SEO Consultant

24 Best SEO Tools I’m Using in 2026 (Free and Paid)

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A no-fluff, field-tested guide from someone who lives in these tools every single day.

Two decades. That is how long I have spent quietly building a toolkit of SEO software, testing the hyped releases, dropping the duds, and keeping only the tools that genuinely earn a spot in my daily workflow. Today I am handing you the entire kit.

I have been doing SEO for 22 years. I led search for major companies through my own SEO agency, then walked away and grew my own blogs to 800K+ monthly visitors from organic search, all by myself with no team behind me.

Along the way I have also helped dozens of software companies turn SEO into a real, measurable revenue channel.

So I will say it plainly: I have tested and used just about every serious SEO tool on the market, and I am always hunting for the next one that can give me and my clients an edge.

In this post I am breaking down 24 of the best SEO tools across every category that matters, so you can cherry-pick exactly what fits your situation. For each one I have added an “ease of use” rating (beginner, intermediate, or advanced) so you do not end up paying for a tool that sits three skill levels ahead of where you are.

The list is not in a strict ranking, but the order loosely reflects how much I personally value each tool. I have also grouped related ones together so you can jump straight to the part of your workflow you want to improve.

And here is my promise: this is not a biased post from some SEO company trying to sell you their tool. Every word here is mine. I only recommend tools I have actually used, and I will tell you what I like and what I do not like about each one. No AI-generated slop, just real insights from someone who uses these tools every single day.

What is an SEO tool?

An SEO (search engine optimization) tool is a platform that helps you plan and strategize ways to improve your site’s visibility in search engines. This is not limited to Google. It includes Bing, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and all the other search engines on the market.

These tools all do different things. Some help you with keyword research. Some are search ranking tools that help you analyze competitors’ traffic and backlinks. Some help you create content that is optimized for search engines. Some help you create automated SEO workflows. And some help you improve the technical health of your website.

A few of the tools in this post aim to do all of those things, while others do one specific thing very well. I have used every single tool on this list and have written a comprehensive review of all of them below.

My goal is to help you understand which tool is right for your situation. But first, let me tell you what I consider to be the best SEO tools.

What do I consider the best SEO tools?

For beginners, I generally recommend starting with the free tools Google gives you. That means Google Autocomplete, Google Keyword Planner, Google Search Console, and Google Trends.

With just those free tools I have been able to rank number one, and fast. In fact, here are my top SEO tools if you prefer to watch rather than read:

The Google tools are some of the best free options available, and I will show you more in this post.

From there, you want to get into content creation, and the tools I believe are the best for that are Surfer, Claude, and Clearscope.

For keyword research and analyzing competitors, my favorites are Ahrefs, Semrush, and Google Autocomplete.

And for creating SEO automations, my favorite tool by far is Gumloop. Again, all of these are covered in detail below.

Okay, no more rambling. Let’s get into my picks for the best SEO software.

24 Best SEO Tools I’ve Personally Tested in 2026

Here are the best SEO tools right now:

Let’s go over each one in depth.

1. Surfer

  • Category: Content optimization
  • Best for: Writing SEO-focused blogs
  • Ease of use: Beginner to intermediate
  • Pricing: Starts at $99 per month

Founded in 2017, Surfer is an SEO and content optimization tool that helps you boost your visibility in Google, ChatGPT, and other AI search engines. It is a tool I have used for several years now, and it has become a staple in the workflow of any serious SEO or content marketer.

How Surfer works

At its core, Surfer started as a content optimization tool, and that is still primarily how I use it. The process is simple: you create a report based on a keyword you want to target, and Surfer builds a content outline around it.

The platform scrapes the top-ranking pages for that keyword, identifies the common terms those articles use, and then feeds all of that back into your content brief inside Surfer. The result is a structured outline matched to the right search intent, with concrete recommendations: which keywords to include, how long your article should be, how many headings to aim for, and more.

Since its early days as a pure optimization tool, Surfer has expanded significantly. It now offers Surfer AI, which helps you write content in your own branded voice using AI, and it has added features to help you optimize for AI chatbots.

There are also free tools like an AI content detector and an AI content humanizer. The accuracy of these types of tools is debatable across the industry, not just at Surfer, but having them included for free is a nice bonus since you do not need a paid plan to use them.

Who is Surfer for?

Having led content marketing, run an SEO agency, and built this media company you are reading right now, my honest take is that Surfer works for anyone producing editorial SEO content. If your goal is to create strong articles for your own website or your company’s website, with the aim of ranking high in search engines for keywords your potential customers are searching, Surfer belongs in your stack.

Pricing plans

Surfer has three pricing tiers. There is a 20% discount if you pay annually, but I will list the monthly prices since that is what most people check first.

  • Essential: $99 per month. This gives you everything you need to generate reports and publish keyword-optimized content. It also includes built-in templates for staying on brand and adding your own voice.
  • Scale: $219 per month. You get everything in Essential, but with limits that are five times higher. That means more keyword reports, more content monitoring, and advanced topical maps to guide your overall content strategy.
  • Enterprise: Custom pricing tailored to your rate limit needs. Includes everything in Scale plus white labeling, API access, and SSO logins, which are important for larger organizations.

Pros and cons

No review is complete without an honest look at the pros and cons.

Pros:

  • The content optimization reports are excellent. If you want to improve existing content for SEO, this feature alone is worth the price.
  • It integrates seamlessly with Google Docs and WordPress. I love the Google Docs integration because I write everything in a Google Doc, including this post.
  • Even on the entry-level Essential plan, you get brand voice controls and team collaboration features.
  • It is a trusted tool used by major companies like Intuit, Square, ClickUp, FedEx, and FreshBooks. The platform is stable and backed by a team that genuinely cares.

Cons:

  • The $99 per month entry-level plan may feel steep for small startups. There are cheaper alternatives, though none are as capable.
  • You need a basic understanding of SEO to get real value from this tool. Surfer takes you from a page that is 80% ready to one that is 100% ready. If you cannot get to that 80% on your own, no tool will save you.
  • There are no technical SEO features built in. Surfer focuses entirely on content creation and optimization.

Surfer rating and reviews

Surfer is a solid tool with excellent reviews. I recommend checking it out, especially since they offer a 7-day money-back guarantee, so there is very little risk in trying it.

2. Gumloop

  • Category: Automation and workflows
  • Best for: Creating SEO-automated workflows
  • Ease of use: Intermediate
  • Pricing: Free plan available, paid plans start at $97 per month

Founded less than two years ago, Gumloop has quickly become my favorite AI marketing tool for building workflows of any kind, including SEO workflows.

How Gumloop works

Gumloop lets you build any kind of AI workflow. Think of it as Zapier combined with ChatGPT. You connect it to the tools in your SEO stack and layer in any LLM you prefer, such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Grok, to give your tools and workflows an AI layer.

It helps you become an AI engineer without needing to know how to code. One of the best parts is that many built-in tools, including ChatGPT access and even Semrush data, are free to use inside Gumloop, so you do not need to pay for separate accounts on those platforms.

For example, you can build an AI agent that scrapes competitor data through Semrush, then automatically sends a summary report to a Google Doc or a Slack message. Or you can take that same data, feed it into a ChatGPT node, and have it generate a blog outline that lands straight in a Google Doc, ready for you to write. The possibilities go far beyond that.

In practice, Gumloop acts like an AI SEO assistant embedded in your daily workflow, whether you work in-house, at an agency, or as a freelancer. It is like having a junior-level SEO employee.

That said, its effectiveness depends on how well you train it. I call this an intermediate to advanced tool because you need to be a solid SEO already in order to train it properly and build an AI SEO agent that genuinely doubles or triples your productivity.

Who is Gumloop for?

Gumloop is great for SEO professionals and content marketers who want to automate repetitive tasks in their workflows. It is especially powerful if you are a freelancer or agency owner managing multiple clients, or if you work on an in-house team running a large website with significant SEO operations.

The tool really shines for competitor analysis and automated reporting, which I know many large companies use it for. But it is also far more than an SEO tool. You can use it for any part of your marketing workflow.

I discovered Gumloop about seven months ago and loved it so much that I flew to San Francisco to meet the team. Here is a photo of me at their office:

Pricing plans

  • Free: $0 per month with 1,000 credits. That is more than enough to build your first workflow and see what the tool can do.
  • Starter: $97 per month with up to 30,000 credits.
  • Pro: $297 per month starting at 75,000 credits.
  • Enterprise: Custom pricing based on your needs.

Again, use code MARKETERMILK at checkout for 20% off any paid plan.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • You can build and automate any SEO workflow with AI agents.
  • You can integrate Google Analytics and use Semrush for free inside Gumloop to build agentic workflows powered by real data from your own site or your competitors’.
  • The free plan is generous. You can likely build your first AI agent without spending anything.
  • The UI and UX are the best I have seen in any AI SaaS tool. I have met the designers on the Gumloop team, and it shows.
  • The built-in chatbot, called Gummie, can help you fix existing workflows or build entirely new ones from scratch.

Cons:

  • There is no small middle-tier plan between free and the $97 Starter. That jump can be tough for indie creators on a tight budget.
  • Things can occasionally break because the team ships new features very quickly. They do respond fast when you reach out, though.

Gumloop rating and reviews

Because Gumloop is still new and focused more on building the product than on marketing, there are not many third-party reviews yet. I did write an in-depth Gumloop review if you want the full picture.

It is still an underrated tool, but it is growing fast and is already used internally by teams at Webflow, Instacart, Shopify, and many other major brands, which speaks to how powerful it is.

3. Ahrefs

  • Category: Competitor and backlink research
  • Best for: Analyzing competitor sites and backlink profiles
  • Ease of use: Beginner to expert
  • Pricing: Starts at $108 per month

If you know what SEO is, you probably already know Ahrefs. It started as an SEO-first tool, though the team is steadily expanding it into an all-around marketing platform covering all search engines and LLMs.

How Ahrefs works

I use Ahrefs almost every single day to track how my website is performing, how my clients’ sites are performing, and how other websites in those niches are doing. There is no single right way to use it. If you are going to pay for only one tool besides something like Surfer, Ahrefs is the one to choose.

It is especially strong for analyzing a competitor’s link-building strategy through the Site Explorer feature, and for using it as a keyword research tool to identify topics to write about. That said, there are some free tools I cover later in this list that I actually prefer for keyword research.

Who is Ahrefs for?

Ahrefs works for any experience level, from beginner to expert. It fits whether you run SEO at a startup, own your own websites, or work as a freelancer. It suits every kind of SEO or content marketing role you can think of.

Pricing plans

  • Lite: $108 per month. Includes up to 5 projects, 750 tracked keywords, and 500 credits per user (one credit is used per action).
  • Standard: $208 per month. Includes up to 20 projects, 2,000 tracked keywords, and unlimited credits per user.
  • Advanced: $374 per month. Includes up to 50 projects, 10,000 tracked keywords, and a few additional features.

Ahrefs also has a hidden Starter plan at $29 per month for basic usage with limited credits. You can compare all plans on their pricing page.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • One of the most accurate SEO competitor analysis tools available, without needing access to your own site’s data. The cost of constantly crawling the web must be enormous.
  • The team adds new features regularly, especially around tracking mentions in AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.
  • Fairly easy to learn, and they have extensive educational content on their YouTube channel.

Cons:

  • It is pricey, which is a common complaint in the SEO community. The cost is largely justified, but it still stings.
  • The rank tracking is not the most accurate I have seen compared to some tools listed below.
  • The traffic estimates do not always match the first-party data I see in my clients’ accounts, though it is still the closest I have found among tools using third-party data.

Ahrefs rating and reviews

Ahrefs is a great tool and I recommend checking it out. There is a very similar alternative called Semrush, which we will cover next.

4. Semrush

  • Category: All-in-one SEO suites
  • Best for: All-in-one SEO management
  • Ease of use: Intermediate to advanced
  • Pricing: Starts at $139.95 per month

If Ahrefs is Apple, then Semrush is Microsoft. And just like I now work on a Mac, I actually started out on Windows. What I mean is this: Semrush was the first SEO tool I ever used, back in 2015. It is a massive platform in the SEO and marketing world, arguably the most widely used SEO tool on the market, and their annual revenue is roughly double that of Ahrefs.

How Semrush works

Semrush does a little of everything. It tracks traffic trends for your own site and for competitors, helps you optimize content through tools like ContentShake, and lets you track keywords at both national and local levels. It can handle nearly everything you would need from an SEO platform.

Who is Semrush for?

It is a great platform for marketing agencies, startups, local businesses, and large enterprises running any kind of SEO operation.

Pricing plans

  • Pro: $139.95 per month. Includes up to 5 projects and covers everything you need to get started.
  • Guru: $249.95 per month. Includes up to 15 projects, everything in Pro, ChatGPT search tracking, and multi-location data.
  • Business: $499.95 per month. Includes up to 40 projects, a share-of-voice tracker, and API access.

You can compare all plans on their pricing page.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • One platform that can handle virtually everything you need from an SEO suite.
  • Widely used, which means there are countless tutorials, guides, and resources available, including the free Semrush Academy.
  • It is publicly traded, so there is constant pressure to innovate and stay ahead of competitors.

Cons:

  • The price is a barrier for people just starting out in SEO.
  • The interface can feel overwhelming and clunky. It has improved over the years, but a tool that does everything tends to carry a real learning curve.

Semrush rating and reviews

5. KeySearch

  • Category: Keyword and topic research
  • Best for: Budget-friendly all-in-one SEO
  • Ease of use: Beginner to intermediate
  • Pricing: Starts at $24 per month

KeySearch is a budget-friendly SEO tool that aims to do most of what Semrush and Ahrefs do. Not all of it, but roughly 70%, and it is honestly pretty accurate since it runs on the Moz Pro API.

It was the second SEO tool I ever used, and I have kept my subscription since 2017 purely because it is so affordable compared to everything else that does the same things.

How KeySearch works

It is ideal if you are a beginner looking for the most budget-friendly way to analyze competitors, research keywords, track rankings, and more. The interface is not the most polished and some features can run slowly, but at this price point, that is easy to forgive.

Who is KeySearch for?

KeySearch is great for any content or SEO professional just starting out. It is inexpensive and it is a solid way to start learning how premium keyword research tools work and how to read competitor rankings.

Pricing plans

  • Starter Plan: $24 per month. Gives you up to 200 keyword searches per day, 80 tracked keywords, and 5,000 AI credits.
  • Pro Plan: $69 per month. Gives you 500 searches per day, 200 tracked keywords, 15,000 AI credits, and the Foresight feature.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • The basic plan covers everything you need. You get keyword research, live SERP analysis, competitor analysis, backlink analysis, YouTube research, and more.
  • Fairly easy to learn your way around.
  • No other tool does what KeySearch does at this price point.

Cons:

  • It can be slow and clunky at times.
  • The team is small, so customer support can be inconsistent.

KeySearch rating and reviews

Overall, KeySearch offers amazing value. I still pay for it even though I use tools like Ahrefs and Surfer.

6. SE Ranking

  • Category: All-in-one SEO suites
  • Best for: Agencies managing multiple clients
  • Ease of use: Beginner to intermediate
  • Pricing: Starts at $65 per month

SE Ranking is another strong all-in-one SEO platform covering keyword research, SEO monitoring, competitive research, and backlink analysis. It is an excellent tool, but I think it is built primarily for agencies and content marketing teams managing multiple clients. If you are an in-house marketer or a business owner working on your own site, Ahrefs or Semrush would probably serve you better. For agencies, though, SE Ranking is absolutely worth checking out.

Who is SE Ranking for?

This tool is specifically designed for SEO agencies, freelancers managing multiple clients, and marketing teams that need to track and report on several websites at once. Its structure and pricing make the most sense when you are managing at least 3 to 5 websites.

Pricing plans

Here are the monthly plans. You can get a 20% discount by choosing an annual subscription.

  • Essential: $65 per month. Includes up to 5 projects and 500 keywords tracked daily.
  • Pro: $119 per month. Includes 30 projects, 2,000 daily tracked keywords, and an LLM tracker.
  • Business: $259 per month. Includes unlimited projects, 5,000+ keywords tracked daily, dedicated customer support, and API access.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Designed to manage multiple websites and consolidate all your client data in one place.
  • Includes built-in automation features and SEO monitoring tools to streamline client management.
  • Includes powerful AI insights for building client reports and tracking AI search performance.

Cons:

  • Not ideal if you are only managing one website. The pricing does not make sense for single-site use.
  • The rank tracking data is not always perfectly accurate, which is something other users have noted on Reddit as well.

SE Ranking rating and reviews

7. Google Search Console

  • Category: Technical SEO and site health
  • Best for: First-party data and indexing
  • Ease of use: Beginner to intermediate
  • Pricing: Free

You probably already know this one, and it is arguably the single most important SEO tool that exists. Google Search Console is a tool I check every single day. The data takes around 24 to 48 hours to update, but it is the only resource that gives you first-party data directly from Google.

There are many ways to use Google Search Console. You can track your own pages and keywords, but I also use it to compare periods and identify pages that are losing traffic and need to be updated. I also use it to find keywords where I am getting high impressions but low clicks, then work those terms into the relevant pages. I have some guides on this topic if you want to dig deeper.

This is also where you submit your sitemap and request indexing for new or recently updated pages.

Who is Google Search Console for?

Google Search Console is completely free and is useful for everyone trying to grow a website through SEO, whether you are a beginner, intermediate user, or advanced practitioner.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • The primary source of truth for first-party data related to your Google search performance.
  • Gives you clear visibility into what is happening with your website in search.
  • Completely free to use.

Cons:

  • Data takes 24 to 48 hours to populate, though that is not really a practical issue.
  • Limited to data about your own website. You cannot use it to analyze competitors.

Google Search Console rating and reviews

8. Google Keyword Planner

  • Category: Keyword and topic research
  • Best for: Search volume and CPC estimates
  • Ease of use: Beginner
  • Pricing: Free

Google Keyword Planner is a free tool inside Google Ads, originally designed to help with PPC campaigns. I use it for SEO, primarily to check search volume and competition level for keywords I am considering. The CPC data is also useful because it signals how commercially valuable a keyword is, which tells me a lot about whether it is worth pursuing.

Who is Google Keyword Planner for?

This tool is useful for anyone from beginner to advanced, yet it does not get nearly the attention it deserves in keyword research discussions. You can also use it to discover brand-new keyword ideas. If you have no budget for paid tools, this is one of the best free keyword research options available.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Being a Google product, it is highly accurate at estimating search volume and surfacing keyword ideas.
  • Completely free to use.

Cons:

  • Requires a Google Ads account to access. It is not connected to Google Search Console.
  • The feature is buried inside the Google Ads interface, which can feel overwhelming for beginners.

Google Keyword Planner rating and reviews

9. Google Autocomplete

  • Category: Keyword and topic research
  • Best for: Search-intent discovery
  • Ease of use: Beginner
  • Pricing: Free

This is my favorite method for discovering keywords to target, and it requires nothing more than Google itself. Open an incognito window, go to google.com, type a seed keyword, and watch what Google suggests. Those auto-complete suggestions are long-tail keywords that real people are searching for right now.

I have used this technique to find hidden-gem keywords that became some of my highest-traffic blog posts. Several articles on this site, each read over 100,000 times, were born from a Google Autocomplete suggestion.

Who is Google Autocomplete for?

I take this a step further by combining it with Google Keyword Planner. Together, they are how I find what some people call “zero-volume” keywords. I made a YouTube video walking through exactly how I do this:

Since this is just using Google, there are no real pros or cons to review, and no third-party ratings to share.

10. Bing Webmaster Tools

  • Category: Technical SEO and site health
  • Best for: Free technical audits
  • Ease of use: Beginner to intermediate
  • Pricing: Free

Bing Webmaster Tools is essentially Google Search Console for the Bing search engine. It is seriously underrated.

When it comes to identifying technical errors, Bing Webmaster Tools sometimes does a better job than Google Search Console. It is also where you submit your sitemap and request indexing on Bing, which matters more than you might expect since ChatGPT relies heavily on Bing search results.

Bing has also recently become the first major search engine to launch its own AI visibility tracker. That is a move in the right direction, and it is only a matter of time before Google follows. It is good to see this platform getting more attention since it has always been a strong tool for SEOs.

Who is Bing Webmaster Tools for?

If you already have Google Search Console set up, you can log into Bing Webmaster Tools with the same Google account and it will automatically import all your data. There is nothing to configure from scratch.

Since this is a free tool, I am not including pros, cons, or third-party ratings here.

11. AlsoAsked

  • Category: Keyword and topic research
  • Best for: H2 heading ideas
  • Ease of use: Beginner to intermediate
  • Pricing: Free (3 searches/day), paid plans start at $12/month

AlsoAsked helps you find questions and long-tail keywords related to a seed keyword. It pulls from the People Also Ask section of Google search results (known as PAA in the SEO world) and is especially good at helping you find heading ideas for your blog posts.

For example, the “Is SEO still worth it?” section at the end of this post was a heading I discovered using People Also Ask. That is the kind of practical use case AlsoAsked is built for.

Who is AlsoAsked for?

Great for anyone, from beginner to advanced, who wants to create helpful content that covers a topic in depth.

Pricing plans

You get three free searches per day. The company is European-based, so prices include tax. I am listing the pre-tax figures below:

  • Basic: $12 per month, with 100 credits per month.
  • Lite: $23 per month, with 300 credits per month.
  • Pro: $47 per month, with 1,000 credits per month.

AlsoAsked rating and reviews

  • Product Hunt: 5 out of 5 stars (from 2+ reviews)

Overall, AlsoAsked is an excellent tool to have in your content creation stack. Yes, you can look at the People Also Ask box in Google manually, but AlsoAsked pulls more questions and organizes them in a way that makes building a content outline far faster.

12. AnswerThePublic

  • Category: Keyword and topic research
  • Best for: Question-based keyword research
  • Ease of use: Beginner
  • Pricing: Free (3 searches/day), paid plans start at $11/month

AnswerThePublic has been around for a long time and was acquired a few years ago by NP Digital, Neil Patel’s digital marketing agency. It helps you find the questions people are asking around a keyword or topic so you can better understand their search intent.

It is a great tool for discovering questions you can address in your blog posts, including questions that are likely to appear in AI search results like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

Who is AnswerThePublic for?

It is great for anyone who wants to understand what questions people are asking around specific keywords. The tool also works beyond Google and can surface questions from Instagram, Amazon, YouTube, Bing, and TikTok.

Pricing plans

Like AlsoAsked, you get three free searches per day. After that, here are the paid options:

  • Individual: $11 per month with 100 searches per day.
  • Pro: $99 per month with unlimited searches per day.
  • Expert: $199 per month with unlimited searches and unlimited users.

All plans come with a 7-day free trial, so you will not be charged until after the first week.

AnswerThePublic rating and reviews

13. SimilarWeb

  • Category: Competitor analysis
  • Best for: Analyzing competitor traffic
  • Ease of use: Beginner to intermediate
  • Pricing: Free plan available, paid plans start at $1,500/year

SimilarWeb was one of the first digital marketing tools I ever used. It measures the total traffic of any website, which may not sound like an SEO tool at first glance. But the way I use it for SEO is to analyze a competitor site and see what percentage of its total traffic comes from search. It shows traffic split by channel, including direct, search, referral, email, and paid ads, giving you a clear picture of how any competitor gets found online.

Who is SimilarWeb for?

Great for marketers and business owners who want to understand the competitive landscape and see which channels their competitors are relying on. It is particularly useful for spotting whether a competitor relies heavily on SEO or if they lean more on paid ads.

Pricing plans

SimilarWeb is expensive and is primarily used by enterprise companies. I personally just use the free plan. If you want to upgrade, here are the options:

  • Starter: $1,500 per year with 1,000 keywords per table.
  • Professional: $4,000 per year with 6 months of historical data and 5,000 keywords per table.
  • Team: Custom pricing with 15 months of historical data, 50,000 keywords per table, and AI agents.
  • Enterprise: Custom pricing with 37 months of historical data, unlimited keywords per table, and AI agents.

SimilarWeb rating and reviews

14. ProductRank.ai

  • Category: Keyword and entity tracking
  • Best for: Brand tracking in AI search
  • Ease of use: Beginner to intermediate
  • Pricing: Free

ProductRank.ai is a free brand tracking tool that shows how your website is performing for specific keywords and questions inside LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude, as well as AI search engines like Perplexity. It is completely free to use, and it is a great way to get a clearer picture of how different sites are showing up in AI search.

Who is ProductRank.ai for?

Perfect for brands and marketers who want to understand their visibility in AI-powered search results. As AI search becomes a bigger part of how people find information, tracking your performance there is becoming just as important as traditional SEO.

Since this is a free tool, I am not including pros, cons, or ratings here.

  • Category: Keyword and topic research
  • Best for: Trend spotting and prioritization
  • Ease of use: Beginner
  • Pricing: Free

Google Trends is a free tool from Google that shows you how search interest in a keyword changes over time. I use it a lot alongside Google Autocomplete to validate keyword ideas before committing to them.

It is also my tiebreaker tool. When I find two very similar keywords through Google Keyword Planner and cannot decide which one to target, I put both into Google Trends to see which has more consistent or growing interest. I show exactly how I do this in the hidden-gem keywords video I mentioned earlier.

Who is Google Trends for?

Great for content creators, marketers, and SEO professionals who want to make data-driven decisions about which topics to prioritize. It is especially useful for identifying seasonal trends and catching emerging topics before they become oversaturated.

Since this is a free Google tool, I am not including pros, cons, or ratings here.

16. Nightwatch

  • Category: Rank tracking and reporting
  • Best for: Local rank tracking
  • Ease of use: Intermediate
  • Pricing: Starts at $39/month for 250 keywords

Nightwatch is one of my all-time favorite SEO rank-tracking tools. I used it heavily when I was leading SEO at Webflow. It is especially strong for tracking local rankings, though it is not limited to that. You can use it to track keywords globally too, and it is by far the most accurate rank tracker I have found. The team has since expanded to include keyword research features and an AI tracker as well, following a path many SEO ranking tools are now taking.

Who is Nightwatch for?

Perfect for local businesses, agencies managing local SEO campaigns, and anyone who needs precise rank tracking across multiple locations. It is also a strong choice for enterprises that need accurate, reliable data to report to stakeholders.

Pricing plans

Nightwatch pricing is based on how many keywords you want to track. There is a 14-day free trial.

  • 250 keywords: $39 per month
  • 500 keywords: $59 per month
  • 10,000 keywords: $699 per month

Pricing scales up between those points, so costs can add up quickly if you are tracking a large keyword set across multiple locations.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • One of the most accurate rank trackers I have ever used.
  • Clean, easy-to-use interface.
  • Integrates with Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Also tracks keywords on YouTube and Bing.
  • Includes automated reports, AI suggestions, Looker Studio integration, and keyword cannibalization detection.

Cons:

  • Costs can scale significantly if you are tracking thousands of keywords across many locations.
  • Not a US-based company, though this will not be a concern for most users.

Nightwatch rating and reviews

17. Screaming Frog

  • Category: Technical SEO and site health
  • Best for: Technical SEO audits
  • Ease of use: Advanced
  • Pricing: Free version available, paid at $279/year

Screaming Frog is a technical SEO audit tool used by some of the most experienced SEOs in the industry. It is arguably the best technical SEO tool available for uncovering issues with your site.

This tool has been a lifesaver for me more than once. The most memorable moment: a designer at Webflow accidentally added a noindex tag to the homepage, and the page disappeared from search results for a couple of days. I was using Screaming Frog, saw the noindex flag on the homepage, had it removed, and the traffic came back immediately.

Who is Screaming Frog for?

Designed for technical SEO specialists, agencies, and experienced marketers who need to run deep site audits. It is not beginner-friendly. The interface is complex and interpreting the data requires a solid understanding of technical SEO fundamentals.

The interface is also quite old and outdated visually, but the tool still does its job better than anything else in the market.

Pricing plans

  • Free: Crawl up to 500 URLs. Identify broken links, redirect issues, and analyze page titles and metadata.
  • Paid: $279 per year. Includes everything needed for a full technical audit of any website. This is a per-user license, so each team member needs their own license.

You can review everything included in each plan on the pricing page.

Screaming Frog rating and reviews

18. Clearscope

  • Category: Content optimization and AI assistants
  • Best for: Content scoring and topic coverage
  • Ease of use: Beginner to intermediate
  • Pricing: Starts at $189/month

Clearscope is a content optimization tool similar to Surfer, and it was one of the first tools I ever used in this category. You input a keyword, it generates a report of related terms to include in your article, and it shows you the outlines of top-ranking competitor articles. The keyword recommendations are genuinely high quality, and some of the biggest brands in tech use this tool.

Over the years, Clearscope has also added keyword research functionality and a Content Decay feature to help you identify pages that are losing traffic and rankings.

Who is Clearscope for?

Great for managing editors, content editors, content marketers, and SEO professionals who are focused on creating high-quality, comprehensive blog posts.

Pricing plans

  • Essentials: $189 per month. Includes 20 monthly content reports and 500 monthly keyword discoveries.
  • Business: $399 per month. Includes 20 monthly content reports and a dedicated account manager.
  • Enterprise: Custom pricing with custom credits and usage.

The pricing is on the higher side, which is appropriate for a premium product. But the structure is a bit confusing. The Essentials and Business plans are more than $100 apart, yet both come with only 20 monthly content reports. In past pricing models, higher tiers included more reports. If anyone from the Clearscope team is reading this, I would strongly encourage making report limits scale with price.

Clearscope rating and reviews

19. AirOps

  • Category: Content optimization and AI assistants
  • Best for: AI-powered workflows
  • Ease of use: Advanced
  • Pricing: Free plan available, custom pricing for paid plans

AirOps is an SEO workflow automation tool that is very similar in concept to Gumloop. I wrote a full AirOps review you can check out, but here is the short version.

AirOps integrates with Semrush and your existing tools to automate SEO tasks. It includes a built-in AI writer that you can train with your brand guidelines to create pages at scale. One of its most powerful features is the ability to integrate with CMS platforms like Webflow, so you can publish pages directly to your site from inside AirOps.

Who is AirOps for?

AirOps offers a free Answer Engine Visibility tool that shows how well your site ranks in AI search engines. This makes AirOps a great fit for advanced SEO professionals, agencies, and enterprise teams who want to automate complex workflows and scale content production.

Pricing plans

  • Solo: $0 per month. Includes one brand kit and up to 1,000 tasks per month.
  • Scale: Custom pricing. Includes three brand kits and custom task limits.
  • Agency: Custom pricing. Includes everything in Scale plus multi-account CMS integrations and agency templates.

All plans give you access to over 30 AI models from GPT, Claude, Llama, Perplexity, Gemini, and others. You can also connect it to SEO API data providers like DataForSEO and People Data Labs.

Like Clearscope, AirOps pricing can be a bit confusing, but it is designed for large companies and agencies with complex needs. Since it relies heavily on credits, custom pricing makes sense for most serious use cases.

AirOps rating and reviews

20. Claude (Anthropic)

  • Category: Content optimization and AI assistants
  • Best for: Content proofreading
  • Ease of use: Beginner
  • Pricing: Free version available, Pro at $20/month

Claude is an LLM created by Anthropic, and it is my favorite AI model for content work in SEO. To be clear, I am not suggesting you use Claude to generate the articles you publish. The way I use it is as a proofreader.

Claude has completely replaced Grammarly for me. I can take my original ideas, written with all my grammar quirks intact, and Claude reshapes them into clear, well-structured, and pleasant prose while keeping my voice.

Who is Claude for?

This tool is perfect for content creators, bloggers, and marketers who want to improve their writing quality without losing their unique voice. It is especially useful for non-native English speakers or anyone who struggles with grammar and sentence structure.

I do recommend the Pro account at $20 per month since it gives you access to Claude Opus 4, which is my preferred model.

It is a remarkable tool for turning rough drafts into polished writing in seconds.

Since this is a well-known AI tool, I am not including third-party ratings.

21. Keywords Everywhere

  • Category: Keyword and topic research
  • Best for: In-SERP keyword metrics
  • Ease of use: Beginner
  • Pricing: Free Chrome extension, paid plans start at $72/year

Keywords Everywhere is a free Chrome extension that displays keyword search data directly within your Google search results. Instead of copying a keyword and opening another tool to check its volume and competition, you see all of that data in real time as you browse Google.

Who is Keywords Everywhere for?

Perfect for anyone doing keyword research who wants instant data without switching between multiple tools. It is especially useful for content creators and SEO beginners who want quick insights while browsing search results naturally.

Pricing plans

  • Silver: $72 per year with 400,000 credits.
  • Gold: $300 per year with 2 million credits.
  • Platinum: $960 per year with 8 million credits.

This tool is used by millions of SEO professionals. I highly recommend installing it.

22. Google Analytics 4

  • Category: Rank tracking and reporting
  • Best for: Site analytics
  • Ease of use: Intermediate to advanced
  • Pricing: Free

Google Analytics is my favorite tool for understanding my entire website, not just the SEO portion of it. It is a Google product with first-party data, and that matters a lot.

People have complained about GA4, and I was one of them initially. But it grew on me. The way I use it most for SEO purposes is through the traffic acquisition feature, where I break down my referral traffic to see how much of it is coming from LLMs like ChatGPT and Perplexity. This gives me a clearer picture of how AI search is contributing to my overall traffic.

Who is Google Analytics 4 for?

GA4 is essential for anyone with a website who wants to understand their traffic sources, user behavior, and overall site performance. There is a learning curve, but it is a non-negotiable tool for serious marketers. You can check out this guide to learn how to filter a report and see your AI traffic specifically.

Since this is a free Google tool, I am not including pros, cons, or ratings here.

23. Looker Studio

  • Category: Rank tracking and reporting
  • Best for: Custom SEO client dashboards
  • Ease of use: Intermediate
  • Pricing: Free

Looker Studio, formerly called Data Studio, is a free Google tool for building custom dashboards that you can use as SEO reports for clients or for internal teams. It integrates with multiple data sources and lets you combine them into one comprehensive view.

For example, you can connect Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and even Ahrefs data together into a single dashboard that tells a complete SEO story.

Who is Looker Studio for?

I use it with my clients to show overall SEO traffic performance. I then create separate pages within each report to break down branded versus non-branded search traffic, along with top keywords and top landing pages.

It is ideal for agencies, freelancers, and in-house SEO teams who need polished, professional reports for stakeholders. It becomes especially powerful when you are pulling data from multiple platforms into one place.

In my content marketing course, I show how to layer in conversion data so your reports can show which SEO pages are actually driving leads or sales. Looker Studio also has a library of pre-built templates, and I typically start with the SEO template and build from there.

Since this is a free Google tool, I am not including pros, cons, or ratings here.

24. Webflow

  • Category: Site building and CMS
  • Best for: Building SEO-optimized sites
  • Ease of use: Beginner to intermediate
  • Pricing: Free plan available, paid plans start at $29 per month

Last on my list is Webflow, and this is one of the best website builders for SEO. Many marketers will push back and say WordPress is better, or assume I am biased because I used to work at Webflow. I am including it anyway because some of my most successful clients are using it.

Webflow gives you everything an SEO needs: proper metadata controls, sitemaps, robots.txt files, canonical tags, image alt text, and pretty much every other technical SEO feature you could want from a website builder. WordPress also has all of this, but it requires plugins like Yoast SEO to make it work, and those plugins can introduce security vulnerabilities and require regular maintenance.

Who is Webflow for?

This very blog is built entirely on Webflow. So are the sites of many SEO-dependent enterprises including Upwork, Monday.com, Dropbox, and Lattice. When those companies ask Webflow to build a specific SEO feature, Webflow goes out and builds it for everyone on the platform.

I probably should not share this, but I will anyway: CapitalG, which is Google’s growth equity fund, is an investor in Webflow. Make of that what you will when thinking about how Google views Webflow-built sites. This is insider knowledge from my time at the company that nobody really talks about.

I am not saying you need Webflow to get good SEO rankings. But if you are in a position to build a new website or influence which platform your company uses, I cannot recommend Webflow enough from an SEO perspective. The native features and the hosting performance are both excellent.

Webflow rating and reviews

Is SEO still worth it?

SEO is absolutely worth it in 2026, but you cannot approach it the same way you did before. The sites getting the most search traffic right now are the ones that genuinely care about their audience and are not just trying to make money off them.

Take this blog as an example. I outrank some of the biggest marketing companies in the world, including HubSpot, Zapier, and even Semrush. I have been able to do this because I write from real lived experience, I cover topics I actually know, and I bring a personal perspective to everything I publish. I also make YouTube videos and embed them in my posts, which helps signal authority to Google. This approach has worked for me, for my clients, and for friends who also run media companies.

So yes, SEO is 100% worth it. Do not let people on social media tell you otherwise. Most of them are following an old playbook. They are either outsourcing content to freelance writers who are faking their expertise, or they are using ChatGPT to produce content that already exists on the web in hundreds of other places.

If you want to win with SEO in 2026, it is not really about which tools you use. It is about your ability to write content that comes from genuine lived experience, combined with a solid understanding of how search engines crawl, index, and rank content.

If you have those two things in place, you will win. Just change your frame of thinking. Stop asking what you can get from Google, and start asking what you can give Google. If you want to learn more, search this website for my free SEO guides.

I hope you found something useful in this article. Catch you in the next one. Much love, peace out!

3 thoughts on “24 Best SEO Tools I’m Using in 2026 (Free and Paid)”

  2. WOW, this is a really extensive list…in fact I hate to say it but it is too long. I appreciate that you’re wanting to provide an exhaustive resource, but there’s way too many options here.

    It would have been more valuable to me if you provided a list of the tools you’ve used and liked, or even a list of the tools you used and didn’t like…or if you want an exhaustive list, perhaps a chart comparing the features?

    Reading one-paragraph description of over 300 different tools is just too much time investment for not enough concrete comparative data.

    Not trying to be an ass because you must have put in a lot of time in putting all this together. Hope this feedback is helpful, as that is how I meant it.

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