The 20+ Best SEO Tools to Boost Organic Traffic in 2024

The 21 Best SEO tools [free and paid]

1. WebFX SEO Checker — for SEO auditing
2. FAQFox — for generating content ideas
3. Google Search Console — for requesting URL indexing
4. Screaming Frog SEO Spider — for finding technical SEO issues
5. WooRank — for inspecting and grading websites’ SEO
6. KeywordsFX — for keyword research
7. Keywords Everywhere — for generating keyword ideas
8. Mangools KWFinder — for identifying a keyword’s difficulty score and ranking pages
9. PageSpeed Insights — for understanding your website’s speed
10. Lighthouse — for auditing a page’s performance and accessibility
11. Google Analytics — for tracking and analyzing your site traffic and SEO data
12. Ahrefs — for competitive analysis, rank tracking, and backlink research
13. BuzzSumo — for researching reputable sites to pitch your site for a backlink
14. Majestic — for checking your backlinks in bulk
15. Moz Link Explorer — for link analysis
16. SEO.com — for tracking your site’s SEO performance and your competitors’
17. Moz Pro — for keyword research, rank monitoring, and competitive research
18. SEMrush — for competitor research and technical analytics
19. Raven Tools — for a detailed SEO audit
20. MarketingCloudFX — for monitoring your SEO performance and audience engagement metrics
21. SpyFu — for in-depth SERP and competitor analysis

As search engines endlessly hone their skills, search engine optimization (SEO) continues to change. That’s why you need the latest report on the best SEO tools that impress businesses and SEO experts alike.

There’s a dense jungle of sophisticated SEO software out there, but you only need the top-of-the-line picks that offer practical features and effortless functionality for your needs.

In this blog post, we’ll show you the top SEO tools you can use for various tasks. For your easy reference, we segregated the top SEO tools in 2024 according to their price points:

• The best free SEO tools
• Top paid SEO tools

Each category is also arranged according to features. Let’s dive in!

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The top free SEO tools to help you skyrocket your rankings in 2024

If you can add robust tools to complement your SEO campaign without spending money, it makes sense to start there.

Several of the best SEO tools are free, and they remain tried-and-true resources to find profitable keywords, brainstorm content topics, evaluate sites, and review backlinks.

We categorized the top free SEO tools according to their functionalities:

• The best free overall SEO tools
• Top keyword research tools
• The best performance SEO tools

The best overall SEO tools

If you need an SEO tool that can help you with different aspects of optimizing your site, you can add any of the tools on this list to your arsenal. They can audit your site’s SEO health and recommend actions to improve it.

Check out the list of the top free SEO software you can use in 2024.

1. WebFX SEO Checker

First on our list of SEO management tools is the WebFX SEO Checker. Whenever you’re starting with SEO, you should always do an SEO audit of your website.

Checking your SEO via an in-depth audit will help you understand which areas of your site need the most help.

You can find a number of free SEO analysis tools online, but we’re going to suggest the WebFX SEO Checker. It may seem a bit biased since it’s our tool, but it’s free, and it gives you a bunch of insights you can use as a basis for your SEO strategy.

It is also one of the user-friendly SEO tools for beginners. Just plug your information into the form to see an analysis of your website’s:

• Site speed
• Content optimization
• Code analysis
• Links
• Security
• Mobile friendliness
• Crawl and indexation
• And more!

After you have a basis for your SEO strategy, you can get started with on-page SEO.

2. FAQFox

A large part of SEO is creating content that your audience is looking for online. But what’s the best way to find out what they’re searching for? FAQFox!

Our FAQFox tool can help generate topic ideas by crawling other websites and creating a list of things your audience is talking about online.

You can then turn those generated topics into valuable content that not only satisfies your audience’s need for info, but boosts your rankings in the search results! So, if you’re searching for one of the best SEO management tools for content, look no further than FAQFox.

3. Google Search Console

As the premier search engine, it’s no surprise that Google offers a masterful tool to support SEO strategies. Google Search Console lets you directly request URL indexing, receive notifications about site problems, and gain suggestions for optimization  — all for free.

With Google Search Console, you can also take advantage of Google Search Analytics, which provides in-depth SEO data, including how your tailored keywords perform. Google Search Analytics and Google Search Console work hand-in-hand, so you can start directly from the Analytics page.

This is also one of the best SEO checkers because it presents areas for actionable progress to push your organic traffic higher.

4. Screaming Frog SEO Spider (free version)

If you want to audit your website like a search engine does, consider using the Screaming Frog SEO Spider.

Resourceful and meticulous, it serves as a crawler to audit your SEO strategy and produce advice from a bot’s perspective. Rapid feedback on your pages is one of the most attractive qualities of this free SEO tool. In real-time, it diagnoses your website’s SEO health.

As a heavily analytic tool, it’s thorough in detecting numerous ranking factors that Google or Bing crawlers look at, making it one of the most popular SEO agency software. It locates the following:

• Redirects
• Server errors
• Broken links
• Duplicate content
• Other barriers that hurt your rankings

The Screaming Frog SEO Spider brings to light plenty of weak spots that need TLC. If you have empty or repetitive meta descriptions, it calls your attention to these mishaps.

5. WooRank (free version)

Another handy Chrome extension, WooRank explains the condition of whatever website you’re on. If websites don’t have an existing score, you can ask WooRank to do a quick inspection.

WooRank grades websites on SEO criteria like keyword performance and content structure, and it shows where a page is falling short. It also extends positive comments on what you’re doing well.

For SEO content optimization, the extension points out the impact of your title tags, headings, links, and more. It breaks down your performance in categories like usability and mobile optimization, so it covers many bases that other free tools fail to assess.

It’s a comprehensive add-on that you can use to do reconnaissance on your competitors, too.

The best keyword research tools

Keyword research is a crucial step in your SEO strategy. It helps you find, analyze, and choose search terms you want to optimize your site for.

Here are the best free keyword research tools you can add to your SEO arsenal:

6. KeywordsFX

You need to target the right keywords to ensure your website appears at the top of relevant search results. KeywordsFX is a free tool that can help you make that happen.

Our KeywordsFX tool offers a list of keyword ideas based on a starting keyword you provide. Simply enter a starting keyword to receive a list of related keywords you can target. You can also export your results for easy access and review later.

7. Keywords Everywhere

Keywords Everywhere is a convenient browser add-on for Chrome and Firefox that uncovers specifics about keyword trends and generates keyword ideas.

When you type in a potential keyword, it delivers information about the search volume, competition, and cost-per-click value. Data on the popularity of queries is useful for crafting high-ranking content and pleasing your audience.

Keywords Everywhere goes beyond Google, too. It operates on Bing, YouTube, and other sites. As an extension and with informative, compiled data, you can start your SEO research by simply opening a new browser tab.

8. Mangools KWFinder (free version)

Price: Starting at $19.90 per month (free version available)

Mangools KWFinder is a freemium SEO tool that can help you with keyword research.

Enter your seed keyword and it will provide you with relevant search terms. You can add your preferred location and language if you want to target a local audience.

This beginner-friendly SEO tool also informs you how competitive the keyword is by providing a search term’s keyword SEO difficulty score and volume. You can then view the list of pages ranking for the keyword and their metrics like domain and page authority scores.

The best performance SEO tools

If you need SEO tools that measure your site’s and pages’ performance, consider these free tools:

9. PageSpeed Insights

A tool created by Google, PageSpeed Insights helps you understand the speed of your website and how you can go about improving it.

Simply plug a URL into the search bar and get a full report of that URL’s page speed.

Not only does this tool show you the speed of your website, but it also provides technical “lab data,” in addition to opportunities to speed up your page. There is also a diagnostics section, which gives additional information about the performance of the page.

Page speed, much like usability, is a metric that Google considers when ranking your website. If your page doesn’t load quickly, users will bounce to another website since they didn’t get their answer quick enough.

Your page speed can affect bounce rate and time on page, metrics that impact the overall ranking of your site over time. If your page speed is slow, fret not. WebFX’s page speed optimization services can improve it!

10. Lighthouse

Lighthouse is an open-source SEO tool that can analyze a web page’s:

• Accessibility
• SEO status
• Security
• Performance score based on certain metrics

Go to the page you want to audit on your Chrome browser. Use the Lighthouse extension to generate a report of the page’s performance, which also considers its security, accessibility, and quality.

Lighthouse’s report also lists recommended actions to improve the page. To keep track of your page’s performance, save the audit report as a PDF file or HTML file.

11. Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 is a tried-and-true SEO tool that helps you track essential SEO data, like user behavior, site traffic, conversions, and so much more. It’s a go-to tool for just about everything SEO, and it’s a no-brainer that it’s on our list of the best free SEO tools.

This SEO tool provides a treasure trove of information that can help your SEO campaign in countless ways. It can help you determine whether your current campaign is working by allowing you to compare metrics in different time frames and helping you visualize increases or decreases in specific metrics.

WebFX offers Google Analytics consulting to help you understand important metrics on the platform. Contact us online if you need this service!

The best paid SEO tools

While it’s fun to get freebies, investing in advanced tools can drive more revenue and qualified leads. Many tools are worth the price, and digging into the full paid features can yield a well-rounded view of your SEO.

We categorized the top paid SEO tools according to their functionalities:

• The best linking tools
• The top all-in-one SEO tools

The best linking tools for SEO

Link building is a strategy that aims to earn links from reputable websites leading to your site. Because manually searching for potential sites takes time, you can invest in link-building tools instead. Here are the best ones you can use:

12. Ahrefs

Price: Starting at $108 per month

A long-time favorite, Ahrefs is widely used for SEO, and even in 2024 it continues to show up in experienced marketers’ toolkits.

What is Ahrefs? It’s a collection of tools, including:

• Rank tracking
• Web monitoring
• Content and keyword research
• Competitive analysis
• Backlink research

With trillions of known links and ongoing crawling, their index is expansive. Its best paid feature is the Site Explorer, which analyzes backlinks and gathers in-depth research, making it a popular choice of SEO software for agencies and one of the best link building tools. If you’re wondering how to check your backlinks without a time-intensive process, check out Ahrefs.

Pro tip

Ahrefs offers SEO Toolbar, a free web browser extension available on Google Chrome and FireFox. SEO Toolbar shows you a page’s search engine metrics.

13. BuzzSumo

Price: Starting at $159 per month

A big part of SEO is earning backlinks. These links from other reputable sites to your site can show search engines like Google that your website is trustworthy and provides value, which can help your rankings.

Finding people to pitch your website to can also take up a lot of your time. You can search for relevant websites using Google, sure. But BuzzSumo is one of the best SEO tools for beginners to look for backlink opportunities.

With BuzzSumo, you can research influencers in specific topic areas, see their followers or subscribers, and figure out how to reach them.

14. Majestic

Price: Starting at $49.99 a month

Behind Majestic is an advanced link intelligence map, which is perfect for grasping your website’s place on the Internet.

Majestic has a site explorer, a backlink history checker, and a search explorer. Together, these features orient your page in the larger scheme of things. Particularly in link building, it can pass on the big picture of your website, so you can perform the right adjustments.

It checks backlinks in bulk, and Majestic even offers a “topical trust flow” to display your proximity to industry authorities. Also, its bots sift through domains — even competitors’, which can make you a viable contender — and supply precise data to shape your strategy. It’s also a more affordable paid SEO tool, so you can maintain your marketing budget.

15. Moz Link Explorer

Price: There are free and paid versions of Moz’s Link Explorer, but with the free version, you get a pretty great link analysis. You’ll be able to gain insight into the most impactful links to your site and the pages that you link the most to.

Simply plug in a URL and gain insight into the links to and from that site. Link Explorer is much more than just a link checker. When you get into paid versions of the tool, you’ll have access to tons of other beneficial metrics including spam scores, link building opportunities, and top-performing content.

Links are a huge part of SEO, and Link Explorer helps you keep a close eye on the links pointing to and away from your site.

The best all-in-one SEO tools

If you’re looking for robust paid tools that can help you with various SEO tasks, consider these all-in-one SEO tools:

16. SEO.com app

Price: Starting at $19 per month (10-day free trial available)

SEO.com is a suite of SEO tools for beginners. Its user-friendly interface shows you all the vital info you need to track to outrank your competitors in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

In addition, this affordable SEO tool informs you of the top keywords you and your competitors rank for. It provides you with valuable intel on SEO opportunities you can grab, such as:

• Keyword search volume and ranking difficulty
• Page-level SEO audit data
• Competitors’ rankings and traffic
• Trends affecting your industry

As a result, you can brainstorm new content ideas that will enable your target audience to find you.

17. Moz Pro

Price: Starting at $79 per month

Moz Pro also garners a lot of recognition as a one the top paid SEO tools because it pulls together multiple capabilities into an all-in-one suite. Especially for large-scale businesses, Moz Pro provides a sizable number of components to help your bottom line.

From crawling to keyword research, it highlights different stages of SEO, and it’s skillful at monitoring developments in your campaign. On both local and national fronts, Moz Pro gives an exceptional outlook on visibility. Its reports help you implement authentic recommendations, linking opportunities, and content quality considerations.

18. SEMrush

Price: Starting at $108 per month (Free limited plan available)

SEMrush is a marketing software that can boost your online presence in the eyes of search engines.

If you want to see your organic traffic surge, this resource spreads your reach and revamps your SEO practices with fact-based insights. It’s proficient in comparing domains and their related keyword rankings, which can let you branch out to competitors’ high-ranking keywords.

SEMrush’s solutions highlight many technical analytics, so you can keep up with your position on search engines. Their software involves 50+ tools to sharpen your SEO strategy, and they offer guidance in wielding keywords through content, blogs, and product pages.

For a competitive SEMrush alternative, check out Semrush vs. Ahrefs.

19. Raven Tools

Price: Starting at $33 a month

Raven Tools is a leading site auditor, and it has evolved tracking and reporting abilities compared to several similar products. Raven Tools scores your website’s SEO in a readable format.

You can turn gaps in your strategy into successes once you know where to look. Whether you have mobility issues or you’re in the dark about your off-page SEO, Raven Tools is an incredible time-saver.

Its 17 metrics peek into your website practices and allow you to bolster your pages, code, design, and layout for Google and related engines.

20. MarketingCloudFX

Price: View pricing

Next on our list of the best SEO software of 2024 is MarketingCloudFX. Powered by IBM Watson artificial intelligence (AI), MarketingCloudFX is your all-in-one digital marketing and SEO solution.

Here’s what you can do with MarketingCloudFX:

• Monitor your overall search engine performance
• Track your current keyword rankings
• Analyze your online visibility in search engines
• Use the power of AI to receive data-driven recommendations for site improvements
• Track essential audience engagement metrics and other valuable marketing metrics
• Manage and nurture your leads
• And much more

If you’re looking for one of the best SEO tools that can help you power up your search engine rankings, MarketingCloudFX is the perfect tool for you.

21. SpyFu

Price: Starting at $39 per month

SpyFu is a comprehensive SEO marketing suite that can help you maximize your results. With SpyFu, you can:

• Research high-value keywords and phrases
• Conduct competitor analysis
• Build backlinks to your website
• Receive an in-depth SERP analysis
• Track your current rankings
• And more

If you’re searching for a user-friendly SEO tool that helps you choose the best keywords and phrases for your strategy, look no further than SpyFu.

SEO tools FAQs

Get answers to common questions about SEO tools and platforms below!

What are SEO tools?

SEO tool definition

SEO tools are programs that allow you to complete or improve a step in the SEO process.

So, for example, keyword research is a huge part of SEO. A tool that most marketers can’t go without is an effective keyword tool for SEO. Other tools that are important to the SEO process include a free SEO checker, backlink tools, page speed tools, and more.

How do you choose the best SEO tools?

To choose the best SEO tool for your company, it’s best to first evaluate your needs. Do you need a tool that helps you monitor rankings or a tool that helps you create SEO content?

Once you know what you need, you can then search for software that helps you accomplish your goals. You’ll also want to consider your budget to find a tool that won’t break the bank.

If you’re just getting started with SEO tools, it’s best to first opt for a tool that’s simple and user-friendly.

What is an SEO crawler?

An SEO crawler helps you find and fix issues that hinder a search engine’s ability to crawl and index your website. It can help you spot indexing issues, like 404 errors, and many other important SEO issues that are impacting your site’s rankings.

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