SEO Tools: Which Tool to Use for Which Job

SEO tools show you how search engines see your website: which queries bring visitors, what blocks indexing, how fast your pages load and what your competitors are doing. For a small business, the free set from Google covers the basics. A paid SEO tool only pays off once you will actually use it every week.

• Free foundation: Google Search Console, Google Analytics, PageSpeed Insights and Keyword Planner.
• Keywords and competitors: Ahrefs, Semrush, Similarweb, Moz, Majestic and, for Central European markets, Marketing Miner.
• Technical crawling: Screaming Frog SEO Spider, free for up to 500 URLs.
• Content: Surfer SEO for optimising copy against the pages that already rank.
• WordPress: Yoast SEO or Rank Math. Both have a free version; we use Rank Math on our projects.

How to choose SEO tools: by the job, not by a ranking

Most “best SEO tools” lists rank software by feature count. The better question is which job you need done and how often. One tool you open every week beats three subscriptions you never use.

SEO work falls into five groups:

1. 1Measurement – how many people arrive from search, on which queries and to which pages.
2. 2Keywords and competitors – what people search for, how often, and who ranks for it.
3. 3Technical checks – missing titles, broken links, redirects, duplicate pages.
4. 4Content – whether a page covers the topic the way searchers and search engines expect.
5. 5Site management – titles, meta descriptions, sitemaps and structured data set directly in your CMS.

Free SEO tools from Google

Four Google tools are free and cover the basics for most small websites. Start with them before paying for anything else.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free service that shows how your site performs in Google Search: which queries you appear for, impressions, clicks, average position and which pages have indexing problems. It also alerts you to spam and other issues.

For SEO, Search Console is the most important source because the data comes straight from Google rather than from an estimate. When you want to know why traffic dropped or which pages are close to page one, start in Google Search Console. The limitation: it only covers your own verified site and only Google Search.

PageSpeed Insights

PageSpeed Insights measures the speed and usability of a single page. It combines a lab test (Lighthouse) with real-user data from Chrome (the Chrome UX Report) when the page has enough traffic. We explain how to read the results in our guide to website speed and Core Web Vitals.

Google Keyword Planner

Keyword Planner is part of Google Ads. It is free, but you need a Google Ads account with a campaign created. It works well for a first estimate of search volume and ideas for related queries. Turning its output into a usable keyword list is covered in our keyword research guide.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is free and complements Search Console with what happens after the visit: how many organic visitors left straight away and how many filled in a form or bought something. Search Console tells you who came from Google; Analytics tells you whether it turned into business.

Tools for keywords and competitor analysis

Google shows data about your own site, not what competitors rank for or how much traffic they get. That is what paid SEO software with its own keyword and backlink databases is for. Its numbers are estimates: useful for comparisons and trends, not exact statistics.

Ahrefs and Semrush

Ahrefs and Semrush are two of the best-known SEO platforms. Both cover keywords, backlinks, competitor analysis and technical site checks, and both are paid. Ahrefs offers limited free access to data about your own site; Semrush has a free plan limited to 10 reports per day.

Similarweb

Similarweb answers the question of how much traffic a competitor’s site gets and where it comes from: search, social, ads or direct visits. The free version on similarweb.com is enough for a quick check; deeper data is paid. Its figures are largely modelled, so treat them as a guide, not a measurement.

Moz and Majestic

Moz and Majestic focus mainly on site authority and backlinks. Moz introduced the Domain Authority metric; Majestic uses Trust Flow (link quality based on closeness to trusted sites) and Citation Flow (link strength based on volume), both on a 0–100 scale. They help you judge whether a link from a particular site is worth pursuing, which is the core of link building.

One caveat: Google stopped showing public PageRank scores in 2016. Domain Authority, Trust Flow or Ahrefs’ Domain Rating are the tools’ own metrics, not scores from Google. Use them to compare, not as a target.

Marketing Miner

Marketing Miner is a Czech tool for keyword data, rank tracking, competitor analysis and link prospecting, focused on the Czech and Slovak markets. We use it as our main source of search volumes for those markets. A free trial is available.

Technical crawling: Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a desktop program that crawls your site the way a search engine bot does and lists what it finds: titles and meta descriptions, headings, status codes, redirects, broken links, canonical URLs and duplicate content. The free version crawls up to 500 URLs; the paid annual licence removes the limit and adds further features.

For a small company website the free version is often enough. For an online store with thousands of products you will need the licence. How a crawl fits into a full site review is explained in our article on the website SEO audit.

Content: Surfer SEO

Surfer SEO compares your text with the pages that rank best for a keyword and recommends topics, terms and length. It is paid, with a free Chrome extension. It suits you if you publish articles regularly and want to base them on data.

Treat its recommendations as guidance: copy written to hit a score tends to read worse. Answer the reader’s question first, then check the text.

WordPress: Yoast SEO vs Rank Math

On WordPress sites, SEO settings are handled by a plugin. The best-known options are Yoast SEO and Rank Math. Both have a free version that covers titles, meta descriptions, the XML sitemap and basic structured data.

Yoast SEO is a long-established plugin with extensive documentation. In the free version you optimise each page for one focus keyphrase; Yoast SEO Premium adds checks for up to five keyphrases, redirect management, internal linking suggestions and bundled add-ons.

Rank Math offers more in its free version: multiple focus keywords per page, 18 predefined structured data types, a Google Analytics 4 integration and basic rank tracking. The paid tiers (PRO, Business, Agency) raise limits and add agency features.

We use Rank Math on client sites, mainly for structured data and features that are paid in Yoast. Yoast is still a sound choice: if it is set up and working, switching plugins alone will rarely improve rankings. A plugin is a settings tool; it does not do the SEO for you. For more on schema, read why structured data is essential for your SEO.

SEO tools compared

Paid SEO tool prices change often, so we do not list them; check each tool’s website.

Which SEO tools a small business actually needs

For a small or mid-sized business website, we recommend starting with this free set:

1. 1Google Search Console – verify the site and submit your sitemap. Check performance and indexing once a month.
2. 2Google Analytics – set up conversion tracking (form, phone call, order).
3. 3PageSpeed Insights – test the homepage and your most important landing pages.
4. 4Screaming Frog SEO Spider (free) – crawl the site once a quarter and fix the errors.
5. 5Rank Math or Yoast SEO – if you run WordPress.

A paid tool pays off when:

• you plan to publish content regularly and need search volume and competitor data,
• your site has more than 500 URLs,
• you are actively building backlinks,
• you need to track rankings for dozens of keywords over time.

Most small businesses need one paid tool at most. Ahrefs and Semrush make sense once you track several competitors or manage multiple sites.

When we work with keywords, we combine Marketing Miner, Ahrefs, Google Search Console and Keyword Planner. We rate every keyword for relevance on a 1–5 scale, sort it into a category and subcategory, and assign it to exactly one landing page so your pages do not compete with each other.

When to bring in a specialist instead of another tool

Tools show you the problem; they do not fix it. If Search Console reports errors you do not understand, traffic is falling for no obvious reason, or you do not have time to act on the data regularly, another subscription will not help. It is more efficient to hand analysis and fixes to someone who uses these tools daily.

WebOptim has been in business for more than 8 years and has delivered 50+ projects. See what our SEO services include, or tell us what you are dealing with on your site and we will tell you whether the free tools are enough or whether more is worth it.