16 best SEO software tools in 2025

Digital marketing works with multiple traffic sources, from paid search to direct traffic from referrals and email marketing. One source can take the lead in different industries and businesses within those industries. For instance, social media traffic would be the main source of income for smaller creative product brands.

On average, though, two-thirds of traffic referrals come from Google. This is why search engine optimization stays relevant in 2025. With the right strategy, you can make a third of the traffic that comes to your website recurrent and more predictable than many other sources, with little ongoing cost of keeping it that way.

To develop a good SEO strategy, you need SEO tools, not just for performance analytics but also for discovery and day-to-day SEO workflows.

This article will guide you through the benefits of using SEO software, choosing the right one for you, and presenting the best tools of the trade as of 2025.How to choose the right SEO tool for your needsThis article will guide you through the benefits of using SEO software, choosing the right one for you, and presenting the best tools of the trade as of 2025.

Explore these ultimate SEO tools that will help your site climb in search engine rankings and outperform the competitors!

How to choose the right SEO tool for your needs

Many SEO tools will provide similar features, but even a tool as basic as a hammer can have different uses — one type of hammer is good for driving nails, another for precision jewelry work. The same is true for SEO tools — some will provide better solutions for one area of SEO and rudimentary tools for another.

Finding a tool that does it all better than others and doesn’t blow your budget can be difficult, so it’s best to find a tool aligned with your business goals and available resources.

Here are the five factors you need to consider to understand what is the best SEO software for you:

Define your goals

The main factor you should take into consideration is what goals you are trying to pursue with SEO.

If you own a large ecommerce website with thousands of product and category pages that you need to optimize for transactional and commercial keywords, you’ll need a tool that excels in bulk keyword analysis and technical SEO.

For owners of smaller websites with just a few landing pages and a blog, a tool with great content optimization features and backlink management capabilities would be best.

If you’re not sure what goals you want to pursue in SEO, you don’t have to spend six months learning the theory before you pick up just the right tool. Start with a simple and affordable one that will help you see how SEO workflows work in practice. Then, you can understand which features you need and pick a better one or upgrade to a better plan.

Consider your budget

The next factor to consider is the pricing of SEO software tools. Typically, the best tools for SEO don’t cost more than $500 per month at the higher end and can start at as little as $20 per month. In some cases, features can come as add-ons for an added price. Adding more user accounts to the plan can also warrant a small price increase.

Another price add-on is exceeding usage limits. For instance, if your plan provides 500 website audits per month, anything over that might cost you $0.05 per audit.

You have to consider all the pricing that goes into your plan before committing to it.

You can start by using free SEO tools and then upgrade to paid ones as you get better at it.

Focus on scalability for agencies or teams

If you do want to start with a free or low-cost plan, check whether you can upgrade to a better one later. Some cheap tools only offer marginal improvements as you upgrade, and in that case, you’d have to switch tools later. Learning a new tool from scratch while working on multiple projects is never a good experience.

The scalability of your tool of choice is important for in-house use, but it’s even more important in agencies. If you land two clients in a quarter and find that your current tool doesn’t support the volume of work you need, it can become a disaster.

Customer support and tutorials availability

The last major factor you should consider is the quality of support. This includes interactions with your Customer Success Manager, quality of onboarding, and availability of documentation and tutorials.

You don’t want to google how to use your tool and only find solutions on Reddit. Make sure that the company you go with has a large knowledge base covering its tools, and check reviews of customer support quality online.

Do you need multiple SEO tools?

For most companies, the best SEO software tool is a single multifunctional tool that covers every need. In some cases, though, you might decide to go with two or more tools — that’s perfectly fine, especially for large enterprises.

A popular choice is having a single best SEO tool that covers 80% of your needs and a specialized one to excel in one particular area of optimization, like technical SEO.

If you choose this option, make sure you plan how you will syndicate data from multiple tools. You might need data from the best online SEO tools for reporting and analytics, so it’s best to come up with a data exporting solution beforehand.

Key features to look for in an SEO Tool

While you may prefer to choose a tool that has one feature that is more pronounced than the others, there are some basic features that an all-around tool should have. You may include some as a paid add-on or cover them with another tool, but you’ll likely need these eight features in your SEO toolbox.

Comprehensive keyword research - Keyword research is probably the most basic function of an SEO tool. In the best SEO tool, you want to have the option to discover new keywords, view estimations of metrics on different keywords, and analyze keyword profiles of competitors.

Accurate rank tracking -  Another important aspect related to keywords is rank tracking. The best SEO software allows you to track in which place your website ranks across thousands of keywords you target and provides an in-depth analysis of SERP for those keywords.

Backlink analysis and building - The absolute majority of best SEO software offers some sort of backlink analysis tool. This typically includes competitor analysis, backlink health analysis, and tracking new and lost links. Some tools have a built-in outreach solution, but most likely, you’ll have to use another tool for that.

On-page SEO analysis - These types of tools can analyze a page for both technical issues and keyword optimization. While the technical side of on-page analysis is quite common, seeing keyword optimization analytics is rarer. There are specialized tools for this, though.

Competitor insights - This suite of tools is crucial for building a solid SEO strategy, and many SEO tools have started as competitor analytics platforms. Looking at your competitors’ backlink profiles, keyword strategy, and on-page optimization can bring new tactics to your attention and help you improve yours. Looking at the content gap between your website and a competing one can also help with content strategy.

Site audits and technical SEO features - Another common feature that the best SEO software provides is a technical SEO audit. In most cases, different tools will offer similar benefits — screening your website for common SEO problems and providing suggestions for fixing them. Look for additional features like automated reporting. Advanced site audit features are mostly available in specialized tools.

Local SEO - This feature helps you analyze SERP with more focus on local pack results. This is a much rarer feature, and when it’s present, it often works as a paid add-on. However, it’s indispensable if you either have a physical location for your business or run an agency that deals with businesses like that. 

Ease of use and reporting features - Finally, you’ll want your tool’s admin panel to be intuitive and easy to learn. Poor user experience doesn’t help even the best tools. Look for a tool with good reporting built in as well. This will help you create reports for in-house stakeholders or clients to keep everyone up to date without exporting data and manually building those reports.

Pricing plans - With all features covered, look for pricing plans. If you’re not starting with enterprise-grade, you’ll want a pricing structure that can help you scale up or down if necessary. Also, consider add-ons and pay-per-use plans.

Best SEO tools in 2025: a complete list

There are dozens of SEO tools out there. Some are great for large enterprises, some for agencies, and some for solo entrepreneurs. Some are great because they offer a basic toolset for an affordable price.

Choosing one among so many can lead to analysis paralysis. So, we’ve gathered a list of the best SEO software in 2025 to help you make this choice.

RelateSEO

Namecheap provides a suite of affordable tools for every aspect of digital marketing.

Features

RelateSEO is part of a broader set of digital marketing tools provided by Namecheap. The features this tool offers include:

• Website performance monitoring.
• Keyword optimization.
• Competitor tracking.
• Step-by-step optimization suggestions.

Namecheap also offers other tools like social, local, and PPC analytics, reviews management, and brand monitoring.

Pricing

RelateSEO costs $9.88 per month. That’s the most affordable pricing out of all options on the list. A 4-week free trial is available.

Pros:

• A good set of basic SEO tools.
• One of the most affordable tools on the market.
• Beginner-friendly.

Cons:

• Little opportunity to scale up and use more advanced tools.

Ideal user

RelateSEO and the whole Namecheap suite of tools are perfect for beginners in SEO and other digital marketing disciplines.

SE Ranking

SE Ranking offers multiple reliable SEO tools for a reasonable price. It’s an all-around SEO tool for position tracking, technical optimization, keyword research, and content production.

Features

SE Ranking provides features for every stage of SEO, from keyword analysis to content production. Here are the highlights:

• Keyword research tools.
• Rank tracking tool.
• AI Overview tracker.
• Backlink analysis and monitoring.
• Website audit.
• Competitor analysis tool.
• Content marketing tool with AI writer.
• White label agency tools with Report Builder.

Keyword tools are the best side of SE Ranking. The suite provides reliable data on SERP rankings and PPC details on most keywords and allows tracking of hundreds of keyword positions daily.

The suite of content marketing tools allows you to speed up all stages of the process, from idea research to creating content with an AI writer.

Pricing

After a 14-day trial ends, plans will cost you between $65 and $259 per month. The price for high-end plans can go up if additional credits are needed, like tracking up to 15,000 keywords daily.

Content marketing, local SEO, and agency pack features are available as add-ons starting at $20-50 per month. Additional user seats cost between $20 and $60 per month, depending on the plan and the number of seats needed.

Pros:

• A versatile suite of SEO tools.
• Reliable data.
• Simple to use and scalable toolset.
• Affordable pricing.

Cons:

• Content and local marketing features aren’t included in base plans.

Ideal user

SE Ranking is a great tool for any SEO specialist, from a solo entrepreneur and SEO agency to a large enterprise.

ChatGPT

This tool developed by OpenAI, which has been the main topic of discussion online since its release, caused a shift in how many people do research in, well, everything. It has plenty of uses for SEO.

Features

The main feature of ChatGPT is providing answers to any question you might have. One of the best uses of ChatGPT for SEO is ideas research.

It can’t provide a list of keywords you need to use on a page as it doesn’t have access to any sort of SEO data, but it can provide multiple keyword suggestions you can run through an SEO tool. It’s also very useful for creating content ideas if you’re stuck and researching a topic to create an article outline.

You can use ChatGPT to automate routine text generation, such as basic outlines, titles, and unique meta descriptions. However, make sure to proofread the text to match the style and accuracy. If you find yourself needing to reword or refine any of the AI-generated content, a paraphrasing tool can be a valuable asset.

Pricing

Most of ChatGPT's basic features are free. Two pricing plans, $20 and $200 per month, provide access to more advanced LLM models for better answers and increase file upload limits.

Pros:

• Great at coming up with creative ideas.
• Useful for automating basic content creation tasks.

Cons:

• Concrete data provided by ChatGPT can be unreliable.
• It might take multiple iterations of the prompt to get a good answer.

Ideal user

ChatGPT is a great tool for any SEO professional, especially since its core features are free.

Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog SEO Spider is the ultimate web crawling tool. It’s a program available on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Features

The basic features include:

• Finding broken links, redirects, and other tech SEO issues.
• Identifying duplicate content.
• Sitemap generation.
• Site structure visualization.

Advanced features let you configure web crawls in any way you want, crawl specific pages on your site, and make custom extractions for planning technical improvements.

Pricing

The basic features are available for free for 500 links crawled. For unlimited crawling and advanced customization features, you have to purchase a license for $259 annually. There are also bulk discounts for multiple users.

Pros:

• The ultimate technical SEO tool.
• Many customization options.
• Advanced scrapping with AI tools.
• The basic features are free.

Cons:

• Advanced uses may be hard to learn.
• Requires one license per user.

Ideal user

Screaming Frog is an amazing tool for any SEO specialist. It’s indispensable for large website owners and marketing agencies that definitely need technical SEO monitoring.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is an SEO tool that offers a few quality features and has one of the best databases in the industry.

Features

Ahrefs provides a standard SEO toolkit:

• Site explorer for backlinks analysis
• Keyword research tool
• Site audit tool
• Rank tracker
• Analytics dashboard

One of the tools that few competitors have is a content explorer that helps you find unlinked mentions of your site or brand. 

Pricing

You can access a free suite of Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for your website and combine them with other free and paid SEO tools. The free ones, of course, have very limited usage. 

Paid plans start at $29 per month, but that plan offers too few features. The plan with a decent amount of functions starts at $129. These two plans are pay-as-you-go — if you use more credits, you’ll be charged an additional fee. Unlimited usage plans can go up to $1,499. Add-ons are available for $20-$200.

Pros:

• A versatile suite of tools.
• Good backlink reporting.
• Content research tools.

Cons:

• Low usage limits and additional usage charges.
• Report builder is an add-on.
• Poor PPC keywords report.

Ideal user

Ahrefs is great for larger organizations and agencies.

SEO PowerSuite

This SEO tool works as a program that can be downloaded on Windows, macOS, and Linux. 

Features

SEO PowerSuite provides four main tools to its users:

• Site audit
• Keyword research and rank tracking
• Backlink analysis
• Link building assistant

Each tool has multiple features. For instance, the toolset associated with keyword research has features for keyword research, ranking checks, looking up competitors' keywords, and keyword grouping.

Pricing

SEO PowerSuite offers a free forever plan for one project only, with fewer features and no possibility of saving it. Pricing starts at $349 per year. Two- and Three-year plans are available with significant discounts.

Pros:

• Decent basic toolset.
• Free plan available.

Cons:

• Requires a download.
• The quality of tools may be slightly worse than what industry leaders provide.

Ideal user

Good for link building purposes as it includes a suite of tools for the whole process.

Majestic SEO

Majestic is one of the online SEO tools that has been around for over a decade. It provides the standard SEO toolkit and some unique features on top of that.

Features

Here are the standard SEO tools and software you’ll find in Majestic.

• Site explorer.
• Keyword explorer.
• Report builder.
• Bulk backlink analysis. 

There’s also an author explorer tool in beta testing.

Majestic provides deeper backlink analysis than most other tools. Its backlink explorer tools include unique metrics like Trust or Citation Flow, and they also show where a link is on the page, anchor text, link graph, etc.

Pricing

Majestic provides some tools for free with limited features. The pricing starts at $49 per month, the highest plan costs $399.99.

Pros:

• Good standard SEO tools.
• Some unique features are available.
• In-depth backlink analysis tools.

Cons:

• Some in-depth tools lack use cases.
• Users report that the UI is not intuitive.

Ideal user

Majestic is a decent tool for small to medium companies, especially if you think its unique backlink analysis features are useful in your case.

Seobility

Seobility provides a fairly standard suite of SEO tools and a white-labeling solution. A limited free plan is available.

Features

Seobility offers a basic SEO toolkit with a few additions:

• Technical and on-page audit.
• Backlink analysis and monitoring.
• Keyword research and rank tracking.
• Content optimization TF*IDF tool.

The latter is an interesting tool as it can analyze keyword density in SERP and compare the general trend to your page’s optimization.

Pricing

There’s a free forever plan. There are only two paid subscriptions — one for $50 per month and one for $200 per month.

Pros:

• A good suite of basic tools.
• Advanced content research and optimization tools.

Cons:

• Lack of a knowledge base.
• Lack of advanced features in some basic tools.

Ideal user

Small businesses and marketers who need content optimization features.

WebCEO

Although WebCEO is not as popular as industry leaders, it’s been in business for 25 years and provides its user base with advanced tools.

Features

WebCEO has 24+ tools in total. These cover most basic SEO tools and provide some unique features as well:

• Toxic backlink analysis.
• Submissions tool for directories and blog promotion sites.
• SEO task management tool. 

WebCEO also offers a social media analytics tool.

Pricing

There’s a 14-day trial for testing. And then, there are two paid plans at $119 and $299 per month. The third agency plan is $99 per month with pay-as-you-go over-the-limit pricing for some functionality.

Adding more users costs $5 per user per month, and most plans include enough user seats to begin with.

Pros:

• Unique features and in-depth analytics.
• Enterprise and agency-tier plans are cheaper than competition.
• Affordable collaboration features.

Cons:

• No unlimited plans.
• Some of the submission resources are outdated.

Ideal user

WebCEO is great for organizations that need multiple user seats and want to save on high-tier plans.

GSC

Google Search Console is a free tool provided by Google that allows users to view detailed data on website traffic, indexing, keywords, etc.

Features

GSC is primarily a site performance analytics tool. It provides access to breakdowns of clicks on different pages, CTR, and keyword rankings. It also lets you upload a sitemap to improve crawling and shows indexing issues.

You can’t use it to analyze other websites with it, though, only websites you can verify ownership of.

Pricing

Google Search Console is free to use.

Pros:

• Accurate website data.
• Detailed data breakdown.

Cons:

• The sheer amount of data comes with a steep learning curve.
• No possibility to check competitors’ sites.

Ideal user

Despite not providing competitor SEO data, Google Search Console is an essential tool for every SEO specialist and may be the best tool for SEO analysis.

Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest has started as a keyword research tool and has added a few basic SEO tools over the years.

Features

Here are a few features Ubersuggest can offer:

• Keyword suggestion tool.
• Keyword rank tracker.
• Site audit.
• Backlink analysis.
• Competitor tracking.

The last one is particularly useful — it lets you track changes in the ranking of select competing sites.

Pricing

Ubersuggest will cost you $12-$40 monthly. Unlike most SaaS tools, it offers lifetime plans for $120-$400. Additional credits are available for $5 per month.

There’s a 7-day free trial available.

Pros:

• Affordable lifetime plans are available.
• Great keyword research visualization features.
• Chrome extension for faster analytics. 

Cons:

• Lack of advanced features.

Ideal user

Ubersuggest will be a great tool for small companies and solopreneurs who want a great deal on their SEO tool.

Ranktracker

Ranktracker provides a suite of basic SEO tools for a decent price.

Features

Here are the main tools Ranktracker provides:

• Rank tracker.
• Backlink checking and monitoring tools.
• Web audit.
• SERP checker.
• AI article writer.

It also provides a free SERP simulator tool that shows how your link would look in SERPs. For instance, it’s good for viewing different title lengths but not a very useful feature overall.

Pricing

Pricing starts at $24 per month, and the most expensive plan is $209.

Ranktracker used to sell lifetime plans but later backed down on the promise by introducing a support plan at $82 per month. That’s a major issue former users take with the company.

Pros:

• A decent suite of basic tools.
• Fair pricing.

Cons:

• Bad publicity and trustworthiness issues.

Ideal user

Small and medium-sized companies looking for a basic toolset.

SpyFu

SpyFu’s toolset combines SEO and PPC research tools. With simple competitive pricing, it’s a good deal.

Features

SpyFu offers a combination of tools useful for a company that does optimization and paid advertising:

• SERP and competitor analysis.
• PPC and SEO keyword research and analytics tools.
• Keywords gap analysis. 
• Rank tracker.

The PPC research features are excellent. You can analyze your site’s keywords and get suggestions on whether to buy ads for them.

Pricing

The pricing scheme is very simple. You can buy a $39 per month plan with 10k search credits for almost every tool or the $79 one with unlimited data.

Pros:

• A handy combination of basic SEO and PPC tools.
• Simple and affordable pricing.
• An unlimited data plan is available.

Cons:

• The lack of advanced PPC analytics shrinks its role from an all-around PPC solution to a research tool.
• The lack of advanced tools (like backlink analysis) means it’s not a very scalable tool.

Ideal user

SpyFu is ideal for small and medium companies that need an affordable toolset for SEO and PPC research without the need for advanced features in either.

Mangools

Mangools isn’t a very popular tool today, but that’s likely to change soon. It offers a wide variety of top SEO tools for a very reasonable price.

Features

Mangools doesn’t provide many unique features, but its basic toolset is quite good:

• Keyword research, tracking, and analytics.
• SERP analysis.
• Backlink analytics.

The one unique tool that Mangools provides is AI search grader. This tool can show you whether your brand appears in responses given by genAI tools.

Pricing

There’s a free forever plan, but limits are so low that it’s best used for testing Mangools, not as a standalone option. Pricing starts at $49 per month, and the most expensive plan costs $129 per month. Annual subscription includes a 35% discount.

Pros:

• A good set of basic tools for SEO.
• Reliable data.
• Good pricing with annual discounts.
• A unique AI brand visibility analytics tool.

Cons:

• Daily lookup limits are on the lower side.
• Low scalability potential.

Ideal user

A good choice for smaller companies and solo entrepreneurs looking for a basic, affordable SEO toolset.

Semrush

Semrush offers 55+ tools in different areas of digital marketing, from SEO to social media management.

Features

Semrush provides tools in the following aspects of digital marketing:

• Keyword research for SEO and PPC.
• Backlink checker.
• Rank tracking.
• Content creation and optimization.
• Paid ads campaigns management.
• Social media analytics.

While social media and PPC analytics aren’t as good as those provided by specialized tools, they’re a great addition to the SEO toolset.

There’s a handy advanced ImpactHero tool that can break down content into buyer journey stages and provide tips for improving it.

Pricing

Semrush has a difficult pricing system. The basic plans cost between $139.95 and $499.95 per month. Then, there are multiple costly add-ons. All social media features come as add-ons with three tiers. The ImpactHero costs an additional $200 per month.

An extra user seat costs $45 per month or more, depending on the plan you have.

Pros:

• Reliable data.
• Varied toolset with room to grow.
• Multiple add-ons to build your toolset.

Cons:

• Pricing can add up to over $1000 monthly with add-ons and user seats.

Ideal user

Semrush is great for medium and large companies with a decent budget to spare who want an all-around digital marketing tool without delving too deeply into social media analytics.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics, or GA4, is a free website analytics tool provided by Google. It’s used to monitor website traffic, look for trends and patterns, and improve your SEO and conversion optimization.

Features

GA provides hundreds of data points that can be used to track user engagement on the site and view how customers go through your sales funnel from the first visit to making a purchase with anonymized data. It also provides predictive capabilities with Google’s machine learning models.

Pricing

Google Analytics is free to use. It covers up to 500,000 monthly sessions, which is more than enough for the absolute majority of websites. Google Analytics 360, the solution for large enterprise websites, can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Pros:

• Advanced usage is possible.
• Gives recommendations for inexperienced users to get all the necessary data.
• Provides multiple data points.

Cons:

• With a large amount of data comes a steep learning curve.

Ideal user

Google Analytics should be in every SEO specialist’s toolbox.

New SEO tools for a changing search landscape

There are so many optimization tools that it can be hard to choose the right one. After narrowing it down to this SEO tools list, the choice becomes much easier.

If you had to choose multiple tools, the picks for the best software for SEO would be the free GSC and GA for traffic analytics, SE Ranking as an all-around SEO tool, Screaming Frog for advanced technical optimization, and ChatGPT for ad-hoc tasks and idea generation.