The Best SEO Software of 2023

Bottom Line:
The Best SEO Software of 2023
Why You Should Trust This Review
How I Rated the Best SEO Software Providers
The Top 10 SEO Software
How I Tested the Best SEO Software

The Best SEO Software of 2023

SEO Software	Best For	Starting Price	Best Features
Semrush (4.0)	Best overall	$99.95 per month paid annually See pricing	Keyword tracking Backlink analytics Site crawling
Ahrefs (4.0)	Best for experienced users	$83 per month paid annually See pricing	Powerful keyword research tool Excellent site auditing Competitor research
SEOptimer (3.9)	Best white-label reports	$14.25 per month paid annually See pricing	White-label reports on high-tier plans SEO audits Keyword tracking and recommendations
Mangools (3.9)	Best for keyword research	$29.90 per month paid annually See pricing	Keyword research Competitor research Backlink Tracking
Yoast (3.8)	Best for WordPress	Free version available, premium starts at $99 per year See pricing	On-page SEO suggestions Readability analysis Global settings for SEO preferences
Netpeak Spider (3.75)	Best user review scores	$18.20 per month paid every three years See pricing	Fast, thorough audits Backlink analytics Data enrichment
Conductor (3.7)	Best customer service	Custom pricing See pricing	Excellent support Custom-built SEO plan Site crawling
Google Search Console (3.6)	Best free SEO tool	Free See pricing	Site indexing Performance report Sitemap submittal
SEO Panel (3.4)	Best open-source option	Free (on-premises), starting at $25 per month for cloud deployments See pricing	Backlink tracker Rank checkers for multiple ranks Page speed checker
LinkResearchTools (3.3)	Best for link building	$483.25 per month paid annually See pricing	Disavow file management Link simulator for vetting links Competitor analysis

If you want to attract organic leads to your website, you need to be visible on search engines like Google. SEO-driven marketing is no longer the field of global corporations and expert bloggers — like a website builder, it’s a necessity for businesses of all sizes. In fact, on-page SEO is the No. 1 factor in ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs), which is why SEO software is vital to have.

I looked closely at some of the most popular SEO software providers of 2023 to determine which ones offer a strong value for content marketers. The most important criteria are functionality, ease of use, price, and customer support, but I also considered other unique traits of each service.

Although this is a ranked list, every option comes with its own pros and cons, depending on your needs. You may also be interested in working with an SEO companyif you’re looking for a marketing partnership rather than standalone software.

Why You Should Trust This Review

About Digital.com’s expert reviewer, Amy Nichol Smith:

Amy is an experienced journalist, tech expert, and content director. She covers various topics and industries, including retail, tech, and marketing. You’ll see her featured in the L.A. Times, Forbes, Tom’s Guide, and Reader’s Digest.

How I Rated the Best SEO Software Providers

When it comes to SEO software, everyone is looking for something different. With that in mind, I balanced my evaluation by taking a variety of factors into account.

Basic functionality

If you’re looking for SEO software, you probably have a core set of tools in mind. These features are crucial for almost any website, so they were a natural starting point for my evaluation:

Keyword research
SERP tracking
Content optimization
Link management
Competitor research
SEO audits and analytics

In 2023, it’s either difficult or impossible to build a strong SEO presence without each element in place — backlinks are effective for SEO, but so is quality content (there are hundreds of thousands of articles about it). Semrush is my top choice because of its effective performance with respect to all of those factors. That said, I included some applications due to narrow strengths, even if they were relatively weak in other areas.

Value-adds

The features above are shared by most leading SEO tools. At the same time, some providers differentiate themselves by offering features that are hard to find anywhere else. The “Value-Add” criterion covers these unique benefits that make particular platforms stand out.

For example, you may want Google to re-crawl your site after fixing errors or making major updates. You can directly request new crawls in Google Search Console, which makes the Search Console worthwhile for almost any website owner.

Similarly, SEOptimer provides white-label reports that are perfect for SEO agencies to show clients and leads. Even though SEOptimer is limited in scope, I still felt it was worth including due to its strong value in this specific use case.

Ease of use

Offering valuable data and insights is one thing; making them easy to interpret is another. SEO is an incredibly complicated field, and it’s even more difficult if you have to spend time figuring out how your SEO tool works.

Ease of use includes the application’s visual design as well as how simple it is to find what you’re looking for. Basic tutorials can also help you get oriented with a new platform, particularly if you don’t have much experience with SEO software. For example, Ahrefs provides impressive functionality, but its learning curve makes it less practical for inexperienced users.

Customer support

SEO providers vary wildly in terms of customer support. This can have a big impact on your experience, both when you’re starting out and when you encounter any technical issues. Proactive customer support can also help you gain a deeper understanding of the product and take full advantage of its capabilities.

Conductor offers the best customer support of any SEO service, with webinars, guides, and even marketing professionals to supplement your in-house team. However, Conductor is targeting larger businesses than some of the other providers listed, and there are more affordable options that still offer solid customer service.

Pricing

Price isn’t everything, but it makes a big difference for small businesses. My goal was to provide varied recommendations, so you’ll find everything from free software to enterprise-level services. The most important thing was to confirm that each platform offers sufficient functionality and value to be worth the cost.

Along with the raw cost per month, I also considered other factors such as commitment length, trial periods, and the options available to users with different needs. If you don’t want to spend money, I recommend looking at Yoast SEO and Google Search Console. SEO Panel is also technically free, but you will need to do a little more legwork to get the free (on-premises) version up and running.

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The Top 10 SEO Software

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Reviews

Semrush

Best overall

4.0

Keyword tracking
Backlink analytics
Site crawling

Summary

Starting price
- $99.95 per month paid annually
Value-adds
Local SEO
Customer support
Support tickets, phone (10 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST, Monday to Friday, in the U.S.)

Basic functionality

Keyword research: Yes
SERP tracking: Yes
Content optimization: Yes
Link management: Yes
Competitor research: Yes
SEO audits and analytics: Yes

Once upon a time, Semrush seemed to be for SEO experts only, but after multiple updates to UI and UX, the dashboard and data are much easier to read, even if you’re new to SEO. We named Semrush the best overall SEO tool because it’s a complete SEO tool that won’t break a small business’s bank.

No SEO platform is right for every user, but Semrush is about as close as it gets. It’s our top recommendation if you’re looking for a new SEO service in 2023.

Semrush checks virtually every box such as keyword tracking, site crawling, backlink analytics, and Application Programming Interface (API) access for third-party integrations. Its prices are relatively affordable, and you can add a variety of tools to your plan for an extra charge.

Furthermore, a 2020 visual update gave the application a new, attractive design and made it much easier to use. The left side of the screen displays various categories such as competitive research, keyword research, and link building. Even though it provides a lot of in-depth information, I felt that Semrush makes everything fairly simple to find.

You can easily identify potential high-value keywords based on factors like search volume, difficulty, intent, and recent trends. Even the cheapest plan supports daily tracking for up to 500 keywords at a time. Unfortunately, I felt that the tools themselves could be overwhelming, and there were some usability issues.

When I created a content template, for example, I could only export it as a Word document. Even worse, the document it gave me contained nearly 20,000 words, including the full text of 10 competing articles. There was no way to customize the report, export a smaller version, or export in any format other than Word.

Still, even though other providers might beat Semrush on specific features, it’s hard to find a better overall service for the average small business owner.

Who is Semrush best for?

Based on my experience, Semrush is a good option for most small business owners. You’ll probably spend some time feeling it out as I did with the content template tool, but it’s still more straightforward than most other applications with similarly deep features. For example, you can immediately gather all relevant information about a specific keyword — how many people are searching for it and how your competitors rank for the same search term.

Recent upgrades to Semrush

Semrush developed a new visual style in 2020 that significantly improved its ease of use and aesthetic appeal and introduced many features in 2021. For example, the new Keyword Intent metric synthesizes search data to understand what you are looking for when you enter a specific search term. This makes it easier to develop campaigns that respond to the real desires of your audience.

Pricing

The cheapest version of Semrush is the Pro subscription, which has a base rate of $99.95 per month paid annually, or $119.95 on a month-to-month basis. This plan comes with five projects, 500 tracked keywords, and 10,000 results per report. Guru ($191.62 per month paid annually) and Business ($374.95 per month paid annually) increase those limits and give you access to more advanced features.

Pros and cons of Semrush

Pros

Visually appealing interface
Flexible pricing with optional add-ons
API access (Business tier only)

Cons

More expensive than some alternatives
Questionable design decisions

Ahrefs

Best for experienced users

4.0

Powerful keyword research tool
Excellent site auditing
Competitor research

Summary

Starting price
- $83 per month paid annually
Value-adds
SERP history tool
Customer support
Email, help center, Twitter, 24/5 live chat support via dashboard

Basic functionality

Keyword research: Yes
SERP tracking: Yes
Content optimization: Yes
Link management: Yes
Competitor research: Yes
SEO audits and analytics: Yes

Ahrefs packs a lot of nuance into its powerful tools, making it a bit harder to learn. If you have experience though, it can be a great SEO companion. Its keyword research tool is well known in the industry, and it has one of the most extensive crawlers, second only to Google’s.

Compared to the sleek, futuristic design of Semrush, Ahrefs appears a little more technical and complicated. It might not be as welcoming if you are new to it, but it offers some incredibly powerful tools. That’s why I picked Ahrefs as the top 2023 option for more experienced marketers.

I’ve used Ahrefs for years, and it’s one of my favorite SEO tools for keyword (KW) research and competitor analysis. There is a lot more Ahrefs can do, including site audits, content suggestions, and helpful analysis of your site (or another’s). The links report is great for giving you a look at which links are helping or hurting your website.

Who is Ahrefs best for?

Anyone can learn to use Ahrefs effectively, but if you are less experienced you may need some time to understand how the application works. The interface is more barebones than Semrush and other competitors. Ahrefs enables data-driven insights including detailed comparisons and granular filters, but you need to know how to interpret that data to unlock its underlying value.

Recent upgrades

Ahrefs publishes monthly blog posts about recent updates to the platform. In July 2022, Ahrefs added a SERP history tool that shows the top search results for a given keyword on any given date. This makes it much easier to see how your website has compared to others over time.

That was just one of several new features introduced in July 2022, and similar announcements have been made monthly for multiple years. You can be confident that Ahrefs will continue to receive regular upgrades and optimizations.

Pricing

Ahrefs is available for slightly less than Semrush at a starting price of $83 per month paid annually. That said, the most robust versions actually go far beyond Semrush in terms of price — the Enterprise tier is $833 per month paid annually. This plan comes with features like API access, activity logs, and access management.

Pros and cons of Ahrefs

Pros

Powerful, granular keyword research tool
New SERP history tool
Excellent site auditing (set up for multiple sites)
One of the best backlink analysis tools (extensive database, one of the biggest crawlers)

Cons

Expensive after entry-level plan
Limited features on low-tier plan
Steep learning curve for some tools

SEOptimer

Best white-label reports

3.9

White-label reports on high-tier plans
SEO audits
Keyword tracking and recommendations

Summary

Starting price
- $19 per month
Value-adds
White-label SEO reports
Customer support
Live chat, email

Basic functionality

Keyword research: Yes
SERP tracking: Yes
Content optimization: Yes
Link management: Yes
Competitor research: Yes
SEO audits and analytics: Yes

SEOptimer offers three plans; the low-priced one is suitable for individuals, while the other two are better for small businesses (specifically content or SEO agencies). Its standout feature is white labeling, so you can create SEO reports for clients with your branding on them.

SEOptimer is a good option for your SEO use, but it stands out, even more, when it comes to white labeling. With its white-label reports, you can give your clients and leads professional SEO reports at the click of a button. That makes SEOptimer a popular choice for SEO businesses that want to improve their offerings.

After signing up, you can easily create reports with custom branding by uploading your company’s name, logo, and colors. This is particularly useful for lead generation — showing a prospect a clear, professional representation of their SEO practices will go a long way toward gaining their trust.

SEOptimer reports cover a wide range of SEO factors such as broken links, page load speed, keyword positions, and search traffic. I ran a report on my own site and compared what I got back to what Google Analytics offers. It’s the same information, but it was far easier for me to read SEOptimer’s report and it’s more visually appealing.

There are some limitations, such as with page crawling — if a site has thousands of pages, you might not be able to crawl them all with SEOptimer.

Even if you’re targeting an international audience, you can generate reports in 11 other languages, including French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Support is available by email or live chat, but SEOptimer typically takes a couple of hours for a response.

Who is SEOptimer best for?

SEOptimer is going to be the best fit for selling SEO services to your clients. It comes with solid fundamental features like SEO crawling and keyword research, but the white-label reports are its main value-add. Given its relatively affordable price tag, you could easily justify the cost with a fairly low volume of sales.

Recent upgrades

SEOptimer has a Feature Request board for customer suggestions, and it published a list of new additions in June 2022. This update included an especially hard-hitting feature: the option to add competitors to audit reports so that clients and leads can see how they stack up against other websites in their niche. There were also several smaller additions such as automatic scheduling for recurring reports.

Pricing

After a 14-day free trial, you can continue with one of three SEOptimer subscriptions. You have your choice of paying month-to-month or saving 25% by paying upfront annually. At $19 per month, the DIY SEO tier is intended for your own use. You’ll need to upgrade to the White Label plan ($29 per month) to generate white-label reports for other clients. At $59 per month, the White Label & Embedding subscription enables you to place audit forms on your site for even better lead generation.

Pros and cons of SEOptimer

Pros

Extremely easy to use
Starts at just $19 per month
Available white-label reports

Cons

Limited value outside of white-labeling
Embed forms double the subscription cost
Page crawling limited

Mangools

Best for keyword research

3.9

Keyword research
Competitor research
Backlink tracking

Summary

Starting price
- $29.90 per month paid annually
Value-adds
Outstanding keyword research functionality
Customer support
Email and live chat (no listed hours)

Basic functionality

Keyword research: Yes
SERP tracking: Yes
Content optimization: Yes
Link management: Yes
Competitor research: Yes
SEO audits and analytics: Yes

Mangools is an easy-to-use suite of SEO tools to help you research and manage keywords, SERPs, links, your site’s health, and your competition. Its claim to fame is keyword research.

Mangools is an SEO software provider that offers a bundle of five tools: KWFinder, SERPChecker, SERPWatcher, LinkMiner, and SiteProfiler. These programs cover keyword research, search engine rank analysis, backlink tracking, and website evaluation.

Each of the five services offer value, but I’ve always been impressed by KWFinder. It responds to one of the biggest SEO challenges: how to identify new keyword ideas with strong traffic potential. I used KWFinder exclusively before I learned how to use Ahrefs.

KWFinder will help you find keywords with low rank difficulty and a relatively high search volume. I was impressed by the way it synthesized so much data into a fairly straightforward visual. Even if you’ve never used an SEO tool before, I don’t think you’ll have much trouble wrapping your head around KWFinder.

Similarly, the competitor research tools are just as straightforward and offer solid value for sites struggling to rank. Rather than searching by keyword, you can search by domain and then see the top keywords sending readers to that website. The one downside I noticed is that there’s no clear way to directly compare two sites for content gap analysis.

Who is Mangools best for?

Mangools is best if you want to focus on identifying valuable keywords for your websites. I found it very easy to visualize and interpret data, and based on customer reviews, most users agree with that assessment. I would highly recommend Mangools if you’re having trouble settling on a content direction.

Recent upgrades

Mangools product updates have slowed down dramatically in recent years. As of August 2022, the most recent upgrade came in May 2021, and the main improvement was the addition of new keywords.

That’s critical for KWFinder’s analytic capabilities, but it also doesn’t change the core functionality. Mangools should start publishing more updates in the near future, but I wouldn’t expect anything major.

Pricing

Mangools is available at three price points: Basic ($29.90 per month paid annually), Premium ($39.90 per month paid annually), and Agency ($79.90 per month paid annually). You’ll get a one-hour-only offer for a lifetime 10% off after creating a Mangools account. But one hour isn’t enough time to make a fully informed decision, which makes this feel like more of a gimmick than a true discount.

Pros and cons of Mangools

Pros

Strong keyword research tools
Responsive customer support
Outstanding ease of use

Cons

Disappointing backlink tracking
Inconvenient pricing

Yoast

Best for WordPress

3.8

On-page SEO suggestions
Readability analysis
Global settings for SEO preferences

Summary

Starting price
- Free version available
- Premium starts at $99 per year
Value-adds
On-page SEO suggestions
Customer support
24/7 support for high-tier plan
Help center for all plans

Basic functionality

Keyword research: Not exactly
SERP tracking: No
Content optimization: Yes
Link management: Yes
Competitor research: No
SEO audits and analytics: Yes

Yoast is one of the most ubiquitous SEO tools. The WordPress plug-in is simple to use, and it’s a big help for anyone who needs a reminder to add a meta title, description, or targeted keyword on posts and pages. The free version is useful, but the paid versions unlock more helpful features and support.

Yoast is a well-known WordPress plug-in that isn’t a typical SEO tool — and it’s one of the easiest-to-use SEO tools on our list. It’s a great way to analyze on-page SEO and offers suggestions for improving your SEO on pages and posts. It scans the content on your site, sentence structure, passive and active voice, subheadings, and sentence and paragraph length.

You can use a 100% free version, and it’s a bit limiting, but a useful tool. I use it for my own website, which helps me see the problems it spots with my pages and posts. Yoast SEO happens behind the scenes and is automated, such as your SEO title — just choose how you want it to look under Search Appearance in settings.

Who is Yoast best for?

Yoast is essentially a keyword and content optimizer, so it’s ideal if you blog for your business or personal site. It can be helpful for small e-commerce businesses that want to optimize product pages, too. You can’t do competitor analysis, deep keyword research, or run reports on your top pages with Yoast, though (that’s not really what it’s meant to do).

Recent upgrades

The Yoast SEO Changelog provides information about new releases. As of August 2022, the newest major version is Yoast SEO 19, which came out in May 2022. That said, even this “major” update was limited to a few enhancements, compatibility updates, and bug fixes.

Yoast SEO is consistently adapting to the latest search engine updates, but things aren’t moving as quickly when it comes to product features.

Pricing

Yoast is one of a few applications on this list with a free version available. While you will be limited concerning some features, you can use this option indefinitely at no charge. At $99 per year, the Premium tier comes with helpful extras like internal linking tools, 24/7 support, and early access to updates. You can also bundle Yoast SEO with four other Yoast plug-ins for a single payment of $229 per year or $22 per month.

Pros and cons of Yoast

Pros

Outstanding ease of use
Available WordPress plug-in
Free version available, just $99 per year for Premium

Cons

Limited analytic tools
Unimpressive visual design
No keyword research

Netpeak Spider

Best for site audits

3.8

Fast, thorough audits
Backlink analytics
Data enrichment

Summary

Starting price
- $7 per month paid annually
Value-adds
Lifetime license available
Customer support
Email support
Help center

Basic functionality

Keyword research: No
SERP tracking: Yes (via Netpeak Checker)
Content optimization: No
Link management: Yes
Competitor research: Yes
SEO audits and analytics: Yes

Netpeak Spider is an on-premise SEO tool that’s most helpful for site audits to help you clean up on-page SEO. It also offers data enrichment, so you can more easily do outreach for link building. As a bonus, Netpeak Spider is one of the most affordable SEO tools in the industry with an option for a lifetime license.

Netpeak Spider is a popular SEO tool with a more narrow focus than many of the options on this list. While some other features are included, the primary focus is on site crawling and SEO audit tools. It’s also an easy-to-use tool, but there are a lot of settings that might be overwhelming.

A quick crawl from Netpeak Spider can identify common SEO problems like broken links, duplicate content, and misspelled words. This solves a critical pain point for many website owners: you might not even know what’s holding back your site rankings. Cleaning up these easily fixable issues could give your site more visibility in search engines.

If you wanted to check for the same issues on your own, it would be extremely time-consuming — particularly as your site grows. Netpeak Spider can perform a much more comprehensive crawl in just a few minutes and has other helpful features such as analytics, integrations with other software, and data scraping for backlink outreach.

I used Netpeak Spider for keyword and content gap analysis, but it falls short compared with other options because this is more of a technical SEO auditing tool. With plans available for less than $10 per month paid annually, Netpeak Spider is also much more affordable than full-service SEO platforms.

Who is Netpeak Spider best for?

Netpeak Spider is much cheaper than most other providers listed, so it makes sense for smaller businesses with a limited budget for SEO and content marketing. Given Netpeak Spider’s narrow set of features, it’s best for link building and cleaning up your websites — plus, you should already be confident in your core SEO strategy. Full-service SEO software often comes with similar crawling tools, so consider an alternative if you’re looking for a broader set of features.

Recent upgrades

Netpeak Spider’s release schedule seems to be every other month. Throughout 2022, there were minor updates, fixes, and additions. There’s no longer a freemium plan but rather a free trial with limits. In September 2022, Netpeak changed its pricing plans and added an onboarding window to make it even more affordable and accessible.

Pricing

Pricing is a substantial advantage for Netpeak Spider compared to most other SEO software. Additionally, Netpeak Spider offers extra discounts for lifetime licenses, so you can save some money if you’re in it for the long haul. The Starter tier ($7 per month paid annually) comes with most basic features, while Advanced ($12 per month paid annually) adds in infinite crawled URLs plus white-label reports and the new audit enrichment tool.

Business ($22 per month paid annually) is built for larger clients with features like VIP onboarding and a dedicated account manager. Rates are double the annual cost for lifetime licenses, but you get all future updates for a one-time fee.

Pros and cons of Netpeak Spider

Pros

Starts at just $7 per month paid annually
Crawls sites (even large ones) quickly
Lots of parameters allow for deep dives into data
Integrates with Google Analytics and Yandex

Cons

Limited range of features
Not great for visual reports

Conductor

Best customer service

3.7

Excellent support
Custom-built SEO plan
Site crawling

Summary

Starting price
- Custom pricing
Value-adds
Custom SEO roadmap
Social SEO insights
Customer support
24/5 support, custom success plan

Basic functionality

Keyword research: Yes
SERP tracking: Yes
Content optimization: Yes
Link management: Yes
Competitor research: Yes
SEO audits and analytics: Yes

Conductor targets enterprise-level businesses to provide custom solutions for SEO and marketing. The support team from Conductor gets consistently high marks from customers because it offers direct support.

Every piece of SEO software we’ve covered provides value, but it can be difficult to take advantage of that on your own. Especially in the early stages, it’s extremely helpful to work with experienced professionals who can contextualize a platform’s functionality and help you leverage it to the fullest possible extent.

Conductor made our list due to its uniquely responsive and helpful support team. I had an easy time getting help and found that numerous other reviewers have positively interacted with the customer service staff, while almost nobody has had a negative experience.

Conductor has a stronger focus on larger enterprise clients than other leading SEO software providers. However, there is a free Chrome extension that I installed and use occasionally to get an idea of what isn’t working well on my site.

Based on Conductor’s recommendations, I changed the wording on my site to drop the reading level down to a seventh-grade level. I still need to add alt text to my images, which the SEO plug-in pointed out.

If you use Conductor, you’ll have the chance to work with a team of experts who can answer questions and help you achieve your targets. The process starts with an organic marketing assessment in which its team will look at your current practices and help develop a roadmap for the future. That’s a much greater degree of support than you’ll get from most SEO software.

Who is Conductor best for?

Conductor is built for large-scale companies and organizations that want to build industry-leading campaigns. It’s a comprehensive SEO platform that can integrate with your full tech stack and supercharge every area of your digital marketing practices. On the other hand, Conductor’s robust features and custom pricing make it a less practical choice for small- and even mid-sized businesses.

Recent upgrades

Conductor announced new AI-powered content recommendationsin August 2022. This tool can help you develop more focused content by identifying key elements such as questions to answer and keywords to include in the headings and meta descriptions. Other product updates have been announced on a near-monthly basis, and I expect that to continue through 2023 and beyond.

Pricing

Since Conductor is aimed at large-scale businesses, it doesn’t offer any free plan or even pre-set pricing tiers. That said, there is a free Chrome extension with a narrower range of tools. Contact Conductor directly to get an idea of what its services would cost your company.

Pros and cons of Conductor

Pros

Free Chrome extension with basic SEO features
Comprehensive SEO services with active customer support
Futuristic, appealing Interface

Cons

Expensive for small businesses
Issues with ease of use

Google Search Console

Best free SEO tool

3.6

Site indexing
Performance report
Sitemap submittal

Summary

Starting price
- Free
Value-adds
Sitemap submittal
Customer support
Video training, help documentation

Basic functionality

Keyword research: No
SERP tracking: Yes
Content optimization: No
Link management: No
Competitor research: Indirectly
SEO audits and analytics: Yes

Google Search Console is a great way to ensure that Google indexes your site correctly. Plus, this tool will point out any errors, and pages that were no-indexed, and show you how well your site performs from a traffic, click-through-rate (CTR), and impression standpoint. And it’s free to use.

The Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that offers basic SEO and site optimization features. It won’t replace the functionality of a premium SEO service like Semrush or Ahrefs, but it’s surprisingly practical if you aren’t looking to spend any money.

Even if you pay for another application, it may still be worth leveraging Google Search Console in certain situations. For example, I used it recently to request a new crawl of my site after I made changes.

These crawls work differently from third-party crawlers like Netpeak Spider. Google will identify some optimization issues, but it will also change the way your site appears in search results. Without a manual crawl, Google may still be indexing your site based on outdated information. Requesting a crawl ensures that Google is using the currently published version of your site.

Google also offers mobile usability reports that help identify any optimization issues that may pop up for mobile users. These could include anything from small text to crowded buttons that are difficult for mobile visitors to select. Most of the Search Console’s features are simple, straightforward tools that offer an immediate SEO impact.

Who is Google Search Console best for?

Google Search Console makes sense if you are relatively new to the world of SEO. As your site grows, you will probably find that it doesn’t offer enough to meet your needs. But in the early stages, this tool will identify plenty of weaknesses and help you move the site in the right direction.

There are also Google-specific functions that continue to be useful even after switching to a more robust platform.

Recent upgrades

Google recently added a new Search Console Video index report to match the growing importance of video marketing. With this tool, you can see how many pages Google has identified a video on. You can also look at why certain pages aren’t indexed.

For example, you might use an unsupported video format, or the video may be too large or small for Google’s crawler to pick up.

Pricing

Google Search Console is free, and there aren’t any paid upgrades or add-ons to consider. If you’re interested in the Search Console, you may also like Google’s other programs, such as Google Analytics. You might add other services to your toolkit later, but Google’s suite of SEO tools offers a solid starting point.

Pros and cons of Google Search Console

Pros

Free to use
Request new crawls from Google
Regular updates
Clear, streamlined interface

Cons

Small set of SEO features
Limited customer support

SEO Panel

Best open-source option

3.4

Backlink tracker
Rank checkers for multiple ranks
Page speed checker

Summary

Starting price
- Free and open source
Value-adds
Free open-source tool
Customer support
Help tickets
Email support
Community forum

Basic functionality

Keyword research: No
SERP tracking: Yes
Content optimization: No
Link management: Yes
Competitor research: No
SEO audits and analytics: Yes

Whether you choose the free on-premises version or a paid cloud-hosted version of SEO Panel, you get helpful features to track your backlinks, page speed, keyword positions, and your site’s rank. Paid versions of the SEO tool come with plug-ins to help you manage social media, customize your SEO Panel, and perform bulk keyword checks.

Active open-source software is incredibly difficult to find, particularly in the B2B space. I was happy to have the chance to highlight SEO Panel, an effective SEO platform that’s surprisingly robust and simple to use. It was an easy selection of the best open-source SEO software in 2023.

With SEO Panel, it was easy to track my position for various keywords, audit my site for basic optimization, and check backlinks leading to my website from other domains. It also supports these features for multiple domains in a single SEO Panel account.

Even though SEO Panel doesn’t have the same amenities as a premium service, you can still use robust support resources. The website offers thorough documentation for virtually every element of the SEO Panel application.

You can even request more help by creating a support ticket. SEO Panel easily integrates any other programs you use through the API. Those might be routine features for a paid application, but they make SEO Panel stand out as a free service.

Who is SEO Panel best for?

SEO Panel is primarily a good recommendation for startups and other small businesses in the early stages of growth. Like most other free software, SEO Panel can only offer so much. Even cloud subscriptions are relatively limited compared to premium alternatives. I also found the visual design disappointing compared to what’s available from paid applications.

Recent upgrades

SEO Panel used to put out more frequent updates, but the release schedule has slowed down since 2021. The most recent version of the application is SEO Panel 4.10.0, which added numerous features including minor bug fixes, PHP 8 support, and new PDF reporting tools. SEO Panel may continue to receive minor revisions, but what you see is mostly what you get.

Pricing

SEO Panel is free to use, but only on your server. The cloud version of SEO Panel is more analogous to other SEO services. You can get cloud hosting for $25 per month (Personal), $49 per month (Professional), or $99 per month (Business). While each subscription has unique features, they include installation, free upgrades, and a free subdomain.

Pros and cons of SEO Panel

Pros

Free and open-source (cloud hosting available)
Positive customer reviews
Surprisingly deep features

Cons

No major recent updates
Limited scope for growing businesses

LinkResearchTools

Best for link building

3.3

Disavow file management
Link simulator for vetting links
Competitor analysis

Summary

Starting price
- $483.25 per month paid annually
Value-adds
Disavow file management
Link simulator
Customer support
Support tickets, phone (10 p.m. to 6 p.m. EST, Monday through Friday in the U.S.)

Basic functionality

Keyword research: Yes
SERP tracking: Yes
Content optimization: No
Link management: Yes
Competitor research: Yes
SEO audits and analytics: Yes

LinkResearchTools tells you what its best at with its name: link building. It offers plenty of other tools to help improve your linking strategy, analyze your competition, and prevent manual actions from Google that threaten your rank. Worth noting: It’s one of the more expensive SEO tools on the market.

LinkResearchTools is an SEO tool that focuses heavily on link building and competitor analysis. In addition to its paid plans, LinkResearchTools offers free tools via browser extensions (Chrome and Firefox) that aim at link strength, link verification, and redirects. Although LinkResearchTools does a great job of analyzing backlinks, helping you vet new links, and showing you what your competitors are doing, it isn’t a complete SEO tool.

Although LinkResearchTools helps with keyword research, I was surprised to find that it doesn’t devote a whole tool to keyword research or recommendations — only keyword classification with recommendations for alternative keywords. I found keyword-specific features within other tools, such as link audits and competitor analysis, so I got an idea of which keywords to target. It’s just such a roundabout way of going about it.

The most impressive tools from LinkResearchTools are based on link building, such as Link Juice Thief, Link Detox Boost, and Link Alerts. For example, the Link Juice Thief tool scans your competitors’ outgoing links point so you can link there and get them to indirectly link to your site (essentially “stealing” SEO juice).

I also want to touch on LinkResearchTool’s attention to detoxing your site. The Link Detox Boost tool can help you repair your site after a Google Penalty. It can also prevent manual action — which can tank your domain authority (DA) rank.

Link Detox reportedly helps speed up the process of disavowing links that hurt your score with automatic submissions to Google for recrawls of your disavow file (and probably other proprietary methods).

Who is LinkResearchTools best for?

LinkResearchTools designed its SEO tools for small to large businesses specifically for link building and competitor research and analysis. But its pricing isn’t accessible for most small business owners. It’s also missing a lot of standard tools that industry leaders include at a much lower price.

Recent upgrades

While LinkResearchTools publishes a changelog, the updates don’t appear to offer many new features. As of August 2022, the last two updates came out in May and June: the first was a new product website, while the second was a price increase. There were some other minor changes in 2022, but nothing that would do much to improve the value or user experience.

Pricing

Unfortunately, LinkResearchTools’ prices may be more than you’re willing to spend on SEO. The cheapest plan will cost you $483.25 per month, paid annually, with more robust tiers going up to $791.58 and $1,999.92. You’ll have to make a single payment of $5,799 just to cover your initial subscription. You can start with a one-week trial for just $17, but you may be charged the full price if you forget to cancel.

Pros and cons of LinkResearchTools

Pros

Visually appealing design
Powerful link-tracking tools
Quickly recover lost search rank

Cons

May be too expensive for smaller businesses
No money-back guarantee or free trial available

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How I Tested the Best SEO Software

Every SaaS provider looks great if you check out its homepage, but which ones deliver on those promises? To find out, I signed up for each of the 10 listed services and tested the application to see how it works in practice.

When evaluating SEO software, I want to see what a particular platform can do and how easy it is. I also send a message to each customer support team to get an idea of what to expect when you have questions or concerns.

During testing, I look at core tools like keyword and competitor research and any distinctive features that differentiate the software. I aim to get the fullest possible picture of what it’s like to use a given SEO platform for day-to-day digital marketing needs.

The Best SEO Software of 2023

Table of Contents

The Best SEO Software of 2023

Why You Should Trust This Review

How I Rated the Best SEO Software Providers

Basic functionality

Value-adds

Ease of use

Customer support

Pricing

The Top 10 SEO Software

Semrush

Best overall

Summary

Pros and cons of Semrush

Pros

Cons

Ahrefs

Best for experienced users

Summary

Pros and cons of Ahrefs

Pros

Cons

SEOptimer

Best white-label reports

Summary

Pros and cons of SEOptimer

Pros

Cons

Mangools

Best for keyword research

Summary

Pros and cons of Mangools

Pros

Cons

Yoast

Best for WordPress

Summary

Pros and cons of Yoast

Pros

Cons

Netpeak Spider

Best for site audits

Summary

Pros and cons of Netpeak Spider

Pros

Cons

Conductor

Best customer service

Summary

Pros and cons of Conductor

Pros

Cons

Google Search Console

Best free SEO tool

Summary

Pros and cons of Google Search Console

Pros

Cons

SEO Panel

Best open-source option

Summary

Pros and cons of SEO Panel

Pros

Cons

LinkResearchTools

Best for link building

Summary

Pros and cons of LinkResearchTools

Pros

Cons

How I Tested the Best SEO Software

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