Your SEO rating is one of the main things search engines account for in their algorithms. It’s therefore essential to make your site, your pages, and your content SEO friendly. There are many ways to go about this, but the most straightforward is to employ SEO-optimizing software. It will first scan your site and then offer suggestions on how to improve in certain areas for better results.
In most cases, it’s followed up by analytical tools that will make statistical breakdowns much easier to follow. As there are virtually numerous software options out there that offer the entire SEO optimization package, or just parts of it we’ve decided to bring you a shortlist of the seven best we’ve found to use right now.
Seodity
Seodity is an SEO platform that looks to cover all the bases. You’ll easily be able to run a comprehensive analysis of both your site and those of your competitors, track how your pages perform, run detailed keyword research, and much more.
Keywords must be a big part of your SEO strategy simply because the whole search algorithm is designed around them. Users search sites by inputting keywords, from where the search engines scour the web for pages containing them, and those that either paid or have the most relevant content will be on top. One of the great things about Seodity is that it recognizes paid from organic traffic, meaning when you’re doing your research, you’ll be able to see what keywords bring in high-volume traffic by themselves and which ones do so only through paid campaigns. Within the platform you can even compare your keywords to those of other sites and see how they stack up, there’s no shame in copying something that works. Also, if you want to follow how keywords perform over time you can check the history because everything is recorded and easily accessible.
Backlink data is another thing you can get from other sites, which can then be filtered by status, type, or date making it easy to form a strategy. Identify potential sites you can partner up with that can benefit all those involved. This will lead to opportunities to build traffic directly, by having other pages link to yours, and indirectly by raising your SEO rating (a higher number of quality backlinks leads to better scores) making your site more relevant in searches.
Naturally, you’ll want to make your site as close to perfect SEO-wise as you can. Seodity offers a robust audit tool that highlights potential issues that could potentially be bringing your rating down like slow load times, or internal linking errors. Each of your pages has phrases that are more popular than others and you’ll be able to single them out by running a site-wide content analysis. You can then choose to either double down on those that are performing well or put more emphasis on those who aren’t. In the end, your focus should always be internal – change what you can on your pages for the better and then go looking to compare with others.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs, an SEO tool you’ve probably heard of is primarily focused on keyword research. The research tool, along with the standard analysis, rates the difficulty of your keyword as well as suggests related keywords and phrases that rank well. All this data could lead to new ideas and a fresh approach that will, in turn, lead to even better SEO scores. The keywords you use on your pages are constantly monitored so you can follow how they ranked over time which is especially important for keywords with regular cycles (related to, for example, holidays or summer vacation).
Aside from the keyword research tool, you’ll also be able to check on backlinks, compare your ranks to that of your competitors, follow the rankings of your pages, monitor traffic, etc. Put everything together and you have yourself a complete SEO optimization tool that falls just short of the top spot.
SEMrush
If you ever dabbled with SEO, you’ve probably heard of SEMrush, since it’s one of the most popular options out there. The focus here is on competitor analysis. There’s a plethora of stats you can about keywords, individual pages, content in general, etc. that you can compare to your numbers and see how you stack up. Knowing what your competitors are doing well can go a long way to forming your SEO strategy.
You can use the search engine to find out which keywords bring the most organic traffic, and which are mostly paid campaigns. Speaking of campaigns, by researching their advertising tendencies you can get data about your competitors advertising budgets giving you a much better idea of where you stand in comparison.
Of course, other more “basic” features like backlink tackers or the traffic analyzer, which are standardized for these types of platforms are also present.
Ubersuggest
The main thing you need to know about Ubersuggest is the price – it’s free. As you would expect, this will have its advantages and drawbacks. It isn’t as abundant in features as some other solutions on the list, but then again, all those have a cost, so it’s much easier to be more lenient with Ubersuggest.
Everything you’ll need from an SEO optimizer tool is present here. You can optimize your content based on the site/page audit system which, after the scan offers up suggestions for more optimal keywords and phrases which should instantly impact your overall SEO rating.
Researching both keywords and sites is done through the same engine and the data you get back can then be used with the aforementioned optimizing tool for full impact. Taking both the suggested action(s) with everything you see working for other sites will enable you to create perfectly optimized pages.
Sitechecker
Just as the name suggests, Sitecheker functions first and foremost as a website scanning tool. You’ll be able to scan both your site and other sites. These audits don’t just list the current state, but also show the changes as points that can be used to follow progress. If you’re still figuring out your SEO strategy this could be invaluable because it’s easy to see which methods brought the most results and which shouldn’t be practiced in the future. You won’t be left to your own devices either because you’ll be given suggestions on how to proceed in each situation.
Through daily backlink tracking, you’ll be notified each time a new link to your pages is made, or one disappears. This will help you see patterns if there are any, which will, again, lead to data you can use to formulate a viable strategy.
Moz
Moz is another very popular SEO optimizing tool you’ve probably already heard of since it’s commonly used both among companies and individual website managers. It provides an all-in-one solution for everything SEO-related, from site audits, keyword and backlink analysis, and rank tracking.
A great thing about Moz is the add-ons you can get on top of the base version. The MozPro aims to enhance all features across the board, while the MozBar browser extension allows you to implement the tool straight to your browser vastly improving accessibility to all features provided within at a moment’s notice.
The main drawback is related to location. More precisely, the metrics and database are available for only the US, which makes the platform virtually unusable if you’re based anywhere else. This is also the main reason for the significant drop down the list.
Yoast
Yoast isn’t your typical SEO optimization tool, but it’s still worth mentioning because it offers a very specific feature not commonly found elsewhere. Aside from keyword analysis that looks to enhance your organic traffic, Yoast offers readability analysis. While active, Yoast will go over your text while you’re writing it, offering up suggestions for improvement in real-time. Keep in mind that this isn’t your run-of-the-mill spellchecker, but a tool geared towards SEO optimization. Every suggestion that’s made is there to improve your rating and bump your pages over the competition.
Outside of real-time suggestions you’ll also get ratings and suggestions for the entire post/page – whether it’s too short or too long; if there need to be more paragraphs, if it’s easy to read etc. All this has essentially a double effect, on one hand, your SEO rating will improve and on the other it makes your content much easier for your users to read.
Summary
Every tool we’ve covered on our list has its merits and while some are better than others there are no bad choices here. We’ve even included some niche solutions like Yoast that fill a very specific role, which could be ideal if you’re looking precisely for that but can hardly match all the bells and whistles others bring to the table.
Having said that, we must highlight our top pick Seodity. It might not be as outspoken as some other options, but we’ve found that it provides you with all-around best value with its abundance of features. By choosing Seodity you’ll hardly ever have to use another SEO tool ever again.