Optimizing your content to rank in search is hard work. But thankfully, there is a very wide range of content SEO tools you can choose from today that make the job a lot simpler. Even within the umbrella of SEO tools, there are tools with different capabilities and applications to meet your every need – from SEO writing with AI to link building. While it is great to have so many options, it can also be a little overwhelming to pick the best SEO tool to fit into your content process. Deciding which features would be most useful to you, choosing between free SEO tools or paid ones – there are a lot of factors to weigh.
To make the choice a little easier for you, we decided to round up the 15 best SEO tools you should consider. Each of these tools has impressed SEO experts with its own unique capabilities. So you’re very likely to find what you’re looking for on this list. Without further ado, let’s get started.
- Narrato
- Google Search Console
- Ahrefs
- SEMrush
- Moz
- Ubersuggest
- KWFinder
- AnswerThePublic
- BuzzSumo
- Woorank
- Serpstat
- Spyfu
- RankRanger
- Advanced Web Ranking
- Keywords Everywhere
1. Narrato – All-in-one content creation, collaboration, and content planning tool
Narrato is an all-in-one content workflow platform that helps your manage your content process right from planning to publishing. The platform offers a range of content planning tools, but the ones that we are most interested in right now are the SEO content planning features on Narrato. The AI-powered SEO content brief generator on Narrato cuts down your SEO research time in half. The SEO content brief offers keyword suggestions with counts, questions or topics to include, references and competitor links, ideal word count, and other SEO parameters to help you optimize your content for search engines.
All you need to do is type in your search term or topic and the brief is generated in a matter of seconds. It is readily accessible alongside the content editor on the associated content task. What’s even better is that the keyword counts on the brief are automatically updated as you create content. This ensures that you have total visibility into keyword use in your content.
Apart from the SEO suggestions offered by the tool, you can also add your own keywords, questions, and references. The content brief lets you attach your own style guides and add notes to authors for providing more guidance to your content creators.
Besides these powerful SEO content planning tools, Narrato also has a host of other content tools. Content optimization tools like the grammar & readability checker and the plagiarism checker help ensure high quality of content. The AI writer and SEO assistant features on the platform help create content for multiple use cases including SEO meta tags, article intros and conclusions, and more. Custom workflows and workflow automation allow you to structure your content creation process and ensure that every piece of content created goes through a uniform process. There are content calendars for tracking content task progress, an AI topic generator to generate new content ideas, projects and folders to organize all your content.
Collaboration on content is also seamless on the platform. Team members and external stakeholders can be added under custom user roles with controlled access. Users can post in-line comments on content and messages to easily share feedback and inputs. The platform offers WordPress publishing support and an API to build custom integrations with your CMS and other apps too.
Best for:
- SEO content planning
- Keyword optimization
- Competitor benchmarking
- Overall quality SEO content creation
Pricing: For individuals and teams just getting started, Narrato has a free plan. If you are looking for advanced features that can take your content process up a notch, Narrato pricing plans start at $8 per user per month.
TL;DR here’s a quick video summarizing the key features of all the SEO tools on this list.
2. Google Search Console – Top SEO tool for a complete SEO audit
If you know about content SEO, you certainly know about Google Search Console too. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that this tool is the holy grail of search engine optimization for marketers. Google Search Console offers a set of tools and reports that provide you with search analytics and data to optimize your content. Google being the primary search engine for most people, this data can prove to be very useful as it tells you which queries your content is ranking for, how many impressions and clicks it is getting, and more.
You can run complete content SEO audits on Google across your blog or website and even submit URLs for crawling to ensure that Google has indexed the latest version of your content. Apart from this Search Console also alerts you of issues on your site that could be affecting your search rankings.
This powerful SEO checker tool gives you a complete overview of how your audience sees your content in search. It also allows you to choose between local SEO insights and global insights depending on which audience you are targeting. Google also offers its own keyword research tool, Google Keyword Planner, and an exclusive analytics tool, Google Analytics, which are an indispensable part of every content marketer’s arsenal.
Best for:
- Content SEO audits
- Keyword and URL performance
- Indexing and sitemap statuses
Pricing: Google Search Console is a free SEO tool.
3. Ahrefs – Backlink checker, keyword research tool, and rank tracker
When it comes to a complete SEO tools suite, very few platforms can compare with Ahrefs. This platform is one of the most popular SEO tools out there. Ahrefs’ tool set includes a site explorer, keyword explorer, rank tracking tools, content explorer, SEO audit tools and more.
One of the most interesting features of this platform is the Site Explorer which gives you detailed insights into the organic traffic and the backlink profile of any URL. This comes in particularly handy in competitor research. The backlink checker also lets you identify lost or broken backlinks and research outgoing links for any URL.
The rank tracking tool on Ahrefs is also a very interesting feature that allows you to track your search rankings over a period of time and chart your search performance against that of your competitors. The Rank Tracker gives you more visibility into how your content SEO efforts are paying off. It also gives you a ‘share of voice’ percentage that shows you your share of search traffic for a given keyword.
Apart from these, Ahrefs has a Site Audit feature that gives you insights into how your site is performing and what needs to be done to rank better in SERPs. The Keywords Explorer is also a powerful keyword research tool that gives you new keyword ideas, their search volumes, ranking difficulty, and traffic potential.
Best for:
- Keyword research
- Content SEO audit
- Rank tracking
Pricing: Ahrefs pricing starts at $99 per month.
4. Semrush – Marketing content SEO and content planning tool
Semrush is another content SEO tool that marketers swear by. It has a long list of features including on-page SEO, local SEO, competitor analysis, link building, rank tracking, and more. The keyword research tool and the rank tracking tool on the platform let you easily identify which keywords your content is ranking for.
What we find most interesting on Semrush, however, is their local SEO tool that helps you build and strengthen your local SEO strategy. This includes daily position tracking and monitoring your search engine performance at a ZIP code level. The platform also has technical SEO tools to check for any technical SEO issues like glitches and bugs that may be affecting your website’s search rankings.
Apart from this, Semrush also offers other valuable features. These include content marketing analytics to help you identify areas of improvement in your content, market research to analyze your position and competition in a market, and more. It also has a backlink checker that helps with backlink analytics and backlink audit to help identify gaps in your backlink profile and improve your link prospecting strategy.
Best for:
- Market research
- Content SEO audit
- On-page SEO
Pricing: Semrush is relatively expensive compared to other SEO tools. Semrush pricing plans start at $119.95 per month.
5. Moz – SEO software suite
When talking of the best SEO tools, Moz is sure to find a place for itself on the list. Moz Pro is an all-in-one SEO software suite that offers features like site audits, backlink checker, keyword research, and rank tracking. Moz also has a local SEO software, Moz Local, that helps with maximizing your presence and visibility in a local market and with reputation management as well.
Moz Pro offers keyword suggestions, SERP analysis for competition tracking, keyword prioritization, difficulty levels, search volumes and a lot more. The platform also has Moz Bar, which is an SEO plugin for Google Chrome that shows you real-time SEO metrics as you surf the internet. Other than this, there are also free SEO tools on Moz like Domain Analysis that gives you SEO metrics like Domain Authority, top pages on SERPs, and more for competitive benchmarking. The Competitive Research tool provides insights on keyword gaps in your content strategy and new content opportunities as well.
Best for:
- Competitor analysis
- Local SEO
- Site audits
Pricing: Moz does offer some free SEO tools. The Moz Pro pricing plans start at $99 per month.
6. Ubersuggest – Free keyword research tool
Ubersuggest is a free keyword research tool, which is indeed rare to find. The tool gives you a complete domain overview for a given URL, including organic keywords, total traffic, paid keywords, and more. This information comes in very handy in your competitor analysis strategy. Ubersuggest also shows the top SEO pages for a given organic keyword to help your discover which of your competitor pages are ranking for which keywords.
As a keyword research tool as well, Ubersuggest provides some very valuable keyword suggestions including long-tail phrases with search volume, difficulty levels and seasonal trends too. The platform provides backlink data that shows you which content in your niche are other websites linking to. This allows you to reach out to these websites to build your backlink portfolio.
Best for:
- Free keyword research
- Competitor analysis
- Backlink analysis
Pricing: Ubersuggest was offering all of these amazing features for free. But the platform is now introducing paid plans too. The Ubersuggest paid plans start at $12 per month.
7. KWFinder – Keyword research and analysis tool
As the name very aptly suggests, KWFinder is the keyword research tool by Mangools that helps you find keywords you can easily rank for. The tool also provides accurate data on keyword search volumes and keyword difficulty. KWFinder also offers a competitor keyword research tool to help you identify which keywords your competitors are ranking for.
KWFinder also helps with local SEO by providing local keyword research such as location-specific keywords and SERP analysis features. Besides KWFinder, Mangools has a number of other SEO tools as well including SERPChecker, LinkMiner, and SiteProfiler.
Best for:
- Keyword research and analysis
- Local SEO
- Competitor analysis
Pricing: Mangools paid plans start at $29.90 per month.
8. AnswerThePublic – Market research and content planning tool
AnswerThePublic is a very simple but powerful content and market research tool. The tool provides you with content ideas based on what people are searching for online. It mines a massive dataset of autocomplete searches from search engines like Google to tell you what questions people are asking related to your target keywords. Based on this it suggests a number of answers that could be your content’s topic or a sub-topic.
This search listening tool helps with monitoring trends, identifying hidden content opportunities, and making better SEO decisions to create content that is relevant and engaging for your audience.
Best for:
- Content ideation
- Keyword discovery
Pricing: AnswerThePublic is a free SEO tool. There are Pro-only features though, such as unlimited daily searches, email alerts with new suggestions, and so on. AnswerThePublic paid plans start at $79 per month paid annually.
9. BuzzSumo – Content research tool
BuzzSumo is another entry by popular choice in this list of best SEO tools. This content marketing research tool offers a host of features and functionalities to help you generate content ideas, monitor your content performance, and identify influencers to collaborate with. Key features on BuzzSumo include content discovery, content research, performance monitoring, and more. The content ideas generator gives you topic suggestions based on high-demand keywords, real questions from hundreds of online forums, and top-ranking content headlines.
The content research feature helps you create a data-backed content strategy. It crawls content on the web and social media feeds to show which content is performing the best. This data can help you identify high-potential formats and carry out competitive benchmarking.
The monitoring feature helps track brand mentions or mentions of your competitors online, and follows industry updates to bring you the latest information. It also alerts you about keywords, topics, and brands that are trending, to support your content strategy better.
Best for:
- Market research
- Competition and trend monitoring
- Keyword research
Pricing: The free plan gives you up to 10 free searches a month. BuzzSumo paid plans start at $99 per month ($79 per month if paid annually).
10. Woorank – Website SEO tool
Woorank is a top SEO tool for website optimization and marketing strategy building. It offers some very handy features like technical SEO audits for your website, site crawl reporting, competitive analysis, and more. Woorank also offers a marketing SEO checklist to help you prioritize the technical SEO issues that need fixing.
The platform also offers a keyword research tool to help you build your digital marketing strategy. There is also an off-page performance reporting feature that shows you who is promoting your brand or content online. Woorank monitors Google algorithmic changes and updates as well and alerts you so you can revisit your SEO strategy accordingly.
Best for:
- Site audits
- Competitor analysis
- Keyword tracking
Pricing: Woorank pricing starts at $79.99 per month.
11. Serpstat – All-in-one SEO platform
Serpstat is a complete SEO marketing software suite that offers solutions like rank tracking, backlink analysis, competitor research, keyword research, and more. This SEO platform is designed for digital marketing agencies, content marketing and SEO teams, and SMBs. Serpstat also offers an SEO plugin that gives you website analytics in just a click.
Some of the noteworthy tools and functionalities in this SEO pack include competitor analysis in both organic and paid search, batch analysis of keywords and domains, text analytics, and keyword analysis, among others. The platform also boasts of having 230 search databases for Google, making it one of the biggest keyword databases for your SEO research. You can also analyze batches of up to 100,000 keywords.
The site audit tool highlights technical SEO issues in status codes, meta tags, indexing and accessibility, multimedia, HTTPS certificate issues, and others.
Best for:
- Site audit
- Keyword research (batch analysis)
- Competitor research
Pricing: Serpstat pricing starts at $55 per month.
12. Spyfu – Keyword research tool and competitor analysis
Spyfu is much-loved by content marketers and SEO experts for the wide range of SEO tools that the platform offers, although it does have paid features too. The platform helps with SEO, PPC, competitive analysis, and reporting. For your SEO marketing strategy, Spyfu offers rank tracking, SERP analysis, keyword research, and domain comparisons.
It offers both organic and paid search monitoring. Apart from this, Spyfu also helps with competitor keyword research and has a multi-competitor keyword tool as well. Over and above the SEO tools that the platform has to offer, it also provides extensive guides and resources on using the platform and other tools to aid your SEO marketing efforts.
Best for:
- Competitor analysis
- Paid SEO performance monitoring
- Keyword research
Pricing: Spyfu paid plans start at $39 per month.
13. RankRanger – SEO audit tool
RankRanger is a complete SEO pack with a range of tools in SEO, marketing, social analytics and more. Within its SEO software suite, RankRanger offers a rank tracking tool, local SEO, link manager, on-page SEO and mobile SEO tools among others.
This custom SEO software allows you to create your own dashboard with customized widgets and graphs, extensive integrations and personalized data packages. The organic SEO tool on RankRanger offers features like daily rank tracking, keyword grouping, rank comparisons, on-page SEO analysis and more.
There are also capabilities like mobile rank tracking across multiple countries and local SEO rank tracking.
Best for:
- SERP rank tracking
- On-page SEO
Pricing: Paid plans of RankRanger start at $79 per month.
14. Advanced Web Ranking – Rank tracking tool
Advanced Web Ranking, or AWR as it is popularly known, is one of the oldest rank tracking tools available today. The tool does what it says – tracking website rankings daily, weekly or on-demand within an hour.
But apart from rank tracking it also offers some other handy features like custom SEO reporting where you can get fully customized data for your website’s SEO analysis. You can also integrate with third-party tools to gather data for your SEO reports.
AWR offers competitor research as well, with competitor insights, point-to-point comparison, competitor market share and more.
Best for:
- SERP rank tracking
- Competition tracking
Pricing: AWR paid plans start at $49 per month.
15. Keywords Everywhere – Keyword research and SEO plugin
Keywords Everywhere is an SEO plugin for your browser that offers data on search volumes, CPC, competition, and trend data for your keywords.
The browser add-on also offers insights into ‘people also search for’ data from Google to help you find related keywords. You can get access to historical search volumes for your keywords, keyword traffic metrics, and more. The tool does not offer much else in terms of SEO research, but it does what it does best with regard to keyword analysis.
Best for:
- Keyword research
Pricing: Keywords Everywhere pricing charges on a credit basis, where 1 credit equals 1 keyword. The paid plans start at $10 for 100,000 credits.
Summing up
This list of the best SEO tools for content planning and marketing couldn’t get more comprehensive. We hope you find the perfect SEO tool to meet your unique content SEO requirements that can help your marketing efforts take flight. Did we miss any of your favorite SEO tools? Do let us know which tools you’d add to this list.
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