13 Best SEO Tools for Small Businesses

Small businesses can use several different SEO software and SEO tools to improve website ranking. One of the most important is Google Analytics, which helps businesses track their website traffic and see how their website performs. Additionally, businesses can use tools like Moz to track their website’s backlinks and keyword rankings and SEMrush to research competitor websites.

Ultimately, the best SEO tools for small businesses will depend on their individual needs and what they want to achieve. However, these are some of the most commonly used tools that can help businesses improve their SEO performance.

Below I broke down SEO tools into three buckets;

1. fundamental SEO tools
2. AI SEO tools
3. Technical SEO tools

Fundamental SEO tools

There are fundamental SEO tools that every small business should consider. These core SEO tools will help you as a business owner understand how your website is performing and what needs to be improved to rank at the top of Google search results.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a must for any small business that wants to track its website traffic and performance. Google Analytics is free to use and provides a wealth of data that small businesses can use to improve your website’s ranking. Nothing new here. Google Analytics is likely mentioned in every single SEO tool review post. The key to this tool is knowing how to filter down to only organic search traffic. Google Analytics is a handy free SEO tool and one that every SEO expert has been using for years. 

SEO Tool Features of Google Analytics:

1. How many people have visited your website

2. What websites are sending traffic to your website

3. What pages on your website are the most popular

4. How long people are spending on your website

5. Where people are coming from (geographical location)

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is another free tool that provides data about your website’s performance. This tool can track your website’s keywords, backlinks, and other important ranking factors. You are simply crazy not using this free SEO tool. Google is literally telling you about what is happening directly in search results on their platform.

 SEO Tool Features of GSC:

1. Your website’s search engine rankings

2. The keywords that your website is ranking for

3. Your website’s backlinks and referring domains

4. The pages on your website that are receiving the most traffic

5. The landing pages on your website that are resulting in the most conversions

Google Keyword Planner

The Google Keyword Planner is a keyword research tool used to find keywords related to a given topic. It provides data on how often particular keywords are searched for and information on related keywords and ad competition. Small business owners can use the Keyword Planner to help create effective search engine marketing campaigns, by providing ideas for targeted keywords and estimating how difficult it will be to rank for those terms. This falls within the free SEO tools and can be super helpful!

 SEO Tool Features of Google Keyword Planner: 

1. The Google Keyword Planner is a keyword research tool used to find keywords related to a given topic.

2. It provides data on how often particular keywords are searched for and information on related keywords and ad competition.

3. The Keyword Planner can be used to help create effective search engine marketing campaigns by providing ideas for targeted keywords and estimating how difficult it will be to rank for those terms.

4. The Keyword Planner is free to use.

5. It is available as a desktop application and also has a mobile app version.

SEMrush

Considered one of the gold standards among the best SEO tools, SEMrush is a paid tool that provides data about your website’s performance and competitors’ websites. This tool can track your website’s keywords, backlinks, and other important ranking factors. SEMrush offers a rank tracking tool, keyword research tool, local SEO tools (which cost more), SEO metrics tracking tools, online visibility tracking, broken links tracking, competitor analysis, and more. This might be a bit costly for the average small business, but it does offer a plethora of SEO tools all in one place.

 SEO Tool Features of SEMrush:

1. SEMrush offers a rank tracking tool that allows you to track your website’s ranking for certain keywords.

2. The keyword research tool provides related keywords and ad competition data.

3. The SEO metrics tracking tools allow you to track your website’s progress over time.

4. The online visibility tracking tool helps track your website’s online presence.

5. The competitor analysis tool provides data on your competitor’s websites

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is another powerhouse tool and certainly one of the best SEO tools in my book. Ahrefs can be used to track your website’s keywords, backlinks, and other important ranking factors. Ahrefs also offers a rank tracking tool, keyword research tool, WordPress SEO plugin, internal links analysis, backlink analysis, and more. In my opinion, Ahrefs is the best SEO tool for keyword ideas. They offer a free trial if you want to take it for a test drive.

 SEO Tool Features of AHREFs:

1. Ahrefs offers a rank tracking tool to help you track your website’s progress.

2. The keyword research tool can help you find new and relevant keywords for your site.

3. The backlink analysis tool can help you identify and improve your backlinks.

4. The internal links analysis tool can help optimize your internal link structure.

5. Ahrefs offers a free trial to try it before buying it.

Moz Pro

Moz is a great tool for small businesses that want to track their website’s backlinks and keyword rankings. This tool provides detailed data that can be used to improve your website’s SEO. Moz has many comparable SEO tools including a site explorer tool, site audits, backlink analysis, on-page SEO recommendations, and more. They also will help you track keyword rankings and help guide your overall SEO strategy. 

These SEO tools are just the start. There are many other small business SEO tools to choose from, but these are the gold standard. Now let’s move on to some new tools that can help you save time by leveraging the power of AI. 

 SEO Tool Features of Moz:

1. Moz offers a wide range of SEO tools to help business owners track their website’s progress.

2. Moz has a very intuitive user interface that is easy to learn and use.

3. Moz offers many data-driven insights that can help improve your website’s SEO.

4. Moz is always up-to-date with the latest SEO trends and changes.

5. Moz has a large community of users who are always willing to help and share their experiences.

AI SEO Tools

Small businesses need all the help they can get, especially when it comes to time-consuming content creation. Good content is the backbone of on-page SEO but creating new content that is well optimized is a chore. Handing that task off to a freelancer can often not yield the results you are looking for.

Below are some of the best SEO tools using AI that can accelerate content creation for you and still let you produce high-quality, SEO-optimized content that will rank higher in the search engines.

Jasper.ai

Jasper.ai is a tool that can help small businesses with their SEO efforts. With Jasper.ai, businesses can submit a URL, and the AI tool will create high-quality content optimized for SEO. This is a time-saving tool that will help businesses produce content that is well optimized and will rank higher in search engines. I use Jasper.ai as a “first draft” or as a way to productively brainstorm new ideas. Jasper.ai has revolutionized how small business owners can create website content at lightning speed. Jasper.ai offers a free trial to show you how it can help reduce friction when creating new content.

 SEO Tool Features of Jasper.ai:

1. AI-generated content that is optimized for SEO

2. Helps businesses brainstorm new ideas and content

3. Free trial to test out the tool

4. Easy-to-use interface

5. Produces high-quality, SEO-friendly content

Word.ai

Word.ai is a powerful AI rewriting tool. I use this tool when I want to rephrase content from another source or if I want to take another spin at creating new content. While Jasper offers a better end product, Word.ai can often do better at rephrasing larger blocks of text. Give them a shot if you want to test drive their service.

 SEO Tool Features of Word.ai:

1. Word.ai is a powerful AI rewriting tool that can help you rephrase or create new content from scratch.

2. You can use their service for free if you want to try it out before committing.

3. They offer a better end product than Jasper, but Jasper is worth trying if you have a lot of text to rewrite.

4. Word.ai has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to start quickly.

5. They are always updating their software to make sure that it’s the best possible tool for their users

SurferSEO

Hold on to your seats! SurferSEO has been a game changer when it comes to optimizing website content. Historically, small businesses would have to perform keyword research and then write content that they think was at the right keyword density based on SEO best practices. Now, SurferSEO gives you direct analysis and real-time feedback on what keywords to use compared to the top ten results of your seed keyword. You don’t have to have the best content on the internet. You only have to be more optimized than the top ten results based on a given search term.

SurferSEO offers a free trial as well. Give it a shot. You might not even need an SEO consultant after using SurferSEO. This tool is one of the best SEO tools to hit the market.

 SEO Tool Features of SurferSEO:

1. Real-time feedback on keyword optimization

2. Easily compare your website to the top 10 results for any given search term

3. Free trial available

4. Get insights into what keywords to use for better content optimization

5. Helps small businesses grow faster than ever before

Invideo

Video, video, video. The addiction to videos is real. If you are a small business owner, you don’t have time to go shoot videos for your blog posts. Invideo might be your solution. Invideo offers video creation tools to help small businesses create videos for their website and blog posts. With Invideo, you can create videos in minutes without having to be a video expert. Using their text to script and drag and drop editor, you can create videos within just a few clicks.

 SEO Tool Features of Invideo:

1. Easily create videos without any prior video experience

2. Drag and drop editor makes video creation easy

3. Script your videos using their text-to-speech feature

4. Upload existing videos for editing

5. Get insights into what works well in video marketing

Play.ht

Whipping up a voice-over for a video can be challenging and often take a lot of time. Play.ht is a great simple tool to produce AI-based voice recordings that don’t sound like a robot. They have a free trial on their homepage, which might be the tool you are looking for.

 SEO Tool Features of Play.ht:

1. AI-based voice recordings that don’t sound like a robot

2. Easily create voice-over for videos in minutes

3. Free trial available

4. Upload existing videos for editing

5. Get insights into what works well in video marketing

Grammarly

I will throw this one in here since it is a powerhouse tool. While Grammarly isn’t an SEO tool, it does help with content creation. Let me step you through the trifecta that will make your SEO efforts fruitful. First, use Jasper to generate ideas. Second, use the Jasper+SurferSEO combo (they have an integration) to target exactly the language you need to rank at the top. Finally, run your second draft through Grammarly and fix any weird spelling or grammar issues in a few clicks. Finally, read your third draft carefully and thoughtfully and make edits as needed. This workflow will speed up your SEO-optimized content in an instant.

 SEO Tool Features of Grammarly:

1. Helps you write mistake-free content

2. Checks for grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes

3. Offers synonym suggestions to help improve your writing

4. Integrates with word processors like Microsoft Word, Google Docs, SurferSEO, and Jasper.ai

5. Provides a plagiarism checker to ensure your content is original (critical when using Jasper.ai)

Technical SEO Tools

Sitechecker.pro

I spent an entire day working on a technical SEO checklist that I can use as an SEO consultant, only to find that Sitechecker.pro already has this as part of their tool. This is one of the best SEO tools that I use daily. They will analyze your website and provide technical SEO feedback as a site audit tool. This provides you with a list of critical items, warnings, notices, and opportunities that you (or your SEO expert) can work on to boost your website indexability. This is a must-use, in my opinion.

Best SEO tools wrap up!

When it comes to SEO and ranking higher in major search engines, the list of things to do is long. Having a few small business SEO tools in your back pocket can make the difference between not showing up on search engines and reaching the top. Give these tools a try and see what makes sense for your small business.

If you need help with your small business SEO, feel free to reach out for a free website audit and conversation. Organic traffic is one of the most powerful ways to capture new business.