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!

 

Share article

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.

You may also enjoy these articles:

Call us

South Australia:

Western Australia: