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?
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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
- Backlink audit and link opportunities: Ahrefs
- Best tool for marketing and rank tracking: Semrush
- Best free tools: Google SEO tools (Search Console, Mobile-Friendly test, PageSpeed Insights)
- Best specialised tools:
- Site speed: PageSpeed Insights, Mobile-Friendly Test
- Keyword research: Answer the Public, Ubersuggest,Â
- Site crawling: Screaming Frog
- Link checking: SEO Minion
- Best all-in-one tool: Semrush
Feature breakdown
| Â | Semrush | Ahrefs | Moz Pro | Woorank | WebCEO | SEO powersuite |
Keyword research | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â |
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 | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â |
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 | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â |
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 | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â |
Check if compliant with Google | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Get suggestions on improvement | ✓ |  | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Compare to competitor sites | ✓ | ✓ |  | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Compare pages at URL or subfolder level |  | ✓ |  |  |  |  |
SERP tracking | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â |
Position tracking | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â |
Ranking distribution (compare rankings in top organic results) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |  | ✓ | ✓ |
Sensor | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â |
View SERP volatility to predict Google ranking algorithm changes | ✓ |  |  |  |  |  |
Backlink analysis | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â |
Backlink audit | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â |
Audit toxic backlinks | ✓ | ✓ |  | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Remove backlinks | ✓ | ✓ |  | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Disavow backlinks | ✓ | ✓ |  | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Find new and lost backlinks | ✓ | ✓ |  |  | ✓ |  |
Backlink analaytics | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â |
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 | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â |
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 | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â |
Search and compare up to 200 domain’s backlink profiles | ✓ |  |  |  |  |  |
Link building | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â | Â |
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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