Looking for a great SEO ranking tool?
SEO tools give you the insights and information you need to improve your website’s search engine presence and attract more organic traffic.
But with so many tools on the market, it can be tricky to figure out which one fits your needs.
Let’s dive into the features, pricing, and how to use them. So you can make the right choice.
What Is SEO Ranking?
SEO ranking refers to your position on Google.
Let’s say you’re an outdoor sports brand.
If someone searches for “hiking boots” and your site is the first one on Google, that would bring considerable traffic to your site. Which would likely lead to sales and new customers.
An SEO platform can help you with things like:
- Tracking your webpages’ rankings in search engines
- Selecting the best keywords to target
- Monitoring your competitors
- Building backlinks
- Spotting technical issues
- And more
Some tools offer a few of these features. Others do all of them. You’re usually better off with an all-in-one platform. So you have a complete toolbox for all your SEO needs.
Here are some things to bear in mind when choosing a tool:
- Your goals and needs: Select tools that align with your SEO strategy. If you’re not sure, start off with an SEO audit to figure out what your website needs to improve. Or opt for an all-in-one SEO platform that can do it all. So you won’t have to keep trying (and paying for) new tools whenever your goals shift.
- Ease of use and customer support: Find tools that are intuitive with helpful documentation and good customer support
- Pricing and budget: Choose the tool(s) that provide the features you need at a price you can afford. And beware of limits and thresholds. For example, you might be able to audit up to 1,000 pages on your website. But 1,001 pages could mean an upgrade to a more expensive package.
Semrush
Semrush is a comprehensive SEO platform that offers 55+ tools and reports to improve your website and grow your business. It includes everything you need to boost your SEO performance and improve your rankings.
Some of the most popular SEO tools included with Semrush are:
- On Page SEO Checker: Improve page ranking with a detailed list of ideas, including tips for link building, content writing, SERP feature targeting, and more
- Position Tracking: Track your site’s rankings and monitor progress toward your SEO goals
- Keyword Magic Tool: Discover the best search terms and ranking opportunities for your organic search campaigns
- Traffic Analytics: See what’s working for other websites in your industry and learn how you can improve your website to match
- Backlink Analytics: Analyze the quality and quantity of backlinks coming to your site, discover ways to increase your site’s domain authority, and improve your organic rankings
- Listing Management: Boost local SEO by managing and distributing your business information, monitoring reviews, and following your ranking in the community
Every Semrush subscription also includes an AI-powered SEO assistant, Semrush Copilot. It monitors your website’s performance and looks at the data from different Semrush tools. The personalized recommendations save you a lot of time, because you don’t need to dig into every report yourself.
What We Like
Semrush uses the power of AI to make it easier for you to rank.
How?
It tells you if you have a good chance of ranking for a keyword or not. And how difficult it will be for your brand to rank for that keyword.
For example, nerdwallet.com regularly publishes content about financial management.
If you plug in the keyword “personal finance,” the tool tells you that the site currently ranks 53. But it has a good chance of ranking in the top 30. Because the site has a “high” level of topical authority in that area.
Most tools will tell you how competitive a keyword is in general. But Semrush gives you a personalized keyword difficulty score based on your brand’s niche, reputation, and topical authority.
These insights can help you decide where to focus your efforts, giving you the edge when it comes to SEO rankings.
Pricing
Semrush offers four pricing packages, including a free option.
- Free: Track up to 10 keywords, set up one project, and run up to 10 reports/day
- Pro: Track up to 500 keywords, set up five projects, and run up to 3,000 reports a day for $139.95/month
- Guru: Includes everything from the Pro account, plus the Looker integration and Content Marketing Platform. Track up to 1,500 keywords, set up 15 projects, and run up to 5,000 reports/day for $249.95/month.
- Business: Includes everything from the Guru account, plus share-of-voice metrics and API access. Track up to 5,000 keywords, set up 40 projects, and run up to 10,000 reports/day. It costs $499.95/month.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs offers a suite of tools for keyword research, backlink analysis, and SEO reports.
Key features include:
- Rank Tracker: Monitor and analyze your website’s ranking changes.
- Keywords Explorer: Find terms and phrases your target audience is searching for
- Content Explorer: Uncover content ideas and link-building opportunities
- Site Audit: Identify and fix issues to enhance your website’s performance
- Site Explorer: See what your competitors are up to
What We Like
When you log in, you’ll see a dashboard with key metrics based on data from Site Audit, Keywords Explorer, and Rank Tracker. It looks like this:
If you have a free account, you can access the Site Explorer and Site Audit.
The Site Audit crawls your site to check for errors, warnings, and notices. Like broken links, missing metadata, and large images. And then it provides a health score out of 100. This is based on the proportion of pages on your website that are error-free.
Taking note of these issues and fixing them can help to improve your rankings.
Ahrefs Site Explorer tool gives you an overview of your backlinks. It tells you how many sites link to yours. And which ones. You also see how many keywords your site shows up for in search engines.
Backlinks (other sites linking to yours) are a confirmed ranking factor. So, keeping an eye on them and taking steps to increase the number of links can help improve your rankings.
The tool also gives you an overview of organic keyword performance. It tells you how many keywords your site shows up for in search engines. Click the “Organic keywords” tab to see the trend over time:
Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker can help you monitor your rankings in 170 countries.
It tells you your average position and other key metrics for each keyword:
Pricing
Ahrefs offers several pricing packages, starting at $129/month:
- Lite: Includes five projects and six months of data for $129/month
- Standard: Includes twenty projects and two years of data for $249/month
- Advanced: Includes 50 projects, five years of data, Looker integration, and forecasting features for $449/month
- Enterprise: Annual pricing, which includes unlimited projects, unlimited historical data, and API access
Moz Pro
Moz Pro is an all-in-one SEO software. It includes a range of tools to help you improve your rankings and boost traffic.
Key features include:
- Domain Overview: Provides a comprehensive snapshot of a site’s SEO health, including keyword topics and performance
- Keyword Explorer: Helps discover and prioritize the best keywords for targeting
- Link Research: Offers in-depth link analysis for smarter content ideation and link prospecting
- Competitor Research: Enables gaining competitive insights by identifying keyword gaps and top competing content
- On-Page Grader: Gives step-by-step recommendations for optimizing a page’s SEO performance based on specific keywords
What We Like
A good place to start is the Domain Overview. It gives you an overview of key website performance metrics, like domain authority (how good your site’s reputation is) and linking domains (how many sites link to yours). And it tells you how many keywords you rank for.
Just enter your site and click “Analyze.”
To check your rankings in more detail, navigate to the Rank Checker.
Type in the keyword and the domain. Like “onepeloton.com” and “cycling classes.” And you’ll see the site ranks No. 4 on Google U.S. for that term.
Pricing
Moz Pro offers four packages. A 30-day free trial is available.
- Starter: An option for those with a single project and 50 keywords, starting at $49/month
- Standard: Suited for those new to SEO, this plan includes basic features necessary to start with SEO efforts, such as tracking and crawling up to 300 keywords, for $99/month
- Medium: Provides access to keyword research tools and supports 10 campaigns and 1,500 keyword rankings, suitable for regular users at $179/month
- Large: Offers broader capabilities with 25 campaigns and 3,000 keyword rankings, priced at $299/month
SpyFu
SpyFu is a marketing suite that provides insights on SEO performance and other areas like paid search. It also gives you competitive intelligence on what other sites in your industry are doing.
Key features include:
- SEO research: Tracks organic search performance, including keyword rankings and changes over time
- Keyword research: Helps you discover lucrative keywords used by your competitors in both their paid and organic search campaigns
- Competitor analysis: Allows you to identify and analyze your top organic and PPC competitors, including a detailed “Kombat SEO” tool that uses a Venn diagram to highlight shared and unique keywords
- Backlink analysis: Assists in discovering powerful backlinks and shows which sites link to you and your competitors
- Ranking history: Monitors the ranking history of your keywords to identify trends and performance over time
- Top pages: Identifies which pages on your and your competitors’ sites are receiving the most traffic from organic searches
What We Like
A good place to start is the Monthly Domain Overview, which gives you a snapshot of your site’s current SEO performance. It shows you how many organic keywords your site ranks for. And how organic traffic has changed.
Scroll down to the Ranking History section to see your top keywords and their position:
In the “Ranking History” section, you’ll see newly ranked pages, along with their previous position and where they rank now:
Pricing
SpyFu offers three plans:
- Basic: For individuals just starting with SEO, this plan offers 10,000 search results, six months of historical data, and 250 sales leads, costing $39 monthly or $33 monthly when billed annually
- Professional: Aimed at more frequent users, this plan provides unlimited search results, over 10 years of historical data, and 500 sales leads, priced at $69 monthly or $48 monthly when billed annually
- Unlimited: Best for larger teams or agencies, this plan offers all Professional features plus up to 2,000 sales leads and five user accounts for $129 monthly—or $68 monthly when billed annually
WooRank
WooRank is an SEO platform with a bunch of tools to help improve your rankings. Such as:
- Website Reviews: WooRank provides unlimited website evaluations, offering SEO reports to identify and fix technical issues
- Keyword Tracking: Enables you to monitor and track the performance of your key keywords, adjusting strategies based on up-to-date data
- Competitors: Allows you to analyze your competitors’ SEO strategies, helping you understand their strengths and weaknesses.
- Site Crawl: Conducts detailed crawls of your website to uncover technical SEO issues that could be affecting your site’s visibility and performance.
What We Like
To get started, enter your site’s URL. You’ll get a report of how well the site is optimized for search. Including a score out of 100 and suggestions for improvement.
For example, it gives the dog training company Zendog’s site a score of 68.
You can also review individual pages to evaluate their performance. If the score is low, taking action could help improve rankings.
A helpful feature is the Keyword Tool. First, you’ll need to select keywords to track. The tool suggests keywords based on your current rankings.
For example, zendog.us ranks No. 8 for the term “stop dog from barking.” Click the box to track it, along with any other relevant keywords.
The tool will process the data. Then it shows a distribution graph of how many keywords rank in the top 1-3, 4-10, 11-20, and so on. Underneath, you’ll see a list of the keywords and their rankings:
Pricing
WooRank offers three pricing plans:
- Pro: Ideal for people wanting to optimize one website and track up to 50 keywords, priced at $89.99 monthly
- Premium: Suited for teams, this plan lets you track up to 250 keywords and costs $199.99/month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing for agencies and large enterprises, offering API access, unlimited projects and keywords, and automation and workflow capabilities
Keyword research is the process of selecting the keywords you want to target on your website. A keyword research tool can help you figure out what your audience is searching for. So you can choose the right keywords. Which is essential for ranking on search engines.
Keyword Magic Tool
The Keyword Magic Tool helps you discover keyword ideas and gives you valuable insights on each one.
What We Like
Type in any keyword to get hundreds or thousands of ideas. Along with information like search volume, keyword difficulty, and search intent. Unlike other keyword research tools, this one gives you personalized insights based on your site and the terms it is likely to rank for.
To get started, open the tool and type in a keyword relevant to your business. Such as “scented candles.”
Then select your location. Add your domain (like ikea.com) to get personalized insights. And click “Search.”
The Keyword Magic Tool will deliver a list of keyword suggestions. (In this case, over 26,000.)
For each keyword, you’ll see the intent (such as commercial, informational, or transactional), the search volume, and the keyword difficulty. It also gives you a personalized score out of 100, telling you how difficult it will be for your site to rank for that keyword.
For example, “scented candles” has a keyword difficulty of 63. But since Ikea’s website is relevant to that term, it won’t be that hard for them to rank for it. So, their personalized keyword difficulty score is 19.
You can quickly sort and filter the keyword list to identify the ones that are the best fit for your needs.
To view keywords containing specific terms, click a keyword from the left-hand list under “All keywords.”
For example, if you click “wax” on the left-hand side, it will filter the list of keywords on the right to only include keyword recommendations that also include the word “wax.”
If you find keywords that you want to target or track for your website, click the checkbox next to the keyword(s) and click “Add to keyword list.”
Follow this process to build a targeted list which informs your SEO and content strategy. So you’re targeting relevant keywords that you have a good chance of ranking for.
Pricing
You can run 10 searches per day for free. Or, if you have a Semrush subscription, you can run unlimited searches.
Keyword Strategy Builder
Keyword Strategy Builder takes keyword research one step further.
It generates keyword suggestions and groups them into relevant pillar pages (overarching pages about a wider topic) and subpages (more specific pages linking to their relative pillar pages).
What We Like
This structured approach establishes your site as an authority on important topics in your niche. Which can help you rank higher on Google.
Open the tool and enter your seed keywords. Or, create a list with your own keywords. Then click “Create list.”
It takes your seed keyword (“scented candles”) and suggests a pillar page (like “diffuser with candle”). And suggests subpages—such as “pumpkin spice diffuser.”
Now, rather than writing different content on random topics, you can build credibility by writing about relevant topics that relate to one another. This will help you rank for more keywords in your niche.
Pricing
The tool is included in every Semrush subscription.
Keyword Gap
The Keyword Gap tool shows you which keywords your competitors rank for, that you don’t.
What We Like
The tool enables you to uncover new keyword opportunities in just a few clicks.
Type in your domain and add up to four competitors. Then, hit “Compare.”
You’ll see a list of the keywords you both rank for. And your respective rankings.
For example, Adidas ranks No. 6 for the term “shoes.” Whereas Nike ranks No. 3.
Open the “Missing” tab to find keywords that your competitor ranks for, but you don’t:
Under “Weak” you’ll find keywords that your competitor outranks you for. For example, both brands rank for the query “sneakers.” But Adidas ranks significantly higher than Nike.
These insights are useful when collecting ideas for keyword opportunities. To use a keyword, check the box next to the keyword and click the button “Add to keyword list.” Then you can optimize your website or create new content to improve your ranking for these terms. And hopefully, overtake your competitor.
Pricing
The Keyword Gap tool is included in every Semrush subscription.
Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is a free tool from Google. It’s designed for researching keywords for PPC Google Ads campaigns. But you can use it to conduct keyword research for SEO, too.
What We Like
It’s an easy and free way to find keywords for your brand.
You might need to create a free Google Ads account if you don’t already have one.
Then, you can choose whether you want to “Discover new keywords” or “Get search volume and forecasts.”
Choose “Discover new keywords” to get ideas. It will give you a list of keywords and key data, such as the number of average monthly searches.
Pricing
It’s free.
Google Trends
Google Trends is a free tool from Google that lets you analyze the popularity of search queries.It gives you an idea of what people are interested in. And what they are searching for.
What We Like
It’s an effective, free way to discover trending topics and keyword opportunities.
To get started, open the tool, enter your keyword, and hit “Explore.”
Next, choose your location and time frame. To compare the search interest for several keywords, click “Add comparison.”
For example, you can check how the level of interest in different milk alternatives has changed over time.
Google gives oat milk and coconut milk a score out of 100 based on how often people search for them. And you can see how this has changed over time.
Scroll down to see the breakdown by region and related queries. Like “almond milk” and “make oat milk.”
Understanding what’s popular gives you valuable insights to guide your SEO and content strategy. So you can focus on topics people are interested in and actively searching for.
Pricing
Google Trends is completely free.
Position Tracking
Semrush’s Position Tracking is an SEO rank tracker tool. Use it to track specific keywords and your rankings for each.
What We Like
The tool makes it simple to check where your site ranks for keywords that are important to your business.
For example, if you know you want to rank for the keyword “scented candles,” you can add that keyword to your Position Tracking report and monitor where your site appears in the search engine results.
To get started, open the Position Tracking tool and enter the domain of your website. Then click “Set up tracking.”
You’ll see the “Targeting” dialogue box.
Select the “Device” and “Search Engine” that you want Semrush to use when tracking keywords. (Google and Desktop are good default options.)
Then click the text box under “Location,” and select the country or location you want to track.
Finally, click “Continue To Keywords.”
You’ll see the “Keywords” dialogue box.
Add the keywords that you want to track your website’s ranking for by typing or pasting your keywords into the text box. You can also import keywords from Semrush suggestions and other sources by clicking “Import from…”
Next, click “Start Tracking.”
Semrush will generate a new Position Tracking report.
The report shows the keywords you selected to track for your domain. You’ll see a summary of your domain’s visibility, estimated traffic, and average position for all of the provided keywords.
Scrolling down, you’ll see insights about where your site ranks, which SERP features appear, and any issues of potential cannibalization. (Cannibalization happens when two pages on your site compete for the same keywords.)
You can also track how your site is performing relative to others in your industry.
Click “Add competitors” under “Market Traffic vs Selected Domains Trends” to create a competitive analysis report. It’s about halfway down the page.
Within 24-48 hours of initial setup, the Semrush Position Tracking report will begin to update on a daily basis.
Pricing
You can track up to ten keywords for free. Or, if you have a Semrush subscription, the tool is automatically included.
Domain Overview
The Domain Overview tool from Semrush can help you check your current keywords and their rankings.
What We Like
This tool is helpful if you don’t have a list of target keywords but want to see where your site already appears. This kind of SEO keyword ranking tool is a good way to begin monitoring your progress.
Open the Domain Overview in Semrush. And scroll down to the section “Top Organic Keywords”.
Then click “View Details” to see a complete overview of all the keywords your website ranks for.
For example, the World Wildlife Fund ranks No.1 for the term “sloth.”
Knowing where you rank, and for which keywords, can help you understand how well your website is currently performing. And guide you in setting future priorities.
Pricing
You can run 10 searches for free. And the tool is automatically included in every Semrush subscription.
Google Search Console
Formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools, Google Search Console (GSC) is a free SEO tool that provides an in-depth look at your site’s SEO performance.
What We Like
It provides SEO metrics like impressions (the number of times your page appeared in the SERP), clicks, click-through rate (CTR), and average ranking.
You can look at how your website performs for specific queries or keywords, how specific pages perform for all queries, or you can blend the two. It’s also possible to integrate the data into Google Analytics.
GSC also enables you to dig into issues related to your sitemap, crawlability, indexing, and more.
Pricing
GSC is a free tool for website owners.
SerpWatch
SerpWatch is an SEO rank checker tool. You can use it to track where you rank for individual keywords.
What We Like
It automatically notifies you of changes in rankings. And if you manage to bag any SERP features, like the featured snippets, it will let you know in real time.
It includes competitor tracking and you can use it to track your and their rankings in different countries.
It also creates ROI reports for you based on keyword value.
Pricing
- Starter: Perform up to 7,500 keyword checks per month and access basic tracking tools for $29/mont
- Growth: Conduct up to 22,500 keyword checks each month, benefiting from enhanced tracking and multiple project management for $59/month
- Premium: Enjoy up to 75,000 keyword checks per month, advanced tracking, unlimited project setup, and premium support for $199/month
Here are some of the best tools you can use to improve your SEO performance:
- On Page SEO Checker
- Site Audit
- Screaming Frog
- Majestic
- Yoast
On Page SEO Checker
Semrush’s On Page SEO Checker gives you ideas to improve your website and boost your rankings. These ideas can be related to:
- Strategy
- Backlinks
- User experience
- Technical SEO
- SERP features
- Content
- Semantics
What We Like
The tool makes it easy to get a bunch of ideas on how to improve your on-page SEO.
Just enter your domain and hit “Get ideas.”
You’ll receive a report with a list of the top pages to optimize, in order of priority. To get the ideas, click the blue button.
For example, the tool has five suggestions on how Sewport could improve their page about “alpaca wool fabric.”
The recommendations include avoiding keyword stuffing, making the text content more readable, providing a more relevant meta description, and earning more backlinks.
Following these tips can help improve your rankings for that page.
Pricing
The Semrush On Page SEO checker is free. It’s also included as standard with every Semrush subscription.
Site Audit
Semrush’s Site Audit tool crawls your site, looking for 140+ technical SEO issues. The report provides a snapshot of your website’s health, based on factors like site speed. Which have a direct impact on your rankings.
What We Like
It’s easy to run a report and see where your website needs to improve.
To get started, type in the URL and click “Start Audit.”
You’ll see the “Site Audit Settings” dialogue box.
Choose the “Limit of checked pages” you want to include in your audit. Click “Start Site Audit.”
Now the Site Audit crawlbot will crawl the pages, content, images, and links on your website.
When it’s finished, you’ll receive a report that includes a list of “Top Issues.”
Click the number in the “Number of issues” column to open a list of the SEO errors or issues discovered in that category.
Repeat this for all rows in the “Top Issues” menu to dig deeper into each of the SEO issues found during the audit. For each you will see detailed information on how to address or fix the problem.
Identifying and fixing errors can help significantly boost your rankings. Because Google and users prefer sites that are fast, and function as expected.
Pricing
The Semrush Site Audit tool is free. It’s also included as standard with every Semrush subscription.
Screaming Frog
The Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a website crawler for technical SEO audits. It can help you spot and fix issues that affect your rankings.
What We Like
You can use it to find broken links, analyze page titles and meta descriptions, and review redirects.
Just enter your domain. The spider will crawl your site and its pages.
Pricing
- Free Version: Crawl up to 500 URLs with basic features for small projects
- Paid Version: Access unlimited URL crawling, advanced features, and premium support for $259/year
Majestic
Majestic is mainly a backlink checker and link building platform. It helps you find out which sites link to your website and to competitors. This can give you ideas for obtaining new backlinks. Which can help boost your rankings.
What We Like
The “Summary” dashboard tells you how many sites and pages point to your site. It also gives you a trust flow score. This can help you understand how authoritative your site is based on the number of backlinks.
Majestic gives you a detailed breakdown of your backlinks.
And it shows you the exact anchor text where your site is mentioned. So you can see exactly when and how other sites are linking to yours.
These insights can help shape your link building efforts. Which can have a positive effect on your rankings.
Pricing
Majestic offers three pricing plans:
- Lite: For audits and small sites, this option includes key tools like Site Explorer, Keyword Generator, Backlink Checker. It costs $49.99/month.
- Pro: Includes everything in Lite plus a few extra features like raw data exports and custom reports for $99.99/month
- API: Includes everything in Pro, plus full API access for $399.99/month
Yoast
Yoast is a popular WordPress and Shopify plugin. It integrates directly with your CMS (and Semrush) to provide a foundation for your site’s SEO.
What We Like
You can use Yoast to create metadata (like titles and descriptions) for your pages. This affects what your site looks like in the results:
Improving your title and description can make your site’s pages look appealing to search engine users.
With the premium version of Yoast, you can tap into AI-generated recommendations to create SEO-optimized meta titles and descriptions faster.
Pricing
- Free Version: Access essential SEO features like basic keyword optimization and on-page analysis
- Yoast Premium: Unlock advanced features such as AI-generated SEO titles, multiple keyword optimization, automatic redirects, internal linking suggestions, and 24/7 support for $99/year
Can I Do SEO by Myself?
Absolutely. While there’s a lot to learn about the world of SEO, having the right tools and resources makes it possible for almost anyone to have a meaningful impact on their site’s organic rankings and search visibility.
Do I Need Technical Knowledge to Use SEO Ranking Tools?
No. While some technical knowledge can be beneficial, many SEO tools are designed to be user friendly and provide easy-to-understand insights. Most tools offer tutorials and customer support to help users understand and effectively use their features.
But keep in mind that some tools are geared toward more advanced users and will require a stronger foundation of SEO knowledge.
Do SEO Ranking Tools Guarantee Higher Search Rankings?
No. SEO tools can provide insights to help optimize your website, but they can’t guarantee higher rankings. Success in SEO depends on many factors—including the quality of your content, your site’s user experience, and the competitiveness of your industry.
Beware of any tool that makes outlandish promises about your search rankings.
What Type of SEO Tools Do I Need to Rank in Google?
You don’t technically need any special tools to rank in Google. But most marketers and SEO professionals use a range of tools to help them analyze and improve their search performance.
These tools can be categorized as keyword research tools, SEO rank tracking tools, and ranking improvement (or SEO audit and analysis) tools.
Platforms like Semrush provide a comprehensive suite that includes all of these tools and more.
