There is no shortage of SEO software for agencies.
So, how should digital marketing agencies decide what’s the bang for your buck?
Good news. I’ve invested thousands of dollars into Search Engine Optimization tools, so you don’t have to.
Here are the best paid and free SEO tools I use almost every day in our SEO campaigns to rank higher in search results:
| Tool | Use Cases |
|---|---|
| 1. Semrush | Keyword Research, Backlink Analysis, Site Audits, Local SEO |
| 2. Ahrefs | Keyword Research, Backlink Analysis, Site Audits |
| 3. Rankability | Keyword Research, On-Page SEO, SEO Content Creation |
| 4. ChatGPT | Data Science, Coding |
| 5. Detailed | Basic On-Page SEO |
| 6. Screaming Frog | Site Audits |
| 7. Google Suite of Tools | Project Management, Analytics, Teamwork, Marketing, Sales, Fulfillment |
| 8. Hemingway Editor | Content Editing |
| 9. Grammarly | Content Editing |
| 10. Siteliner | Find Duplicate Content |
| 11. SEOTesting.com | SEO Split Testing |
| 12. Hunter | Link Outreach, Sales Prospecting |
| 13. Agency Analytics | Reporting and Analytics |
I use Semrush daily in my agency because it’s a ridiculously powerful SEO platform (when you know how to use it).
Semrush has a wide range of keyword research tools, but here are two of my favorite techniques:
Go to Organic Research and enter your domain:
Click the Position filter and enter 2-15 for the keyword rankings:
Then click the Keyword Difficulty filter and start with “Very Easy:”
At this point, you’ll have a nice list of keywords that you can formulate an SEO strategy for.
And this is just scratching the surface of what’s possible with Semrush’s Keyword Tool.
Now let me show you two techniques for SEO competitor analysis:
Go to the Keyword Gap tool, enter 1-3 of your top competitors, and start the analysis.
Focus on “Untapped” keywords with low difficulty.
These keywords will be your quickest wins:
Semrush also has many different backlink analysis tools, but gap analysis is my favorite for competitor research. It functions similarly to the keyword gap tool, except enter your competitors into the Backlink Gap tool.
Now, you’ll have access to all their placements and backlink profile. The next step is to study how they acquired these links.
In most cases, the backlink checker allows you to see the types of web pages attracting these backlinks. Then, you use these proven frameworks to create something different, better, or more up-to-date.
You can also check out Semrush’s backlink analytics tool and site audit for deeper insights.
Semrush is one of the top SEO tools, but remember that it has a learning curve. Be patient and use it to its fullest extent.
Check out my free SEO training series on the Semrush YouTube channel.
Ahrefs used to be my go-to recommendation, but they’ve made some questionable pricing decisions recently. It’s not just my opinion either.
The market has responded:
It’s still one of the best agency SEO tools, but it’ll cost you an arm and leg if you’re an above-average user.
That said, my agency pays for both Semrush and Ahrefs because our students within Gotch SEO Academy use one or the other.
One of my favorite Ahrefs features is the “Lowest DR” filter in the Keyword Explorer.
You can use this filter to identify keywords where weak competitors are ranking:
One of the biggest ranking factors is overall website authority. So, any keyword with a lower authority website ranking is one worth pursuing.
Ahrefs also has a strong backlink analysis tool, a content explorer, and many other great features.
Note: Moz Pro is the third biggest player aside from Semrush and Ahrefs. But I don’t personally use it (or recommend it) after the departure of Rand Fishkin.
They have a decent Site Explorer tool that analyzes any website’s backlink profile, so it might be worth checking out.
Everyone and their mother has a content optimization tool these days.
However, Rankability is an entirely different animal.
It uses the latest NLP technology by blending Google’s NLP, IBM Watson, and Open AI to achieve the most relevant SEO recommendations imaginable.
Here’s a few things that it can do:
Rankability guides you through a two-part process.
First, you’ll create the SEO content brief.
A “brief” is what a copywriter will use to craft your SEO content. It is CRITICAL and the single reason people waste money on bad content.
In short, a strong content brief sets the writer up for success. While a bad brief almost guarantees failure. In the context of Rankability, you have two choices.
First, you can manually enter the details into each field:
Or, you can click the AI button to fill the fields automatically. Then, you can tweak it to your liking.
Once you’ve completed the SEO content brief 100%, you need to create an outline based on the NLP keywords.
Once again, you can manually create this outline:
Or, click the AI button, and it’ll automatically create an outline that’s already optimized for NLP:
Now, share this link with your copywriter, and they can create the SEO content within the Optimizer (keeping NLP in mind).
On the right-hand side of the optimizer, you’ll see actionable insights for optimizing the content for NLP.
Use these NLP keywords as topics, creating something super relevant and comprehensive.
The last thing that stands out about Rankability is its customer support.
Every Wednesday, I lead our Rankability Mastermind call to help every member get the most out of the tool.
Get started with Rankability here.
No SEO tool stack is complete without ChatGPT. This is one of the most revolutionary and powerful tools that have come onto the market in the last decade.
Sadly, most people use it for pointless activities and only tap into 1% of its capabilities.
My favorite SEO use case is turning it into a data scientist.
I created a blog post about “Are H1 tags a Google ranking factor?” it was 100% possible because of ChatGPT’s data science capabilities.
In short, I collected SERP data across many keywords and input it into ChatGPT. It then analyzed the data set and helped me reach a conclusion that answered this specific question.
There are countless ways to leverage ChatGPT in your SEO and marketing campaigns. Watch this video for more techniques:
I wrote an extensive guide on how to use the Detailed SEO extension, but I use it daily. It’s not designed to be a comprehensive SEO solution, but it’s perfect for analyzing basic SEO issues at a glance.
For example, you can quickly see if a keyword is in the title, meta description, and headings.
You can also quickly analyze any website’s sitemap and robot.txt files.
Screaming Frog is the ultimate website audit tool because it allows you to crawl any website to identify technical and content opportunities.
Here’s how to use it for SEO audits:
Connect the Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google PageSpeed Insights, and Ahrefs APIs and run the crawl.
Now, you can find hundreds of SEO opportunities by doing this, but here are four high-impact opportunities to look for:
Go to the “Crawl Depth” column and look for pages that are more than three clicks deep into the site architecture.
You’ll need to move those pages further into the architecture so Google can crawl and index them more easily.
Go to the Unique Inlinks section and look for pages that have less than five internal links.
These are pages that you should look to build internal links from other relevant pages on your website.
If no other relevant pages exist, this indicates that you need more topically relevant SEO content.
Go to the “Engagement Rate” column, which is data that comes from Google Analytics 4.
In short, this metric tells you how well users engage with your content.
If it’s low, you know there’s room to improve the page. In general, poor UX will likely lead to poor SEO performance.
Any page with zero impressions and clicks from Google Search Console, zero traffic from Google Analytics, and zero backlinks from Ahrefs should be labeled poor performance.
You’ll need to do an SEO analysis on these pages and act on them. There are only a few options:
This is the best option if the content is thin, outdated, or low-quality.
Maybe the page hasn’t gotten the love it deserves.
So go back to the drawing board, rebuild it, and republish it.
This is a good option when the page targets a keyword but hasn’t performed well.
Sometimes, you’ll find keyword cannibalization when more than two or more pages target the same keyword phrase.
In this case, you should consolidate assets and 301 redirect the competing assets so Google understands what page you want to rank.
Another situation for consolidation is when you’re dealing with many thin assets.
It might make more sense to consolidate these assets into a super asset.
To fulfill our SEO services in our agency, we use the following Google products:
I promise I’m not being a troll here. But Google’s search engine results are one of the best tools because you can see (in real time) what’s working.
My SEO team analyzes countless search results daily to monitor SERP changes. You and your team should do the same.
It’s the gold standard of local SEO, but it’s also a beautiful way to prove the value of your products and services through reviews.
The best calendar app for organizing your day, sales calendars, and every business activity. I live by the philosophy that it isn’t real if it’s not on the calendar.
It integrates with many other Google products and is critical for meeting with sales, product, and marketing teams.
An accessible company phone number increases trust and is a powerful sales tool.
The best tool for analyzing website traffic.
The best way to consolidate all your tracking codes and pixels into a single snippet of code.
Analyze SEO data, identify technical SEO opportunities, and keep a pulse on the health of your website. You can also track rankings, but it’s not super accurate.
I recommend a dedicated rank tracker for better accuracy.
Another Google tool you need in your arsenal if you’re handling Google Ads. It’ll show you search volume and CPC data so you can make educated ROI decisions.
My agency’s SEO systems are built within Google Sheets and Docs because it’s the most accessible and easy-to-use option for my team. It’s all on the cloud, so we don’t need to share new files whenever a change is made.
Instead, we can make real-time changes reflected in the documents.
You can manage all of your SEO tasks just by using Google’s free suite of tools. However, we do use Asana for more efficient project management.
A free tool for building SEO proposals and pitch decks. It’s solid if you’re starting, but I use Canva now for all deck-related activities because it’s more robust in design capabilities.
I find myself using their LLM when I’m unsatisfied with the outputs from ChatGPT.
For example, I will create a headline and work with both tools to brainstorm and develop even better options.
ChatGPT and Gemini spit out different outputs, so using both can give you a nice blend of unique ideas when developing a content marketing strategy.
Another Google product worth considering is Google Studio, one of the best reporting tools for agencies.
It’s great if you’re trying to build SEO dashboards, want to keep expenses to a minimum, and are willing to invest time into setting it up.
Otherwise, a much better option is easier and faster than I will share later in this list.
I recommend editing your SEO content strategy and content creation with Hemingway Editor to take it to the next level.
This tool will force you to make your content leaner and easier to read. I use it to write everything, including blog posts, social media content, and YouTube scripts.
Once I’ve edited my SEO content, I run it through Grammarly to elevate the writing.
But be careful because Grammarly can sometimes make recommendations that dilute your content.
For example, it may ask, “Do you want to sound more diplomatic?”
You don’t want your content to be bland. You want to take a stand because being in the middle is the death zone.
For better or for worse, society craves polarizing ideas.
Siteliner is a technical SEO tool that should be in your arsenal. It’s a simple tool that shows you which pages on your website suffer from duplicate content.
You’ll then need to work on these pages and make them unique.
The good news is that you don’t need to guess what works in SEO. Instead, you can document and test your actions to improve your search engine rankings.
That’s when SEO agency software like SEOTesting.com comes into play.
For example, I wanted to improve rankings for the keyword “SEO for roofers.”
So, I upgraded the landing page and then ran a test with SEO
Testing to see if my actions produced outcomes.
Based on the data, I increased organic clicks by 627.27%.
Hunter is one of my favorite SEO and marketing tools. I use it for various activities, such as content promotion, link outreach, and sales prospecting.
Many outreach tools exist, but I love Hunter’s minimalist vibe.
Plus, it’s a great way to find and validate contact information at scale. If you’re contemplating link-building tools, Hunter is worth consideration.
Many SEO reporting tools exist, but Agency Analytics is my #1 recommendation.
It’s made SEO reporting 10x easier because it integrates APIs for Google Analytics, Google Search Console, almost every SEO tool, such as Semrush and Ahrefs, and almost every platform you need.
It’s a much better alternative to Google Data Studio, which requires a lot of time and effort to set up all these data sources.
One of Agency Analytics’s key features is its super-accurate built-in rank tracker.
Once you’ve integrated all your tools into the platform, you’ll have a nice white-label reporting dashboard for your clients.
It is a pretty big investment, but it is worth it compared to the complexity of building your reporting dashboard or SEO reports from scratch.
Digital agencies have an abundance of options when it comes to SEO agency tools.
But here’s the deal: a tool is only as good as the system and person using it.
Think about it from a different context, like losing weight. You can take supplements, but they’ll be ineffective without systems for nutrition and consistent exercise.
So, you build the systems first and then use the tools (supplements) to improve your performance.
If your agency systems are lacking, you’re missing out on growth. The good news is that you can fix it by enrolling in Gotch SEO Academy.
We help agencies scale through proven systems.
Some honorable mentions I don’t use are SERanking (a rank-tracking tool) and Surfer SEO (an AI writer).
