Clueless About Generating Blog Traffic? A Guide to the Top 20 SEO Tools

Want to know how to lose a writer’s interest in 3 seconds?

Start talking about Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

I know.

I’ve been there, and I understand.

You’re a writer — a wizard with words, characters, and storytelling.

The last thing you want to read about is SEO.

Keywords, data, and algorithms put you to sleep.

You’re not alone.

But you know you need to take this seriously.

If you’re ever going to find your tribe – your ideal readers, fans, and clients — you’re going to need search engines to make the introductions.

The good news is that you don’t have to learn SEO by yourself. Today, we have entire businesses dedicated to helping you improve your SEO. We also have tools and apps for every budget and level of sophistication, tools that’ll do the heavy lifting for you.

You won’t have to learn a new language — just a handful of operations to help you get the most from your SEO application.

So, bookmark this list, and test drive the recommendations below.

Read on to discover The Top 20 SEO Tools for writers just like you.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a comprehensive analytics service provided by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. Offering in-depth insights into your website’s visitors, including demographics, behavior, and device usage, it helps you understand how users experience your site by displaying the most popular content and the sources of your traffic.

Pros:

• It’s free to use and provides an extensive range of data.
• Real-time analytics allows you to see how many users are on your site at any given moment.
• Integration with Google Ads allows for effective ad tracking.
• Visitor flow visualization helps understand user behavior and interaction.
• Comprehensive demographics and interests data for audience targeting.

Cons:

• It may be overly complicated for beginners.
• Data overload can sometimes be challenging to analyze.
• Tracking set up and goal setting can be complex.
• Lack of historical data if not set up correctly from the beginning.
• Users may block tracking, leading to incomplete data.

Google Search Console

This is a free tool from Google that helps website owners track and maintain their site’s position in Google Search results. It alerts you to any issues that could impact your search ranking and provides recommendations for resolving them.

Pros:

• Free to use for anyone with a website.
• Provides insights directly from Google about how the search engine sees your website.
• Tracks website performance in Google SERPs.
• Helps identify crawl errors and submit sitemaps.
• Shows which keywords your site is ranking for.

Cons:

• Doesn’t provide data on competitor performance.
• Lacks historical data compared to some paid tools.
• Data can sometimes be hard to understand for beginners.
• Limited control over when your site is crawled.
• No integration with other search engines like Bing or Yahoo.

SEMrush

SEMrush is a powerful SEO toolset that provides keyword research, site audits, competitor analysis, and more. It’s used by SEO professionals for optimizing a website, tracking its performance, creating content with SEO in mind, and gaining insights into competitors’ strategies.

Pros:

• Comprehensive suite of SEO tools including keyword research, backlink analysis, and site audits.
• Provides competitive analysis data.
• Allows for social media tracking and post scheduling.
• Extensive keyword and ad copy database for PPC campaigns.
• Provides historical data.

Cons:

• Can be expensive compared to other tools.
• Has a steep learning curve for beginners.
• Backlink analysis may not be as extensive as dedicated backlink tools.
• Some data can be overwhelming and difficult to parse.
• There may be limitations on usage depending on your subscription plan.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is an advanced SEO software suite that offers tools for keyword research, backlink analysis, competitive analysis, and rank tracking. It’s used to gain insights into your competitors’ SEO practices, discover keywords and backlinks, and track your own website’s performance.

Pros:

• Advanced keyword research and backlink analysis tools.
• Easy-to-use and visually appealing interface.
• Provides comprehensive data on competitor websites.
• Updates backlink and keyword information frequently.
• Offers a content exploration tool for content ideas.

Cons:

• Can be pricey for some users.
• Doesn’t integrate with other analytics platforms like Google Analytics.
• Some advanced features can be complex for beginners.
• Might have limits on how many reports you can generate per day.
• The interface might seem overwhelming due to the vast amount of data presented.

Moz Pro

This is a comprehensive SEO platform that includes a suite of tools designed to boost your search engine ranking. Moz Pro offers keyword research, SEO audit and crawl, rank tracking, and backlink analysis. It also provides a feature called MozBar, a browser extension that shows instant metrics while viewing any page or SERP.

Pros:

• Offers a wide range of tools, including keyword research, site audits, and rank tracking.
• Provides a useful browser extension for quick page analysis.
• Easy-to-understand metrics like Domain Authority and Page Authority.
• Community support and learning resources are available.
• Comprehensive local SEO features.

Cons:

• Can be expensive, particularly for smaller businesses or individual users.
• The user interface can be confusing at times.
• It doesn’t provide as many backlinks for analysis as some other tools.
• Updates to metrics like Domain Authority and Page Authority can be infrequent.
• There might be limitations on reports depending on your subscription plan.

Yoast SEO

A WordPress plugin, Yoast SEO is one of the most popular SEO tools for content optimization. It allows you to add SEO titles, meta descriptions, and focus keywords to your posts. It also provides page analysis, XML sitemaps, readability checks, and more to help optimize your site.

Pros:

• Excellent for on-page optimization.
• Readability analysis can improve user engagement.
• Advanced XML sitemaps functionality.
• Breadcrumbs control for better site navigation.
• Regularly updated to keep up with Google’s algorithms.

Cons:

• Free version has limited features.
• Interface can be confusing for beginners.
• Premium version might be costly for some users.
• The traffic light system may oversimplify complex SEO elements.
• Works primarily with WordPress, limiting its usability across different platforms.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a website crawler tool that collects critical SEO data about every page on your site. This data includes broken links, page titles and meta data, duplicate content, redirects, and more. The information can be exported and analyzed to find issues impacting your site’s SEO performance.

Pros:

• Extensive technical audit capabilities.
• Can crawl both small and large websites efficiently.
• Finds broken links and errors quickly.
• Allows custom extraction of data.
• Provides a visual representation of your site’s architecture.

Cons:

• User interface is not particularly beginner-friendly.
• Can use a lot of your computer’s resources.
• Doesn’t provide recommendations for improving SEO.
• No cloud storage for data.
• Free version has limitations in terms of the number of URLs you can crawl.

Ubersuggest

Created by renowned marketer Neil Patel, Ubersuggest is a free keyword research tool that helps you identify keywords and related phrases for your SEO strategy. It provides data on keyword volume, competition, seasonal trends, and suggests content ideas.

Pros:

• Easy-to-use interface.
• Provides a broad range of keyword suggestions.
• Offers content ideas based on the keywords.
• Shows historical keyword data.
• Detailed website audit feature.

Cons:

• Data may not be as comprehensive as other tools.
• Free version offers limited daily searches.
• Historical keyword data could be more extensive.
• Lack of integrations with other tools.
• The accuracy of SEO difficulty scores has been disputed by some users.

Google Keyword Planner

Part of Google Ads, Google Keyword Planner is a free keyword research tool that allows you to find the keywords relevant to your business. It shows the search volume and competition for those keywords. It’s primarily designed for advertising but can be used for SEO keyword research.

Pros:

• Data comes directly from Google.
• Provides keywords cost per click (CPC) data.
• Allows export of keyword data.
• Shows historical trends for keywords.
• Enables geographical targeting for local SEO.

Cons:

• Primarily geared towards Google Ads users.
• Lacks the depth of long-tail keyword suggestions.
• Doesn’t provide SEO competition data.
• No keyword difficulty rating
• Doesn’t include semantic keyword variations.

KWFinder

KWFinder is a keyword research tool by Mangools that specializes in finding long-tail keywords with low SEO difficulty. It provides a difficulty score for each keyword and includes information on search volume, trends, and competitor targeting.

Pros:

• Easy-to-use interface.
• Specializes in finding long-tail keywords with low SEO difficulty.
• Shows historical search volume trends.
• Provides a SERP overview and detailed competitor analysis.
• Integrates with SERPChecker for localized Google SERP simulation.

Cons:

• Limited number of searches per day in the basic plan.
• Some users have reported minor inaccuracies in the data.
• Doesn’t offer as many additional features as some other tools.
• Interface may lag with larger sets of data.
• Some users may find the subscription cost expensive compared to other tools.

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a powerful online tool that allows you to discover the most shared content for a given topic or competitor. It can also identify influencers who can amplify your content, making it useful for content marketing and SEO campaigns.

Pros:

• In-depth content and competitor analysis.
• Excellent for influencer identification and outreach.
• Allows for social media content tracking.
• Useful for content ideation and strategy development.
• Provides data about what content performs best for any topic or competitor.

Cons:

• Free version has limited searches.
• Advanced features may be too costly for small businesses.
• The user interface can be complex for beginners.
• Data accuracy may vary.
• No integration with SEO or analytics platforms.

SpyFu

SpyFu is a competitive analysis tool that helps you research and understand your competitors’ strategies. It allows you to see every keyword your competitors have bought on Google Ads, every organic rank, and every ad variation in the last 13 years.

Pros:

• Comprehensive competitive analysis.
• Provides historical data on your competitors.
• Allows tracking of paid and organic rankings.
• Keyword research feature for SEO and PPC.
• Easy to understand reports.

Cons:

• The accuracy of data can vary.
• No integration with other SEO tools.
• Focuses primarily on US and UK markets.
• May be expensive for small businesses.
• User interface might seem outdated to some users.

AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic is a keyword tool that visualizes search questions and suggested autocomplete searches in a search cloud. It helps you discover topics that people are searching for related to your niche, making it a valuable resource for content creation.

Pros:

• Great for generating content ideas.
• Visual representations are easy to understand.
• Comprehensive query generation.
• Free version is robust for small businesses.
• Useful for understanding audience interests.

Cons:

• Free version has limitations on data and usage.
• Paid version might be expensive for some users.
• Data may not be as comprehensive as some other tools.
• The visual format can be overwhelming at first glance.
• No in-depth SEO analysis tools.

SEOquake

SEOquake is a powerful SEO toolbox for your browser, providing key SEO metrics for a given page. It includes tools such as SEO Audit and Keyword Density reports, making it handy for quick insights on any page you’re browsing.

Pros:

• Browser extension for easy access.
• Provides key SEO metrics at a glance.
• Good for quick SEO audits.
• Keyword density report feature.
• Free to use.

Cons:

• May slow down browser performance.
• Could be confusing for SEO beginners.
• Lacks in-depth analysis compared to standalone SEO tools.
• May not be compatible with all browsers.
• Limited customization options.

Majestic

Majestic is one of the oldest SEO tools, known for its large link database. It specializes in backlink analysis, providing a “Trust Flow” metric to measure the quality of links pointing to a website. It’s great for analyzing your website’s link profile and scouting competition backlink strategies.

Pros:

• Extensive backlink database for link analysis.
• Provides unique metrics like Trust Flow and Citation Flow.
• Great for analyzing link profiles.
• Visual link graph makes data interpretation easier.
• Historical data for tracking link profile changes.

Cons:

• Can be expensive, especially for small businesses.
• User interface can be complex for beginners.
• Lacks additional SEO features of more comprehensive tools.
• The focus on backlinks might neglect other SEO aspects.
• The accuracy of metrics like Trust Flow is sometimes disputed.

Serprobot (SERPs)

Serprobot is a SERP checker that allows you to see where your website ranks for specific keywords in Google’s search results. It’s a simple, efficient tool for tracking your SEO performance over time and across different keywords.

Pros:

• Easy to use for tracking keyword rankings.
• Good for monitoring SEO performance over time.
• Can track multiple keywords simultaneously.
• Affordable for most users.
• Offers localized ranking results.

Cons:

• Limited to rank tracking with few additional features.
• Free version has significant usage restrictions.
• Interface may seem overly simplistic to some users.
• May not be suitable for large scale SEO campaigns.
• No integration with other SEO or analytics platforms.

Lumar

Lumar is a cloud-based crawler that scans your website to identify technical issues that might be hurting your SEO performance. It provides insights into aspects like site architecture, broken links, duplicate content, and page speed.

Pros:

• Thorough website crawling and auditing.
• Identifies technical SEO issues effectively.
• Good for tracking website changes and their SEO impact.
• Provides reports on site architecture and page speed.
• Cloud-based and scalable.

Cons:

• Can be costly, especially for large websites.
• User interface may be complex for beginners.
• Reports can be overly detailed and difficult to interpret.
• May be slow for large websites.
• Lacks some SEO features found in all-in-one SEO tools.

Sitechecker Pro

Sitechecker Pro is an all-in-one SEO platform that offers website auditing, on-page SEO checker, website monitoring, backlink checker, and rank tracker. It provides a detailed report of issues and recommendations for improving your site’s performance in search engine rankings.

Pros:

• Comprehensive website auditing.
• On-page SEO checker for optimization recommendations.
• Tracks backlinks and keyword rankings.
• Simple and user-friendly interface.
• Provides detailed reports and actionable insights.

Cons:

• The accuracy of some data points can vary.
• May be costly for small businesses.
• Some features may not be as in-depth as dedicated tools.
• Limited integration with other platforms.
• Reports may be too complex for beginners.

Long Tail Pro

Long Tail Pro is a keyword research software that allows you to generate hundreds of unique long-tail keywords in minutes. The tool’s main focus is to provide keywords that are less competitive, easier to write content for, and more effective for SEO.

Pros:

• Specializes in finding low competition, long-tail keywords.
• Provides keyword competitiveness scores.
• Easy to use with a simple interface.
• Good for content ideation and niche finding.
• Provides rank tracking and backlink analysis.

Cons:

• Limited features compared to all-in-one SEO tools.
• The cost may be prohibitive for small businesses.
• Some users may find the keyword data lacking in depth.
• No integration with Google Analytics or Search Console.
• Can only generate a limited number of keywords per search.

GTMetrix

GTMetrix is a free tool that analyzes your website’s speed performance. It offers insights on how well your site loads and provides actionable recommendations on how to optimize it. Since site speed is a key factor in SEO, it’s a crucial tool for website owners.

Pros:

• Detailed website speed and performance analysis.
• Provides actionable recommendations for site optimization.
• Can track website performance over time.
• User-friendly reports with visuals.
• Free to use with basic features.

Cons:

• Advanced features require a paid plan.
• May be too complex for non-technical users.
• Focuses solely on site speed and performance.
• Not an all-in-one SEO tool.
• Loading speed measurements may vary.

As you can see, there’s something for everyone here. Depending on your level of understanding, you can choose an SEO tool that’s perfect for your needs and budget.

What’s your favorite SEO tool?

Tell us about it in the comments section below.