22 Best SEO Tools for Website Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is constantly changing. AI is becoming a bigger part of search results. Organic clicks are getting harder to earn. And old SEO methods? They are not working like they used to.

But here’s what hasn’t changed:

If you leverage the right tools, you can still improve your online presence. This applies across Google, YouTube, AI overviews, and more. You do this by making smarter decisions, working more efficiently, and focusing on what delivers actual results.

The best SEO tools help you:

• Find the right SEO opportunities.
• See what affects your website’s visibility and fix issues.
• Check how your competitors are doing and do better.
• Create content that ranks well, gets noticed, and drives results.
• Know the overall health of your website.
• Discover and use high-quality keywords.
• Save time on SEO audits.
• Access important data to make better decisions.
• Visualize your results for clear, actionable insights.

These are the tools used by experts to drive significant organic traffic. You can use these tools to drive real results for your website, no matter your business size or niche.

Let’s get started.

1. Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a desktop program for Windows, macOS, and Ubuntu. It crawls websites to find common SEO issues. SEOs and agencies globally trust this tool for technical SEO audits. Google, Disney, and Amazon are some of the companies that use it.

How it helps SEO:

• Finds technical errors: It identifies issues like broken links, redirects, duplicate content, and missing meta data. This helps you fix problems quickly to improve search engine rankings.
• Analyzes site structure: Screaming Frog shows you how your site is built. This helps ensure content is well-organized and easily found by search engines.
• Extracts key data: It extracts on-page SEO elements like URLs, page titles, and meta descriptions. You can export this data for deeper analysis or to create SEO recommendations.
• Integrates with Google tools: You can connect it with Google Analytics and Google Search Console for detailed insights into user behavior and search performance.
• Saves time: This tool automates the crawling process. This saves time compared to manually checking large websites.

2. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a widely used SEO tool. It helps with keyword research, backlink analysis, and site auditing. You can use it to find areas on your website that need improvement to rank higher in search results.

How it helps SEO:

• Keyword research: Ahrefs helps you discover keywords, analyze search results, and understand keyword difficulty and search volume. This lets you target the right terms.
• Competitor analysis: You can analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles, keyword rankings, and content strategies. This helps you find ways to beat them.
• Backlink analysis: Ahrefs gives you a full view of your website’s backlink profile. It shows link quality and helps find broken links. This improves your site’s authority.
• Site audits: The site audit feature crawls your website to find technical SEO problems like broken links or slow loading speeds.
• Rank tracking: You can monitor your keyword rankings over time to see your SEO progress.

3. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free tool that provides valuable data about your website. You can use it to understand how users interact with your site and improve your content strategies.

How it helps SEO:

• User behavior insights: It shows how users engage with your content, including how long they stay on a page and if they leave quickly. This helps you understand what content works.
• Traffic source analysis: Google Analytics helps you see which channels bring organic traffic to your site.
• Content performance: You can see which landing pages from organic search perform well. This helps you identify content gaps.
• Conversion tracking: It tracks conversion events from organic search, showing which pages lead to actions like form submissions.
• Google Search Console integration: Connecting it with Search Console gives you deeper insights into organic keyword rankings and click-through rates.

4. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a keyword research tool. It helps you find keywords and top-ranking phrases, both short and long-tail. It provides many suggestions to help you choose the right terms for your website.

How it helps SEO:

• Keyword idea generation: It suggests many keyword ideas, including long-tail variations. This helps you expand your content strategy.
• Content ideas: Ubersuggest helps you find content topics that resonate with your audience by showing popular search queries.
• Competitor keyword analysis: You can see which keywords your competitors rank for. This reveals new opportunities for your site.
• Content gap analysis: By analyzing competitor keywords, you can find gaps in your content. This helps you create new, optimized pages.

5. Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free tool from Google. It helps you monitor and report your website’s ranking in Google Search results. This tool helps you understand how Google sees your site and how to improve its position on search engine results pages (SERPs).

How it helps SEO:

• Indexing and crawl status: It confirms if Google can find and crawl your site. It helps fix indexing problems and request re-indexing for new or updated content.
• Search performance data: You can see how often your site appears in Google Search, which queries show your site, how often searchers click through for those queries, and more.
• Site health alerts: It sends alerts when Google finds issues like server errors, security problems, or manual actions.
• Backlink information: You can see which sites link to your website. This helps you understand your backlink profile.
• Sitemap submission: You can submit sitemaps to help Google crawl your site more efficiently.

6. Moz Link Explorer

Moz Link Explorer gives you a full view of link analysis. It shows links that have the most impact on your site’s authority. Just enter a URL to get detailed link data.

How it helps SEO:

• Link profile analysis: It provides insights into a site’s Domain Authority (DA), Page Authority (PA), linking domains, and inbound links. These metrics predict ranking potential.
• Competitor backlink research: You can analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles. This helps you find valuable link-building opportunities.
• Broken link detection: It helps you find broken links on your site or those pointing to your site. You can fix these to improve user experience and SEO.
• Link building opportunities: The tool helps uncover sites for outreach and tracks your link-building progress.
• Spam score: Moz provides a “Spam Score” for links. This helps you identify and disavow potentially harmful backlinks.

7. Semrush

Semrush is a complete marketing SEO tool. Experts use it to assess webpage rankings and find new ranking opportunities. Its Domain Analysis feature lets you compare your website with competitors.

How it helps SEO:

• Keyword research: Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool helps you discover relevant keywords. It analyzes search volume, difficulty, and related keywords.
• Competitor analysis: You can analyze competitors’ organic search traffic, keyword rankings, backlink profiles, and ad strategies. This helps you find ways to gain an edge.
• Site audits: It performs full site audits, flagging technical SEO issues and suggesting improvements.
• Backlink building: Semrush helps you find opportunities to earn valuable backlinks from authoritative sites.
• Content marketing: It provides tools for content creation and optimization, including topic research.

8. Bing Webmaster Tools

Bing Webmaster Tools is a free service from Microsoft. It offers SEO tools for website analysis, backlink management, and keyword review. This helps you optimize organic search for your website on Bing.

How it helps SEO:

• Website health monitoring: It helps you find and fix issues like malware, crawl errors, and security risks.
• Search performance reports: Provides metrics like impressions, clicks, click-through rate (CTR), and average position in Bing search results.
• SEO reports: Offers data on sitemaps, crawl errors, and other SEO issues. This helps you find and fix technical problems.
• Keyword research: Helps you find popular keywords to target effectively for Bing search.
• Mobile usability: Monitors your website’s accessibility on mobile devices. It flags issues with loading times and compatibility.

9. Google Trends

Google Trends is an SEO tool that offers information about keyword and topic trends. You can search for any keyword to see related queries, interests, and locations. This helps you ensure your chosen trends are relevant.

How it helps SEO:

• Trend identification: It shows the popularity of search queries over time. This helps you find new trends and high-potential SEO opportunities.
• Keyword research: You can compare multiple search terms to check their popularity. This helps you find trending keywords.
• Content strategy: Use trends to optimize your content strategy. You can time blog posts and social media content for when interest is highest.
• Local SEO: Analyze regional search variations and interest patterns. This helps you find location-specific keywords and market opportunities.
• Seasonal content planning: Helps you plan content around seasonal demand and events.

10. Majestic

Majestic focuses on backlinks. Its “The Majestic Million” feature lets you see the ranking of top websites. It also helps you find keywords, compare different sites, and track your own website.

How it helps SEO:

• Backlink focus: Majestic’s main strength is its extensive backlink data. It offers insights into a site’s link profile, including Trust Flow and Citation Flow.
• Competitor backlink analysis: You can analyze your competitors’ backlink strategies. This helps you find new link opportunities.
• Link context: The tool provides context for backlinks. It shows whether links are new, lost, or nofollow, and the number of other external links on the page.
• Topical Trust Flow: This unique metric helps determine a website’s relevance and authority within specific topics based on its backlink profile.
• Site Explorer: Provides a high-level overview of a website’s link profile, including referring domains and external backlinks.

11. Answer The Public

Answer The Public is a free keyword research tool. It uses Google data to give you a list of keywords for any topic. It shows results in a tree format, including questions, prepositions, and comparisons related to your query.

How it helps SEO:

• Content idea generation: It uncovers hundreds of related questions and phrases that users search for. This helps content creators understand customer interest.
• User intent identification: By visualizing search queries, it helps you understand the intent behind searches. This lets you create more targeted content.
• Long-tail keyword discovery: The tool provides many long-tail keyword ideas. These are often less competitive and can drive specific traffic.
• Question-based content: It’s great for generating ideas for FAQ sections, blog posts that answer specific questions, and content hubs.

12. Keyworddit

Keyworddit is a free keyword research tool. It pulls keyword ideas from Reddit, including monthly search volumes. It connects keywords to audience personas, helping you understand what specific communities are discussing.

How it helps SEO:

• Niche keyword discovery: It finds keywords used within specific Reddit communities (subreddits). This uncovers highly niche and relevant terms.
• Audience insights: Helps connect keywords to audience personas by showing what real users are discussing on Reddit.
• Content topic generation: Provides insights into trending topics and questions within communities. This can inspire new content.
• Monthly search volume: Offers estimated monthly search volumes for keywords. This helps you prioritize content efforts.

13. SEO Quake

SEO Quake is a browser extension. It’s a powerful toolbox for SEO auditing. It lets you check any webpage for SEO issues, examine internal and external links, and compare domains and URLs in real-time.

How it helps SEO:

• On-page SEO audit: It performs quick on-page SEO audits for any webpage. It checks elements like title tags, meta descriptions, and headings.
• Keyword density check: Provides a keyword density report. This helps you ensure optimal keyword usage without over-optimization.
• Internal and external link analysis: You can easily check all internal and external links on a page. This helps you find broken links or other issues.
• SERP overlay: It shows SEO metrics directly on the search engine results pages (SERPs). This allows for quick competitor analysis.
• URL/Domain comparison: Helps compare SEO parameters of different URLs or domains side-by-side.

14. SpyFu

SpyFu helps you get a full picture of search engine rankings for your website. It also lets you discover keywords used by competitors. You can monitor both SEO and paid rankings.

How it helps SEO:

• Competitor keyword strategy: It reveals keywords that competitors rank for organically and through paid ads. This helps you identify their successful strategies.
• Keyword research: You can find profitable keywords with high search volume and low competition.
• Backlink analysis: Provides information on competitor backlinks. This helps you uncover link-building opportunities.
• Ad campaign analysis: Shows competitors’ PPC ad campaigns, keywords, and ad copy. This can inform your own paid strategies.
• Domain overview: Offers a quick overview of a domain’s SEO performance, including organic keywords and estimated traffic.

15. Plag Tracker

Plag Tracker helps detect plagiarism in your content. Using original content is crucial for SEO. Duplicate content can hurt your rankings.

How it helps SEO:

• Ensures content originality: Helps identify copied content. Unoriginal content is against Google’s spam policies and can lead to ranking penalties.
• Protects website authority: By ensuring unique content, it helps maintain your site’s credibility and authority with both users and search engines.
• Improves search rankings: Unique, high-quality content is a significant ranking factor. Detecting and removing plagiarism helps you get better SERP positions.
• Prevents penalties: Helps you avoid Google penalties related to duplicate content. These penalties can significantly impact your website’s visibility.

16. SEO Crawler

SEO Crawler helps find website errors that reduce rankings. It monitors search engine rankings and helps you understand your competitors. This tool also tracks your backlinks to improve rankings.

How it helps SEO:

• Website error detection: Identifies critical website errors that can negatively impact SEO, like broken pages or crawl issues.
• Rank monitoring: Tracks your search engine rankings for target keywords. This helps you monitor progress and identify drops.
• Competitor insights: Helps you understand competitor strategies and find areas where you can improve.
• Backlink tracking: Monitors your backlink profile. This helps you understand how your link-building efforts affect rankings.
• Technical SEO audit: Works like a search engine crawler to gather valuable SEO information. This makes technical SEO work more efficient.

17. Optimizely

Optimizely is a platform for A/B testing and other data-driven tests. It maximizes website utilization and engagement.

How it helps SEO:

• Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): While not a direct SEO tool, Optimizely helps optimize website elements for better user engagement. Improved user experience (UX) and engagement metrics (like lower bounce rates and longer time on page) can indirectly signal quality to search engines, potentially leading to better rankings.
• A/B testing: It allows you to test different versions of web pages to see which performs better. This helps you optimize content, layouts, and calls to action for maximum impact.
• Personalization: By delivering personalized experiences, Optimizely can increase user satisfaction and engagement. This can lead to better organic traffic and repeat visits.
• Reduced bounce rate: Optimizing page elements and user journeys can lead to lower bounce rates. This is a positive signal for search engines.

18. Click Flow

Click Flow helps companies increase organic traffic. It helps users see which webpages have the most potential to increase traffic and revenue.

How it helps SEO:

• Click-Through Rate (CTR) optimization: Focuses on improving organic CTR from search results. A higher CTR often signals to Google that your content is highly relevant. This can boost rankings.
• Identifies high-potential pages: Helps you find existing webpages that can drive more organic traffic and revenue. You do this by optimizing their titles and meta descriptions.
• Leverages existing rankings: Instead of focusing on new content or links, it optimizes what you already have. This makes your current rankings work harder.
• Insights into search intent: By analyzing what makes users click, it provides insights into search intent. This helps you refine your content.

19. Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a tool for building a strong keyword list. It boosts your SEO process by helping you find keywords and see how they perform.

How it helps SEO:

• Keyword discovery: Helps you find new, relevant keywords for your campaigns. It suggests related terms and variations based on seed keywords or a website URL.
• Search volume and competition: Provides data on average monthly searches and competition levels for keywords. This helps you prioritize your targeting efforts.
• Content planning: You can use it to uncover popular search terms and phrases that your potential customers are using. This guides your content creation.
• Forecasts: While primarily for Google Ads, it can forecast potential clicks and impressions for chosen keywords. This offers insights into their organic potential.

20. SendPulse

SendPulse is a multi-channel marketing platform. It is used for email, SMS, and chatbot creation. While primarily a marketing automation tool, its SEO success shows how strong content can drive organic traffic.

How it helps SEO (indirectly but effectively):

• Content-driven SEO: SendPulse’s own strategy shows how creating high-quality, relevant content can attract significant organic traffic and build domain authority.
• Audience engagement: Its ability to connect with audiences on preferred channels can lead to richer user data. This informs content strategies that directly address user needs, improving engagement signals for SEO.
• Brand authority: Consistently delivering value across multiple channels can build brand recognition and trust. This leads to more branded searches and direct traffic, which positively impacts SEO.

21. Google Gemini

Google Gemini is an AI model that can assist with various tasks, including those relevant to SEO. You can use it for content creation, keyword generation, and data analysis.

How it helps SEO:

• Content generation and refinement: Gemini can help you draft articles, blog posts, and website copy. You can ask it to summarize complex topics or rewrite content for different tones. This saves time in content creation.
• Keyword ideation: You can use Gemini to brainstorm long-tail keywords and related search queries. Provide a topic, and it can suggest variations users might search for.
• Meta description and title tag creation: Gemini can generate compelling meta descriptions and title tags. This helps improve click-through rates from search results.
• Content outline creation: Give Gemini a topic, and it can generate a structured outline for your content. This ensures comprehensive coverage and logical flow.
• Competitive analysis insights: While not a dedicated competitive analysis tool, you can feed Gemini competitor content or strategies. It can then help you identify patterns and potential opportunities.

22. Google Looker Studio

Google Looker Studio is a free data visualization and reporting tool. It helps you transform your SEO data into easy-to-understand reports and dashboards. You can connect various data sources, including Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

How it helps SEO:

• Consolidated reporting: You can bring data from different SEO tools into one dashboard. This includes Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and even custom data. This gives you a complete view of your SEO performance.
• Visualizing data: Looker Studio helps you create charts, graphs, and tables to visualize trends. This makes it easier to spot issues or opportunities quickly.
• Customizable dashboards: You can build custom dashboards tailored to your specific SEO goals and metrics. This lets you focus on what matters most to your business.
• Performance monitoring: Set up automated reports to monitor keyword rankings, organic traffic, and other key performance indicators (KPIs) over time.
• Sharing and collaboration: Share interactive reports with team members or clients. This promotes transparency and data-driven decision-making.

These tools offer many features. Each has its own strength. You need to look at your needs and budget to decide which tool is best for your business.