SEO tools are essential to any agency that wants to stay competitive.
These tools can help you monitor your website’s performance, improve your organic search rankings, and optimize the content on your site for better visibility in search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
But what SEO tools should you use? There are hundreds of options out there, but not all of them are worth your time or money.
That’s why we’ve compiled a list of our favorite SEO tools for agencies. We’ll also show you how each tool can help grow your business by improving your organic search rankings, increasing traffic to your website, and optimizing the content on it for better visibility in search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
Seo Tools For Agency
1. Google Search Console (Formerly Google Webmaster Tools)
Source: YouTube
Standout features: Coverage report and performance report.
Google Search Console (GSC) is a staple SEO tool jam-packed with actionable data on how websites perform in organic search.
Justin Knott, president and CEO of Intrepy Healthcare Marketing, is a fan of the performance report. He says, “When you add a page URL, you can see the clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position for the keywords it’s ranking for.”
Dave Ashworth, a technical SEO consultant at Organic Digital, likes the coverage report best. He explains, “It gives insights into what Google can and cannot (or will not) index on your website. This helps uncover issues and opportunities that you might have missed from crawling.”
Being a free tool, GSC doesn’t give a complete snapshot of your website’s overall performance (e.g., you only get a sample of links). However, as Dave mentions, it’s enough to get you by if you run a smaller site.
Want to get your crawl rate optimization in order? Here’s a pro tip from Dave:
“Export the coverage and search performance data, and cross-reference them against site crawl data (e.g., Screaming Frog) and XML sitemaps via Excel VLOOKUP. This approach gives you a good idea on what’s indexed, what can be crawled, etc.”
To grab data from Google Search Console easily, connect your GSC account to DashThis in only two steps.
Drag and drop our preset widgets to display your client’s organic performance, audience analysis, and more. Select from our default widgets, including total impressions and average CTR (pages); and dimensions such as country and device type.
Automate and schedule your GSC report in a few clicks today!
2. Screaming Frog
Source: YouTube
Standout features: XML sitemap generator, site architecture, and crawl visualizations.
Whether it’s finding broken links, generating XML sitemaps, or visualizing a website’s architecture, Screaming Frog can do it all.
Shane Pollard, CTO at Be Media, counts it as his all-time favorite SEO tool. He shares: “The crawler expands to include a visual map of the crawl results. I enjoy looking over the visual maps as much as the crawl maps. Every website has its fascinating nuances.”
For greater insights, integrate Screaming Frog with Google Analytics.
According to Shane, one way to get the most out of the SEO technical tool is to export your data into a spreadsheet. This will allow you to manipulate the data, so you’ll have a view “that works for any lense you have on the results.”
Just a word of caution: Screaming Frog is best for an SEO expert. If you’re new to SEO, brace yourself for the learning curve, as it doesn’t show you outright how to fix SEO issues.
Best SEO Reporting Tool
3. DashThis
Standout features: Automated reports and sharing, preset templates and KPI widgets, white-label dashboards, and 34+ integrations with marketing channels like YouTube, Facebook Ads, and Twitter.
Go from spending hours each week per client to minutes across ALL clients in your marketing reports.
Reintroducing: DashThis, an automated marketing reporting tool that helps you create reports in the blink of an eye. With DashThis, you no longer need to painstakingly hop from one platform to another to grab all data.
Here’s how a DashThis client describes it:
Source: G2
DashThis offers 34+ integrations. Even if you can’t find the integration you’re looking for, our CSV File tool is here to save the day. Simply upload your file, define the fields, and let it do the rest.
Use our preset templates and KPI widgets instead of creating your reports from scratch. Anyone can create a beautiful report with DashThis — yes, even if you have zero design skills.
Need a fresh pair of eyes to review your report before sending it to the client? Add your co-workers to your account and have them edit it. Once you’re happy with everything, share it by email. Your client will receive a link to review their reports whenever they want.
Better yet? Schedule it every month. Get your reports up and running in no time. Sign up for your 15-day free trial at DashThis.
Best Backlinks Tracking Tools
4. Ahrefs
Source: Ahrefs
Standout features: Content gap, rank tracker, site explorer, backlinks tracker, and keyword explorer.
It’s hard to imagine SEO without Ahrefs.
For Kevin Miller, co-founder and CEO of GR0, it offers the biggest value in his agency.
A fan of the top pages report and keyword explorer, he says, “We can do a comprehensive site audit and more. The keyword data is exceptional because it shows how difficult a keyword is on a scale of 1-100.”
Lohralee Williams, an SEO specialist at Jelly, picks the competitors rank tracking feature as her favorite: “I like how easy it is to input your competitors and how clearly it shows how your results stack up against theirs.”
Mladen Maksic, SEO consultant and CEO of Play Media, is also a massive Ahrefs fan. In terms of room for improvement, Mladen wishes there are more filters for analyzing keywords. “You can only sort keywords according to a couple of parameters, and that’s it.”
To grab data from Ahrefs easily, connect your account to DashThis with our DashThis and Ahrefs integration.
You know the drill. Select our preset widgets to display a website’s domain rating, backlink profile, and the anchor text that links to it.
It takes only a few quick clicks to show how your clients are outranking the competition. Automate and schedule your Ahrefs report today!
Best SEO Keyword Research Tools
5. KWFinder
Source: YouTube
Standout features: Local keyword research, keyword difficulty, search volume and keyword metrics, and Google suggest integration.
KWFinder is one of the reigning champions when it comes to finding long-tail keywords with low SEO difficulty.
Do a quick search on review sites like G2 and Capterra, and you’ll see it’s a must-have tool for local search. That’s because KWFinder allows you to find keywords by location (Think: Perth instead of Australia; North Yorkshire County instead of England).
Hands down, this is the SEO tool you want by your side if your business or client targets an audience in specific locations (e.g., a concussion clinic based in Ottawa).
6. UberSuggest
Standout features: Domain overview, keyword overview, content ideas, and backlink checker.
Source: UberSuggest
A popular option for smaller agencies and freelancers, UberSuggest is a free keyword tool that helps you keep up with and stay ahead of competitors.
Plug in a keyword and generate search terms you never thought of. Conduct competitive analysis and steal an idea or two to create your SEO strategy. With its user-friendly interface, you can start within seconds.
UberSuggest may not be as extensive as full-on SEO suites like SEMrush, and its Chrome extension also tends to be buggy, but it offers just enough essential features to amp up your SEO game.
7. SEMrush
Source: SEMrush
Standout features: Topic research tool, traffic value, and position tracking.
Kevin Miller, the co-founder and CEO of GR0, picks SEMrush’s position tracker and traffic value metric as his top two features.
He explains, “I use SEMrush to choose my top 25 keywords per brand and monitor their fluctuation day over day, week over week, and month over month. It’s fantastic to keep track of where you are for your most valuable keywords.”
Jay Arsenault, the SEO product lead at Bloom, votes for the topic research tool.
It allows him and his SEO team to enter a keyword and assemble related topics, competing content, and FAQs by groups. Jay adds, “This is tremendously helpful in the ideation phase of our clients’ content mandates.”
Of course, like the tools in this list, SEMrush isn’t perfect. There’s a lack of pricing packages for multiple users (note: SEMrush scales linearly with the number of logins). If you run a smaller digital marketing agency, you might want to consider other affordable alternatives.
To grab data from SEMrush easily, connect your SEMrush account to DashThis today.
Choose from 10+ premade widgets (e.g., organic visibility, keyword ranking distribution) to help clients understand their hard-earned results.
Automate and schedule your SEMrush report via DashThis today!
Best Content And Optimization Tools
8. WooRank
Source: WooRank
Standout features: Technical website audits (site crawling).
WooRank offers many features, and website auditing is one of its top strengths.
What’s great about this on-page SEO software tool by Mangools is that it’s built for beginners in mind.
There are contextual helpers to help you better understand technical jargon, and you can even schedule your web crawls every week or two as new web pages and posts are added to your site.
Work with a team? Download the site crawl results and share them with them. If you often perform SEO audits for clients, check it out.
9. Clearscope
Standout features: SEO optimization and keyword research tools.
Source: G2
Content marketing is so much more than great writing. On top of nailing research, you also need to make sure your post is optimized for organic traffic.
Don’t know if your post will show up on the SERPs? Try Clearscope.
This content optimization tool grades your post and suggests latent semantic indexing (LSI) keywords to bring your post score up to A++. Clearscope uses real-time data, increasing your odds of ranking on the first page on Google. (Fun fact: We use Clearscope at DashThis, too!)
Due to pricing (Clearscope’s cheapest plan costs $170/month), it may not be suitable for new freelancers and marketers from small businesses with modest budgets.
Which of these best SEO tools will you use today?
We’ll tell it to you straight: You need more than one SEO tool.
If you’re a new freelance content marketer offering content strategy and technical SEO services, start with UberSuggest and Google Search Console. Explore these free SEO analysis tools before investing in the bigger ones.
Whereas, if you’re a “fully done for you” content marketing agency with a big budget?
Focus on SEO agency tools with backlink analysis (e.g., Ahrefs to identify referring domains, so you can reach out to influencers in a backlink outreach strategy) and content ideation features (e.g., SEMrush’s keyword planner to generate keyword ideas).
Using these SEO reporting tools to support and optimize your client’s SEO campaign is only one-half of the equation.
To create an unforgettable impression and improve client retention — you know, the type of experience that makes them go, “Holy smokes, I finally found the BEST agency/freelancer!” — show off your hard-won results in an attractive report.
That’s what DashThis is for. With our automated SEO dashboards, you can:
- Track ALL your SEO data from Ahrefs, SEMrush, and more in one customized report, without hopping from one platform to another (By the way, you can do this for your PPC and social media campaigns, too!),
- Create beautiful and effective marketing reports even with zero design background (Our premade templates and widgets and cloning and white-label options are here to save the day!),
- Schedule automatic reports via email for easy sharing with clients and the marketing team, and so much more.
agency tool
The agency business is pretty saturated, so instead of waiting for your customers to come to you, use these marketing tools for agencies to ensure you have a steady supply of prospects and leads flowing in.
Don’t forget about analytics tools, which will help you keep track of you (or your client’s!) marketing campaigns, and optimize your efforts for better results.
1: HubSpot
Hubspot for agency
HubSpot is an all-in-one platform that takes care of your marketing, sales, and service needs.
To get started, I recommend trying out their free CRM system. The HubSpot CRM gives you a real-time view of your entire sales pipeline on a visual, easy-to-understand dashboard. This means that you can see how many deals your sales reps are currently working on (and gauge how many projects you might be taking on in the upcoming months).
HubSpot provides you with detailed reports, it’s quite easy for you to check out your team’s sales productivity and individual performance.
2: Agency Analytics
Agency Analytics
Are you looking for a white label analytics tool? Try Agency Analytics, which bills itself as the “only marketing platform built for agencies”.
This platform allows agencies to monitor their clients’ marketing campaigns in one place. With Agency Analytics, you can automatically generate reports for your clients and allow clients to access a customized dashboard that’s branded with your logo. Why wouldn’t you want it in your stack of agency tools?
3 LiveSession
Live Session
Are you struggling with conversion rate optimization? Is the newly designed landing page not delivering the results you want? Do you need more data than just the results of A/B tests?
Check how users interact with your website with LiveSession. Analyze their behavior using this session recording app.
This qualitative analytics tool will allow you to gain in-depth insights into customer behavior, improve the conversion rate, provide better support or debug your application.
4: Tidio
Tidio agency tools
Tidio is a live chat and chatbot tool for agencies that they can use to increase their website conversions, and generate more leads.
According to statistics, 46% of customers prefer to use live chat to contact a company (as compared to the 29% that prefer email, or 16% who prefer social media).
If your team doesn’t have enough resources to have someone man your chat 24/7, you can also use Tidio’s automated chatbots to generate replies to the simple, straightforward questions that you get from your clients. If you are running a digital agency and have to sell a website, this is a great way to generate potential leads.
5: UpLead
UpLead
UpLead is a lead generation platform that allows companies to find and target their ideal prospects.
For instance, say the majority of your agency’s clients are enterprise firms making over $2,000,000 in revenue each year, and these firms tend to employ more than 100 people.
With this in mind, you can search through UpLead’s database of 46M+ business contacts and filter by company revenue and size, to identify prospects that are a good fit. From there on, get your sales team to reach out to these prospects, and pitch your services to them.
6: Messagely
Messagely tool for agency
I might be biased, but I’d say that Messagely is one of the most helpful customer support tools available in the marketplace.
Like Tido, Messagely also comes with a live chat feature and chatbots. This agency tool allows you to reply to your clients’ questions quickly, without making them wait.
Besides this, you can also use Messagely to acquire and qualify leads. For instance, you can configure a live chat pop-up on your website to ask your website visitors if they’re interested in learning more about your agency’s services, then trigger pre-determined questions to qualify as website visitors, and identify if they’re a high-quality lead.
Checkout The Best WordPress Marketing Plugins
7: Optimizely
Optimizely for Agency
Optimizely is an experimentation platform that allows teams to test and deploy “winning digital experiences”. If you want to generate more leads via your agency’s website, you can also use Optimizely to A/B test your site!
Say your agency is tasked with overhauling your client’s website to increase conversions. With Optimizely, you can conduct A/B tests to gauge whether green call-to-action (CTA) buttons are more effective than red ones, whether a change in messaging will appeal better to consumers, whether you should include a testimonial section on your homepage or leave it out… so much and so forth.
8: MobileMonkey
MobileMonkey
MobileMonkey is a multi-channel chatbot platform that enables companies to proactively engage with audiences on their website, Facebook Messenger, SMS text messaging, and other popular web chat applications.
It has in-built chatbot forms, lead magnets and marketing automation tools.
It is the only platform that allows marketers to make Facebook ad bots, SMS bots, and native webchat bots in one place.
9: JotForm
JotForm
JotForm is an online form builder that has more than 8 Million users and more than 10,000 ready-to-use form templates for many different industries.
Many agencies from different verticals are using JotForm in order to generate leads and collect feedback from their customers. JotForm has many features that differentiate it from the other form builders in the market, such as a PDF Editor, Mobile Forms, Fillable PDFs, HIPAA compliant electronic signature, and many more.
Also, JotForm is a very easy fit for an agency’s workflow, since it offers many integration options with widely-used productivity tools such as Google Drive, Trello, HubSpot, and many more!
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Join the Agency Partnership Program to avail our fantastic co-marketing opportunities and reach a wider audience!
10: GetResponse
GetResponse
Not all of your leads will be ready to start working with your agency right away. For the ones who aren’t, that’s where GetResponse comes in.
GetResponse email marketing software allows you to create great-looking emails to engage and nurture your leads. The key is to ensure you’re top-of-mind so that they reach out to you when they’re ready to buy.
Social Media Tools
If your agency isn’t on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms, you’re missing out on a great way to reach out to potential clients. It’s time to rectify that with these social media tools.
11: Buffer
Buffer social media agency tool
Do you know that 74% of people with a high-income are actively using Facebook? It’s an absolute must for agencies to be active on Facebook or other social media platforms. That’s where Buffer comes in.
In short, Buffer is a social media management platform that allows you to plan and publish your content to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn, from a single dashboard. Buffer also comes with a social media calendar so you can have a quick overview of all the posts you’ve got lined up, and identify and fill in any gaps. It is one tool that you will find in every list of social media agency tools because it’s features are essential for social media marketing agencies.
12: Rebrandly
Rebrandly
Rebrandly is a link management platform to help agencies create trackable links. It’s a great alternative to Bitly. Both services offer shortened URL links, however Bitly links are not trackable or private, and cannot be customised. They offer a great platform to help agencies understand which communications are driving the most traffic. This includes individual link statistics, data reports, customized analytics, and Google Analytics integration.
Some of the main differences between Rebrandly & Bitly include the ability to use multiple custom domain names, change the destination URL of links at any time, set private/public link statistics, and delete links. Instead of shortening URLs, you can utilise this tool to build a branding strategy.
13: Promo Republic
Promorepublic agency tool
The Promo Republic is another great social media marketing tool without which our list of agency tools might have been incomplete.
Like Buffer, you can use the Promo Republic to plan, manage and schedule your social media posts. For agencies, Promo Republic also offers a white label product, so you can get your social media management software that your clients can log into, branded with your agency’s logo.
14: Planable
Planable social media agency tool
Next up, we have Planable, a tool that helps you polish your social media posts to perfection before you publish them.
With Planable, you can preview your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts within a single interface, and tweak them till you’re satisfied. Team members can leave comments directly and tag other team members to collaborate, making the vetting process smooth and fast.
15: Social Champ
socialchamp social media tool for agencies
Social Champ is a social media management tool that makes it possible to work with a fully functional, feature-rich, and exceptionally integrated platform. You can automate your accounts on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Google Business Profile, and Pinterest from a single dashboard. Schedule posts in bulk, organize content in a calendar, track posts for an in-depth analysis, or engage with your target audience seamlessly.
With a wide range of plans, Social Champ is suitable for startups, entrepreneurs, or growing marketing agencies. These start from a robust, limitless Free Plan to three market-compatible pricing plans.
Conclusion
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