SEO experts always jump to recommend tools such as SEMRush, Ahrefs, SurferSEO, and Moz. But, the fact is that it’s just not viable for a brand new website to invest the several hundred dollars per month needed for all these tools!
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If you were to use Ahrefs, SEMRush and MOZ, you’re looking at a monthly bill of over $500.
“But Ahrefs has a 7-day trial for $7 you can use!”
No. No, they don’t.
They stopped this ages ago. Other SEOs just haven’t updated their resources yet.
Here are 6 incredible premium SEO tools that are suitable for all budgets and won’t break the bank.
1. KeySearch
I find it completely baffling that more people in the SEO world are not talking about KeySearch.
It’s like a budget-friendly version of SEMRush and it has a whole suite of tools and data that can help you make data-driven decisions about your website’s content.
Using data from KeySearch, I have identified and compared so many commercially competitive keywords that I wouldn’t have been able to do without forking out on a ridiculously expensive tool.
The best thing is that KeySearch is only $17 per month, compared to the $99+ that other tools demand from you.
KeySearch has:
- Keyword Research with search volumes, difficulty ratings, competitive analysis and similar keywords
- Competitor gap analysis – find out which keywords your competitors are ranking for that you’re not
- Rank tracker – monitor your rankings to see the impact of your efforts
- Backlink checker – find out how many backlinks you have and which websites are linking to you
- Organic keyword checker – find out which keywords you’re already ranking for
- Plus loads more
Price: From $17 per month for the starter plan that gives you 200 searches per day.
My thoughts: A must-have if you’re serious about getting an edge on your competitors but you don’t want to fork out for SEMRush etc.
2. SERPRobot
SERPRobot is a simple rank tracker tool with a beautiful interface and surprisingly useful supplementary data that are presented beautifully.
It also has an API, so you can pull your ranking data into another tool such as Notion, Google Data Studio or Zapier.
You can track 25 keywords every single day completely free, then it’s just $4.99 to automatically check your position for 150 keywords every day.
This is incredibly well-priced compared to the cost of other SERP Position trackers.
Price: Free for 25 keywords or $4.99 per 150 keywords.
My thoughts: My favourite SERP Position tracker by a clear mile.
3. Grammarly
Every marketer, blogger and professional writer has heard of Grammarly by now. It’s a cross-platform tool that improves the quality of your writing.
“But doesn’t Microsoft Word have a built-in spell-checker?”
Yes – but Grammarly is more than a simple spelling and grammar checker. It can check your content for consistency, sentiment and tone as well.
Grammarly can suggest edits to your work to make it clearer or more concise, it’s like having a professional proofreader at your fingertips 24/7.
If spelling, grammar and consistency are things that you’re worried about then Grammarly is your answer.
Good spelling, grammar and tone is important for user experience and trust, which means it’s also important for SEO.
Grammarly works with Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Chrome, Edge, JasperAI, and most writing applications.
Price: Free plan or $10 per month for individual usage.
My thoughts: The free plan is perfectly sufficient if you’re just getting started, but the paid plan has some tools that I’ve come to rely on.
4. RankMath Pro
Now, before 2023 I’ve always been vehemently against paid SEO plugins. They’re just not needed.
Don’t get me wrong – I still firmly believe this. The purpose of an SEO plugin is to add missing functionality to WordPress to improve your search appearance and crawlability.
All the “scoring” and “keyword” features of SEO Plugins only exist for guidance. Using these scores doesn’t necessarily help you rank.
I still stand by my opinion on this.
So, why RankMath Pro?
Because it’s exceptionally good value for what the plugin offers. It blows its competitors (All In One SEO and Yoast) out of the water with features (even though most websites don’t need to use them all)
RankMath has a ContentAI service that works similarly to SurferSEO – but it works out much cheaper.
This is why RankMath Pro makes this list – even though this tool is not essential for SEO success – if you use AI to improve (not write) your content then this is a good option for you.
Also, if you want the ability to add complex or custom schema to your posts – RankMath is excellent for this.
Pricing: $59 per year for unlimited sites
My thoughts: Not essential by any means, but good value if you need these features.
5. Keywords Everywhere
This is a free add-on for Firefox or Chrome. It’s free to install but requires credits to use it properly.
Keywords Everywhere is a great tool because you buy credits to use it, so you only pay for exactly what you use. You pay for credits upfront so there are no nasty surprises.
Keywords Everywhere will show you the search volume, trends, and related keywords on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) for easier research and discovery.
It also works on YouTube, Amazon, Etsy, eBay, and loads of other popular sites where keywords are key to getting discovered by your customers.
Plus, it only costs $10 for 100,000 credits – that’s such good value! You can also toggle it on and off to save your credits when you’re not doing keyword research.
Pricing: $10 for 100,000 keyword lookups
My thoughts: Useful to have for native keyword research without leaving the SERP.
6. Sitebulb
Sitebulb is a technical SEO tool with beautiful data visualisation tools that are beyond stunning. Data nerds will just love Sitebulb.
It actually does a similar job to Screaming Frog SEO Spider – but it’s a lot prettier and has much nicer reporting capabilities.
For new websites, Sitebulb’s pricing structure is preferable because it has the option to pay monthly instead of annually so the initial outlay is much less than Screaming Frog (which is still fairly affordable – it just doesn’t have the option to pay monthly)
However – this is primarily a technical audit tool. If new websites are configured correctly, they shouldn’t need technical audits (unless the site is having indexing issues or is very large.)
But it’s still useful to have and run full site scans regularly to identify any problems quickly.
Pricing: From $13.50 per month
My thoughts: This is definitely not essential for small sites, but larger established site owners who don’t want to leave any stone unturned will love Sitebulb.
Conclusion
When it comes to optimising your website for search engines, it can be easy to get caught up in all the fancy, expensive tools and services out there.
But, there are plenty of premium SEO tools available that offer a wealth of information and capabilities, without costing you a small fortune.
These are just a few of the many premium SEO tools out there that can help you improve your website’s visibility without burning a hole in your bank account.
So don’t let a tight budget hold you back from reaching your SEO goals. Give one (or more) of these tools a try and see the results for yourself!
