Selecting an SEO tool

Selecting an SEO tool graphic

The all-in-one guide to selecting the right SEO tool for your business

Have you ever struggled with gaining the initial traction en route to becoming a big business in a competitive market? Is your product or service better than what your competitors offer, but doesn’t get customers and paying customers due to poor SEO practices?

 

This guide will help you to consider factors that you may not have thought of before, and provide you with our recommendations for SEO tools for any of your SEO priorities. Read on to find out what we have discovered about choosing an SEO tool!

Why should I use an SEO tool?

Here’s a quick list of benefits to using an SEO tool:

  • Breakdown of data sorted by different SEO strategies
  • Alleviates the process of manually doing the whole site audit
  • Time saved, the data collection process is done by the tool
  • Easy to understand the data presented
  • Data presented is based on real statistics, not guesses as to how a site performs
  • Manage multiple websites from one platform

How do I select the right SEO tool for me?

With all the SEO tools available on the market, it can be easy to get swept away and pick a tool that superficially looks good but doesn’t meet your business needs.

By being more specific about what you want to get out of the SEO tool, it can greatly reduce the scope of your search to tools that perform well for the areas that matter to you. Consider the following:

Which of the following are priorities for your SEO plan?

  • Keyword research
  • Backlink analysis and link opportunities
  • Site crawling
  • Number of users on the plan
  • Site speed
  • An all-in-one, or a specialised tool
  • Price point

While the list above addresses individual factors, it is important to note that certain factors can be linked such as price point and the number of users. We at Purple Giraffe had to factor this scenario into our plans, as most tools charge additional fees for multiple users meaning the price point had to factor in the base cost of the tool, as well as the cost of adding extra users to the plan.

Your business priorities affect the tools that would benefit you the most, for example if your priority is backlink analysis and finding websites to share your content Ahrefs is one of the best tools in the market. With its database of backlinks which is second only to Google, it is clearly one of the best tools to meet your needs.

What do we recommend?

Here is a short list of our favourite tools for fulfilling your SEO priorities

Feature breakdown

 

Semrush

Ahrefs

Moz Pro

Woorank

WebCEO

SEO powersuite

Keyword research
      

Find top keywords

Find related keywords and phrases

 

View which sites rank on SERP

 

Find top keywords in a country

  

View keyword rankings over time

 

Side-by-side keyword ranking comparison with competitors

 

Search for keywords on other search engines (beside Google)

 

 

Organic research
      

Keyword trends

 

Estimated traffic

 

Positions report (best performing keywords)

    

Position changes (within a site)

 

Competitors report

 

 

Pages report (site pages in top 100 Google results)

 

 

Subdomain report (positions in top 100)

  

 

View competitor keywords

View organic competitors (competiting domains in top 20)

 

Compare domain position changes with competitor sites

Organic traffic insights (need GA & GSC)

N/A

    

View site performance over time

  

 

Connect with GA and GSC to show hidden keywords

   

 

Analyse site interaction for desktop and mobile

   

 

Site auditing

      

Check site crawlability

Compare site crawls

     

Schedule site audits

Crawls weekly automatically

Check page loading speed

  

Analyse log files (upload, and view metrics in a graph format)

     

Check page links

 

Check security (HTTPS)

     
On page SEO checker
      

Check if compliant with Google

Get suggestions on improvement

 

Compare to competitor sites

 

Compare pages at URL or subfolder level

 

    
SERP tracking
      
Position tracking
      

Ranking distribution (compare rankings in top organic results)

 

Sensor

      

View SERP volatility to predict Google ranking algorithm changes

     

Backlink analysis

      
Backlink audit
      

Audit toxic backlinks

 

Remove backlinks

 

Disavow backlinks

 

Find new and lost backlinks

  

 
Backlink analaytics
      

Analyse competitor backlinks

  

Measure domain authority, based on links in/out

 

  

Check all backlinks in/out

View Authority Score (how well does the referring domain rank?)

 
Backlink gap analysis
      

Find sites with most relevant backlinks to your service/product

  

Check domains which link to competitor and their quality

Find backlink opportunities (identify best targets to reach out to)

 

Bulk analysis
      

Search and compare up to 200 domain’s backlink profiles

     
Link building
      

Find sites that fit your organic keywords and link to rival sites or your site

Plans and pricing

 

Cost (Monthly or Annually)

Included users

Additional user fees

Semrush

[USD]

 

[USD]

Pro

119.95(M), 99.95(A)

1

$45 each

Guru

229.95(M), 191.62(A)

1

$80 each

Business

449.95(M), 374.95(A)

1

$100 each

Ahrefs

[USD]

 

[USD]

Lite

99(M)/82(A)

1

30(M)/300(A)

Standard

179(M)/149(A)

1

30(M)/300(A)

Advanced

399(M)/332(A)

3

30(M)/300(A)

Agency

999(M)/832(A)

5

30(M)/300(A)

Moz Pro
   

[USD]

Standard

99/79

1

49/49 each month

Medium

149/119

1

49/49 each month

Large

249/199

3

49/49 each month

Premium

599/479

5

49/49 each month

Woorank

[USD]

   

Pro

59.99/39.17

1

N/A

Premium

179.99/119.17

1

N/A

Enterprise

Negotiable

Negotiable

Negotiable

WebCEO

[USD]

   

Solo

35/29

1

N/A

Startup

99/74

Unlimited

Free

Corporate

299/224

Unlimited

Free

Agency unlimited

99+/74+ (calculator available for more accurate estimate)

https://www.webceo.com/online-seo-tools-price.htm#pro-calculator

Unlimited

Free

SEO Powersuite

[AUD]

   

Free

0

1

N/A

Professional

459 (A)

1

N/A, 1 license can be used by many as long as only 1 person at a time

Enterprise

1069 (A)

1

N/A, 1 license can be used by many as long as only 1 person at a time

If you are feeling overwhelmed by all this data and would prefer to discuss your options over the phone or in-person, please reach out to Purple Giraffe and we will be happy to help!

 

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Picture of Vishal Narayan

Vishal Narayan

Vishal is currently studying Software Engineering at the University of Adelaide and brings a detail-focused approach with an avid interest in learning. Using his technical background, Vishal is currently an SEO intern at Purple Giraffe, helping small businesses to understand the concepts behind SEO as well as how they can use SEO tools to their advantage.

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