Backlinko is the place for next-level SEO training and link building strategies.
When it comes to SEO, Brian Dean is recognized as one of the world’s top experts.
That’s why he created Backlinko. It’s his mission to help you master SEO and get massive amounts of traffic from Google.
Because here’s the thing:
The best SEO tool in the world won’t help you if you don’t know how to use it.
Backlinko is packed with guides, case studies, and over-the-shoulder tutorials that make it easy for anyone—even complete beginners—to start getting results!
Backlinko.com seo tools
This is a list of the 25 best free SEO tools on the planet.
In fact, these tools have helped my site get 449k+ visitors per month.

(Most of which came from SEO.)
The best part?
All of these tools work GREAT in 2022.
Let’s get started…
- 1. Answer The Public
- 2. Woorank’s SEO & Website Analysis Tool
- 3. Animalz Revive
- 4. CanIRank
- 5. Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test
- 6. Seed Keywords
- 7. Exploding Topics
- 8. Seobility
- 9. Ubersuggest
- 10. BROWSEO
- 11. Detailed.com
- 12. Google Search Console
- 13. SERPerator
- 14. Screaming Frog
- 15. Google Analytics
- 16. Reddit Keyword Research Tool
- 17. Yoast WordPress Plugin
- 18. Panguin Tool
- 19. Wordtracker Scout
- 20. Lipperhey
- 21. Bing Webmaster Tools
- 22. Dareboost
- 23. Siteliner
- 24. KWFinder
- 25. People Also Ask
- Bonus #1. Bulk Google Rank Checker
- Bonus #2. LSI Graph
25 Best Free SEO Tools
1. Answer The Public
Find 150+ keyword ideas in seconds.
Most SEO tools get their data from the same place: The Google Keyword Planner.
Answer the Public is different.
This awesome tool finds questions that people ask on forums, blogs and on social media.
And it turns those questions into awesome keywords:

Best Feature: “Vs. Keywords”
You’d be surprised how many people search for “X vs. Y” keywords in Google.
(For example: “iPhone vs. Android” or “SEMRush vs. Ahrefs”.)
And Answer the Public has a section of the results dedicated to “Vs. Keywords”.

This brings us to the 2nd tool on our list…
2. Woorank’s SEO & Website Analysis Tool
Get a list of SEO improvements in seconds.
This is a very handy Chrome extension.
First, you get an overall SEO score.
Then, the tool shows you EXACTLY how to improve your site’s on-page and off-page SEO.

Best Feature: “Marketing Checklist”
Most SEO tools only tell you about problems… not solutions.
But with Woorank you get a detailed SEO checklist that you can use to fix any issues that you run into.

And now it’s time for our next free SEO tool…
3. Animalz Revive
Improve and update old content.
Animalz Revive helps you find older content on your site that needs an update, an upgrade… or both.
Before this tool, you had to manually comb through your Google Analytics account to find these pages.Which was a giant pain.
Fortunately, this tool tells you exactly which articles on your site need the most attention.

Best Feature: “Traffic Loss Since Peak (Views)”
This feature lets you know exactly how many visitors that a piece of outdated content is costing you.

4. CanIRank
Quickly answer the question: “Can I rank for this keyword?”.
CanIRank is a super-detailed keyword difficulty tool.
And unlike most free SEO tools, CanIRank doesn’t give you generic advice like:
“This keyword is really competitive”
Or
“This keyword has low competition”
Instead, it tells you whether or not YOU can rank for that keyword.

Very cool.
Best Feature: “How can you better target this keyword?”
CanIRank isn’t just for sizing up the first-page competition.
It also gives you suggestions that can help you rank for a specific term.

5. Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test
Get your site ready for Google’s Mobile-first Indexing.
You might have heard that Google recently made a big change to its algorithm.
(This change is officially called “Mobile-First Indexing”.)
The bottom line is this:
If your site isn’t optimized for mobile devices, you’re in big trouble.
Fortunately, you don’t need a full-time developer to make your site mobile-friendly. All you need to do is run your site through the Mobile-Friendly Test tool.
And it tells you whether or not Google considers your site mobile-friendly.

Best Feature: “Page loading issues”
This feature shows you how you can improve your site’s code. That way, Google’s mobile crawler can find and index all of the resources on your site.

6. Seed Keywords
Find completely fresh keyword ideas.
Most keyword research tools work the exact same way:
- Enter a seed keyword into the tool.
- Get a list of closely-related terms.
The problem with this approach is this:
Everyone types the same seed keywords into these tools.
Well, Seed Keywords takes a completely different approach.
Instead of pulling seed keywords out of thin air, you ask your customers how they’d search for you online.

Then, type those seed keywords into your favorite keyword research tool.
Best Feature: “Submit Query”
Once the results come in, you can use SeedKeywords to do a Google search for the keywords that people gave you.
That way you can quickly scan the search results… and see how competitive those keywords are.

7. Exploding Topics
Find popular keywords before they get competitive.
This free SEO tool does one simple thing:
It bubbles up topics that are just starting to trend.

That way, you can create content around these emerging trends (or optimize your old content around a new keyword).
The tool currently has about 2k topics in its database. And they’re adding more every week.
Best Feature: Categories
Categories let you drill down to a specific topic category that’s important to your business.
For example, let’s say you run marketing for a skincare brand. Well, you’d hit “beauty” and get a list of emerging topics in that space.

Nice.
8. Seobility
Get a deep-dive SEO site analysis.
SEObility crawls your entire site and lets you know about search engine optimization issues like:
- Slow loading pages
- Blocked pages
- Sitemap problems
- Technical SEO issues
- Lots more

You usually only get this type of stuff from paid SEO tools. So it’s really nice that Seobility gives you this data for free.
Best Feature: Content Report
This report hands you a list of pages that have content-related SEO issues.
(Things like: thin content, missing meta titles, keyword stuffing, and duplicate content.)

9. Ubersuggest
Get keyword suggestions and competition data.
Ubersuggest has a lot of features that are usually only found in premium SEO tools.
But it’s 100% free.
To use it, type in a keyword that you want to rank for (or a competing website that you want to rank above).

And Ubersuggest will give you detailed data on keyword difficulty, monthly search volume, and more.

Plus, you get a list of suggested keywords that are based on the keyword you typed in.

Best Feature: “Comparisons”
This feature shows you “X vs. Y” keywords.

In my experience, X vs. Y keywords are super untapped.
Sure, they may not get as many searches as traditional keywords. But they’re SUPER targeted and high-converting.
And to my knowledge Ubersuggest is the only tool that specifically bubbles up X vs. Y keywords.
10. BROWSEO
See your site through the eyes of a search engine.
As it turns out, search engines see your site VERY differently than you do.
And BROWSEO gives you the type of x-ray vision that search engines have.

Best Feature: SERP Preview
Get a sweet preview of how your page appears in the search results:

This is helpful for figuring out if your title and description tag are SEO-friendly (or too long). And optimizing your title and description can also help you get more organic clicks.
11. Detailed.com
Get intel on your competition.
Detailed gives you a curated list of the most popular sites in your industry.
That way, you can size up your biggest competitors.
(And copy what they’re doing.)

Best Feature: “Mentions”
This feature shows you who recently linked to (and tweeted about) your competition.

12. Google Search Console
Get SEO help straight from Google.
No list of free SEO tools would be complete without the Google Search Console.
Why?
The GSC is a VERY feature-rich piece of SEO software. And unlike pretty much every other tool on the market, you know the data is legit.
(After all, it comes from Google.)
For example, you can use the Google Search Console as a rank tracker to check your site’s rankings in the SERPs.

Best Feature: Index Coverage Report
The Index Coverage Report gives you a list of pages on your site that aren’t getting indexed.
You can also see how you can get things back on track.

13. SERPerator
This awesome tool lets you check the SERPs across different locations and devices.
As you probably know, the search results change dramatically depending on where you are and what device you’re using.
(Especially for local searches, like: “pizza shop” or “landscaper”.)
And this tool lets you see exactly how the results will look for someone searching on a particular phone from pretty much any major city in the world.

Best Feature: Compare Devices
See how the results look on two different mobile devices… side-by-side.

14. Screaming Frog
Find and fix technical SEO issues in seconds.
Let’s face it:
Finding technical SEO problems on your site can be a HUGE pain.
Enter: Screaming Frog.
This nifty tool crawls your site using a Google-like crawler. And it generates a report of potential issues (like HTTP header errors, javascript rendering issues, bloated HTML, and crawl errors).

Best Feature: Discover Duplicate Content
As you might have heard, Google HATES duplicate content.
Fortunately, you can use Screaming Frog to quickly ID pages with duplicate content.

15. Google Analytics
See how people find and interact with your site.
OK, OK. Google Analytics isn’t really an SEO tool.
But it’s almost impossible to run an SEO campaign without it.
Why?
The data in Google Analytics tells you whether or not your SEO efforts are paying off.
I’m talking about data like:
- Organic traffic
- Bounce rate
- Traffic sources
- Time on site
- Page speed

Best Feature: Google Analytics and Google Search Console Integration
Google Analytics is super powerful on its own.
But when you combine it with the Google Search Console?
It’s even MORE powerful.
Linking your GSC account with GA hooks you up with helpful info, like the keywords people use to find your site, your organic CTR, and more cool stuff.

16. Reddit Keyword Research Tool
This is one of my favorite little keyword research tools.
Why? Because it can bring up terms that I probably wouldn’t find with any other tool.
This tool scrapes Reddit words and phrases that tend to crop up in specific subreddits.

So if you know where your target audience hangs out on Reddit, this is a goldmine of keyword and content topic ideas.
Best Feature: Context
This feature takes you to the actual thread on Reddit.
That way, you can see exactly how that keyword is used in discussions.
17. Yoast WordPress Plugin
The best SEO plugin for WordPress.
If your site runs on WordPress, you need to install Yoast ASAP.
It’s by far the most robust SEO plugin on the market.
The best part? It’s 100% free.

Best Feature: XML Sitemap Generator
Sitemaps help Google and other search engines find, crawl and index all of the pages on your site.
And with the Yoast plugin, you don’t have to tinker with your sitemap every time you add a new page to your site.
That’s because Yoast updates your sitemap automatically. Cool.

18. Panguin Tool
Get to the bottom of a rankings drop.
This tool correlates your search traffic with known Google updates.
Why is this helpful?
Well, if you notice that your rankings dropped around the time of a big Google update, you can figure out what went wrong… and fix it.

Best Feature: Switch Updates On/Off
Panguin makes it easy to zero in on a specific update.
For example, if you’re a local business that focuses on local SEO, you can only have Panguin ONLY show you Google updates that impacted local results.

19. Wordtracker Scout
Steal your competitor’s keywords.
Wordtracker scout takes a unique approach to keyword research…
Instead of entering keywords into a tool, Wordtracker shows you the most common terms on a page.
That way, you can go over to one of your competitor’s pages… and grab the keywords they’re using in their content.

(Note: This is only available as Chrome extension and isn’t supported for Firefox)
Best Feature: Opportunity
Shows you which keywords on your list have the best ratio of search volume and competition.

20. Lipperhey
Powerful website analyzer.
Lipperhey is a full-featured SEO analyzer that doesn’t cost a penny.

Best Feature: Keyword Suggestions
Get a list of keywords to add to specific pages on your site.
(Which can help you get more organic traffic from long-tail keywords).

21. Bing Webmaster Tools
Optimize your site for Bing.
Bing Webmaster Tools is basically the Google Search Console… but for Bing.
So if you want to get your site indexed (and ranked) in Bing, Bing Webmaster Tools is a must-have.

Best Feature: Keyword Research Tool
Get keyword ideas (and data) straight from Bing.
And unlike the Google Keyword Planner, the data from Bing is strictly for organic search (not Bing PPC or Adwords).

22. Dareboost
Analyze your site for speed, SEO, security and more.
Dareboost isn’t strictly an SEO tool.
But it does analyze your site for things that indirectly impact SEO, like your site’s loading speed and security.

Best Feature: Priorities
Let’s you know where to start first. Helpful if you’re strapped for time.

23. Siteliner
Get a full SEO report for free.
Siteliner scans your site for SEO problems (like blocked pages, messed up redirects and broken links).

Best Feature: Comparison with Other Sites
This lets you compare your site’s loading speed and page size to other site’s in Siteliner’s database. Helpful for benchmarking.

24. KWFinder
No-nonsense keyword research tool.
The best part of KWFinder is how darn easy it is to use.
But don’t let this fool you into thinking KWFinder isn’t powerful. It’s a legit keyword tool that lots of pros use.

Best Feature: LPS
LPS=Link Profile Strength.
This feature basically tells you how many links you’ll need to rank for that keyword.
So if you find a keyword that has a LPS of 50+, you know that you’ll need to do some serious link building to rank for that term.

25. People Also Ask
This free tool pulls questions that appear in the “People Also Ask” section of Google’s search results.

My only gripe with the tool is that it takes a while for the results to load. But I understand that’s because it has to actually run the search and grab questions from the PAA box. Which takes a while.
Overall, a very cool tool for finding question keywords.
Best Feature: Related Questions
People Also Ask shows you questions that you’d usually have to get by manually clicking on the PAA box in the SERPs.
For example, one of the questions the tool showed me was “What is a good keyword?”. And I also got a handful of questions that were closely related to the original question.
Paid seo tools
Excellent SEO is the cornerstone of any serious marketing strategy. You should be using it, too.
Why are your search rankings so important?
Try this number on for size: click-through rate (CTR) is more than 10 times higher for a result in position one than a result in position 10.
You need to be at the top of the page to reach your audience, and SEO is the best way to get you there.
Want some help? SEO tools can make life easier by doing the hard work for you – as long as they’re quality.
Why You Should Be Using SEO Tools
Everyone seems to agree that SEO is the most valuable asset you have as a business. Using SEO tools is a way to capitalize on that.
Don’t just go about it on your own. Research is necessary for SEO, as is an all-too-important organization.
Also, don’t try to guess at keywords – they’re not so simple anymore. Instead of one or two-word phrases, you’ll now want long-tail keywords four words or longer. It takes research to figure out what those key phrases are.
There are many great ways SEO tools can help you run your business. Not only will they keep your workflow streamlined, but accurate and efficient as well.
The Best Paid SEO Tools In The Market
There are a good deal of free SEO tools out there, including some free versions of the ones on this list. However, these tools are relatively basic.
If you want a high-caliber website, you’ll need to invest in its success.
You have some options, however. In fact, a great many of them. Here are a few of my favorites:
- Semrush
Do you have tons of data to process? Semrush could be perfect for you as an all-in-one tool. It can track keyword rankings, organic traffic, and backlinks.
Their Keyword Magic tool, in particular, is terrific at uncovering phrases you may not have known you could even rank for.
Keyword tool from Semrush.Screenshot from Keyword Magic Tool, August 2021
To figure out how to do better yourself, you can also get information on your competitors’ data –comparing data helps to see what competitors are doing well and what potential pitfalls to avoid.
Follow the right footsteps, and you’ll be on the path to success.
Additionally, there’s the ability to do SEO site audits to ensure your website is running optimally. Optimizing your website’s SEO is a magnificent way to get you closer to that front page.
Cost: Their Pro plan starts at $119.95/month – other options are available.
- Ahrefs
If you’re looking for a comprehensive SEO toolkit, Ahrefs is the way to go.
If you’re looking to improve your site’s SEO performance with backlinks, Ahrefs has a backlinks index that’s updated every 15 minutes, plus a web crawler that processes up to 8 billion pages a day.
Ahrefs also has an SEO analyzer tool to ensure your site is running optimally. The insights they give you on your domain are phenomenally detailed.
Ahrefs overview of domain analytics.Screenshot from Ahrefs.com, August 2021
Ahrefs is also useful because of the other powerful tools in its suite.
Some of these include:
Site Explorer: This will help analyze you and your competitor’s backlinks.
Content Explorer: Helps to take a topic and find its most shared content.
Keywords Explorer: Assists you in finding relevant keyword ideas and traffic estimates.
There’s even more to it. If you’re not ready to pay real money quite yet, but are still keen on learning, the company offers free educational videos online that anyone can watch.
Ahrefs also has a blog with many useful how-to’s, plus tips and tricks.
Cost: Their Lite plan costs $99/month – they also offer a seven-day trial for $7.
- Moz Pro
Moz Pro isn’t just an SEO tool. It’s a suite of SEO tools. An excellent solution for those who require a wide range of capabilities, you could potentially save a great deal.
By only needing to purchase one all-inclusive system, you’re avoiding spending money elsewhere.
Offering keyword suggestions, links, site audits, rank tracking, and on-page optimization, Moz Pro does just about it all. Their keyword research tool can help you determine what keywords and keyword combinations to use.
As well, its backlink analysis tool combines metrics in links, including anchor text. Backlinks are necessary for SEO, so this feature is critical.
Cost: Their Standard plan is $99/month.
- Majestic
Need not just some, but a lot, of high-quality links? Majestic is here for you – they boast having the greatest link index database. Ever.
Screenshot of Majestic tool.Screenshot from Majestic, August 2021
You’ll be able to see where your links are from, as well as the anchor text other sites use to link to you. Also, you can see the total weight each backlink has.
Lastly, it’s easy to compare links. Using the tool, you can compare up to five sites at a single time.
Cost: Their Lite plan starts at $49.99/month.
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Here’s another helpful way to check on your links.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a web crawler able to perform fast searches of URLs. It can also check your site for broken pages.
You can check for missing title tags, duplicate meta tags, and tags of the wrong length. You can also see the number of links on each page, so you can know if you’re providing enough links in your content.
Cost: Their paid version is £149.00/year (can be bought in the U.S. at the exchange rate.)
- Spyfu
If you need an impressive search analysis tool for SEO keyword research, Spyfu may be for you. You can search for any domain while using it and see every place the domain has shown up on Google.
There are a couple of valuable types of research Spyfu can complete including SEO, PPC, and keyword.
Spyfu also has a SERP checker and domain overviews.
Essentially, it’s a massive amount of possibility packed into one system.
Cost: Their plans start at $33/month.
- Serpstat
Trying to grow your business? Serpstat is a digital growth tool made to assist you in optimizing your SEO and PPC. It can also assist with your marketing campaigns.
Serpstat overview.Screenshot from Serpstat, August 2021
Overall, Serpstat is an SEO tool that comes with many essential features.
Some of these can:
Determine keyword value.
Discover international data.
Collect keywords for campaigns.
Analyze keyword trends.
Ready to start organizing your next campaign? Try getting a little help from Serpstat.
Cost: Their starter Lite plan is $69/month.
- CognitiveSEO
Here’s another suite of tools, not just one singularity on its own. CognitiveSEO has all the essentials you need to research, plan, and execute your SEO strategy.
You’ll be able to research keywords, audit your site for SEO no-go’s, analyze backlinks, and look at mobile rank tracking.
There are many more options, as well. You can increase your social visibility as well as prevent Google Penalties – or, if necessary, cognitiveSEO will help you recover from them.
Cost: Their Starter plan costs $129.99/month.
- Advanced Web Ranking
A fantastic way to get comprehensive position tracking and rank monitoring, Advanced Web Ranking gives you daily local tracking results. By monitoring what is happening on your site, you can figure out what’s working and what’s not.
Easy on the eyes, their data layout is fully customizable. With easy link sharing and integration with third-party reporting, Advanced Web Ranking is great for those seeking a tool that’s simple yet powerful.
Cost: Their Starter plan costs $49/month.
- ContentKing
Another site auditing tool that will show you any SEO issues popping up on your website, ContentKing has one extra advantage: it proactively crawls your site 24/7.
It will alert you immediately when new problems occur. A.K.A., no more having to remember to check your website for SEO errors constantly.
Because ContentKing is cloud-based, there’s no need to install any software or extensions.
It also provides valuable insights into how your site is doing and how to implement proposed tasks to improve SEO compatibility.
Cost: Their Basic plan is $139/month.
- Mangools
Perfect if you need a complete set of basic tools, Mangools is known for its ease of use and sleek design. It also happens to have highly accurate keyword data through its tool KWFinder.
Keyword finder tool by Mangools.Screenshot from Mangools Keyword Finder, August 2021
Mangools may not be ideal for larger companies or anyone who needs more from their SEO tool suite.
However, it will work wonderfully for beginners just setting out.
Cost: Their Basic plan costs $49/month.
- Searchmetrics
Are you struggling to develop your content strategy? Searchmetrics may be worth a shot.
Not only a fantastic SEO tool but a valuable strategic assistant, Searchmetrics offers many ways to help you create a great content marketing strategy.
It has:
ROI reporting.
Competitive analysis.
Site audits.
Site optimization.
Content optimization.
Not to mention, it has many more features as well – too many to list.
Talk about an all-in-one SEO tool.
Cost: New customers who want to upgrade must contact them for pricing or schedule a free demo.
- Yoast SEO for WordPress
If you’re a blogger who’s like everyone else, your website is likely on WordPress. WordPress also lets you install various valuable plugins, including Yoast SEO, one of the most popular content management systems out there.
Their software is committed to making your website better, SEO-wise. Yoast SEO takes care of most of the backend technical coding, leaving you more free time.
It also makes your site easier to find in searches. Yoast SEO helps keep your content easy to read, and the plugin comes with tons of educational material as well to help you develop your SEO skills.
Cost: Their premium version is available for a one-time payment of $89.
- Woorank
Have you been wondering how your competitors are doing? Using Woorank, you can plug in their information to find out what keywords competitors are targeting.
Knowing what works for others is the first step towards figuring out what keywords will work for you.
Woorank can also help you to find duplicate content in yourself and looks for security issues. If it finds any problems, you’ll receive guidelines on how to fix them.
Cost: Their Pro plan is $79.99/month.
- Ubersuggest
Last but certainly not least, Ubersuggest doesn’t just identify keywords for you. It also looks for the search intent behind those keywords.
Ubersuggest keyword finding tool.Screenshot from Ubersuggest.com, August 2021
Metrics Ubersuggets show include keyword volume, competition, CPC, and seasonal trends. Overall, this tool is excellent for growing your organic SEO optimization.
Conclusion
Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
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