When deciding on which is the best SEO tool for you, you will want to consider a few factors. To start, consider your goals and how you plan to achieve them. For example, if you are looking to improve your ranking in search by tweaking site elements such as meta descriptions, copy and title tags, you will need to make sure that the SEO tool is compatible with your website’s content management system, such as WordPress or Wix.
Many of the best SEO software offer tools to help you improve your site in the long term with ongoing optimizations, site audits and reports. However, not all are created for this purpose. Some are geared toward helping you better select keywords and craft SEO-friendly content around said keywords.
Essential Features
Not every SEO tool is exactly the same, so it’s difficult to say which are the essential features. You can’t easily compare KWFinder, a KW research tool, to Ahrefs, a platform full of SEO features. The essentials, whether you’re getting them as a suite or à la carte, are as follows:
- KW research: You have to know what users are searching for before you can create the content or ads needed for those queries. Most SEO programs let you search for KWs and phrases and should give you the search volume and estimated difficulty for ranking for those KWs.
- Site auditing: There are a few ways in which you can audit a website’s SEO. In many cases, this is meant to show you the health of a site and what needs to change to optimize it for search engines. Using site crawlers, some SEO software can help you quickly discover broken links, missing meta titles and descriptions, page load speed and analyze your site structure.
- Local SEO: Local SEO is vital for brick-and-mortar businesses that rely on high rankings in local search results. Some of the best SEO software and services make it easy to submit your name, address and phone number (NAP) to online directories.
- Analytics: To ensure you’re doing all you can to help your site rank high in search engines, you need reports to show you what’s working and what isn’t. You should be able to easily follow the data for information on how users interact with your landing pages, which page they exit from, whether they bounce, visitor origination and who’s linking to which pages.
- Link analysis: Backlinks are important for your site’s domain authority (DA), so it’s important you understand what people are linking to and whether they’re quality links. You should be able to analyze your own links and your competitors’.
- Content analysis: It’s important to perform content audits to ensure you don’t have duplicate content or that you aren’t using the same KW for multiple pieces of content. These practices can water down your SEO and prevent you from ranking high in the SERPs. Some tools can pinpoint areas on your site that could be problematic for your rankings.
All-in-One Platforms vs. Individual Tools
As mentioned above, not all SEO programs are meant to be comprehensive—some are niche tools with only one or two features. All-in-one platforms tend to cover everything from KW research and competitor analysis to site audits and backlink management. Examples of these workhorses include Ahrefs, Semrush and Moz Pro. They also tend to be more expensive than single-use tools.
Individual tools typically do one thing really well and may include some bonus features, but you’re still likely to need more than just one tool. For example, Screaming Frog is great for on-site SEO auditing, but you can’t do keyword research. KWFinder is an excellent tool for KW research, but it’s lacking in advanced features, such as KW gap analysis and thorough site auditing. These tools are usually more affordable than all-in-one solutions.
Pricing and Fees
Pricing for the best SEO software varies greatly because the tools are usually so different. Comparing AnswerThePublic to Ahrefs isn’t quite an apples-to-apples comparison—you need to compare the varieties of apples, so to speak.
For example, Ahrefs starts at $83 per month (billed annually), while Semrush starts at $99.95 per month (billed annually). Individual tools such as Screaming Frog cost $259 per year, while AnswerThePublic starts at $9 per month, or $99 for a lifetime plan.
Data Sources, Update Frequency and Integrity
It should come as no surprise that Google is the most often used search engine and where most data is sourced for these SEO apps. However, there are other data sources that are important for a comprehensive SEO plan. The biggest players in the SEO industry have their own crawlers to collect data on indexed sites and pages. Google is king, but YouTube, Facebook, Amazon, Etsy, Pinterest and other destination websites have valuable data as well.
Content is constantly changing online, so it’s important to have access to fresh data. The best SEO software refresh data often. For example, Ahrefs updates its data every 15 minutes. In Semrush’s case, the keyword database gets an update every month.
While many SEO software companies prefer to use their own crawlers to supply their databases, some choose to forge partnerships with powerhouses such as Google and Majestic. Data integrity is key to having a good SEO plan, therefore it’s important to choose the best SEO apps that are trusted in the industry so you can be sure the data you’re using is accurate and up to date.
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