[Revised and updated, including pricing updates, on November 1, 2022.]
SEO comes in many shapes and disciplines, from local and international to content and technical SEO. Whatever branch you're on, having the right set of SEO resources and tools is vital to be successful.
Guided by your resources, toolkit, and creativity, SEO works by using keywords, links, and other important SEO components to create a holistic strategy that (hopefully) gets your webpages on the first page of search engine results. For example, certain tools enable us to harvest keyword data for information architecture and content ideation. Other tools help us understand search trends and digital market intelligence to identify target audiences and new market opportunities.
Specialized SEO matters call for a specialized SEO toolkit. We’ve compiled this definitive list of SEO resources, tools, and skills along with our own expert insights to help you actualize your SEO endeavors. We’ve also included the pricing for each SEO tool listed. Please note: some tools marked as FREE are either FREE forever, have limited-time FREE trials, or offer premium upgrades.
Yes, you absolutely can learn SEO on your own for free as long as you’re willing to put the time into the following educational resources:
Moz:Moz is a FREE SEO educational resource about all things inbound marketing: search, social, content, and brand marketing for SEO. Start with the Beginner’s Guide to SEO to learn everything from metadata/title tags to CTR, structured data, and the core ranking factors that make up the Google Algorithm.
Ahrefs: Another great SEO tool, the Ahrefs blog specializes in backlink building strategies, advanced SEO techniques, eCommerce insights, audits for finding broken links, content marketing, plus some general digital marketing & SEO tips.
Google Developer's Blog: Powered by the best search engine in the world, the Google Developer's Blog is a resource for website admins and managers, and an SEO guide hub designed to help you understand how it all works. Find all their guidelines here.
YouTube Channels: Yep, YouTube has a lot of great channels dedicated to SEO, and at all stages and functions. In addition to Moz and Ahrefs, which each have their own channels, we like RustyBrick (Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable) for SEO news and community happenings. Also, stay up to speed with Gray Dot's channel where we share our Opinionated SEO Opinions™ webseries.
LearningSEO.io: A guided and organized way to learn SEO, LearningSEO.io is framed mostly from the lens of entry-level SEO marketers who are looking to grow their skills and potentially specialize. There are multiple resources and tools available in each of the levels (from the amazing Aleyda Solis.)
Semrush Academy: This is a free SEO educational resource, with lots of SEO courses. Beginners should start with this SEO Fundamentals Course with Greg Gifford.
Mongools SEO Course: A free and thorough guide on SEO practices that’s very well organized, easy to understand, and beginner friendly.
The Gray Dot Company Blog: Our blog offers actionable internet marketing strategies and tips for intermediate to advanced SEOs and business owners. It’s a pretty good place to accelerate your SEO education if we do say so ourselves.
Given the variety of components that go into SEO, there are many different tools that handle various specific functions. Some SEO tools are very precise and specialized, whereas others check nearly all boxes and offer everything you need. Some are completely FREE, some you can buy for a one-time fee, and others require a recurring subscription fee.
Here’s a breakdown of some of the best SEO tools by category and function, including how much they cost, some of our favorite choices, and additional resources for learning and education.
All-in-One SEO Tools
Several tools act as "SEO Tool Suites" in that they offer the functionality of multiple tools in one. You likely want to pick one of these options to start, and layer on other, more specific tools, as they fit the needs unique to your business. Each has its own unique strengths and target audience (e.g. the best starter tool for a small in-house team will be a LOT different from the tool needed for a more advanced agency.)
Ahrefs:Ahrefs is the Swiss Army knife of SEO - most professionals use it for full-scale automation including everything from research to rank tracking to site audits. You’ll see it pop up again a few more times on this list, that’s how valuable it is. (Starting at $99 per month)
Semrush:Semrush is popular for large and small businesses. One standout feature is their competitor research, which helps you see how your SEO marketing measures up by comparison. (FREE tool with Pro features starting at $119.95 per month)
Moz: For in-house teams getting started with SEO, or who just need solid, simple, ongoing monitoring - Moz should be your SEO go-to. They have easy-to-use tools, a starter guide, guidance on blogging, tons of webinars, infographics and case studies, and more. (Starting at $99 per month)
BrightEdge: Another SEO powerhouse, BrightEdge also builds their own data on search algorithm changes into their tool so they’re always up to date on best practices. (Custom pricing.)
Ryte:Ryte has three main tools within its suite: Website Success, Search Success, and Content Success. They’re all pretty self-explanatory and robust when you use them together. (Starting at $99 per month)
Conductor:Conductor combines enterprise SEO and content marketing tools in one platform along with data migration, partner ecosystems, and other desirable enterprise solutions. (Starting at $1,995 per month for small business websites)
Keyword Research Tools
Keyword research tools are some of the most fundamental SEO resources in gathering search data, trends, and interests. They often help you understand keyword difficulty and the level of competition (i.e. how hard it is to rank at the top of results) and ultimately discover what related keywords you can choose to target.
Google Ads Keyword Planner: The Google Ads Keyword Planner helps you research and plan out keywords using their highly valuable search volume data. (FREE tool if - and only if - you have an active Ads account)
Ahrefs: Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer performs SEO content audits to find gaps in your keyword targeting and suggest new opportunities. (Starting at $99 per month)
AnswerThePublic: Discover great questions, propositions, comparisons, and more via Answer The Public. (FREE tool)
AlsoAsked: A fantastic supplement to other keyword research tools, AlsoAsked provides keyword ideas extracted from Google’s “People Also Ask” box, helping you understand the questions that people are searching for around a given topic. (Pricing starts at $15 per month)
Neural Text: This is a great tool for keyword research and content brief creation. Neural Text uses NLP (Natural Language Processing) to generate relevant keywords and content ideas. (Starts at $19 per month)
Google Trends: When historical keyword data won't cut it, Google Trends can tell you what keywords are spiking in interest. (FREE tool)
Pinterest Trends: Learn what people on Pinterest care about today with Pinterest Trends. (FREE tool)
For strategic insights involving keyword research, see these related blog posts and resources:
Ensuring your content is properly keyword optimized is equal parts art and science. There are both structural and technical components to take into consideration (e.g. content, headers, and links) as well as creative and usability elements (e.g. copy, media, and UX).
Keyword optimization tools take your on-site SEO capabilities to the next level, as they help you see how popular keywords are, how competitive they are, and how to find new supporting keywords to complement your target ones - as well as find the best placement for them all.
Ubersuggest: Ubersuggest gives you keyword suggestions based on a domain or a target keyword you already have in mind and provides analytics such as authority, organic monthly traffic, and backlinks. (FREE tool)
Clearscope: Clearscope grades your copy compared to other top search results for that keyword and provides suggestions for other topics or keywords your content is missing. (Starting at $170 per month)
Market Muse: Compares your content with competing content that’s currently ranking at the top for your target keywords. Market Muse will provide suggestions on how to optimize to rank better for target keywords. (FREE plan for up to 15 reports per month)
Surfer SEO: Analyze everything your competitor is doing to rank better on a particular keyword and see recommendations on how to improve your ranking. Surfer SEO also has a multi-keyword option that enables you to learn how to rank for multiple keywords with a single content. (Starts at $49 per month)
For more content about keyword optimization, see related SEO resources on this subject:
Technical SEO refers to the more complex, behind-the-scenes strategies that are just as important for rankings as content and links. Tech SEO is fundamental in enabling search engine algorithm bots to crawl and understand the content and context of every webpage.
Screaming Frog: Screaming Frog is a website crawler tool that helps users find areas for improvement within their onsite technical SEO. (FREE tool)
Sitebulb: Sitebulb pairs actionable recommendations with beautiful visuals for all you visual learners out there. It also offers compelling non-SEO reports you won’t see in other tools, e.g. web security issues. We're SUPER fans of Sitebulb! (Starting at $13.50 per month for lite users)
DeepCrawl:DeepCrawl is the enterprise-level version of the two previously mentioned technical SEO tools; it’s a cloud-based tool vs. a desktop one. If you have a large website (10k plus pages) strongly consider DeepCrawl. (Starting at $81.50 per month)
Oncrawl: One of the most robust technical and data SEO crawlers and log analyzer tools that uses machine learning to help you make intelligent SEO decisions. Oncrawl offers a free trial but entry-level packages start at about 49 euro per month)
Botify: A true enterprise SEO tool that's like search console on steroids, helping you analyze, troubleshoot, and strategize all under one platform. To say Botify is comprehensive would be an understatement. (Starting at $19 per user per month).
Netpeak Spider:Netpeak Spider is a desktop website crawling tool for quick issue checks, tech SEO analysis, and website scraping to boost search visibility and traffic growth. It prepares visual & interactive SEO reports with detailed issue info, organized by item priority. (Starting at $19 per month)
Google Search Console: Use GSC's tool for 1st party data about crawling, indexation, site errors, etc. Submit your XML sitemap for clearer monitoring of the indexation of your priority URLs.
Explore these related technical SEO resources and blog posts:
These tools help you analyze your links and your competitor’s backlinks to come up with suggestions that will help improve your search engine rankings.
Semrush: Semrush is our go-to tool for backlink SEO audits - especially if you are concerned about link spam. (FREE tool with Pro features starting at $119.95 per month)
Ahrefs: Ahrefs shows you a comprehensive view of followed versus unfollowed links across your entire website so you can double down on what's working, and investigate which link sources your competitors are benefiting from. (Starting at $99 per month)
Keyword and SERP Rank Tracking Tools
Rank tracking tools provide reporting on the performance of all your chosen keywords and the webpages they live on.
Ahrefs:Ahrefs‘ Rank Tracker will track your website performance and send you updates on a regular basis so you can always monitor performance. (Starting at $99 per month)
Majestic: This tool is 100% focused on backlinks, analyzes every detail in a site’s backlink profile, and gives you actionable link building insights. (Pricing starting at $49 per month)
Google Search Console: Google Search Console helps you monitor and analyze search engine traffic across all active web pages so you can improve website visibility for targeted keywords. (FREE tool)
STAT: A more enterprise-friendly option, STAT has powerful tracking, filtering & ranking data for larger scale tracking projects. (Starting at $720 per month)
Sistrix:Sistrix offers robust daily rank tracking functionality for large keyword sets. It includes competitive and historical data. (Starts at £90 per month)
When it comes to rank tracking and monitoring performance, you might find these SEO resources useful:
Smaller image files with keyword-optimized titles, descriptions, and ALT text can help with search engine rankings and visibility. Additionally, great design can help your content get discovered on visual mediums like Pinterest or Instagram, which is also great for SEO.
Canva: Canva is a drag-and-drop design tool you can use to edit photos or create attractive click-worthy graphics. (FREE tool with paid upgrade options)
Yoast:Yoast is a WordPress Plugin and a great all-around tool for taking care of all the little image editing steps most business owners don’t take, including proper scaling, alt text, and XML image sitemaps. (Free version, plus a paid version starting at $99 per year)
Content Editing and Optimization Tools
Content editing tools help boost your SEO-friendliness by improving readability, engagement, and upping the quality of the writing itself. When it comes to editing the content you plan to publish, you need to consider issues like spelling, character count, and readability.
Semrush: Semrush has an SEO Writing Assistant tool that gives recommendations for keyword placement and SEO-friendliness. (A FREE SEO tool that's available outside of their paid SEO tool suite)
Hemingway:Hemingway makes edit suggestions for common errors like hyphenation and offers a reading level score which is important for SEO. (FREE tool)
HTML Tidy: HTML Tidy is a markup tool that compresses your content draft into a source code you can embed into your website to speed up page loading times. (FREE tool)
Grammarly: Grammarly (beloved tool of bloggers and customer service reps alike) offers editing suggestions right within documents to help you produce error-free copy. (FREE tool with a paid upgrade option)
Quetext: Quetext detects plagiarism and can be used to make sure you’re not publishing duplicate content or pitting your own webpages against one another for certain keyword rankings. (FREE tool with a paid upgrade option)
Online Character Counter Tool: Online Character Counter Tool lets you see how many characters your titles and headline contain so you can follow best SEO practices. (FREE tool)
Ayima: Ayima is a Chrome extension that gives you full insight into common on-page SEO issues that may be harming your rankings. (FREE tool)
We also recommend checking out these content-related SEO resources that we’ve published on our blog:
Analytics, Competitive and Customer Research Tools
Knowing what your competitors are targeting will help you better understand what’s achievable and approximately how long it will take to see results. Competitor data also allows you to focus on keywords in your niche that they don’t yet have a monopoly on or other terms they haven’t yet gone after. You can also measure your site’s rankings against theirs to help strategically plan your next SEO campaign.
Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a must-have because it tracks every single detail of your website visitors and how they behave. (FREE tool)
Google Search Console: Google Search Console helps you view your website’s traffic and performance so you track and fix issues in real-time. (FREE tool)
Bing Webmaster Tools: Bing Webmaster Toolsoffers a Dashboard, reporting tools, diagnostic tools, and instant notifications for key site changes. (FREE tool)
SparkToro: A customer insights tool, SparkToro offers market research and intelligence through AI tools that comb the internet for your target audience’s hangouts across websites, podcasts, and more. (Starting at $150 per month)
SpyFu:SpyFu is a competitive analysis tool that allows you to dig into what your competitors are doing online. It's also great for PPC research. (Starting at $39 per month)
For more actionable insights and resources for analytics and research, see these related posts:
Analyzing your website's log files will help you understand what search engine bots are actually doing when they crawl your site - what errors they see at what frequency, what crawl traps they may hit, and where they spend the most time (for better or worse!) Ensure your website is SEO-friendly with these tools.
Log File Analyser: Another great tool from Screaming Frog. (FREE tool with a paid upgrade option)
JetOctopus:JetOctopus offers some really interesting, out-of-the-box log file analysis dashboards I've not seen in other tools. (Starting at 20 euros a month)
Seolyzer: Seolyzer is an easy, free-to-use crawler and log file analyzer tool that helps you analyze how Google is crawling your website. (Free)
Because log file analysis is an integral component of internal linking and auditing, we also recommend checking out:
Ensuring a great user experience - with fast page loading times - across all devices is critical to users, and it's of increasing importance to search rankings. Fringing on aspects of technical SEO, these resources can help you evaluate and improve site speed performance.
GTMetrix: GTMetrix is all about measuring page speed and performance but it will also show you a PageSpeed score and a YSlow score side-by-side. The platform gets into highly technical insights but provides drop-down menus with further explanation options for each of their many analysis categories. (FREE tool with paid upgrade options)
PageSpeed Insights: PageSpeed Insights, brought to us by Google, offers suggestions for improvement on the backend technical side of your website and the user experience side too.(FREE tool)
Lighthouse:Lighthouse (also from Google) automates the performance analysis of your website and is the Chrome extension equivalent of PageSpeed Insights. (FREE tool)
GSC's Core Web Vitals Dashboard: Core Web Vitals offers a site-level view of the PageSpeed Insights tool’s page-level data. (FREE tool)
Speetals: Speetals is a handy website performance tool that tracks Core Web Vitals and other speed-specific metrics, all under one dashboard. (FREE tool with a Basic plan starting at $36 per month)
Also, consider these related blog posts that discuss page speed and UX-related topics:
SEO changes are notoriously hard to quantify and forecast. If this data is critical to getting your SEO changes implemented, these tools can help you collect it.
UserTesting: UserTesting.com allows you to run real people through targeted actions on your website (or mockups) so you can spot hiccups in messaging, functionality, and more. (Custom pricing, but a rough estimate is $49 per video)
SearchPilot: SearchPilot is an A/B testing tool built specifically for SEO testing. (Custom pricing; last I checked it was ~$3,000+ per month and includes testing support and guidance.)
RankScience: Use data science to guide SEO decisions with RankScience. (Starting at $295 per month)
SEOTesting.com: A significant part of the SEO process is experimentation and making adjustments. However, most SEOs struggle in effectively tracking those changes to know what's working (and what's not.) SEOTesting.com is a powerful tool that allows you to track the performance of page changes and know with confidence what's driving your SEO gains. (Single site pricing starts at $40/month)
For related reading about testing, check out these SEO resources:
If you’ve ever broken something on your website and seen a drop in organic traffic, you know how important SEO website monitoring is. After all, it’s hard to focus on growing organic traffic when you are actively losing it! These monitoring tools can quickly notify you when things go off the rails, so you can fix it before Google notices.
JavaScript SEO can be a lot to manage, particularly when auditing and solving JS issues that commonly plague site's SEO. Here are a few tools and resources we use for JS SEO.
Wappalyzer: As a simple Chrome extension, Wappalyzer provides an instant view into a site’s tech stack, helping jump-start the JS auditing process. (Plans start at $149 per month.)
View Rendered Source for Chrome: A simple yet powerful (and free) browser extension, View Rendered Source allows you to see all of the code rendered into readable HTML side-by-side with non-rendered HTML, providing an efficient comparison view to troubleshoot problems.
Google's Mobile-Friendly Tool: This free resource allows you to see Googlebot-rendered HTML, JS, CSS, etc. by viewing the HTML tab of the specific URL you're testing. In turn, you can use the Mobile-Friendly Tool to identify what Googlebot can and cannot see, enabling you to find errors that could be hindering your SEO.
NoJS Side-by-Side: A simple bookmarklet designed for easy auditing, NoJS Side-by-Side displays a URL with and without JavaScript (within the current window) in a side-by-side fashion. (The bookmarklet code is available for free).
With so much that goes into JavaScript SEO, this is one topic that we’ve covered on our blog from multiple angles. For extended reading, check out these JS SEO resources:
Local SEO tools can support everything from listing management, NAP consistency/corrections, and rating/review management, to maximize your local presence in organic results.
Moz Local: Local is separate from Moz’s traditional SEO suite and helps ensure listing consistency. (Starting at $14 per month)
BrightLocal: Get help building local citations & managing those profiles with BrightLocal. (Starting at $14 per month)
Uberall: One of the most advanced, AI-backed suites for the optimization and management of local listings, reviews, and social – all under one roof. Uberall plans are customized based on the user's requirements.
Yext: Yext is generally considered the go-to for NAP (name, address, place) listing consistency. (Starting at $4 per week, or $199 per year)
TribeLocal: I’ve personally had good luck with using TribeLocal for NAP consistency work. (Starting at $29 per month, but they offer stand-alone citation packages as well)
Whitespark: As a longstanding powerhouse among local SEO tools, Whitespark is a trusted platform that can be used to find local citations, track local rankings, and manage and grow reviews. (Pricing is broken down by each individual tool Whitespark offers. Rank Tracker starts at $17 per month for weekly tracking; Citation Finder starts at $39 per month; Reputation Builder starts at $79 per month per location.)
Also, have a look at these local SEO templates and resources for auditing and optimization strategy.
Mobile SEO Tools
It’s a Mobile-First world, ya’ll. Make sure your mobile web design is comparable with desktop, loads quickly, and provides a great user experience.
Mobile-Friendly Test: Google's Mobile-Friendly Test can tell you if/when a particular page on your website has mobile design issues, and if/when they happen, what's wrong. (BONUS: the HTML this tool generates Googlebot-rendered, meaning that you can use it to see exactly how Google processes the HTML, JavaScript, and CSS of your website, and therefore what they have access to. (FREE tool)
Experte's Mobile-Friendly Test: When Google’s testing tool (and its 1-page-at-a-time limitation) isn’t cutting it, the Bulk Mobile Friendly tool is here to help. Batch check up to 500 URLs at a time, based on a URL list or a site crawl. (Experte also offers bulk Page Speed and Accessibility testing tools that are worth checking out!) (FREE tool)
Hreflang is notoriously finicky to get right. These QA tools can help you ensure you've done it correctly.
hreflang Testing Tool: Merkle's TechnicalSEO.com offers several cool SEO tools, our favorite of which is the hreflang tester. (FREE tool)
Hreflang Generator: If you need to create the hreflang code in the first place, international SEO-expert Alyeda Solis offers an hreflang generation tool. (FREE tool)
We’ve also published a handful of blog posts on International SEO. Here are a few worth checking out:
Schema.org's Validation Tool: Schema.org opted to utilize & maintain the old Google tool. Yes, it's back in action!
What Other Educational SEO Resources Should I Read and Follow?
Sometimes the best SEO resources are not necessarily tools but the community and people you surround yourself with (even digitally based on those you follow online). Here’s a collection of educational SEO resources, ranging from blogs, authority figures, newsletters, and more.
SEO Blogs and Tech News
Subscribe to these online marketing newsletters to keep up with their new content or check back regularly to stay up to date on this ever-evolving field.
The Onely Blog: The Onely Blog is great for the latest in JavaScript and Rendering SEO. This is not your SEO basics blog!
Foundation's Blog: The Lab is a fantastic resource for B2B case studies, content marketing & distribution advice, and more. Great advice and frameworks here for most startups to start getting smarter and more scalable.
Amsive Insights: Research, insights and advice from a top-tier enterprise SEO team.
Sparktoro's "Marketing Front Page": Discover all the articles that top SEO professionals are discussing across the web, today. It's today's Front Page of the Web Marketing World.
Learn from other SEO experts in these virtual water cooler forums.
Women in Tech SEO: Women in Tech SEO (our personal favorite!) is a free SEO Community filled with experts swapping tips, mentorship opportunities, and inspiring conversations. There's a Facebook group option too!
Traffic Think Tank:Traffic Think Tank, which is $119 per month, has high-quality experts who are active in the field and would love to trade ideas with you.
Insightful SEO Social Media Accounts
Fill your feed with inspiring and cutting-edge content from SEO knowledge experts.
SEO FOMO: SEO Awesomeness, delivered weekly. Tools, jobs, events, resources, and more. Don't miss out!
WTSEO Newsletter: A monthly newsletter roundup with great new content from women in the world of SEO.
The SEO MBA: Learn more about selling SEO into your executive team.
The SEO Sprint: A newsletter for SEOs who want to work more effectively with development and product teams.
SEO for Google News: A Google News optimization newsletter from the "News SEO" Expert: Barry Adams.
Seer Interactive: Get professional perspectives and the latest news from one of the leading SEO agencies in the business.
SEO Templates
We compiled a list of SEO templates - downloadable resources, checklist, and process tools for improving your processes. This includes GDS reporting templates (create dashboards for your metrics), matrix templates, content brief templates & more. Find that here.
How Can I Outsource SEO?
While it’s always a good idea for businesses to have some internal SEO resources on hand, including training and coaching, some organizations can save time by outsourcing their SEO efforts
If your team needs senior-level SEO consulting to help guide strategy and overcome major SEO obstacles, contact us today and we’ll help analyze your current SEO rankings, come up with a personalized strategy, and help you achieve your search engine goals.
Work With Us
We’ll help craft, teach, and carry out SEO roadmaps that check all the boxes.
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