Millions of websites compete for the top spots on search engine pages. The best website SEO tools help you execute your strategy and gain market share.
In this article, I’ll share SEO tools I’ve used in a professional capacity and make recommendations for beginners as well as more seasoned users.
These tools range from WordPress plugins to keyword research, link building, and performance analysis.
Whether you're a blogger, a small business owner, or an SEO professional managing multiple WordPress sites, there are tools here to empower you achieve your gaols.
Let's dive in and discover how these powerful tools can help you unlock your WordPress site's true potential and drive more organic traffic your way.
In This Article
Why Use Website SEO Tools?
Website SEO tools are software products that simplify and automate SEO tasks.
For brands that want to grow their audience, SEO is crucial. How you rank in search engine results directly impacts business growth. Want to be more competitive? Then, you’ll want to rank higher.
Routine tasks, like site audits or web page optimization, can be time-intensive. Software tools speed up and improve these processes via automation.
This can produce new and valuable insights, especially regarding search engine rankings and competitor analysis.
Likewise, improving the ranking of a web page is easier when software reveals the next action steps. All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is an excellent example of this.
So, website SEO tools boost productivity, helping site owners work smarter and get better results.
Types of Website SEO Tools
You have a rich variety of tools to choose from.
Some SEO tools are full-featured toolkits focusing on website optimization or keyword research.
To make it easier to browse our list, I’ve sorted the tools by type.
- WordPress SEO Tools
- Keyword Research Tools
- Local SEO Tools
- Content Optimization tools
- Outreach Tools
- Free SEO Tools
WordPress Website SEO Tools
Let’s start with SEO tools designed for WordPress site users.
1. All in One SEO (AIOSEO) Plugin: Complete SEO Toolkit
Optimizing your site to rank higher in search engine result pages (SERPs) involves tasks like generating sitemaps and improving individual pages.
All in One SEO simplifies the entire process, automating much of it. The plugin also provides specific action steps for improving web pages.
This takes a lot of the guesswork and frustration out of SEO.
The action steps may include improvements for title tags, meta descriptions, headings, focus keyword use, readability, and even formatting. (The plugin will guide you in making your content scannable.)
Title tags and meta descriptions are called “meta tags.”
Additional Features
The Pro and Elite versions of AIOSEO come bundled with Link Assistant. This tool simplifies internal linking by displaying linking opportunities and recommended anchor text.
You can add links (and edit anchor text) from the dashboard without opening posts or pages.
This past year, All in One SEO released an integration with Google Search Console. This feature, Search Statistics, shows you, right inside WordPress, which keywords you’re ranking for.
In addition, AIOSEO released a ChatGPT integration, a Cornerstone Content tool, and 9 other new features.
All in One SEO is an established plugin with thousands of 5-star reviews on WordPress.org. Currently, over 3 million people are using AIOSEO.
Who it’s for: Beginners, agencies, small businesses, and bloggers.
Select Features:
Page Builder Support: AIOSEO is compatible with SeedProd, Elementor, Divi, WooCommerce, WPBakery, and Avada.
Pricing: Starts at $49.60
Good to know: AIOSEO has a free version called AIOSEO Lite, which you can download on WordPress.org.
Read: Yoast vs. RankMath vs. All in One SEO: Which is Better?
AIOSEO also offers a Broken Link Checker plugin to find and fix broken links.
2. MonsterInsights: Google Analytics for Dummies
After optimizing your pages, how do you track results?
This is where MonsterInsights comes in. This plugin creates a Google Analytics dashboard right inside your WordPress editor.
Setting up Google Analytics is a breeze with MonsterInsights—no more dealing with code snippets, Google Tag Manager, and technical details.
Log into WordPress, and you’ll see, in simplified visuals, data that matters, including:
- Top conversions sources
- Revenue and transactions
- Conversion rates trends
The Reports screen offers tabbed options to view traffic, e-commerce, forms, and other data.
Some menu items, like e-commerce, have dropdowns. Click on the menu item to see the options.
These options are an overview of our store performance, which coupons and discounts are most used on the site, and a visual funnel display showing how users are converting.
When you know what’s working, you can do more of it.
We use MonsterInsights, and it helps us make data-driven decisions.
Select Integrations: WooCommerce, WPForms, Google Ads, MemberPress, Gravity Forms, Easy Digital Downloads, Formidable Forms, AffiliateWP, YouTube.
Select Features:
- No-code tracking
- WooCommerce analytics
- GDPR-friendly
- Affiliate and link tracking
- User Journeys
- Form tracking
Pricing: Starts at $99.50/year.
3. WP Rocket: Speed Up Your WordPress Site
WP Rocket is a highly-rated caching plugin that’s beginner-friendly and effective.
Caching plugins are used to boost website loading speeds for returning visitors.
WP Rocket does this by preloading some elements, storing data locally, compressing images, and combining and minifying code files. (Minification is the removal of unnecessary spaces in code files, which speeds up their processing.)
WP Rocket includes lazy loading for images, too. Lazy loading is a best practice that uses code to load images at the top of a page 1st. The goal is to prevent site visitors from seeing image placeholders when they click on a page.
It takes 3 minutes to set up WP Rocket. No technical knowledge is required.
Select features:
- GZIP compression
- Cache preloading
- E-commerce optimization
- Code file and media optimization
- CDN integration
Pricing: Starts at $59/year
Keyword Research Tools
Every effective content marketing and SEO strategy relies on keyword research. So choose a good option and add it to your website SEO tools.
The best keyword research tools provide robust competitor analysis. And they help you target the right search terms. In addition, you can use them to find relevant long-tail and low-competition keywords.
Our recommendations, Ahrefs and Semrush, are full-featured tools that include keyword difficulty ratings, domain authority scores, search volume data, keyword suggestions, and keyword rankings.
These tools are so similar that your final choice may depend on your preferred interface.
4. Semrush: Competitor and Keyword Analysis
With its user-friendly interface, Semrush enables users to do keyword research immediately.
Enter a keyword into the Keyword Overview field, and you’ll get vital information, including how easy (or hard) that keyword is to rank for, plus a list of the top-ranking pages.
If a keyword you’re researching turns out to be hard to rank for, simply click the Keyword Magic Tool to get a list of alternatives. Filter by keyword difficulty to narrow options down to those that are easy to rank for.
I use the Keyword Magic Tool frequently, typically filtering for search intent along with keyword difficulty.
Another powerful tool is the Keyword Gap Analysis (called a Content Gap Analysis in Ahrefs). To use it, enter your domain along with 1-4 competitors. Then you can filter to find keywords your competitors are ranking high for, but you aren’t.
In addition you can use Semrush to select and organize keywords into topic clusters.
Learn more about Keyword Gap Analysis and Topic Clusters.
Features:
- Keyword Difficulty Scores
- Local SEO rankings
- Keyword Magic tool
- CPC data
- Keyword Gap tool
Pricing: Starts at $129.95/month.
Moz Pro offers tools to help you drive organic traffic by targeting the right keywords.
5. Ahrefs: Plan Effective Content
Ahrefs makes it easy to discover which keywords you and your competitors are ranking for.
Enter a domain into Ahrefs and you’ll see its domain score (“Domain Rating”), number of referring domains and backlinks (plus trends), keyword and traffic trends, and paid search data.
Like Semrush, Ahrefs provides a proprietary domain scoring system, whose methodology is heavily reliant on backlink profiles.
Enter a search term in Ahrefs, and you’ll discover its keyword difficulty score along with estimated monthly search volume, keyword intent, CPC price, and estimated traffic.
Ahrefs’ Content Gap Analysis is just as full-featured as Semrush’s Keyword Gap Analysis. This tool is effective for identifying opportunities to capture search market share from competitors.
You can also use it to troubleshoot why a competitor’s page on the same topic is ranking higher than yours.
Who it’s for: Anyone who needs to do keyword research, but the support materials are geared toward intermediate-to-advanced users.
Select Features:
- Site Explorer
- Keywords Explorer
- Rank Tracker
- Content Explorer: discover keyword ideas
Pricing: Starts at $99/month.
Good to know: If you pay annually, you’ll get 2 months for free.
6. TopicFinder.com: Discover Your Competitor’s Top Pages
TopicFinder helps you find your competitor’s top performing pages so you can publish content on the same topic and (hopefully) outrank them.
Their pitch is they make this process easier and more intuitive than competitors.
Unlike Semrush, you’re not limited to researching 4 competitors at a time.
You can filter results for topics that are easy to rank for and signal buying intent as well as by high-traffic and local content.
Topicfinder will also generate suggested outlines based on search data.
Select features:
- Advanced filters
- Custom tags
- CSV export
- Share direct to email
Pricing: Starts at $39/month.
Good to know: TopicFinder offers a 7-day free trial. You’ll need to enter your credit card number to get that.
Website SEO Tools for Outreach and Link Building
Because backlinks are a significant ranking factor, many businesses prioritize link building campaigns.
These vary from simple one-on-one emails to complex campaigns targeting thousands of people per message.
These tools are prized by professional link builders.
7. Hunter Email Finder
Hunter is a free Chrome extension that’s remarkably good at finding VIP’s email addresses.
For this reason, it’s a must-have for marketers doing link building.
I’ve had the pleasure of Hunter in advanced link building projects. It was an invaluable part of the process.
Simply install the extension, then navigate to a website. Click the extension and sort by desired department, such as “Executive” or “Management.”
Each email address will display a verification score, which indicates how confident Hunter is that the email address is correct.
It’s important to note that you won’t always get the addresses you’re searching for. And the addresses you do get are based on pattern detection. So they won’t always be correct.
You should run any Hunter-acquired emails through an email validation tool to avoid bounces which can harm your deliverability.
Select features:
- Bulk email finder
- Google Sheets add-on
- Email Finder API
Pricing: Starts at free. Paid tiers are based on numbers of searches.
8. Pitchbox: Scale up Link Building Campaigns
PItchbox is an outreach platform built to scale advanced link building campaigns.
After you upload contacts (called “opportunities”) you can design highly-personalized email series.
This is another tool I’ve used in highly successful link building projects.
Setting up campaigns and editing them is intuitive.
Creating email sequences is also simple and you can easily track response rates.
Personalization options include the name of a website, first name, and any custom variable you wish to create.
You can schedule your campaign emails directly from Pitchbox, which will throttle outgoing email to help prevent triggering spam filters.
Pitchbox can be used for any link building strategy including skyscraper outreach or broken backlinks campaigns.
Select features:
- Link monitoring
- Blocklist management
- Recurring campaigns
- Automated follow-up emails
Pricing: Starts at $550/month for 3 users and 5 user accounts.
9. Link Research Tools: Advanced Backlinks Analysis
Austria-based Link Research Tools (LRT) is a sophisticated backlinks analysis platform designed for marketers involved in complex link building strategies.
LRT is also prized by technical SEO professionals for backlinks audits, troubleshooting, monitoring, and Google penalty recovery.
Choose from many advanced filtering options including link attribute, link velocity, or anchor text type. You can also create your own custom filters.
Link Research Tools also provides a proprietary DTOXRISK score, which indicates toxic backlinks pointing to your domain.
It also provides a way to disavow links using its dashboard tools.
Note: You can run simulations on opportunities before you engage in outreach. This has obvious appeal to agencies.
I’ve used Link Research Tools for advanced link building projects and consider it indispensable for querying link data.
Integrations: Integrate with Pitchbox, Ahrefs, Semrush, Google Analytics, Sistrix, and more.
Who it’s for: Professional marketers.
Select features:
- Link Prospecting tools
- Competitive Keyword Analyzer
- Link Detox tools
- Custom filters
- Link monitoring
Link Research Tools pricing: Starts at $599/month.
Local Website SEO Tools
When you search for things like “dry cleaner,” “24-hr plumber,” or “pizza delivery,” Google understands that you want local options.
After all, if you’re in Bangkok you don’t want your pizza delivered from New York City!
While on-page SEO is the same for all businesses, ranking well in local SEO also requires a few other things, like getting your business listed in online directories and monitoring local search results.
Our two favorite tools for this are BrightLocal and WhiteSpark.
Let’s take a look at each.
10: BrightLocal.com: Get Directory Listings and Rankings
Having your business listed in online directories is recognized by marketers as a local ranking factor. Making sure your contact information (called NAP) is accurate and consistent across the web is crucial, too.
This is where BrightLocal’s Citation Builder service comes in. For a flat fee you can get verified by data aggregators and directories.
- The aggregators feed business information to dozens or sources including vehicle GPS systems.
- You’ll choose which directories you want to be listed in. You’ll need to manage your own social media accounts though.
Any change in contact information can also be handled by BrightLocal. Simply provide them your new information and they’ll ensure your business listings are updated.
In addition, with BrightLocal’s Local Search Grid, you can get accurate data on how your business ranks in local searches for various keywords. Agencies will like the white label feature.
BrightLocal is simple to use and very affordable.
Who it’s for: Small business owners and local marketing agencies.
Select tools:
- Citation Builder
- Listings Management
- Review Management
Pricing: The Citation Builder is an a la carte service. BrightLocal also offers plans starting at $39/month for all their tools including Local Search Grid.
11. Whitespark: Manage Local SEO and Rank Tracking
Canada-based Whitespark provides a full suite of local SEO Tools, from review management to citation building and local rank tracking.
Additionally, they offer professional SEO services for optimizing your site, your Google Business Profile, and managing your directory listings.
Whitespark offers a live, interactive demo of their rank tracking for local search.
Tools:
- Google Business Profile management
- Local Rank Tracker
- Local Citation Finder
- Reputation Builder
Pricing: Whitespark sells its 4 tools, listed above, for various prices. For instance, the Local Rank Tracker starts at $17/month for weekly tracking of up to 100 keywords. To see all the pricing options, create a free account and log in.
Good to know: You can get a 14-day free trial for any Whitespark product.
Website SEO Tools for Content Optimization
Content optimization tools help users create content that ranks. They provide advanced editor panes with resources to guide you as you create your content.
These tools typically use AI recommendations to help you meet search intent for your target keyword and produce content that can outrank the competition.
We have 3 recommendations, Clearscope, MarketMuse, and SurferSEO.
In terms of workflow, MarketMuse and Clearscope sit between keyword research tools like Semrush and on-page optimization tools like AIOSEO.
SurferSEO is different: It’s a hybrid that includes an AI content generator and keyword research for topic clusters.
Let’s look at the features set for each tool.
12. Clearscope: Rank Higher With Comprehensive Content
Clearscope speeds up the content planning and creation process by using Google data to help you understand search intent.
Add a keyword to Clearscope and it generates a report, complete with editor pane and search intent information.
In your report, you’ll see top-ranking content, outlines of that content, and a sidebar listing “terms.” Terms are subtopics that Clearscope has pulled from top ranking content.
As with all AI-based tools, it’s vital to use your own judgment when deciding on recommendations. It’s easy to misuse these tools.
For instance, include enough of the listed terms and Clearscope will give you a high grade. (The highest being A++.) But a high grade doesn’t necessarily correlate with quality or ranking. Consider: It’s possible to get a low grade and land the featured snippet!
Moreover, using “terms” verbatim, doesn’t account for the fact that Google understands variants of keywords (“terms”).
Nor does Clearscope seem engineered to adapt to Google’s recent algorithms which are growing in sophistication.
To the point, for some keywords, there’s not a lot of quality content available, so trying to emulate what everyone else has done may not the best approach.
That said, we use Clearscope and many top content marketing teams, including those at IBM, NVIDIA, and Conde Nast, rely on it.
Who it’s for: Content teams that need to scale up.
Features:
- Themes and outlines
- Content grading
- Displays PAA questions
Pricing: Starts at $199/month.
13. MarketMuse: Intelligent Content Planning
MarketMuse’s forte is enabling intelligent content planning. It does everything Clearscope does, but offers a unique way to boost topical authority.
This software will assess your published content (“content inventory analysis). Then you can analyze a keyword and get an authority advantage score for it.
Regardless of the related keyword difficulty score, your advantage score tells you how easy it will be for your site to rank well for that topic.
As MarketMuse puts it: “Your site is unique, as should be your difficulty score.”
This personalized keyword difficulty score helps you prioritize which content to create. And it can help predict SEO performance.
MarketMuse strikes us as ‘brainier’ and more evolved than Clearscope. But Clearscope’s simplicity no doubt attracts many.
I’ve used both tools in professional capacities and prefer Market Muse. However, you should try both and see which interface and feature set you prefer.
Select features:
- Content brief generator
- Content cluster planning
- Competitive content analysis
Pricing: Starts at $149/month.
14. Surfer: an AI Hybrid
As with Clearscope and MarketMuse, you enter a keyword into Surfer and get an editing pane, content grade, and list of relevant subtopics.
A big difference is that Surfer can generate an outline or the entire article. At the top of your editing space, you’ll choose to “Write yourself” or “Write with AI.”
Surfer can also generate briefs and headlines.
The app will run a plagiarism check for you and it integrates with Google Docs, Jasper, Semrush, Twilio, WordPress and other platforms.
Surfer also provides an easy way to research and plan topic clusters. However, unlike MarketMuse, it doesn’t take your current content inventory into consideration.
You’ll also get recommendations for improving and rewriting underperforming content.
Select features:
- Keyword research for clusters
- Multilingual content editor
- Content strategy planner
Pricing: Starts at $139/month.
Good to know: Plans have user and AI article limits.
Free Website SEO Tools
No list of SEO tools would be complete without everyone’s favorite category: free tools!
There are a variety of free SEO tools to choose from. Some, like AIOSEO’s Analyzer, are permanently free.
Others (like Ubersuggest) offer limited functionality: you’ll need to sign up for a paid plan to unlock more features.
There are also free tools that focus on some narrow aspect of SEO, like AnswerSocrates which displays People Also Ask questions from search results.
Now, let’s take a look at what’s available.
Free Tools from All in One SEO (AIOSEO)
- 15: AIOSEO Analyzer is a free Chrome extension you can use to analyze any web page. Its compressed format makes it ideal for SEO professionals or agency reps to do on-the-fly analysis during client meetings.
- 16: SEO Analyzer by All in One SEO is a website audit tool. Add any URL and get a free SEO audit, downloadable as a PDF. Marketers can use this SEO report to onboard clients.
- 17: All in One SEO (AIOSEO) Lite: This is a free version of the popular AIOSEO WordPress plugin which you can download from WordPress.org.
8 Free Google Tools
Google offers some of the most sophisticated and data-rich free tools available.
Here are some of our favorites:.
Above: Google’s PageSpeed Insights provides website performance scores. Scroll beneath the scores to get actionable insights.
- 18: Google PageSpeed Insights: Add your URL and get sophisticated website performance and user experience analyses. Note: Acting on the information will likely require a developer.
- 19: Chrome Incognito: This overlooked gem provides a wealth of information on search intent.
- 20: Chrome Developer Tools: With a single click you can view code and performance data for any website. This helps developers assess HTML, CSS, or JavaScript issues including speed problems.
- 21: Google Analytics: Free website metrics. Customize your account to track website and email sales, funnel performance, and which referral sites are delivering the most sales. Thousands of possibilities.
- 22: Google Search Console: Track keyword rankings and discover and fix site issues like non-indexed pages. (Bing’s version of this is Bing Webmaster Tools.)
- 23: Google Trends: Measure trending interest on a topic.
- 24: Google Keyword Planner: Part of Google Ads, this free tool can provide data on keywords including estimated monthly search volume.
- 25: Looker Studio is Google’s rebrand of Data Studio. Create custom dashboards and reporting from multiple sources, including real-time stats.
Google Search Console used to be called Google Webmaster Tools.
5 Specialty SEO Tools
The following free tools are focused on a narrow aspect of SEO.
- 26: Exploding Topics: Discover trending topics with long-term growth potential.
- 27: Screaming Frog SEO Spider: Detailed link analysis for pros. Get granular listings of duplicate content or canonicals, and much more.
- 28: Ahrefs Free Backlink Checker: Enter a domain and get limited backlinks and referring domains data. To see all backlinks you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
- 29: AnswerSocrates: Enter a topic and discover the questions that searchers have about it.
- 30: AlsoAsked allows you to explore People Also Ask questions, by geography, in a mind map format.
Discover more options in our 21 Best Free SEO Tools guide.
What Website SEO Tools Do We Use?
We use All in One SEO (AIOSEO) (no surprise there!) to optimize our content before publishing and get ranking data.
In addition, we use MonsterInsights to get Google Analytics data right in WordPress.
Additionally we use Clearscope to plan and create content that ranks. And we’ve used both Semrush and Ahrefs for keyword and competitor research.
While not directly related to search engine optimization, OptinMonster and WPForms are excellent tools that help us capture conversions. We recommend that you give those plugins a close look.
Q&A on Website SEO Tools
What do you recommend for local SEO tools?
Set up a free Google Business Profile and use a platform like BrightLocal or Whitespark to get listed in business directories. Optimize your site using an SEO plugin like All in One SEO (AIOSEO).
Are SEO tools worth it?
Quality SEO tools can save you time on repetitive tasks and they can automate complicated analysis tasks.
In addition, SEO plugins, like All in One SEO (AIOSEO) automate many technical tasks, such as creating and updating sitemaps or adding schema markup.
All of this can help you address SEO issues efficiently and boost organic search traffic.
Resources on Website SEO Tools
Looking for details on certain types of SEO tools?
Explore these guides.
- 8 Best SEO Chrome Extensions
- 8 Best SEO Tools for Small Business
- 21 Best Free SEO Tools
- Best On-Page SEO Tools for WordPress
- Best AI (Artificial Intelligence) SEO Tools for WordPress
- Best SEO Monitoring Tools for WordPress
- 7 Best Content Optimization Tools for SEO
- 9 Best SEO Keyword Analysis Tools
- Best Free SEO Analysis Tools
- Mobile SEO Tool Recommendations
- Best SEO Checkers
Next, learn how to optimize your web pages for better rankings. Understand the difference between SEO vs. Social Media in digital marketing. And learn how to avoid SEO scams and to conduct an SEO audit.
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