Compare SEO Software

Navigating through the world of SEO software can be daunting with a multitude of options each offering a unique blend of features. Our Comparison Tool simplifies this process by letting you compare all major SEO software side by side, focusing on the factors that truly matter.

What Is Important When Comparing SEO Software

Comparing SEO software can feel like trying to solve a tough jigsaw puzzle, but don't worry. Our expert team has put together all the crucial pieces for you by finding the most important criteria and features. We've focused on what's really important, leaving out the fluff. Want to see the full picture of our research? Head over to our Best Picks for more insights.

In the following, we will go into each criterion and its attributes and explain them in terms of their importance for your comparison.

1. Pricing

Pricing is always at the top of people’s minds. The monthly pricing of SEO software is a critical consideration as it directly impacts your budget. Understanding this cost helps align your SEO strategy with your financial capabilities, ensuring you get the maximum value.

2. Website Audits

Website audits are essential to identify areas of improvement in your SEO strategy. A good SEO software should provide comprehensive auditing features that we’ll now discuss.

Internal Linking

This relates to the tool's ability to analyze and report on your website's internal linking structure. It's a crucial aspect of SEO as it helps distribute page authority and improve navigation on your site.

Site Performance

A website's performance, including load speed and mobile optimization, can significantly impact the user experience and search engine rankings. SEO software that monitors these factors can help you maintain optimal performance by optimizing what lags behind.

Duplicate Content

Duplicate content refers to blocks of content that are either identical or very similar to each other, either within one website or across multiple sites. Search engines prefer unique content and may penalize websites with a lot of duplicate content by ranking them lower in search results. Therefore, having a tool that can detect and help you manage and resolve issues of duplicate content is essential to maintain the health of your website and its ranking in search results.

Crawlability

Crawlability refers to how easily search engines can scan and index your website. The website audit tool of your SEO software should identify anything that might hinder the process of crawling your website.

Redirects

Effective management of redirects is vital for a smooth user experience and search engine understanding of your site's structure. The right SEO software can help you manage your redirects effectively by identifying common issues like redirect loops, chains, and any problems related to www and https.

On-Page SEO Suggestions

On-Page SEO suggestions are recommendations for improving each individual page on your site. These suggestions can include keyword usage, meta descriptions, title tags, and more, helping you optimize each page for better rankings.

International SEO

International SEO is a crucial attribute if your business operates in multiple countries or languages. As part of a website audit, primarily hreflang tags for language targeting and country-specific URLs will be checked. It ensures that your pages are displayed correctly across different countries and languages as well as processed by search engines.

3. Features

The features provided by SEO software determine its usage capabilities. Understanding these can help you identify the software that best meets your needs in terms of working as a team and potentially with clients.

Number of Projects

The number of projects you can manage simultaneously can be considered equal to the number of websites you want to use the software for. This attribute is less important if you are only using the software for one website. However, it becomes an important consideration if you are running a digital marketing agency or a business with multiple websites.

Number of Users

Similar to the number of projects, the number of users that need access to the software depends on your business and team, if you have one. Creating multiple users can be used to increase collaboration and efficiency.

Localization

Localization helps you tailor your SEO efforts to specific geographic locations, and receive data for the markets that you need.

User Roles & Permissions

User roles and permissions provide control over who can access what within your SEO software, ensuring security and privacy.

Content Editor

A content editor within your SEO software can streamline your content creation and optimization processes. With the assistance of AI, it helps to improve your content based on your SEO intentions. It can give you suggestions for the use of certain keywords and relevant terms, as well as topics that you can address.

Reporting

Detailed reporting features can provide insights into your SEO efforts, helping you make data-driven decisions. If you work for clients, you can quickly create professional and detailed reports in a matter of seconds.

Data Import & Export

Data imports & exports allow you to use data inside and outside of your SEO software ensuring seamless data flow.

4. Keyword Research

Keyword research is a fundamental part of SEO, helping you identify the right target keywords for your business and content. A comprehensive SEO software offers a range of different data to refine your research.

Volume

Search volume, or the number of times a keyword is searched, is vital for understanding its potential impact on your SEO efforts.

No. of Queries

The number of queries represents the monthly limit of keyword searches you can conduct with the SEO software. If you need a lot of queries, make sure to choose a provider whose limit is high enough.

Keyword Difficulty

Keyword difficulty gives you an idea of how hard it would be to rank for a specific keyword based on the competition.

SERPs

A SERP feature can provide insights into the pages ranking for your target keywords, helping you understand what your competitors are doing.

CPC Data

CPC (cost-per-click) data is useful for understanding the potential cost of paid advertising for specific keywords. It can also be used to measure the value of your efforts.

Search Intent

Understanding search intent can help you create content that meets the needs of your target audience. It's commonly categorized into informational (seeking knowledge), navigational (seeking a specific website), transactional (intent to purchase), and commercial investigation (comparing products or services for a future purchase). Some keyword research tools indicate the search intent for each keyword, so you know exactly what content searchers are looking for.

Keyword Trend

Keyword trend data can help you capitalize on rising keywords and avoid those in decline. It uses historical data and maps the trend of keywords over time.

5. Analysis

Analysis tools help you understand different aspects of your SEO performance as well as that of your competitors. They allow you to monitor your progress and identify new opportunities for improvement.

Backlink Analysis

A tool for your backlink analysis provides insights into the sites that are linking to yours. This can help you track the growth and quality of links as well as identify opportunities for link-building, a key factor in SEO.

Traffic Research

Traffic research delivers insights into your site's traffic, including information about sources, volume, user behavior, and more. You can use it to understand what's driving traffic to your site and how you can optimize for more.

Access to Historical Data

Access to historical data allows you to track changes in your SEO performance over time, helping you understand the impact of your efforts.

Competitor Analysis

Competitor analysis tools help you understand your competition's strategies and identify opportunities for improvement in your own strategy. Most tools let you select your competitors, based on which you can obtain suggestions for missed opportunities.

Rank Tracker

A rank tracker monitors your website's ranking for specific keywords over time, providing insights into your SEO performance.

Number of Tracked Keywords

The number of keywords your software can track affects the breadth and depth of your SEO strategy. Websites with many target keywords therefore also require a larger number of keywords to be tracked making it something you should look out for.

Ranking Check Frequency

The ranking check frequency refers to how often the SEO software checks and updates your website's rankings in the search engine results pages. While some agencies rely on weekly or even daily updates, a monthly update may be sufficient for others. If this point is relevant to you, pay attention to it.

6. Integrations

The ability of an SEO software to integrate with other platforms and tools can greatly enhance its functionality and streamline your workflow. Here are the mainly used integration options you can compare.

API Access

API access allows for customized integrations of SEO software with other tools and platforms, enabling data sharing and enhancing workflow efficiency through automation.

Google Search Console

An integration with the Google Search Console (GSC) can provide valuable insights into how your site is performing in Google's search results, including information about search traffic, index coverage, and more.

Google Analytics

A Google Analytics integration can provide in-depth information about your website's users, their behavior, and how they interact with your site, enhancing your ability to optimize your site for better user experience and SEO.

Chrome Extension

A Chrome extension can provide you with immediate SEO insights right from your browser while you surf the web. This could include data about the SEO performance of any website you visit, keyword data, backlink data, and much more. This real-time access to data can make your SEO tasks more efficient and integrated into your daily web browsing activities.

Google Sheets

Integration with Google Sheets can facilitate seamless data transfer and analysis.

Google Docs

Integration with Google Docs can streamline content creation and optimization mainly in combination with an AI writing assistant.

7. Support

Great customer support ensures that any issues you encounter while using the software are quickly and effectively resolved, thereby minimizing disruptions to your SEO efforts. In your comparison, you can check which support channels each provider offers.

Live Chat

Live chatting offers real-time support, providing instant solutions to any challenges you might face while using the software. This can significantly enhance your user experience and ensure you get the most out of the software.

Email

Email support provides a more formal channel for support queries, particularly useful for complex issues. It further ensures that you have a record of the solution provided, which you can refer to in the future if you encounter the same issue.

Phone

Phone support offers a personal touch and immediate assistance, crucial for urgent queries. Phone support provides the opportunity for direct conversation with support staff. This can be particularly useful for addressing pressing and complicated issues that require a real-time dialogue.

8. Ease of Use

Ease of use is a very subjective criterion but fairly important because a tool that is easy to use can save you time and reduce frustration, enabling you to focus on optimizing your site. It also makes it easier to get started and work together as a team.

To make it somewhat comparable, you will find a score for each provider at the top, which is based on a standardized test. The score is established in the areas of navigation, user onboarding, learning resources, user interface, and feature accessibility.

How to Compare SEO Software

When comparing SEO software, start by clearly defining your requirements and prioritizing the features that are most important to your business.

Once these are clear to you, you can add all the SEO software providers that interest you and knock them out one by one in the elimination process.

If you are not yet familiar with many providers, be sure to check out our Best Picks first to get an overview. From there, you can also add any interesting providers to your comparison with just one click.

Take enough time in the process. Everyone has different needs, and you should know them well before making a decision so that in the end you are satisfied with your choice long-term.

Get a detailed step-by-step guide on how to use our tools to choose the best software for you in How to Compare Software.

Understanding Your Results of Comparing SEO Software

After comparing SEO software based on your specific needs and the defined criteria, you’ll likely be left with only a few providers.

Go through your priorities again and then decide based on that. If you are still not quite sure and you are stuck between two or even three providers, just try them out. Almost every provider now offers a free trial, which you can use to get a feel for the tools. After that, you can choose the SEO software you like best.

If you want a third opinion, feel free to use our Finder Tool. It will ask you a few simple questions and then provide you with a personalized recommendation.