Free & Paid SEO Tools: Ultimate List for Marketers

As consumers instinctively turn to search engines for answers, mastering search engine optimization (SEO) has become essential for businesses aiming to stay competitive in the digital landscape.

And SEO success is very much achievable when you have good SEO tools in your marketing arsenal. The right SEO tools offer valuable insights into your target audience, empowering you to make data-driven decisions for optimizing your content for search engines. They can also save you precious time otherwise spent on tedious tasks.

To make the choice easier for you, we’ve compiled a fantastic list of SEO tools (both free and paid), including AI SEO tools. These tools offer an array of powerful features to enhance your content’s performance, identify areas for improvement and ultimately boost your online visibility.

Before we dive into the list, let’s take a moment to understand the types of SEO tools you would need to build a complete SEO toolkit.

What Are the Different Types of SEO Tools?

SEO tools help improve a website’s visibility, organic traffic and search engine rankings by providing valuable insights, automating repetitive tasks and guiding users in making data-driven decisions.

Here are the different types of SEO tools you’ll need to build a robust SEO toolkit:

• SEO Keyword research tools: These SEO tools help you discover relevant keywords and search phrases that people use when looking for information, products, or services.
• Link-building tools: These are SEO tools that assist in link-building, helping you acquire high-quality backlinks to their websites.
• Rank tracking SEO tools: These tools monitor a website’s search engine rankings for specific keywords over time, providing insights into performance and potential areas for improvement.
• Local SEO tools: These SEO tools focus on improving a website’s visibility in local search results, especially important for businesses targeting local audiences.
• Technical SEO tools: They help identify and address technical issues that may affect a website’s search engine performance and user experience.

With that, let’s dive into the list of best SEO tools.

15 Best Free and Paid SEO Tools

Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned SEO expert, these powerful tools will become your trusty allies in driving SEO success. In the upcoming sections, we’ll give you a few options for both free and paid SEO tools in each category, along with a brief overview of their features. Let’s begin.

SEO Tools for Keyword Research

1. Narrato

Narrato is an AI content creation software that lets you manage your content processes from start to finish in one place. From content planning, creation and optimization, to automated publishing, you can do it all from a single, seamless platform.

This AI content workspace has an AI SEO Content Brief Generator that helps with keyword research and a lot more. It generates a comprehensive content brief on a topic after analyzing the top-performing content on the web. The AI-generated content brief contains a list of top keywords, competitor references to benchmark against, and questions to answer in your content. It also gives you the ideal number of words, headings, and paragraphs you should target, along with a live SEO score to keep track of your search optimization efforts. Think of it as an all-in-one tool to handle all your search optimization parameters.

Besides the content brief generator, the platform offers several other AI tools to help you optimize your content for better SERP ranking. There is:

• An AI writer that offers 50+ use cases, including SEO meta description and title generator, keyword search for a theme, product, or service and others.
• An AI topic generator that gives you a list of topics for a target keyword, helping build topic clusters.
• AI images and CC images tools for adding better visuals to your content.
• ChatGPT integration to help you with content research and writing.

Free or Paid? Narrato is a paid SEO tool (offering much more than just SEO) that also gives you a free trial. The paid plans start from $45 per month and include 5 user seats.

2. Ubersuggest

This is a keyword analysis and research tool that can help you with both keyword and content ideas. Using Ubersuggest is quite simple. All you have to do is enter your search term, select your language and location, and the tool will give you a detailed keyword overview for the entered search term.

With this free keyword research tool, you’ll get hundreds of keyword suggestions for your content. You can discover popular keywords with a high search volume (head terms) and more specific, niche phrases (long-tail keywords).

And the great thing about this tool is that the generated keyword list combines your competitors’ keywords with phrases people search for on Google. Ubersuggest gives you valuable information about the competition, search volume and seasonal trends for each keyword. So, at the end of the day, you can build a well-rounded SEO strategy to boost your content.

Free or Paid? Ubersuggest is a free keyword tool that offers some premium features with the paid plan.

3. LongTailPro

This keyword research tool has a special use case. LongTailPro, as its name suggests, is a keyword research tool that gives you high-performing long-tail keywords on specific topics. It’s a good SEO tool if you’re looking to target some niche keywords with less competition.

When you enter a seed keyword, the tool generates a list of 400 long-tail keywords to drive more traffic and conversions. And it does this in a matter of seconds. You can organize these keywords and filter out the preferences based on keyword difficulty, rank value, search volume, CPC bid and more.

LongTailPro also lets you conduct a thorough competitive website analysis. This gives you valuable insights into your competitors’ keyword strategy. Another useful feature is the ‘Average Keyword Competitiveness’ metric, which helps in identifying brand-specific keywords.

Free or Paid? LongTailPro is a paid keyword research and analysis tool, the pricing plans for which start from $59.99 per month.

SEO Tools for Link Building

4. MozBar

Moz was part of the first wave of SEO tools in the world of content, and it offers several different tools to help marketers with everything SEO. Part of it this comprehensive suite of SEO essentials is the MozBar. This Chrome Extension comes in the form of an SEO toolbar, displaying high-value metrics for search engine results pages (SERPs).

It’s an excellent SEO tool to track and monitor important metrics like:

• Page Authority (PA): Metric developed by Moz that predicts how well a specific web page is likely to rank on SERPs on a scale of 0 to 100.
• Domain Authority (DA): Another metric developed by Moz, used to predict how well an entire domain (website) is likely to rank on SERPs. Like PA, DA is also scored on a scale from 0 to 100.
• Number of links: You can also find out the number of links built for a specific page.

You can use this data to identify which websites you should be building links for. MozPro can also help you track the link-building progress.

Free or Paid? MozBar is completely free to download.

5. Respona

Respona is a link-building outreach platform that could help you boost organic traffic from search engines like Google. This SEO tool can help you find link-building opportunities and connect you with link prospects.

You can use this tool to build links in two ways: manually or through the built-in search engine. Respona’s search engine works like the Google search engine, helping you with everything you need to know about your link prospects, including Domain Rating, Ahrefs rank, and email addresses.

Respona also allows you to manage your email communications within the platform. This SEO tool will make building links for your target pages much easier.

Free or paid? Respona is a paid SEO tool, with plans starting from $99 monthly. It also offers a 14-day free trial.

6. Backlinks

Backlink Checker from Neil Patel Digital is another good choice for a link-building tool. It gives you a complete overview of your backlink profile, including the total link count and the exact number of unique referring domains.

This tool offers sophisticated filters that simplify the process of finding the most suitable link opportunities for your needs. You can filter the backlinks by anchor text, region, page score, domain score, and URL. You can also view the no-follow links and do-follow links. Once you have refined your results, it can be easily downloaded as CSV files.

Another unique feature of this tool is competitor analysis, which can help you find new link-building opportunities. You can find out who is linking to your competitors and not you. All you have to do is provide the tool with your competitor’s URL.

Free or Paid? Backlinks from Neil Patel Digital is a free backlink checker.

SEO Tools for Rank Tracking

7. Advanced Web Ranking

Advanced Web Ranking is an SEO tool with three unique capabilities: reliable rank tracking, custom SEO reporting and competitor research. It’s a one-stop solution that will help you achieve exceptional results with your SEO efforts.

With this SEO tool, you can get fresh and accurate website rankings on a daily or weekly basis or on demand. It lets you monitor your web rankings on any search engine, including DuckDuckGo, Yandex, YouTube, Amazon, and more. It also lets you track and monitor your web rankings across different devices (mobile and desktop).

Another useful feature on the platform is Local Rank Tracking, using which you can track your ranking in a specific country, state, or city. The tool also gives you the local search volume for the region.

Free or Paid? Advanced Web Ranking is paid SEO tool, with plans starting from $99 per month.

8. Google Rank Checker

Google Rank Checker, Keyword SERP Ranking is a bulk ranking checking tool that comes as a downloadable extension on the Google Chrome Web Store. Developed by Phedra Tech, this rank-tracking tool retrieves the rankings for any website based on the keywords provided.

Google Rank Checker lets you analyze your rankings and your competitors’. Using this SEO tool is quite simple. You’d have to provide the tool with keywords (max 10), which will tell you how you’re ranking for it in different countries on mobile and desktop.

Free or Paid? This Chrome SEO plugin is free to use.

9. Serprobot

Serprobot is another good option for an SEO rank-checking tool that lets you track your website’s ranking in real-time. You can specify your region, device and keywords and enter the domain name (your own and competitors’) to get a complete SERP ranking report within minutes.

With Serprobot, you can easily track your keywords and gain valuable insights into your website’s performance and how it compares to your competitors.

Free or Paid? The SERP Check from Serprobot is free to use.

SEO Tools for Local SEO

10. Georanker

The Local Rank Checker and Tracker Tool on Georanker is an excellent local SEO tool. It uses real-time data from Google and lets you track and monitor the local traffic to your website or listing.

To use the tool, you’d just have to specify the following –

• URL
• Keywords to track
• Coverage (by city or by country)
• Search Engine
• Email

The tool will generate a complete report, giving you the current web ranking for a keyword, according to the selected geolocation. This SEO tool can be a good option for businesses located in several areas.

Free or Paid? Georanker is free to use

11. Moz Local

This is another SEO tool from Moz specifically dedicated to local SEO and reputation management. Moz Local aids in enhancing your online presence by focusing on crucial local SEO elements that are important both for search engines and audiences.

With this SEO tool in your marketing arsenal, you can easily create and oversee your local business listings on Facebook, Google, and other prominent platforms. Using the Ongoing Listings Sync on Moz Local, you can keep the listing constantly updated with minimal effort and time. Besides this, there’s also a feature to automatically remove duplicate listings.

This local SEO tool also provides information about your listing score, visibility Index, and profile completeness. You can stay informed about when to take action and when to showcase your accomplishments.

Free or Paid? Moz Local is a paid SEO tool, with plans starting from $14 per month.

12. Synup Local Listing Scan

Synup Local Listing Scan is a local SEO tool that offers a comprehensive audit and evaluation of your local listing profiles.

To use this tool, you’d have to specify your nature of business (single location, multi-location, agency), and provide some details about your business. It then thoroughly scans all your online listings, including your Google listing and those on third-party sites such as Yelp. It also provides valuable insights into your reputation through reviews.

Free or Paid? Synup Local Listing Scan is a free tool.

Tools for Technical SEO

13. Bing Webmaster Tools

If you’re looking for valuable technical SEO insights for improving your website’s performance on search engines, then you might want to consider Bing Webmaster Tools. With this platform, you can get access to a host of SEO tools for reviewing keywords, managing backlinks, and analyzing your website.

The tool crawls your website to identify any technical SEO issues that need fixing. It will also give you comprehensive SEO reports on any errors identified in individual site pages. Besides this, it also comes with features for keyword research and backlinks reports.

Free or Paid? Bing Webmaster Tools are free.

14. PageSpeed Insights

Page load speed is an important ranking factor for Google because it ties into the overall user experience of your site. To enhance your website’s UX, try out PageSpeed Insights. It’s a tool from Google that assesses the page load speed of your website. It also gives you a brief overview of the metrics that define the behavior of your page on both mobile and desktop devices.

This technical SEO tool can be a great addition to your SEO toolkit. It can give you some excellent suggestions for improving your SEO performance.

Free or Paid? PageSpeed Insights is a free tool from Google.

15. Seomator

Seomator is another great option for a website crawler. This SEO tool can help you with both on-page and technical SEO analysis.

Once the website crawling process is finished, the SEO tool generates a comprehensive report outlining various elements crucial to your website’s optimization. The report provides valuable insights into your site’s SEO performance, from internal/external links, page quality and loading speed to organic reach and social media presence.

There’s also an SEO Monitoring Alerts feature, in which the user gets an instant notification whenever the tool identifies any problems or issues during the automatic SEO audit.

Free or Paid? Seomator is a paid SEO tool, with plans starting from $49 per month.

Wrapping Up

And that’s the lowdown on the top 15 SEO tools for those who strive for a broader online presence. Whether you’re new to SEO, or an experienced digital marketer, you’re sure to find a tool or two amongst these that can help you nail down your strategy, enhance your website’s performance and find your sweet spot on the SERPs.

So give some of these a spin and see which one works best for your unique SEO venture. Happy optimizing!