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There are well over 200 SEO tools in the world. How do you know which SEO tools are worth checking out?
I’ve tested over 100 tools, and keep an eye out for new ones coming. So maybe I saved you about 200 hours of research 😉
Below I review the top 20 tools. Big 2024 update where I talk about my experience since last year’s review.
By the way: If you are looking for the most simple tools we have made a list of the easiest SEO tools for beginners too.
Which SEO tools are best in 2024?
In 2024, there are over 200 free and paid SEO tools on the market.
🎁 = free SEO tool
💵 = paid SEO tool
💎 = new SEO tool on the list
Here are the SEO tools that stand out the most in 2024
- Google Search Console 🎁
- Ahrefs 💵
- Morningscore 💵
- SEMrush 💵
- Surfer SEO 💵
- Moz Pro 💵
- Rich results test 🎁
- Pagespeed insights 🎁
- Compress PNG 🎁
- Answer The Public 🎁
- ChatGPT 🎁 💵
- SEO.ai 💵
- Frase.io 💵 💎
- Screaming Frog 💵
- Seobility 💵
- SE Ranking 💵
- AccuRanker 💵
- Yoast SEO (WordPress plugin) 🎁 💵
- Rank Math (WordPress plugin) 💵
- Schemantra 🎁
Review of the 20 SEO tools
In the table, you can see the categories I have divided the tools into.
The price shown is the smallest plan you can buy.
| Category | Explanation |
|---|---|
| 🏆 | Rank tracker tool |
| 🤖 | Technical SEO (onpage) |
| 🔍 | Keyword research |
| ✍️ | Help to write content |
| 🔗 | Backlink tool |
1. My personal test of Google Search Console
🏆 🤖 🔗 Price: Free.
Google Search Console has become one of the most best SEO tools. Much has improved in the last couple of years. It is Google’s own and it gives them some advantages. Among others, no tool can match the size of their list of keywords and the accuracy of traffic and visibility coming to them.
However, there is one limitation that affects all features: you can only get info on a website you own (or are invited to) which makes this tool useless for competitor analysis and e.g. finding new keywords or links. There are many cool features inside Google Search Console that are only found here.
2024 update: The UX could be better. Most beginners I have shown it to during the last year too get lost right away and it takes time for them to learn how to properly use it. So go carefully into it 🙂
2. My personal test of Ahrefs
🏆 🤖 ✍️ 🔍 🔗 Price: $99 per month
Ahrefs data quality is among the best on the market and the tool is especially popular in tracking backlinks and researching keywords. Ahrefs also allows you to check how your competitors are approaching SEO. Ahrefs is a great database if you know what you’re looking for. However, it is not a tool that guides you in the right direction. You need to be an expert to get the full value. If you are, Ahrefs is one of the best SEO tools. See table with features
2024 update: Ahrefs has changed their pricing quite a lot and many users are unhappy. The claim is that you need to pay for the $199 / month plan to really use the tool. Not an unfair price for a huge database, but certainly breaks some budgets.
3. My personal test of Morningscore
🏆 🤖 ✍️ 🔍 🔗 Price: $49 per month
Morningscore is an all-in-one SEO tool that lets you measure the value of organic traffic to your website in Dollars. The tool uses game elements to make working with SEO fun and simple. Therefore, you don’t need to be an expert to get results. This translates into small SEO missions that help you generate results and give you XP when completed, which helps you level up while growing traffic from Google. You get access to keywords, links, health (technical SEO), and competitor monitoring. The data quality is close to the biggest SEO tools. Disclaimer: This is our own tool. You can test it free here (no credit card).
2024 update: Contrary to other premium SEO tools, Morningscore has lowered their price for 2024 by including smaller pricing plans starting at $49. Morningscore also released a ton of new features during 2023 that got a lot of hype from customers.
4. My personal test of Semrush
🏆 🤖 ✍️ 🔍 🔗 Price: $120 per month
SEMrush is a very comprehensive SEO tool that provides an overview and detailed insight into all your keywords and links. Personally, I never considered Semrush among the best SEO tools. The user experience is fragmented, with almost 50 different sub-sections (see left side on the image below). However, their data is strong and they are arguably the biggest SEO tool on the market, so I can’t make this list without also mentioning Semrush. See table with features.
2024 update: Similar to Ahrefs, Semrush has changed their pricing quite a lot and many users are unhappy (as seen on Reddit). The claim is that you need to pay for the $249 / month plan to really use the tool. Not an unfair price for a huge database with a lot of historical data. But yes, not a price for everyone.
5. My personal test of Surfer SEO
🏆 ✍️ 🔍 Price: $89 per month
I have only played a little with Surfer SEO but can say it is intuitive and many hype it on the web. It compares your content to those that rank highest on Google and shows you where your content lags versus theirs. It’s a simple idea but not easy in practice, so the Polish guys behind the tool have executed it well. For example, if you work with content on a daily basis, this tool is definitely worth checking out.
2024 update: 2023 was really the year of SEO tools price increases it seems. As I wrote this review last year, the tool cost $29 / month. Now the starting price almost tripled to $89 / month. It’s still a fair price if you are hardcore around your SEO content strategy. A lot of new features added too during last year. But for small business owners with a simple need I no longer recommend SEO Surfer.
6. My personal test of Moz Pro
🏆 🤖 ✍️ 🔍 🔗 Price: $99 per month
With Moz, you get an all-in-one tool for backlink analysis, keyword, and onsite optimization. They’ve been in the game since 2002 and have a great reputation. I don’t find their tools intuitive, but the data is solid. So if it’s important to you, give them a test. I can also only praise their culture and openness in an industry that is often a bit dirty and closed. Moz is strong on links data, often better than Ahrefs, which is why we also use their data in our own SEO tool, Morningscore. See table with features
2024 update: I feel like Moz has been stable and not with a lot of changes. But I haven’t had much time to use it this year. Didn’t notice anything big at least. Pricing also still the same (thank you Moz!). Still solid SEO data and among the very best.
7. My personal test of Rich results test
🤖 Price: Free.
If you’re new to SEO, don’t start here. One of the hard parts of SEO: This tool helps with Schema, also called structured data. It is an extra “invisible layer” on your website that can feed Google with more info that allows you to achieve better rankings on Google. Rich Results Test can tell you if your website can achieve these extended positions on Google.
2024 update: Some people claim Schema will only become more important in these new AI times. So this tool is certainly still relevant. But don’t get scared if you don’t know what Schema is. It’s still not a thing to worry about if you are starting out with SEO.
8. My personal test of Pagespeed insights
🤖 Price: Free.
The speed of your website has become important in SEO. And Google’s requirements for speed have become greater. With this tool, you can test your website speed and get a score from 0-100. Note that you get a score for both mobile and desktop speed. Both are important. This is still important in 2024.
9. My personal test of Compress PNG
🤖 Pris: Free.
Super small tool to compress images so they take up less space and your website gets faster = Google is happy. Not only the PNG file format but also JPG, GIF, and even PDF. You can often compress file sizes by over 50%!!
10. My personal test of Answer The Public
🔍 Price: Free.
Answer The Public is a super free tool to find more “question keywords”. For example, if you have the keyword “real estate agent” you can type it in and the tool will give you a bunch of suggestions for questions related to the keyword the tool thinks people are searching for. Unfortunately, you don’t get searches/month on the suggested keywords, but you can put them into another tool, such as Morningscore, and then the search volume showed there.
11. My personal test of ChatGPT
✍️ 🔍 Price: Free.
This is the leading AI chat tool. Among other things, you can get help brainstorming content and for example, asking the bot to help you generate 5 headlines from a keyword you want to rank for. See the example in the image. It’s that easy. Just ask the bot SEO questions and you’ll get help right away. Requires a user which you can create for free. Be careful not to copy 1:1. Try to customize the content and make it personal. Then there’s no danger of Google having a problem with your content coming from an AI.
2024 update: I have mainly used ChatGPT for translations and ideas in the last year. Especially translating content and getting it to for example clean up HTML code for me, has been a nice time saver. I have also used Dall-E (the image generation tool) for images for blog posts. It’s cool for some uses, but the hallucination is still quite bad in some cases. The new GPT store is cool and I have already used it for various things. Only works with a Pro subscription though, which I have upgraded to for $20/month. Nice price!
12. My personal test of SEO.ai
✍️ 🔍 Price: $49 per month
A Danish-developed tool. I know parts of the team behind it and think they stand for good software. They have a 7-day free trial which requires a credit card. I haven’t had time to test it myself yet, but have heard from several that it works well. That’s why it makes the list here.
2024 update: $49/month is a little on the high side for an AI content tool in my opinion. I have also tested Frase which currently can get you started for $15/month. But if your need is decent, $49 is of course peanuts for the value you get. I urge you to test both tools 😊
13. My personal test of Frase
✍️ 🔍 Price: $15 per month.
Frase is a tool to help you create better SEO content, which is the primary activity we perform in SEO to gain more traffic from Google. It does that by suggesting text and keywords you could add. And also for example that you should add more headlines, bullet points or what so ever.
Frase has similarities to Surfer SEO and SEO.ai which are also found on this top list. I wouldn’t exactly call it an easy tool to use, but if you look at the competitors out there (and there are MANY) it’s robust and still one of the simpler tools to get started with. I find all these content tools a little bit confusing to be honest, because they have so many buttons and things they want me to do. So I don’t personally use them much, as they kind of block my writing creativity in that way. But if you struggle with what to write and need more help with how to rank your content for keywords, then this is a great and very fairly priced tool.
14. My personal test of Screaming Frog
🤖 Price: $259 per year. Limited free version too.
This is an expert tool. Screaming Frog is a piece of software that you download to your computer and use to check the “onsite” health of your website. The tool allows you to crawl your website in the same way as Google’s web crawlers do, and based on the analysis of your onsite SEO – i.e. the quality of your website in the eyes of search engines – you can identify common errors and problems, analyze metadata and generate XML sitemaps. Free version is available where you can scan 500 landing pages. Use Screaming Frog if you really want to geek out about onpage SEO. There are many alternatives that make the job easier. For example SEObility, Ahrefs, and Morningscore from this list. See table with features
2024 update: I have used it quite a bit during the last year. This tool is by far not perfect, many “false positives” but that is because the internet is so complex, so don’t hold against these cool Brits 😊. It’s a super nerdy tool, and I don’t find myself enjoying using it. But one thing I enjoy: It’s freaking fast!! (to the point where Screaming Frog actually ignore the robots.txt on people’s websites telling crawlers to slow down… Hmm Screaming Frog, from the biggest health crawler I expected a little more 😑)
15. My personal test of Seobility
🏆 🤖 🔗 Price: $50 per month
SEObility started as a health (technical SEO) tool to scan your website and find improvements. I think they do that well, I’ve been a customer in the past. Today they cover the whole palette and can be called an “all-in-one” SEO tool. Their user experience is not my cup of tea, it’s a bit too grey. A German team is behind 😉. I personally does not feel inspired to action. This is of course a personal preference. The data is solid though and the price is sharp. And they have a free version. Which is why they made it onto this prestigious list after all 😎
16. My personal test of SE Ranking
🏆 🤖 🔍 🔗 Price: $55
SE Ranking provides a complete toolbox of SEO tools. All-in-one tool. I was a customer for 2 years. However, personally, I found only their rank tracker so really good. Their link tools were confusing and the data was not super. Technical SEO was so-so. It may have changed since I was a customer. Price/quality is sharp. Probably partly why SE Ranking has grown a lot in the last few years.
2024 update: Price and plans changed. Now starting at $55. Didn’t have much time to test this one, so not sure which new features have been built.
17. My personal test of AccuRanker
🏆 🔍 Price: $140 per month
AccuRanker is a Danish-developed rank-tracking tool. That is, they focus on tracking keywords and their ranking on Google. They are really good at this and help big companies and agencies to track thousands of keywords. I was a customer for 1 year. So if you have a big rank tracking need and want to be able to filter deep into that data, AccuRanker is worth checking out.
Several new clients of ours have mentioned Morningscore as a good alternative to Accuranker. Of course, this depends on the need. Accuranker are kings when it comes to large and complex keyword tracking needs. And their filtering and tagging of keywords is quite deep.
18. My personal test of Yoast SEO (WordPress plugin)
🤖 Price: Free and paid upgrade.
Yoast is one of the most popular SEO plugins for WordPress. You can use it to optimize the technical aspects of your SEO, and the tool also helps you in the right direction in terms of keyword optimizing your written content. If you have a WordPress website, Yoast is a super extension that will automatically make your website more SEO-friendly.
19. My personal test of Rank Math (WordPress plugin)
🤖 Price: $5 per month.
At Morningsore, we switched from Yoast to Rank Math in 2023 as many hyper Rank Math these days. The tool helps with migration. It wasn’t completely painless though and the hype doesn’t quite hold up in my opinion. The free version is not worth much, so we upgraded. Cheap though. Rank Math Pro has a lot of neat little features that save time. Examples: automatic alt tags on images. Automatically find videos on the page and tell Google about them (Schema). Schema templates. Show the number of internal and external links on pages (very basic though). All in all, I’m satisfied. But if you have Yoast and are happy, stay there.
2024 update: Rank Math has a free plan too, but it’s so limited that I would not list it here. We have been happy using it for a year, but I honestly still thinks Yoast SEO does a better job for the WordPress community and is an excellent tool too. I have a feeling their design and code is cleaner too, but I woulnd’t know for sure.
Our experienced during last year: Rank Math had several issues and a lot of their added functionality like website traffic analytics and AI content helper does not work on our site. But the core worked well.
20. My personal test of Schemantra (structured data)
🤖 Price: Free
If you are an SEO geek and need to make your own Schema data, but obviously can’t remember all details in your head, then I would recommend this tool. I have used it myself to generate Schemas for Morningcore. There are many generators, but all the others I’ve tested have a very small selection. Here you get the complete list. It’s loooong.
Explanation of categories
In the list of SEO tools above, I used icons to categorize the tools. Here is an explanation:
🔗 SEO tools for links
Link tools help you check the number of links from other websites and examine the quality of the links etc. “Link building” and “Backlinks” are among the phrases you will encounter here. If you want to know more about backlinks and why they are important for your rankings, you can read this beginner’s guide: How do backlinks work?
✍️ SEO tools to help you with content
These tools help you create content for your website. For example, writing texts and headlines for you. Many of them are boosted by AI. Super smart. Be careful not to get too seduced by them, though. Use your common sense when creating content. Ask: would you read your own content?
🔍 SEO tools for keyword research
The tools in this category help you find the best keywords and typically tell you how many searches per month a keyword has, plus a bunch more.
🏆 SEO tools for keyword rank tracking
These tools can measure the position of the keywords on which your website ranks in search engines. Tracking your website and keyword rankings is an essential part of the SEO process. The work helps you make good decisions about your content.
🤖 Technical SEO tools
Technical SEO is, in short, about everything other than your written content. The term refers to the work of optimizing your website so that search engines can access, crawl and index it.
In essence, technical SEO covers everything you can do to help Google understand the content and structure of your website. It can be difficult to fully master – which is why we recommend you try one of the following tools.
Morningscore vs. the other SEO tools
Right now, you’re on Morningscore.io – and our own SEO tool is in the list of recommended tools.
Yes, that might seem untrustworthy. But I have endeavored to showcase tools I can vouch for and have used myself.
If you’re curious about Morningscore I can provide some more info here:
Morningscore is designed in a fun and simple way that motivates you to get your SEO tasks done.
Because in the end, that’s what it’s all about: getting SEO done. There are a ton of tools out there. Tools don’t alone determine whether you’ll be successful. Your effort does.
We see in case after case that our clients get more traffic because they were motivated to get their SEO fixed.
So maybe you should give Morningscore a free 14-day trial?
PS.
These tools have been removed from the list of recommendations for 2024🔻
- Keyword Tool
- Rankwatch
- Authority Labs
- Pitchbox
- LinkMiner
- SEOptimer
- Xenu’s Link Sleuth
- KWfinder
- Keywords Everywhere
- DareBoost
- Check My Links
- BuzzSumo
- Whitespark
- Twinword Graph
- AIPRM (ChatGPT Chrome extension)
Reason: I haven’t had time to test these tools in the last few years and they weren’t essential to my own SEO work. This does not make them bad!
Conclusion
I hope this guide gave you some good and original insights and that you could see this was my personal opinion and not some garbage AI generated text 😉
I wish you a ton of luck with SEO in 2024 🎉
