreadsheets really are an essential tool for keeping track of data and progress so if you aren't into spreadsheets maybe it's time to get over that phobia because it will make a difference.
You can use integrations with Google Analytics and other services to pull the data directly into excel for analysis as well as lots of other on page and off page SEO tools.
Visit SEO Tools for Excel
Backlink Building
As we mentioned above backlinks are still an essential component of SEO and arguably the most important vertical Google looks at to judge your authority. So in addition to monitoring your backlinks, you also need to have a strategy for building backlinks.
Backlink building is harder than ever and there are no quick win software tools that will help you here but having a few tools and services to assist you in finding opportunities will definitely help.
HARO
HARO or Help a Reporter Out is a simple service that allows you to sign up for daily emails that include a list of articles reporters are working on and what they need help with.
You go through the categories of posts looking for a topic or request that is relevant to your subject matter and something you can offer value to and send them a pitch with your thoughts or answers.
Sometimes reporters are looking for experts to interview but other times they are simply looking for a few quotes or opinions from experts and thought leaders on a specific subject.
You help them out and often you can receive a backlink in return to say thank you. It's as simple as that and can get you access to backlinks from major publications on the web with high domain authority.
Visit HARO
Detailed
Detailed is a fairly new service and the brainchild of Glen Allsopp, a digital marketer I have followed for years and someone who is a true thought leader in the space.
Detailed is an index of link opportunities organized by niche/industry that focusses on quality over quantity and began as an internal project to allow Glen to build up his own small link index for research and reporting purposes.
Ultimately he has released this as a service that provides an index of the best performing websites in each industry and where they are acquiring their backlinks.
The tool is easy to use. Select an industry and then the next drop down will show an ordered list of the biggest sites in that niche being tracked.
You will then be shown a list of the latest backlinks the site has generated ordered by freshness and while this tool is still new and has a selective index that avoids indexing everything on the web to ensure performance and quality make this option unique.
Visit Detailed
Broken Link Checker
Broken Link Checker helps you quickly find broken links on websites you would like to get a backlink from.
It's a very easy tool to use and while it might look a little dated it still works well and can present you with some great opportunities.
Once you find some links, if you have content that is similar can replace the broken link do some outreach and let the site owner know.
Usually, they will be grateful and if you have a good enough piece of content to show them will often willingly add your link to say thank you.
Visit Broken Link Builder
Check My Links
At the expense of exhausting broken backlink building Check My Links is another tool that can help you quickly find broken backlinks on the page you are currently viewing in Chrome using a Chrome Extension.
This is also handy to check broken backlinks on your own website too of course.
Visit Check My Links
Siteliner
Siteliner isn't exactly a backlink tool but does allow you to put websites in that you would like to get a backlink from and discover broken backlinks.
Mailshake
Since there are no push-button solutions to building backlinks one of the most important parts of the process to master is outreach.
Once you have found an article or a website where you would like to get a backlink often your best chance is to do some outreach and contact the site owner, editor or author with a tactical request for them to consider including your backlink.
Mailshake is a cold outreach email tool that helps bootstrap that process so you can focus your time on more pressing matters.
You can use templates for guest post outreach, backlink requests and other types of mass cold email outreach. Of course, making sure you stay within the confines of the GDPR and ensure you don't abuse this kind of approach.
Visit Mailshake
LinkWhisper
A relatively new plugin for WordPress that gives you a holistic view of your internal links so you can see which articles could benefit from having some more links pointing to it.
Internal links can help Google to better understand your topical relevance and improve your rankings and traffic.
This plugin is premium but saves so much time it's quickly becoming an essential plugin for all of my niche websites and blogs.
Read our full review.
Site Speed
You better believe it! We are now considering website speed optimization as an SEO ranking factor because a slow website leads to poor user experience, higher bounce rate, and more people giving up before the page loads. These are things Google can use to influence its rankings and they are putting more and more emphasis on performance by releasing their own tools to help.
GTMetrix
One of the best tools to monitor your website speed and performance. You can see which files or scripts are slowing your website down and it gives you a thorough breakdown of what you should improve.
Visit GTMetrix
Pingdom
I always use both GTMetrix and Pingdom at the same time so I can test the performance from different tools and with Pingdom from various locations, starting with the option that is closest to the clients server and audience.
If you have a UK based website that only serves people in the UK, you don't want to test your website speed from a server in California.
Visit Pingdom.
Google's Core Web Vitals
A relatively new tool and an evolved version of Lighthouse, Core Web Vitals is a tool to help you optimize your website for what matters to Google.
This includes site speed and also mobile responsiveness both of which are core to your visitor's user experience and in-turn your SEO.
If you set up Google Search Console for your website you will automatically see Core Web Vitals warnings in there.
Visit Core Web Vitals.
Uptime Robot
Too many website owners I know don't actually monitor their uptime/downtime. This is a good way to keep your hosting provider accountable and to resolve any problems that bring your website down post-haste.
I set mine to check every 5 minutes on all of my websites so I get an email to tell me there's a problem before a customer does.
Visit UptimeRobot
If you want to learn more about how you can optimize your website for performance see our full guide on WordPress website speed optimization.
The Best SEO Tools - Final Word
Which tools you decide to start using today will depend upon your individual situation in terms of what you want to achieve, your current position, and the budget you have available to spend on shiny new tools.
I definitely don't advise signing up for everything even if they are free, it's important to test and learn one tool at a time to properly understand how it can benefit you and to make sure you get the full amount of use out of it.
When it comes to SEO tools and software avoid anything that looks or smells like black-hat or gray hat. These spammy tools and article directory submission tools haven't fooled anybody for years, so save your time, money, and reputation and stick to reputable tools and methods for growing more authority.
I would recommend most people sign up for SEMRush or Ahrefs if you want to sign up for an all-in-one suite that offers lots of tools in one package. If you have the budget then I would sign up for both, however, try one first and learn it thoroughly before adopting more tools and complicating your process.
If you found this article interesting then you will probably also like my guide on the Best SEO Blogs and how to master WordPress SEO.
Are you interested in learning how you can earn more backlinks by creating interactive maps? See our guide here.
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David
Web Designer, Digital Marketer & Entrepreneur with over a decades worth of experience helping small and medium sized businesses evolve and adapt to the modern digital marketplace.