27 Best SEO Tools of 2023 (Honest Reviews and Free Options)

SEO is a vast field. And a lot has changed over the last ten years.

It seems like Google changes its algorithm, and websites all scrambling to figure things out.

Luckily, with the rise of AI and SEO tools, it's easier than ever to know how to do SEO right.

In this post, I ranked and reviewed the best SEO tools so that you can raise your SEO game this year.

Let's get to the list.

Here are my picks for the best SEO tools to use this year.

1. Jasper.

Best Overall.

Jasper is an AI content platform that helps you create, promote and measure content that resonates with your audience.

It's powered by natural language processing (NLP) and GPT-3 AI to generate custom-tailored content in seconds – be it for web copy, blog posts, or even full marketing campaigns.

Jasper makes it easy to create quality content that's SEO-friendly, engaging, and data-driven.

With multiple language support, tons of templates, and even its renowned Boss Mode feature that lets you create content in bulk, Jasper is an excellent choice for marketers and content creators looking to automate their writing process.

KEY FEATURES:

Jasper Chrome Extension allows you to create content directly from the browser.
Starter mode uses templates to help you quickly generate SEO-friendly content.
Boss Mode allows you to use commands to create content in bulk.
Generate AI Art and visuals for your blog posts or web copy, or even customize existing ones.
Create content in more than 20 languages to reach an international audience.
Integrate with Surfer SEO to get the most out of your content.

PRICING:

Jasper offers these pricing plans:

Starter: $42/month+
Boss Mode: $82/month+
Business: Custom plans are available

USED FOR:

Content Creators – Create SEO-friendly web copy and blog posts with ease.
Digital Marketers – Generate data-driven content to improve your campaigns.
Social Media Managers – Automate the creation of engaging visuals for social media posts.
Agencies – Streamline content production and optimize campaigns for multiple clients.
SEO Professionals – Automatically generate content for ranking higher in SERPs.
Enterprise Businesses – Get the most out of your content with advanced automation workflows.

CONS:

Overly technical topics don't always generate well
Plagiarism detection isn't part of the base package

Get started with Jasper.

2. Surfer SEO.

Best Overall SEO tool.

SurferSEO provides one of the most comprehensive data-gathering experiences for SEOs.

It makes keyword research more streamlined and gives users an excellent way to see the keywords competitors use to rank on Google.

The content planner allows users to map out an effective keyword strategy.

Then, its site audit feature ensures your website is free of any technical SEO issues.

SurferSEO is a well-rounded tool that will help you take your SEO game to the next level.

KEY FEATURES:

The Content Planner gives you an effective way to map out a keyword strategy for your website.
An AI outline builder makes creating high-quality content optimized for your target keywords easy.
The Content Editor is a great way to write your articles directly on the platform and ensure you hit the proper keyword density.
The Audit tool gives you a comprehensive overview of your website's technical SEO health and highlights any areas to fix.
The Surfer Academy is an excellent resource for those who want to learn more about SEO and how to use the tool to its full potential.

PRICING:

SurferSEO offers these pricing plans:

Free: $0
Basic: $49 per month
Pro: $99 per month
Business: $199 per month

USED FOR:

SEOs that want to improve their productivity and focus on strategic tasks will find the Surfer SEO workflow helpful, as it automates time-consuming tasks like SERP analysis and site audit.
Surfer SEO is an excellent fit for small businesses and agencies, offering an affordable solution with enterprise-level features.
Content writers and bloggers can use Surfer SEO to help their content creation by identifying opportunities and understanding what type of content is performing well in their niche.

CONS:

Understanding how each workflow component interacts can be confusing for new users.
The free version is quite limited in the functionality it provides.
You can reach the limits on the basic pricing plan quickly if you have a large website or many projects.

Get started with Surfer SEO.

3. Ahrefs.

Ahrefs is one of my favorite SEO tools on the market. It is the second-fastest web crawler (only behind Google) and has the best user interface out of all tools on this list.

Users use it for backlink audits, competitive analysis, URL rankings, keyword research, and more. Like SEMrush, Ahrefs also offers organic search reports to analyze the traffic of your competitors' sites.

Users then use that extracted data for link building, keyword research, SEO strategies, rank tracking, and content marketing.

I use Ahrefs every day to check on new backlinks, my keyword search positions, and check out competitor insights.

I especially love their keyword explorer tool, which allows you to see keyword difficulty and related keywords that "also rank" for target phrases.

All these impressive features make Ahrefs a highly competitive SEO tool used by numerous SEO professionals and entrepreneurs worldwide.

KEY FEATURES:

Excellent Keyword Tools – Ahrefs generates millions of keywords on a single research query.
Ranking History – You can see the ranking history of any keyword used on any page of your website.
Content Explorer – You can do a content search within the Ahrefs database that contains more than 1 billion web pages.
Monitor Outbound Links – Ahrefs shows outgoing links report in the site explorer. This report helps you track where your guest posts are linking.
Site Audit – You can check your website's health with Ahrefs. It will analyze your site and provide a report with errors, warnings, and suggestions.

PRICING:

You can test the product by opting for the 7-day trial. After that, you can upgrade to the subscription plans starting from $99 and ranging up to $999.

USED FOR:

Getting website improvement tips for increased visibility and ranking.
To get a clear backlinks analysis report.
To know the URL rating.
To get historical backlink data analysis.
To build a content strategy.

CONS:

Lack of automated client-facing reports if you're running an agency

4. Scalenut.

Best SEO workflows.

Scalenut's SEO Hub helps you create the first draft of your blog post in just five minutes—leaving you more time to edit and optimize for SEO.

Plus, the guidelines make it easy to ensure that your final product is readable and searchable.

To get started, enter a keyword and location into the tool.

The guided workflow will then prompt you with questions related to your topic and help you create the first draft of your post in just five minutes.

You can then edit and optimize the content for SEO using the provided guidelines.

In addition to being faster, this approach also helps ensure that your final product is high quality and relevant to your target audience.

KEY FEATURES:

I like that Scalenut helps users identify target keywords and understand user intent. I think this is important because it can help improve the quality of your content.
Additionally, I appreciate that Scalenut offers a quality grading system to give users feedback on their content.
If you want to wreck writer's block, Scalenut also has robots that can help you write your content from start to finish.
You can also improve your content while writing with Scalenut's real-time content suggestions.
Scalenut helps users find more relevant topics to write about, identify influencers and potential customers, and track the performance of their content over time.

PRICING:

Scalenut offers these pricing plans:

Individual: $12/mo
Growth: $32/mo
Pro: $60/mo

USED FOR:

SEO writers looking to find topic clusters to write about and improve their content quality.
Content strategists that want to improve their content quality.
Founders who want to understand what users are looking for and optimize their website content.

CONS:

The AI within the tool can sometimes produce repetitive results.

Get started with Scalenut.

5. GrowthBar.

GrowthBar is one of the easiest-to-use SEO tools on the market. They enable users to see millions of keyword results, your competition's backlinks, and Google Ads data.

You can use this information to generate blog content in one click.

GrowthBar is a tool built using Open AI — the most sophisticated language model ever made. That means the results and recommendations are as good as it gets. It's slick, sleek, and 100% intuitive.

Because of the simple user interface and robust data sets, it's becoming a favorite choice for entrepreneurs, small businesses, and freelancers. But GrowthBar counts more prominent companies like Minted, MagicJack, Square, Spekit, and Teepublic among its customers.

GrowthBar also has a free Chrome Extension to get SEO insights while surfing the web.

KEY FEATURES:

Organic Research — See millions of keyword suggestions along with their competitiveness score.
Competitiveness Metrics — See your competitors' top organic keywords and top backlinks, and export any of the metrics into an Excel-friendly CSV.
Content Generation — Generate blog post outlines with proper keywords, headlines, word count, links, tone, and more — all with one button click.
Keyword Tracker — Track your keywords' positions in the SERPs and receive notifications when they change.
Link Analysis — Receive link alerts for changes to your competitor's backlinks, including new and lost links.

PRICING:

You can free test out GrowthBar for five days before upgrading to a paid subscription. It's an all-in-one super powerful SEO tool for $29/mo, making GrowthBar significantly cheaper than most other quality tools.

USED FOR:

Content generation for bloggers.
Competitive research: understand your competition's top organic keywords, Google Ads keywords, backlinks, and Facebook Ads.
Get word counts, difficulty scores, keyword suggestions, backlinks, and much more to build your content strategy.

CONS:

Lacks technical SEO metrics
Lacks historical tracking data
Lacks SEO audit feature

For the best new SEO tool, get started with a 5-day free trial of GrowthBar.

6. SEMrush.

SEMrush is a top competitor analysis tool that helps users evaluate their competitors and content. It provides robust metrics and lets users get top-performing pages, content, and keywords.

SEMrush has been helping many website owners and ecommerce entrepreneurs understand their competitors' SEO strategies.

This ability makes it one of the most popular SEO tools among small and medium-sized enterprises.

The SEO tool offers the best help for SEO, PPC, ad campaigns, backlinks, keyword research, search engine results pages (SERP), and much more.

KEY FEATURES:

Organic Research – This feature allows the users to see the top keywords used by their competitors.
Advertising Research – It helps you run better ad campaigns by analyzing the ad budgets of the competitors. You can also localize your ad campaigns.
Product Listing Ads – SEMrush allows the users to see competitors' Product Listing Ads and product feeds.
Traffic Analytics – SEMrush accurately tells about a website's online performance and traffic. It also helps you understand the behavior and media consumption of potential customers.
Local SEO – This feature helps you know the local SEO rankings of your competitors.

PRICING:

SEMrush offers three paid plans. The Pro plan is $99.95, the Guru plan is $199.95, and the Business plan is $399.95. There is also a quote-based Enterprise plan that you can customize according to the specific needs of the entrepreneurs.

USED FOR:

Creating guest blogging strategies.
Analyzing the strategies of the competitors.
Tracking past and current website ranking.
Performing technical SEO audits and gauging user experience.
Finding good advertising opportunities for CPC.
Doing robust keyword research to make your content rank higher.

CONS:

Newbies might find it a bit complicated.
You have to pay a hefty tag for more advanced features.
Instances of inaccurate data regarding advertisements and backlinks.

Get started with SEMrush today.

7. Advanced Web Ranking.

Advanced Web Ranking is a great SEO tool for teams tracking many keywords.

Its ability to track keywords on a hyper-specific level (including search engine results features) and white-label reporting make it ideal for agencies and in-house teams.

This tool can also track 3,000 search engines and more than 170 countries, supporting not just Google but also Baidu, Yandex, Amazon, YouTube, etc. Advanced Web Ranking also performs a deep competitor analysis that includes metrics like market share, estimated visits, and new competitor discovery.

KEY FEATURES:

It's a long-standing tool and has existed since 2002.
Provides hyper-specific local SEO results on desktop and mobile (country, city-level, or GPS coordinates).
3.000 search engines and more than 170 countries (also offers support for SEs such as Baidu, Yandex or Amazon & Youtube)
You can white-label reporting, export them via PDF, or CSV, create permalinks, integrate with Data Studio, etc.
It can accommodate large volumes of keywords (which is great for agencies and large in-house teams).
The tool supports unlimited users with different rights (admin, team member) at no additional cost.

PRICING:

Advanced Web Ranking has four paid plans, with a 30-day free trial. Plans increase in price by providing more "units," which allow you access to a higher volume of keywords to track.

Starter: $49 per month.
Pro: $99 per month.
Agency: $199 per month.
Enterprise: $499 per month.

USED FOR:

Performing keyword research.
Tracking large volumes of keywords.
Finding specific keyword rankings at the local level.
Competitor insights and understanding of SERP features.

CONS:

Updates might take a long time if you track a considerable volume of keywords since the platform collects rankings in real time.
There is no link-building module.

8. SERanking.

Best For Agencies.

SERanking is a great SEO tool that provides an all-in-one SEO platform for agencies and businesses.

Users can perform various SEO analysis and research processes.

These processes include keyword research, competitor analysis, site audit, and more.

SERanking also offers features like rank tracking and backlink analysis.

Use the Website Audit tool to check your website for errors affecting your SEO performance.

You can also use their SEO management tool to track your keyword rankings, backlinks, etc. 

With marketing features included in their plans, SERanking is one of the market's most used and popular SEO tools.

KEY FEATURES:

An in-depth website audit ensures that your website stays ahead of the competition by spotting errors that could be affecting your SEO performance.
Perform backlink monitoring checks for those links that may have been lost or damaged, and monitors your website for new backlinks gained.
On-Page SEO checker analyzes your website's code and structure to ensure correct optimization for search engines.
White Labelling features allow you to brand SERanking reports with your logo and company name.
The marketing plan tool helps you create a customized marketing plan for your business.
Keyword research allows you to find the right keywords to target for your SEO campaigns.
API Access gives you programmatic access to SERanking data and features.

PRICING:

There are three pricing plans when it comes to SERanking:

Essential: $39.20/month
Pro: $87.20/month
Business: $191.20/month

USED FOR:

Business owners who want to improve their website ranking will find SERanking valuable.
SEO pros can use SERanking to help them with keyword research, competitor analysis, and website audits.
Digital agencies can use SERanking to pitch SEO services to their clients and deliver detailed reports.

CONS:

Some more detail regarding competitors could provide more insights.
Simple tips for using the quotas available would be helpful when getting started.
Sometimes, SERanking cannot find any backlinks, keywords & traffic data for small, less-established websites, which can be frustrating in that market.

Get started with SERanking.

9. Sitechecker.

Sitechecker.pro is a great website checker that provides a deep SEO analysis so that you can make SEO improvements. You input your website URL and click Analyze. Once Sitechecker scans your website, you get insights into traffic, backlinks, rankings, and more.

KEY FEATURES:

Website Change Monitoring – Their ongoing website scans audit your website and provides information on changes you have made and how they impact your SEO scores.
On-Page SEO Audits – Sitechecker scans your web pages and provides insights into issues to fix.
Website Traffic Check – You can view competitor site traffic without any limits.
Daily Backlink Tracking – Get notified whenever any new links point to your site (or disappear), so you can take action.
Rankings Check – View your keyword rankings (including local and mobile rankings).

PRICING:

Sitechecker has three main pricing plans starting at $29 per month. Their $29/month Startup Plan allows you to use their website checker on five websites, 5,000 URLs, 500 keywords, and 5,000 backlinks. Pricing plans scale up with the number of websites, URLs, keywords, and backlinks you want to track.

USED FOR:

People that need a website checker for site audits.
Competitor tracking.
Keyword position tracking and monitoring.
New and lost backlink tracking.

10. Authority Labs.

Authority Labs is another handy SEO tool with a super-easy user-friendly interface. You can easily set up multiple sites with Authority Labs and optimize your SEO campaigns. It also helps you acquire location-specific rank tracking to laser-target your audience.

Users can also track the SEO campaigns and strategies their competitors use.

KEY FEATURES:

Global Tracking – You can easily track local and international for different countries and cities.
Keyword Targeting – Effective keyword targeting with keyword research tools.
Free Trial – Authority Labs also offers 30 days free trial.
Daily Reporting – Receive in-depth reports with daily rank checking that help you analyze where you are standing.
White-label keyword solutions – Get white-label keyword tracking solutions to help you gain more traction.

PRICING:

Authority Labs offers four different pricing plans. The Plus plans costs $49, and the Pro plan is $99. Other more advanced plans include Pro Plus at $225 and Enterprise at $450. Apart from this, you also get a 30-day free trial; no credit card is needed.

USED FOR:

Tracking competitor domains
Tracking product ranking on various sites
Comparing mobile ranking to desktop results
Offers in-depth analytical reports and automated reports into the reporting process

CONS:

Sorts keywords in alphabetic order, and there is no option to change this filter setting

11. Serpstat.

When it comes to SEO and digital marketing solutions, Serpstat is a one-stop shop. From optimizing your SEO to running your ad and content marketing campaigns, it helps you with just about everything.

The Serpstat tool does keyword research, competitor research, PPC analysis, and so forth. The dashboard is smooth and easy to use to avoid complexity. Plus, it also helps website owners keep track of their competitors' backlinks.

KEY FEATURES:

Website Analysis – Serpstat runs an analysis by monitoring the domain and URL of the website. The analysis includes in-depth SEO and PPC research.
Keyword Research includes cluster research, search suggestions, search volume, content marketing, and SERP analysis.
Backlink Analysis – Collects complete backlink data over the last two years and keeps track of your competitors' backlink strategies.
Site Audit – Cleans up your website, HTML, and page speed and never lets you miss any potential error.
Competitive Analysis – This allows you to monitor your competitors' keyword strategies and recommend the best tactics for you to use.

PRICING:

Serpstat offers four different pricing plans that include monthly and yearly subscriptions. The Lite plan costs $69 per month, the Standard plan is $149, the Advanced plan is $299, and the Enterprise is $499. You also get a 30-day free trial.

USED FOR:

Searching keyword variations and collecting international data
Checking the relevance of different webpages
Tracking universal search results
Finding ad strategies and budgets of your competitors

CONS:

Site auditing is relatively slow for heavy websites
It shows inaccurate keywords sometimes