The Best SEO Tools for Digital Marketing & SEO Agencies

Tools are used in many different lines of work. Accountants rely on calculators and spreadsheets to perform their work, whereas carpenters may need hand saws, utility knives, and tape measures. The world of SEO is no different. Just like accountants and carpenters, SEO professionals use a number of different tools to get their work done. Here are the best SEO tools for agencies:

Technical SEO Tools

Technical SEO Tools

Having the right technical SEO tools at your disposal can help you identify and address technical issues that could be impacting your site’s ranking. Some of the best technical SEO tools include:

Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog is a website audit tool that crawls your website looking for technical SEO issues.

Key features:

  • Identifies various technical SEO issues such as broken links, redirects, duplicate content, missing meta descriptions, and more.
  • Designed with a scheduling tool so you can automatically run website crawls at chosen intervals.
  • Compare audit results so you can quickly see how much has changed since the last website crawl.

Google Search Console

Use this tool to learn more about how you can improve your site to climb up in the Google rankings.

Key features:

  • Enter any URL into the URL inspection tool to see if the page has been indexed, and if so, the last time Google crawled it.
  • Check the Coverage Report to see a full list of your indexed pages and a list of pages not included in your sitemap.

WebPagetest

It only takes a few minutes to use this tool to access a wealth of data regarding the performance of your webpages. 

Key features:

  • Run waterfall speed tests, which will provide you with a visual representation of how fast the different types of assets on your website load. 
  • Provides your site with letter grades for various performance metrics, including first byte time, security, compress transfer, and effective use of CDN.

Google PageSpeed Insights

This simple tool helps you understand how fast your website is loading and what you can do to improve its speed.

Key features:

  • Run mobile and desktop speed tests so you can see how your website performs on all devices.
  • Provides a performance score, which is a summary of how well your website performed overall.

Google Mobile-Friendly Testing Tool

Most searches are performed on mobile devices. You can use this Google tool to find out if your site is ready for mobile users.

Key features:

  • Shows you a screenshot so you can see exactly how your page appears on a mobile device.
  • Provides you with a list of page resources on your site that cannot be loaded on a mobile device.
Link Building Tools

Link Building Tools

Link building is an important part of every SEO strategy, but it’s also incredibly time-consuming without the right tools. Here are the best tools for researching, prospecting, and link building outreach efforts:

Majestic

This tool won’t help you actually obtain backlinks, but it will help you research the best way to get them. 

Key features:

  • Review a list of topics associated with your website so you can determine the types of sites you should be targeting with your outreach efforts.
  • See information on your competitors’ backlinks, including the number of backlinks, and referring domains.

BuzzSumo

Whereas Majestic is a link building research tool, BuzzSumo is a prospecting tool that can be used to identify potential link building opportunities.

Key features:

  • Pull up a list of influencers, authors, and media contacts who have written about your targeted keywords. 
  • Filter through influencers, authors, and media contacts based on their engagement, followers, and domains.

Pitchbox

Pitchbox is an easy-to-use tool that can assist with public relations and link building efforts. 

Key features:

  • Find contact information for bloggers, influencers, and webmasters so you can reach out to discuss link building opportunities.
  • Send personalized, automated emails to bloggers, influencers, and webmasters directly through Pitchbox to keep your outreach efforts organized.

BrightLocal

BrightLocal is a local SEO tool that marketers can use to obtain local backlinks to their website. 

Key features:

  • Monitor local citations, which are references to your business’s name, address, or phone number, so you can identify and address incorrect information.
  • Look for opportunities to obtain new local citations, which count as backlinks.

Muck Rack

Muck Rack is designed to connect public relations professionals to journalists, but it can help marketers acquire new backlinks.

Key features:

  • Use Muck Rack’s search feature to look for journalists who are accepting pitches relevant to your products or services.
  • Monitor the news to keep track of what bloggers and journalists are saying about you and your competitors.
Keyword Research Tools

Keyword Research Tools

Every SEO strategy starts with keyword research. These tools provide you with the data you need to perform thorough keyword research:

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a free tool that every marketer can use to conduct comprehensive keyword research.

Key features:

  • Search for keyword data in specific cities, regions, or metropolitan areas to look for opportunities to improve local SEO.
  • Check the “keyword ideas” tab to look for new, similar keywords to incorporate into your SEO strategy.

Moz Keyword Explorer

Keyword Explorer is one of the most valuable tools in Moz’s suite of SEO products. 

Key features:

  • Predicts how many searches a keyword will receive with greater than 95% accuracy.
  • Uses a comprehensive scoring model to determine which keywords you should prioritize in your SEO campaign.

SEMRush

SEMRush is known as one of the most reliable, useful SEO tools in the market, partly because of its keyword research tool.

Key features:

  • See hundreds or thousands of keyword suggestions for every keyword search you perform within SEMRush.
  • Monitor over 1,000 keywords at once so you always know who has the top spots in the search results. 

Ahrefs

The Ahrefs database is updated on a monthly basis so you will always be presented with relevant, up-to-date keyword data.

Key features:

  • Search for keyword data from Google, YouTube, Amazon, Bing, Yahoo, and more.
  • Enter any keyword to find out what you need to do to rank in the top 10 search results. For example, Ahrefs may tell you to acquire X new backlinks to secure the top spot.

BrightEdge Data Cube

BrightEdge’s Data Cube feature is designed to help marketers conduct keyword research to inform their content strategies.

Key features:

  • Get access to a list of relevant, high-performing keywords and semantically related topics for each of your targeted keywords.
  • Discover new long-tail keywords to incorporate into your SEO strategy.
Competitive Analysis Tools

Competitive Analysis Tools

You may need to beat dozens of other companies in order to secure the top spot in the search results, which is why it’s so important to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing. Use these tools to perform competitive analysis:

SpyFu

This tool specializes in competitor analysis, so you can study your competitor’s SEO strategies from all angles.

Key features:

  • Make sure you are aware of the competition by entering your URL into this tool to see a list of all major competitors.
  • See a list of the domains that rank for your targeted keywords and how their ranking has changed over a defined period of time.

iSpionage

Unlike other competitive analysis tools, iSpionage provides data from Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Key features:

  • See a list of your top AdWords competitors and their estimated monthly budget.
  • Access over seven years of your competitors’ SEO keyword data. 

Conductor

Take a deep dive into your competitors’ SEO strategies using this user-friendly SEO tool.

Key features:

  • View a competitor’s market share by category, result type, rank position, location, and more.
  • See what keywords your competitors are currently ranking for and how their ranking has changed over the last several weeks.

SERPstat

SERPstat presents your competitor’s data in an easy-to-read format so you can quickly find the information you need to make smarter SEO decisions.

Key features:

  • Identifies niche leaders by providing information on the top pages’ number of organic keywords, traffic, and social media shares.
  • Build a custom list of competitors and monitor their SEO performance over time. 
SEO Reporting Tools

SEO Reporting Tools

Your work isn’t over once your SEO campaign has been launched. The next step is monitoring your campaign’s performance to identify what works and what doesn’t. Keep track of your results with these SEO reporting tools:

Agency Analytics

Agency Analytics is a SEO, PPC, social media, and online review reporting tool.

Key features:

  • Build custom reports with data from over 30 different marketing channels.
  • Add your company’s branding to the reports before sending them to clients or other third parties.
  • Schedule reports to automatically run on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

SE Ranking

SE Ranking is the most affordable reporting tool on this list, so it’s ideal for businesses with small budgets. 

Key features:

  • Keep track of keyword rankings, Google Maps results, Google Ad rankings, and SERP features over time.
  • Pull reports with data from Google, Bing, Yahoo, YouTube, and other search engines.

Google Data Studio

Like other Google tools, Google Data Studio is free and easy to use even if you don’t have much experience with SEO reporting.

Key features:

  • Connects to various data sources such as Google Analytics, MySQL, Google Search Console, and more.
  • Presents data in easy-to-read visuals, graphs, dashboards, and reports. 

Authority Labs

Authority Labs is a simple and straightforward tool that focuses solely on SEO keyword rank reporting.

Key features:

  • Save time by using the scheduling feature to automatically pull and send reports to yourself or clients on a regular basis.
  • Pull national or local SEO keyword rank reports.
  • Track your SEO keyword ranking by device so you can ensure you aren’t missing out on valuable mobile opportunities.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the go-to tool for all of your SEO reporting needs.

Key features:

  • Gain access to a wealth of data about your new users, target audience, keyword ranking, and more. 
  • Dig into the data to see a list of your best- and worst-performing pages on your site. 
  • Analyze the data provided in Google Analytics to make smarter SEO decisions.
SEO Project Management Tools

SEO Project Management Tools

Every SEO campaign may involve dozens of different projects, tasks, and sub-tasks. It’s nearly impossible to manage all of the work that goes into an SEO campaign without a project management tool. Here are some of the best tools for SEO project management:

Asana

Asana is a basic project management tool that SEO teams can use to keep their work organized and on schedule.

Key features:

  • Organizes tasks into lists that show your team what’s on their plate, when each task is due, and which tasks they should prioritize.
  • View tasks in the “timeline” mode to see how your team’s work maps out over the next several days or weeks.

Basecamp

Basecamp is a project management tool that aims to help teams collaborate and communicate on their work.

Key features:

  • Attach files, images, documents, and discussions to tasks so your team has all of the information they need to complete their work.
  • Every project has its own message board, to-do list, calendar, and group chat to keep your team focused.

Trello

Trello is a collaborative project management tool that helps teams keep track of complex, multi-faceted projects. 

Key features:

  • Keep work organized using Trello’s boards, lists, cards, timelines, and more.
  • Each project card contains everything you need to complete the task, including checklists, due dates, attachments, and conversations.

Linkio

Unlike other project management tools on this list, Linkio is designed specifically to help marketers manage their link building projects.

Key features:

  • See the status of all link building efforts at a glance so you will never let another task fall through the cracks again.
  • Links to Google Sheets so you can continue to keep track of projects using the spreadsheet format you’re already comfortable with.

Gryffin

Gryffin is a unique SEO project management tool designed by digital marketers for digital marketers. It is the only tool that is built with all of the features marketers need to effectively manage their SEO and other digital marketing efforts.

Key features:

  • See the status of all projects and tasks at a glance in your user dashboard.
  • Build custom editorial calendars, assign content tasks to your team, and monitor the status of these tasks until they are complete.
  • Manage all blogger outreach efforts directly through Gryffin.
  • Integrates with all of your favorite tools, including Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Gmail, Slack, and more.

Start your free 14-day trial today.