9 Best and Cheapest SEO Tools for Beginners? (Tested and Reviewed)

Last Updated on July 20, 2022 by Arif Chowdhury

If you are new to SEO, you may wonder, what are SEO tools, and what are they used for?

There are many SEO tools out there, from free to paid services. You can get more or less benefit from most of them. However, a severe marketer always tries to find the best marketing tools to maximize performance.

You may wonder what the best and cheapest SEO tools for beginners and big organizations are? Though there are hundreds of factors that exist to answer this question. Paying thousands of dollars per month won’t affect their revenue much, but this is a severe issue for a small organization.

What are the Best SEO Tools you can use?

SEO means “Search Engine Optimization” ever since, search engines have become the most popular tool to find a website by typing a keyword, website, and blog owner trying to get on the top by any means necessary. Therefore, SEO has been one of the most common tongues since then.

By doing SEO on your website, you help search engines to find your website content, and by doing so, your website will rank higher to get even more organic visitors.

In other words, SEO is a free way to get most of the high-quality traffic/visitors on your website, thus increasing your revenue.

In this guide, I have handpicked some of my favorite low-budget and self-learning SEO tools that you can use to maximize your SEO ranking and grow your revenue exponentially.

Now let’s see what best option we have to get the most benefit from SEO tools.

1. Semrush.

All-in-one SEO solution for a small or large organization.

SEMrush is one of the SEO tools you can use for almost any marketing needs to get the most benefit.

It has a free plan available for an indefinite time for trial purposes, but you might be able to get some essential benefits from it.

First of all, SEMrush is for your SEO needs; with a few clicks, you can get a full SEO audit report in your dashboard for not only your website but all visible websites over the internet; in this way, you have a great chance to gather some valuable SEO data from your competitors.

Though you can use the “Google Keyword Planner” to get an idea of keywords and monthly search volume, however, with the SEMrush keyword finder tool, you will be able to reach millions of keyword ideas with hundreds of new advanced features that you won’t get in any freebies plan. So advanced keyword research is going to be very helpful.

Virtual assistance for SEO professionals.

Getting errors and warnings reported while examining your website is always helpful. Unfortunately, you are not a master by default. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here; therefore, getting advice on what you did wrong and where you should enhance your website optimization.

The next thing is beyond your website’s internal optimization; it is PPC campaign marketing or social media marketing. For the PPC campaign, every dollar is counted; if you target the wrong keywords, your whole campaign might get ruined with waves of wrong visitors. Thus finding the right keyword and search volume is vital if you want to succeed in this competitive market.

With the SEO tool, you can get hundreds of results quickly.

Quick Note: SEMrush is far better than other free tools to identify keyword difficulty. However, Screaming Frog could be an alternate choice for you, especially if you do not like to pay monthly subscription fees. It can do all types of tasks such as SEO analysis, competitor analysis, duplicate content finding, backlink checker, etc. Though its free version is enough for the basic task, you should look for the paid version as you won’t have any limits then.

Find the best possible keywords for your niche.

Now, what about pricing? They have three subscription plans from Pro to Business ranging from $83 to $333 per month if billed annually, as you will get a 16% discount automatically. Another plan for a large organization is the Enterprise plan; you have to contact them directly for a custom rate.

In any case, if you are not sure, then just sign-up for a free account. The good thing is that it has no trial period; you can test as long as you like.

2. Ahrefs.

Advance SEO tool for your website – free 7-day trial.

Ahrefs is one of the leading and most popular SEO tools; it provides you with all the information and insight you need to optimize your website for organic search.

It has a free 7-day trial available for you to try its service.

Just like SEMrush, after you log in to your account, you will get a dashboard full of information and valuable insight for a selected domain, including backlinks, referring domains, organic keywords, organic traffic, paid traffic, and much more helpful information. All of these combined features help you a lot in your technical SEO.

Organic traffic is the gold mine for all types of businesses, no matter how small or big an organization they are. Tapping on that gold mine can bring millions of free traffic to their business, thus increasing revenue exponentially. Google search console should be your best friend to track the live performance of your website on Google organic search.

All helpful information is in one dashboard.

An internal site audit is another backbone of overall SEO. It is called on-page SEO. By using a site audit, you will get a full report of the on-page performance of your website; if any errors are found, it will show in reports and give recommendations on how to solve them.

You will receive a visual data analysis of your website with valuable graphs containing SEO health scores; crawl issues found, broken internal links, unnecessary keyword stuffing, and many more.

If your website is old and becoming huge, it is almost impossible to find broken internal links or pages unless site visitors report it. SEO tools enable you to get all these reports within a minute and fix them.

Quick Note: Ahrefs broken links feature is perfect for the link-building campaign. You can find broken links of almost any site on the internet instantly. So it is by far the best link analysis tool.

Ahrefs is a little bit costly compared to other SEO tools out there. However, they have many advanced features that you won’t find in other SEO tools.

They have four subscription plans Lite, Standard, Advanced, and Agency, ranging from $82 to $832 per month. You will get two months free if billed annually and also save $1,998 per year. If you are a small business owner, you should start with the Lite plan; otherwise, go for an advance or Agency plan according to your needs.

There is a free 7-day plan available. However, they require you to submit your credit card information.

3. Growthbar.

Flexible free tool for SEO growth.

It’s a Google Chrome extension, just like other free SEO tools. However, it also has a paid plan of $29 per month. Using this extension, you can check on search results and get suggestions on millions of keyword ideas on your favorite chrome browser.

For example, type in Google search anything you like, and you will see search results as usual, but this time using this extension, you will see additional information regarding that keyword, the DA score of a specific website, and how difficult it will be to rank for a particular keyword.

On top of that, you will get millions of relevant keyword suggestions, search volumes, and ranking scores based on your searched keyword. It’s beneficial when you are researching long keywords.

To figure out the standard article length range, you can examine any website page using this extension, like how many words they have written within that page.

Maybe the most amazing part is this – You can even spy on their Facebook ads and see how they created their ads and which keywords they have targeted to get a clear idea about their social media marketing. It’s probably one of the best SEO toolbars out there.

Quick Note: they have a unique content planner in their paid plans. It provides an easy content management system, i.e., automated content outline, suggested keywords, word count, headings, etc.

4. Advanced Web Ranking.

Professional SEO for advanced users – free 30-day run.

Advanced Web Ranking (AWR) is more like a professional SEO service than an application; they provide you custom and advanced SEO service on-demand rather than a report from automated software.

They have a free 30-day trial plan for you to test their service; no credit card is required whatsoever.

You will receive keywords ranking data based on locations and devices and the ability to compare your ranking with competitors.

AWR can track an unlimited keyword and project based on your subscription plan. You can even have separate users for AWR accounts if it is a large organization or team.

Resource Box: Most newbies had no idea how to generate their website XML sitemap. So, here you may use this free tool to create one. It is free to use for the basic task, but if your site is large, you must pick the paid version.

Customized advanced on-demand SEO reports.

AWR can be used as a white label SEO service. If you want to provide SEO service to your clients, use a white label feature to erase any trace of AWR from the application interface to get fully customizable SEO reports for your client.

They have a powerful drag-and-drop, user-friendly interface to make your custom-made report; you can use your template and edit graphs and columns the way you want.

Monitor your website rankings on any search engine from Google, Yahoo, Yandex, Baidu, Amazon, YouTube, etc. And, if any search engine is not listed there, then contact them. They will add immediately.

AWR has four subscription options from Starter to Enterprise ranging from $44 to $449 per month if billed annually, as you will receive a 10% discount immediately.

For small organizations or teams, the Starter package should be significant; however, for large organizations Agency or Enterprise should be the best. And of course, they always offer a 30-days free trial without any credit card for you to try out.

5. Sitechecker.

All-in-one SEO solution – enough free features.

Sitechecker is one of the most well-featured and best free SEO tools available online, capable of dealing with small or large organization SEO needs.

The essential part of SEO checking is free; you don’t have to register for an account, type your website URL and get the free SEO report.

There are some free tools called One-time checks you can use right away, website health, organic rank, backlink, on-page SEO, and website traffic analysis. However, if you try to use it more than once, they will offer you to open a paid account for further use of their application.

Website health checking is one of the most helpful and powerful free tools they have. Before you start Google ads campaign we suggest you to conduct keyword research using this SEO tool.

Free on-page SEO reports – advanced but free feature.

Their on-page SEO checks are highly advanced and very useful, as they will show you almost all the available errors and warnings that would affect your SEO progress.

It will check your website URL, titles, descriptions, H1 to H6 tags, and page size. It will show you a warning for big-size images without any tags, labels, or meta-descriptions that would otherwise negatively affect your SEO performance.

For a large website, it is sometimes impossible to check HTTP status codes to find every broken link and redirect. And the same goes for every internal or external link to your website, whether all of them are active or broken.

Finding these issues within a minute can fix and improve your overall SEO performance with minimal time.

Audit for errors and issues of a website within minutes.

Though they provide you with the most valuable and essential features for free, you cannot use them frequently. And here comes the paid plans; they have three subscription plans from Basic to Growing and Startup plans ranging from $23 to $79 per month if billed annually as you get up to a $238 instant discount.

The Basic plan is okay for a single website SEO feature; however, a Startup or Growing plan would be necessary for a large team or organization when you need to track more than one website and a few keywords.

6. Authority Labs.

One-step solution for SEO – free 14-day test run.

Track your website SEO performance with ease by adding a domain name, provide a location and keywords you want to track, and that’s it, let it run in automation.

A free 14-day trial run can be a test drive to decide whether you should rely on them or not.

First, they have two types of service at the beginning, Authority labs rank tracker and Authority labs data service. Authority lab’s rank tracker will enable you to monitor your SEO performance with reliable and accurate keyword data. In addition, you will receive a daily tracking report based on your local and mobile device ranking in search results.

Rank tracker for SEO performance monitoring.

You can track your competitor’s ranking based on a set of related keywords, locations, and devices side by side with your website to better understand.

You can even provide custom SEO service using a white-label solution for your clients by adding your logo and domain to the reports.

For an organization, a large team can have different user login options and reporting features to get custom reports for their department without spending an extra subscription charge.

Authority labs also have specific locational-based tracking; they provide location and zip code to find specific location-based SEO ranking. Track based on search engines, language, or even devices globally.

A research center of SEO to track the website’s performance.

They have four monthly subscription plans ranging from $49 to $450. Started from a Plus subscription plan, then Pro, Pro Plus, and finally Enterprise for a large organization.

If you are a small team or business with one or a few websites, start with the Plus plan; you can track 50 domains and 250 keywords. At the same time, Enterprise plans are not limited to domain tracking and have 5000+ keyword tracking features.

In the end, if you are not sure, start a 14-days free trial; it will not ask you for any credit card information.

7. Serpstat.

Advance SEO platform with free user option.

Serpstat has a vast and renowned customer base like Shopify, Loreal, Lenovo, and more; it has powerful and advanced SEO growth hacking features for small to large businesses.

Its free user option is enough for demonstration purposes and has no time limit boundaries, unlike other keyword research tools.

Start using their service by typing your website domain or a specific keyword. It will open a new window with a free signup option by using a Gmail account or Facebook account, whichever you like.

Then continue using their free service for an indefinite time. However, advance options are not available until you choose one of the paid plans.

All-in-one SEO solution for your website.

Serpstat has almost all the SEO features you probably needed and maybe some features you don’t even know.

They have the standard keyword research tool to find out the most valuable and relevant keyword available to your niche; you have the option to track your website along with competitor’s website SEO ranking based on those keywords.

Tap into your competitor’s keyword and search terms to find out which keywords are searched by their visitors to get a complete insight into their SEO approach. Thus, it will help you identify their strengths and weaknesses to find competitors’ untapped valuable keywords for your website ranking.  

You can get a complete insight into your competitor’s advertising campaign, whether it is social media ads or Google search engine ads, to find out keywords they are using to maximize your ROI by leveraging their advertising knowledge.

Flexible and handy browser extension.

Let’s discuss their subscription plans; they have monthly and annual billing options. However, if you choose to pay annually, you will receive a 20% flat discount instantly.

Their plans start from $55 to $399 per month; their last quoted subscription plan is Enterprise but if you need more features, contact them for a custom plan that might suit your needs.

8. LongTailPro.

Advanced hands-on SEO training – start a 7-days trial run.

LongTailPro is not just an SEO application. It also provides a personal hands-on free 7-day training for your existing website with some guaranteed practical return.

After you complete only the first 1-hour training session, they guarantee you to have three long tail low-competitive keywords for your website to get ranked within a few weeks.

You will be able to master a simple system to find profitable and low competitive keywords repeatedly and a systematic SEO approach to get a minimum of 200% organic traffic than before.

Apart from hands-on training, their website provides a self-service SEO feature with a few clicks of your mouse.

Get valuable insight from master SEO planners.

Just enter a keyword relevant to your niche and receive thousands of suggestion keywords from short to a long tail, from high to low competition. Then, you can run an analysis for your website along with competitors’ websites based on 13 different SEO metrics to get a complete understanding of your overall marketing approach.

As you may already know, the short tail keyword is getting harder to compete with nowadays. Instead, tapping into long-tail keywords is the most effective approach, especially for new websites. Say goodbye to your spreadsheet that is full of keyword listings. Just create a filter based on your desired criteria and hit the search button, and receive hundreds of custom and profitable long-tail keywords at your hands within a minute. 

They are offering you a new and innovative feature they call “Competitors Keywords Mode” it lets you spy on your competitors’ websites and pages to get detailed analytics report of which type of keywords they are using, their social media and search engine marketing keyword list to get you a complete advantage in your SEO approach. Use this feature along with your Google search console to maximize the impact.

Spy on your competitors and get the advantage.

Finally, let’s see how their subscription plan works? They have three different plans available from Starter Pro and then Agency ranging from $25 to $98 per month only if you choose to be billed annually, as you can save up to $1177 per year.

For a small SEO approach, you won’t need more than a Starter plan that will cost you only $25 per month. However, for a large organization more extensive SEO approach is required, and an Agency plan should be your choice. Make a note of it – You will get a 10-day money-back guarantee for all of their plans.

And, if you are unsure about any of it, start using their service for free and justify it yourself.

9. Seobility.

One of the best and cheapest SEO tools for beginners – You will get a forever free plan.

SEObility is your SEO expert to audit your site within a few minutes to find out issues that would harm your overall SEO ranking.

They have a free forever plan available for infinite time and enough features to test their service.

It has the ability called “On-Site Audit” to crawl your website’s every linked page to find any technical or visible errors. For example, you might have forgotten to write meta tags, page titles, or descriptions. Your two years old blog post might have one broken external link that is harmful to SEO ranking. You have three large images without any title or description.

When your site is getting large, finding these technical or visible errors is sometimes very difficult or impossible, but using an On-site audit, you will receive a report of errors and all issues within minutes.

Quick Note: Screaming frog is another SEO tool, but it is standalone software, not a web-based application. If you have a budget issue, do not forget to check this out.

Your SEO needs from one single platform.

You will also be able to track your targeted niche keywords daily based on targeted locations, countries or cities, devices, and search engines.

Combining all information from website errors, warning messages, issues, broken links, inactive links, redirecting pages, etc., makes it harder to analyze.

But you don’t have to worry about that; SEObility gives you a beautiful and powerful dashboard full of insight regarding your website SEO rankings, on-site audit reports, number of backlinks you have, all in one place, in a single dashboard.

In the dashboard, they have a unique feature, an individual visibility value by combining all 100+ metrics to get a single SEO result, whether your website is doing great or not by showing its visibility score based on your specified search terms. By checking this single visibility score, you will realize whether your website is progressing or not.

Powerful featured rich SEO dashboard. 

SEObility has many other unique features, but if you choose their free plan, you might only get a basic plan that is enough for demonstration purposes, not for serious business.

In that case, they have two other plans, Premium and Agency ranging from $480 to $1,920 per annum, and if you choose to pay annually, you will automatically get a 20% discount. For small organizations, a Premium plan should be sufficient, and large organizations should go for an Agency plan where you can track a total of 15 domains, and the maximum crawl pages will be 100K.

Frequently Asked Question (FAQ)

How to get the most out of SEO tools?

Almost all of these SEO tools are somewhat helpful for your SEO needs. But, the question is – how to use this software to maximize your results?

There are a few things you can do:

Google Search Console: This is the essential part of your SEO campaign. I want you to check the search console every day.

Log in and check how many impressions and clicks your site receives daily and weekly. Here you can also see which keywords your site ranked. Thus it is helpful to determine whether your SEO campaign is paying off.

Google Analytics: Apart from the search console, do not forget to use Google analytics as well. It will provide you with a wide range of data to get an idea of your direct, referral, and organic traffic.

Quick Note: Like I said earlier, the Screaming frog is a free SEO tool, but it is standalone software, not a web-based application. Its SEO spider works like a Google crawler bot; thus, you can see how search engines view your website. If you have a budget issue, do not forget to check this out.

Executive Summary.

“What are SEO tools, and what are they used for?” This is a broad topic, yet I tried to write a user guide for you with the best available tools.

SEO is a vital part of online marketing; in simpler terms, “It is your website heart” without a heart, a human can’t survive. The same goes for your website. If you never did any SEO for your site, it won’t survive in a competitive market unless it is a private site.

If you have read the above SEO tools guide, you might already realize that these tools are essential to your SEO strategy. Systematically it will help you to find an exact method to optimize your site.

What do you think? After reading which tool is best, what do you think? You must have some questions in your mind, do not hesitate; we are all gentlemen here; let’s start a discussion. I might be able to guide you further. Just put a comment below, and let’s talk about it.

Further readings, I highly recommend you to read my guide about website hosting – “Best Website Hosting Service” some of my favorite collections of hosting sites. And also, you should check this out – “Best Website Builder.”