Regardless of the size of your business, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a crucial step for any SaaS company looking to beat its competition. A perfectly optimized website will help increase your brand visibility and increase your organic traffic, ultimately leading to an increase in sales volume. Since SEO is a long-term digital marketing strategy that requires ongoing effort, it is paramount to employ the right tools for the job. However, it can be a daunting task to choose amongst the myriads of SaaS SEO tools available on the market.
So, to aid you in your ongoing SEO efforts, we’ve compiled a list of 10 tools professional marketers use to optimize their client’s websites. Some of them are indispensable parts of any SEO toolbox, while others are highly useful aids. These tools can greatly help you out with various SaaS link building tactics as well.
Without further ado, here are 10 SaaS SEO tools professionals use to outrank their competitors:
1. Google Search Console (GSC)
Although sporting a very simple interface, Google Search Console is an SEO powerhouse that allows you to monitor how your website appears on Google’s search result pages. You can find out which keywords your website ranks for, what is the average position for each particular keyword, whether Google found errors on one of your website pages, and much more. It is an absolutely indispensable part of any SEO toolkit.
Why use Google Search Console:
- Find out which search queries your pages rank for
- Find the exact volume of those queries and your average CTR
- Receive alerts if Google has detected errors on your website pages
- Submit an XML sitemap to ensure all your pages are correctly indexed
Price: Free
Is there a free version: As long as you have Admin Privileges, you can register a website (or multiple websites) on Google Search Console
2. Google Analytics
The underpinning technology for Google Analytics was acquired by Google in 2005. when they bought the web analytics company Urchin. Today, it is an essential part of any SEO toolkit, allowing you to track virtually every metric you can think of.
Why use Google Analytics:
- Track a plethora of metrics, including traffic, conversions, bounce rate, time on page, and pretty much anything else you can imagine
- Find out which devices your audience is using, which countries they come from, what their interests are, and much more
- Analyze and interpret those metrics and use the data to inform your decisions
Price: Free
Is there a free version: Yep, it’s completely free
3. Ahrefs
Ahrefs started out as a link analysis tool but has developed into a complete and highly versatile SEO toolkit. It is one of the most popular SEO platforms today, and includes, amongst other things, tools for keyword research, finding backlinks (find out how we found backlink gaps for our client and boosted their rankings), and keeping an eye on your competitors.
Why use Ahrefs:
- Monitor your KW rankings in 171 countries and on 10 different search engines
- Analyze your backlink profile and find broken links
- Use crawlers to analyze your own, as well as your competitors’ websites or individual pages
- See how your website compares to your competitors’ websites
- Receive email notifications on changes in your rankings and backlinks
Price: Subscription rates range from $99 per month for the Lite plan to $999 per month for the Agency plan
Is there a free version: There is no free version, but you can buy a 7-day trial for $7
4. Hunter
Hunter is an all-in-one cold outreach tool that helps you find the right email addresses, ensuring these emails are valid and you can receive emails, personalizing and automating outreach sequences. We do a lot of manual outreach and publish guest posts for our clients, and we can’t imagine doing it without Hunter.
Why use Hunter:
- Find professional email addresses for outreach
- Verify email addresses and ensure high deliverability
- Automate whole outreach process
- Advanced campaign performance tracking
- Bulk tasks
- Chrome and Google Spreadsheet extensions for saving extra time
- Improve your email deliverability
Price: The paid subscription starts at $49/month.
Is there a free version: It is. The free version comes with limited credits, but there is no expiry data, and you can even automate your outreach campaigns with a free version.
If you want to learn more about Hunter and the ways it can help your business, we wrote a dedicated Hunter.io review.
5. Moz
Moz is one of the biggest names in keyword research and an exceptional all-in-one SEO toolkit. It sports a simple interface with mountains of useful data for website optimization. Apart from having the largest link index in the SEO industry, the software also features a multitude of useful tools ranging from keyword recommendations to site crawling.
Why use MOZ:
- Conduct detailed keyword research
- Monitor your backlinks
- Monitor your keyword ranking over time
- Use their on-site SEO grader to optimize your website
Price: Subscription plans range from $99 per month for the Standard plan to $599 for the Premium plan
Is there a free version: The free version has limited features but you can get a 30-day free trial. Additionally, you can download the Moz toolbar for free
6. SEO Booster
SEO Booster is a powerful software specifically designed for websites built on the Shopify platform. The tool features from basic on-page SEO tools to cover elements such as meta tags, and ALT tags, to advanced ones that help with website performance. Packed with a simple and user-friendly interface, the software is ideal for those who are not tech-savvy.
Why use SEO Booster:
- Monitor your on-page SEO elements and improve site speed.
- Save your time on on-page SEO tasks with automatic tools.
- Enjoy direct technical support from professional developers.
Prices: The price ranges from $39 per month for the Pro plan to $79 for the Unlimited plan.
Is there a free version: Yes, but with limited features.
7. Answer The Public
Answer The Public is a keyword research tool for collecting all imaginable queries and keywords related to a given topic. It bases suggestions on Google’s auto-complete searches and various question modifiers to give you scores of search variations. It’s particularly useful for finding question-related keywords.
Why use Answer The Public:
- Find tons of keyword variations, long-tail keywords, and question-based keywords related to a chosen topic
- Set up alerts to get notified whenever a search query or questions related to any topic is discovered
- Review your keywords in visual format categorized into different groups
Price: The basic Monthly plan is $99 per month and the Expert plan is $199 per month
Is there a free version: You can use the software freely but your searches have a daily limit
8. Screaming Frog
Screaming Frog is a powerful SEO spider software that is downloaded to your computer and used for running deep crawls of websites. It features a visual representation of the site architecture and will inform you of the status of on-page SEO elements such as meta descriptions, XML sitemap, duplicate content, heading tags, and others.
Why use Screaming Frog:
- Check all SEO elements at once and make your website as optimized as possible
- Integrate Screaming Frog with Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and PageSpeed Insights API to have all the performance data in one place
- Find broken links, duplicate content, errors, and bad redirects
Price: The subscription is very affordable, costing around $190 annually. They also offer discounts for buying multiple licenses
Is there a free version: Yes but with limited features and a 500 URL crawl limit
9. Majestic
Majestic is a link building tool with a database of millions of domains. It allows you to determine who links to your website and check the quality of those backlinks using various metrics. Additionally, you can compare the link profile of your website to those of your competitors and determine how well you are doing.
Why use Majestic:
- Compare your website’s backlink profile with that of your competitors
- Discover backlink opportunities
- Find and audit backlinks
- Break down backlinks into various categories, such as external, inbound, live, direct, and others
Price: Subscription rates range from $49.99 per month for the Lite plan to $399.99 per month for the API plan
Is there a free version: Yes but with limited features
10. Surfer SEO
Surfer SEO is an exceptionally powerful content optimization tool that will guide you through the process of creating perfectly optimized content. Its interface allows users to write (or paste in) their content, and the AI-powered software will show the word count, suggest related keywords, H2s, and more.
Why use Surfer SEO:
- Find out the optimal word count for your chosen keyword
- Ensure your writers are using keywords in the right frequency
- Compare your content with top-performing content on SERPs
Price: The price ranges from $59 per month for the Basic plan to $239 for the Business plan
Is there a free version: No, but they offer a 7-day money-back guarantee which can be extended to 30 days if you share feedback
11. GTmetrix
GTmetrix is a tool for testing, monitoring, and optimizing website performance. It allows you to quickly determine how fast your website loads in various locations across the globe. The software will then reveal why your website is loading slowly and offer suggestions on how to optimize it to load faster.
Why use GTmetrix:
- Analyze your website loading speeds on various locations worldwide and on multiple different mobile devices.
- Optimize your load speed to achieve better SEO results
- Get alerts when there is a change in your website load speed, Core Web Vitals, and page size.
Price: Premium plans range from $10 per month for the Solo plan to $40 per month for the Growth plan
Is there a free version: You can it freely, but premium plans offer additional features
12. Clickflow
Clickflow is an A/B testing tool focused on existing content, allowing you to monitor the effectiveness of implemented optimizations. The software is primarily intended for websites that already have a decent amount of content. It allows you to test different meta descriptions, titles, and other SEO elements to determine what versions will result in greater CTRs.
Why use Clickflow:
- Determine what titles and phrases will result in the greatest CTR
- By optimizing your existing content through A/B testing, you can generate more traffic without having to create more content or build more backlinks
Price: Starter plan is $109 per month, while the price of their professional plan depends on the features you require
Is there a free version: Yes, you can request one after downloading a demo
Wrapping up
SEO is a long-term and challenging process that takes into account a large number of different factors but can yield amazing results in terms of traffic increase and, ultimately, revenue increase. However, marketing budgets vary greatly across different SaaS companies, as do the costs of the tools we’ve looked at here.
There is no need for you to buy all of these tools immediately. Try some of them out, and see how well they work for your company. If used correctly, they are sure to pay for themselves in the long run.
