You’ve launched your site and you publish content regularly… but visitors from Google are slow to come. To understand what’s holding you back and know what to work on, you need data.
That’s what SEO tools are for: they help you find the keywords your customers search for, spot technical issues on your site, analyze your competitors, and track your rankings in search results (and, more and more, in AI answers).
There are plenty of options: all-in-one suites, tools specialized in writing or technical audits, free services… and prices range from zero to several hundred dollars per month.
On this page, we’ve selected the best SEO tools for entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small business owners to help you find the one that fits your needs and your budget.
Our top 8 SEO tools
No time to read it all? Here’s our list of the best SEO tools:
- Google Search Console: Google’s essential free tool
- Ubersuggest: a simple SEO tool for beginners
- Screaming Frog: the website crawler for technical SEO audits
- Ahrefs: the go-to tool for backlink and competitor analysis
- SE Ranking: an SEO suite with great value for money
- thruuu: analyze Google results to write better content
- Semrush: the essential all-in-one SEO platform
- YourTextGuru: a French tool to optimize your content
The list below isn’t a ranking. It’s randomly generated every week.
1/ Google Search Console: Google’s essential free tool
Search Console is Google’s free service that shows you how your site appears in its results: queries that bring clicks, indexed pages, errors detected by Google, and links pointing to your site.
- Type of tool: free Google service to monitor and troubleshoot your SEO
- Price: free
Who is it for? Ideal for every site owner, beginner or expert: it’s the first SEO tool to set up.
2/ Ubersuggest: a simple SEO tool for beginners
Ubersuggest, Neil Patel’s tool, offers keyword research, an SEO audit of your site, and rank tracking, in an interface designed for non-specialists.
- Type of tool: beginner-friendly SEO tool (keywords, audit, rank tracking)
- Price: 7-day free trial, paid plans from $29 per month
Who is it for? Ideal for entrepreneurs and bloggers who want to learn SEO without getting lost in complex tools.
3/ Screaming Frog: the website crawler for technical SEO audits
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is software you install on your computer. It crawls your site the way a search engine would and flags technical issues: broken links, redirects, missing or duplicate title tags, and more.
- Type of tool: technical SEO audit software (Windows, macOS, Linux)
- Price: free version up to 500 URLs, license at $279 per year
Who is it for? Ideal for SEO specialists and developers who run in-depth site audits.
4/ Ahrefs: the go-to tool for backlink and competitor analysis
Ahrefs is an SEO suite known for the depth of its link index. You can analyze the links pointing to your site and to your competitors’ sites, find keywords, and audit your pages.
- Type of tool: SEO suite (backlinks, keywords, audit, rank tracking)
- Price: limited free plan available, paid plans from $129 per month
Who is it for? Ideal for SEO specialists and agencies that do a lot of link building and competitor analysis.
5/ SE Ranking: an SEO suite with great value for money
SE Ranking brings together rank tracking, site audits, keyword research, and competitor and backlink analysis. It also tracks your brand’s visibility in AI search engines.
- Type of tool: SEO suite (rank tracking, audit, keywords, competitors)
- Price: 14-day free trial, paid plans from $129 per month
Who is it for? Ideal for freelancers and agencies that monitor several client sites and want clear reports.
6/ thruuu: analyze Google results to write better content
thruuu is an SEO tool made in France that analyzes the pages ranking for a query (titles, structure, questions, topics covered) and helps you build a more complete content outline.
- Type of tool: search results analysis and content optimization tool
- Price: free plan available (10 free credits), paid plans from $19 per month
Who is it for? Ideal for writers and content managers who prepare in-depth articles.
7/ Semrush: the essential all-in-one SEO platform
Semrush is an all-in-one SEO platform. It lets you find keywords, analyze your competitors, audit your site, and track your rankings in Google and, with the higher-tier plans, your visibility in AI answers.
- Type of tool: all-in-one SEO suite (keywords, competitors, audit, rank tracking)
- Price: free trial available, paid plans from $139 per month
Who is it for? Ideal for freelancers, agencies, and online store owners who want a single tool to manage all their SEO.
8/ YourTextGuru: a French tool to optimize your content
YourTextGuru generates semantic guides that tell you which words to use and what optimization level to reach for a piece of content to rank for a given query.
- Type of tool: semantic content optimization tool
- Price: paid plans from $107 per month
Who is it for? Ideal for content writers and bloggers who want to optimize every post before publishing it.
Conclusion
A good SEO tool won’t do the work for you. It shows you where to focus your efforts: the keywords to target, the pages to improve, the errors to fix.
If you’re just starting out, begin with Google Search Console, which is free, and an SEO plugin for WordPress. You can then add a paid tool when you need to go further with keyword research or competitor analysis: most of them offer a free trial or a free plan so you can try them out.
Keep in mind that SEO is a long-term effort. What matters most is regularly publishing content that’s useful to your readers.
Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
What’s the best SEO tool?
There’s no universally “best” tool. The right choice depends on your needs and your budget:
- Semrush, Ahrefs, and SE Ranking are complete suites to manage all your SEO
- Ubersuggest is easier to get started with
- YourTextGuru and thruuu specialize in content optimization
- Screaming Frog is dedicated to technical audits
Ideally, test one or two tools (during their free trial or with their free plan) before committing.
Are there any free SEO tools?
Yes. Google Search Console is completely free and remains the essential tool for every site owner. Other tools offer a limited free version:
- Screaming Frog, up to 500 crawled URLs
- Ahrefs, with a free plan offering reduced features
- thruuu, with 10 free credits
These versions are enough to get a first overview of your site, but their limits quickly show if you track several sites or many keywords.
What’s the difference between an SEO tool and an SEO plugin for WordPress?
An SEO plugin (like Yoast SEO or Rank Math) is installed on your site. It helps you set up title tags, meta descriptions, and the XML sitemap, and optimize each page.
An SEO tool like the ones on this page works outside your site. It gives you data the plugin doesn’t have: keyword search volumes, rankings, backlinks, your competitors’ strategy. The two are complementary.
To choose your plugin, check out our review of 7 must-have SEO plugins for WordPress.
How do you choose an SEO tool?
Several criteria matter when choosing a tool that fits your business:
- your main needs (keyword research, writing, technical audits, rank tracking)
- the quality of the data for the countries and languages you target
- the number of sites and keywords to track
- how easy it is to use
- the price, which varies a lot depending on each plan’s limits
- the language of the interface and support
To learn more, check out our guide to optimizing your WordPress site for SEO.
