SEO tools: which are worth paying for, and where AI helps

As SEO gets more competitive, experience alone is no longer enough. Google's algorithms keep getting smarter, so marketers have to work faster, more precisely and from clear data. From keyword research and technical website analysis to tracking competitors, every step of the SEO process needs professional tools to save time and get better results.

In this article, the MONA team has collected and reviewed more than 20 popular SEO tools, based on our experience running 300+ SEO projects. That should make it easier for you to pick the right tool for each of your SEO goals. Let's get started.

What are SEO tools?

SEO tools are software or platforms designed to help optimize a website, making it friendly to Search Engine so it ranks better on search engines such as Google, Bing and Coc Coc.

Professional SEO software offers many useful features that help SEO specialists save time, make better use of their resources when carrying out a strategy. As a result, the website improves its search ranking and reaches the right audience, supporting the long-term growth of the business.

For example: Instead of spending tens of minutes every day searching each keyword on Google to see where your site ranks, SERP Robot checks 5 keywords at once in 1 to 2 minutes. It shows exact rankings, tracks changes over time and emails you a report every week, so you save time and can focus on improving your content.

SEO tools are usually grouped by feature and purpose. Common groups include:

• Keyword research tools: Help find and analyze promising keywords.
• Competitor analysis tools: Analyze your competitors' SEO strategies.
• SEO content writing tools: Improve content quality so it fits search algorithms.
• Backlink checking tools: Help build links and check backlink quality to raise your site's authority.
• Website performance checking and analysis tools: Assess a site's speed, structure and other technical factors.

SEO tools can also be grouped by cost:

• Free SEO software: Free SEO tools let you use all or some basic features at no cost.
• Paid SEO tools: Require a monthly or yearly payment to use the full feature set.
• Tool SEO Freemium: A mix of free and paid. On the free version, you only get basic features with certain limits (number of analyses or time of use). To unlock everything, you need to upgrade to a paid plan.

Benefits of using SEO tools to optimize your website

There are millions of search results online, and search engine algorithms are updated every day. If your business is still doing research and optimization SEO by hand, it takes a lot of time and effort, and the results may fall short of what you hoped for. To break through in this fiercely competitive environment, SEO specialists need to choose the right SEO tools to get the benefits below.

Using SEO tools saves money

If you think SEO only needs good content and a bit of patience while rankings slowly improve, that is a mistake. SEO is a complex process with many stages, such as data analysis, keyword research and competitor analysis. Done by hand, these take a lot of time and can even cost more than running ads.

SEO tools help you manage your budget and put your resources into the factors that matter most, instead of spreading them thin without knowing which strategy works best.

Using SEO software saves time

Nobody wants to spend hours every day checking keyword rankings or analyzing backlinks by hand. Today's free and paid SEO tools automate these jobs completely and return accurate data in a few minutes. That way you can adjust your strategy quickly, without spending weeks testing and waiting for results.

Improve the user experience

SEO is about reaching the top of search results, and it also cares about the experience of people visiting your website. Google's SEO tools help you check page load speed, mobile display, image optimization and more. When your site runs smoothly and is easy to use, visitors stay longer and bounce less, which gives your business more chances to convert.

Stay ahead of competitors in SEO

In today's fiercely competitive internet, without the SEO strategy right tools, your website can be left behind. SEO tools help you analyze competitors, discover promising keywords and find gaps in your own strategy so you can fix them in time. That improves your website's performance and strengthens your edge over others in your industry.

→ Guide to SEO for a website that ranks on top of Google

Top 20+ effective SEO tools for SEO specialists

The market offers many SEO tools for ranking on Google, helping people work more efficiently. Each tool has its own traits and features, suited to different purposes. Let's look at the details of the popular SEO tools below.

Google Analytics, Google's SEO analytics tool

Google Analytics (GA) is a free SEO tool from Google that tracks website performance and analyzes user behavior. It is one of the must-have website SEO tools for refining your SEO strategy and growing organic traffic.

Google Analytics measures traffic metrics for your website

Standout features of Google's SEO software, Google Analytics:

• Traffic monitoring: Gives data on users, page views, time on site and bounce rate.
• Audience analysis: Shows demographics such as age, gender, location and interests of your visitors.
• User behavior tracking: Identifies landing pages, exit pages, the steps visitors take before converting, and engagement.
• Traffic source evaluation: Breaks traffic down into organic search, social media, referral and paid ads.
• Measure campaign results: Tracks conversion goals to evaluate marketing performance.
• Custom reports: This free SEO tool lets you build in-depth reports for specific analysis needs.

Google Search Console, free Google SEO software

Google Search Console (GSC) is also SEO software worth using to optimize your website and improve search performance. It is one of the key online SEO tools for tracking how Google crawls, indexes and displays your website in search results.

Google Search Console is an SEO tool that supports effective website management

As one of Google's free SEO tools, Google Search Console shows you how Google sees your website, so you can optimize more effectively with these standout features:

• Search performance tracking: Gives data on organic traffic, keywords, click-through rate (CTR), average position and impressions to judge SEO results.
• Index checking: Makes sure Google can crawl and index your important pages. You can submit a sitemap and request indexing for new pages to improve visibility.
• Backlink management: Track the sites linking to your website, assess their quality, and use the disavow tool for bad backlinks if needed.
• Technical issue handling: Warns about crawl errors, mobile display problems and other issues that can affect SEO. GSC also gives guidance to fix them quickly.

Moz Pro keyword research tool 

Moz Pro is one of the most widely used keyword SEO tools, helping optimize a website across the board. Developed by Moz, a respected name in SEO, Moz Pro offers strong solutions for researching keywords, rank tracking, backlink analysis and site audits.

Moz Local Listing Score SEO support tool

Main features of professional SEO software such as Moz Pro include:

• Keyword Explorer: Keyword research with proprietary metrics to judge difficulty and ranking opportunity.
• Rank Tracker: Tracks keyword rankings and compares them with competitors in real time.
• Site Crawl: Automatically scans your website to find and fix issues that affect SEO.
• Link Explorer: Backlink analysis, domain authority scoring and link building opportunities.
• On-Page Grader: Gives detailed assessments and improvement suggestions for each specific web page.

Moz Pro has four plans: Standard (99 USD/month), Medium (179 USD/month), Large (249 USD/month) and Premium (599 USD/month), covering needs from individuals to large businesses. Moz also offers a 30-day free trial, so you can try it before deciding to upgrade.

Ubersuggest SEO analysis tool 

Ubersuggest is a useful SEO tool for anyone who wants to improve their Google ranking without much experience. Developed by Neil Patel, this online SEO tool has many strong features and a clear interface, making it easy to get the most out of your SEO potential.

Ubersuggest, SEO software for ranking on Google, stands out for these features:

• Keyword research: Finds promising keywords and shows competition level and monthly search volume.
• Competitor analysis: Gives data on competitors' SEO strategies so you can adjust your own plan.
• Backlink checking: Helps track and assess the quality of links pointing to your website.
• Content suggestions: Suggests topics people are interested in to shape your content strategy.
• Site Audit: Scans the whole website, finds errors and suggests improvements to raise SEO performance.

The free version of Ubersuggest offers basic features, enough to get you started. If you need more detailed data, you can choose paid plans such as Individual (29 USD/month), Business (49 USD/month) or Enterprise/Agency (99 USD/month).

Screaming Frog SEO Spider, technical website crawling software

Screaming Frog is one of the SEO tools experts trust to optimize websites. It is a powerful website SEO tool that digs deep into technical factors to improve search performance.

Screaming Frog technical crawling software

Notable features of Google SEO software Screaming Frog:

• Full website crawl: Quickly crawls the whole site to check for issues that affect SEO.
• Technical error detection: Finds broken links, redirect errors, duplicate content, helping improve the user experience.
• SEO data analysis: Checks titles, meta descriptions, headers and many other important elements.
• Integration with Google Analytics & Search Console: Connects data from several sources for an overall view.

Screaming Frog has a free version limited to 500 URLs, while the paid version (149 GBP/year) unlocks unlimited crawling and more advanced features. If you want an in-depth website SEO tool to optimize your site, it is certainly worth considering.

SEO CENTER: a free tool for doing SEO

SEO Center Extension is a Chrome browser extension that lets you quickly check the on-page SEO of any website. The SEO tool is simple and clear, and suits SEO specialists, content writers, marketers and business owners who want to see how well a site is optimized without complex tools.

Standout features of SEO Center Extension:

• Fast on-page analysis: Checks meta tags, headings, images, internal links, external links and structured data in seconds.
• Clear interface: Information is laid out plainly and is easy to follow at any level.
• Built right into the Chrome browser: Analyzes the page you are viewing, with no need to open another tool.
• Suited to many users: SEO specialists, content writers, marketers and business owners can all use it easily.
• Link checking and basic audit: Quickly spots link and content errors to help you optimize better.

Keyword Tool Dominator 

Keyword Tool Dominator (KTD) is a free keyword research tool that finds long-tail keywords based on Google Autocomplete data and many other major platforms. With a simple interface and intuitive use, KTD makes it easy to find new ideas, optimize content and widen your visibility across channels.

Standout features of Keyword Tool Dominator:

• Multi-platform keyword generation: Supports Google, Amazon, YouTube, Bing, eBay, Etsy, Walmart, Home Depot and many more.
• Autocomplete data mining: Uses real user search suggestions to build long-tail keyword lists that match market demand.
• Flexible custom filters: Choose country and language, add or exclude keywords, and set minimum or maximum length.
• Popularity Score: Measures keyword popularity on a scale of 0 to 100 to help you choose.
• Find hot keywords: Finds trending keywords so you can optimize content in time and get ahead of search demand.

Keyword Tool Dominator pricing

Free plan: Users get 2 searches per day

Paid plans (one-time purchase)

• Basic – 49 USD: Access to 1 KTD tool with unlimited keywords.
• Standard – 79 USD: Use 3 tools at once, suited to SEO specialists or multi-platform sellers.
• Professional – 129 USD: Unlocks every KTD tool with unlimited keywords, suited to marketing teams or agencies.

ChatGPT: an AI tool for SEO

ChatGPT is one of the AI tools that support SEO, simplifying and automating many tasks in website optimization. From keyword research and content creation to competitor analysis, ChatGPT saves a lot of time and makes the work more effective.

Standout features of ChatGPT in SEO:

• Effective keyword research: Suggests related keywords, long-tail keywords and synonyms to widen your content coverage.
• Automatic Schema Markup: Quickly generates JSON-LD code for structured data types, helping search engines understand your pages better.
• Content ideas and SEO-ready optimization: Helps brainstorm topics, write outlines, draft content and suggest ways to improve ranking.
• Competitor analysis: Gives a view of competitors' content strategy, keywords and execution, helping you plan SEO more effectively.

SEOquake: a free SEO tool

SEOQuake is one of the most popular free website SEO tools today, helping you analyze and check on-page SEO quickly and effectively. It is an easy-to-use extension that gives you all the information you need to optimize a website, suited to beginners and professional SEO specialists alike.

A popular, free SEO tool: SEOquake

Special features of SEOquake, SEO software for ranking on Google, include:

• SEO Dashboard: Gives an overview of a website's key SEO metrics.
• Diagnosis: Detailed on-page SEO analysis that finds errors and suggests fixes.
• Density: Measures keyword density and compares it with competitors.
• Internal/External Links: Checks and analyzes internal and external links on a website.
• Compare URLs/Domains: Compares your website's performance with competitors.
• SEO Bar: A toolbar that shows SEO information right in the browser, so you can track and assess your website conveniently.

With the benefits that free website SEO software like SEOquake brings, it is quite popular not only with new SEO specialists but with experienced ones too, as a tool for doing SEO on websites .

Tool SEO web Ahref

Ahrefs is one of the SEO tools trusted by many experts and businesses for its in-depth data analysis and effective support for SEO optimization. Whether you are a professional SEO specialist or a site owner looking to improve performance, Ahrefs is an all-round SEO software choice for steady traffic growth and better overall results.

Ahrefs is a website SEO tool that many users rate highly

Here are some standout features of the Google SEO Toolbar, Ahrefs:

• Site Explorer: Gives an overview of a website with key metrics such as traffic, keywords and backlinks. Helps analyze competitors and find SEO opportunities.
• Keyword Explorer: Supports keyword research with data on volume, difficulty, CPC and other in-depth metrics, helping you build an effective keyword SEO strategy.
• Site Audit: Crawls the whole website to find technical errors and suggest fixes for on-page optimization to improve the user experience and SEO performance.
• Rank Tracker: Tracks keyword positions in real time and measures SEO campaign results with detailed weekly or monthly reports.
• Content Explorer: Finds promising content and analyzes performance on Google and social media to plan an effective content marketing strategy.

Ahrefs pricing:

• Lite ($99/month): Suited to individuals or small businesses.
• Standard ($199/month): A good choice for freelancers and marketers.
• Advanced ($399/month): Offers many advanced features for in-house SEO teams.
• Enterprise ($999/month): The best fit for agencies and large businesses.

Semrush SEO support tool

Semrush is one of the SEO support tools many SEO experts trust. With accurate SEO data, a friendly interface and a set of strong features, Semrush, a Google SEO toolbar, helps optimize SEO and grow organic traffic effectively.

Since 2024, Semrush has also added AI SEO Copilot, a very useful AI SEO tool that gives personalized optimization suggestions based on your own website's real SEO data. It uses artificial intelligence to analyze reports from features such as Site Audit, Keyword Gap and Backlink Gap, then turns them into clear task cards so you don't miss chances to improve your rankings.

Semrush is an SEO support tool many teams use today

The main features of Semrush SEO software include:

• Organic Traffic analysis: Tracks organic visits, identifies traffic sources and measures SEO results.
• Technical SEO check: Finds technical errors that affect website performance and the user experience.
• In-depth keyword research: Analyzes search volume, difficulty, CPC and search intent to build an effective SEO strategy.
• Keyword ranking tracking: Updates keyword rankings over time so you can adjust your SEO strategy in time.
• SEO content analysis: Evaluates and improves content quality, helping attract more customers.
• AI SEO Copilot: Gives smart suggestions on technical SEO, content, backlinks and competitors based on real data, a big plus for anyone looking for a quality AI SEO tool.

Semrush pricing:

• Pro plan $129/month: Suited to individuals and small SEO teams.
• Guru plan $249/month: For mid-sized businesses.
• Business plan $499/month: The best choice for large businesses and SEO agencies.

To do SEO properly, you have to start by analyzing your domain. In this video, Huy walks through the whole process of using SEMrush the right way, without getting lost. WATCH THE VIDEO WATCH IT NOW!

SEO software for ranking on Google: Yoast SEO 

Yoast SEO is among the most popular SEO tools on WordPress, widely used to optimize content and improve site structure for better search rankings.

Rated one of the SEO software options worth using today, Yoast SEO stands out for these features:

• Content analysis: Gives SEO assessments and suggestions right on each post or page.
• Automatic XML sitemap: Helps search engines index your site faster.
• Title and meta description optimization: Gives editing guidance to improve visibility on Google.
• Google Search Console integration: Syncs data so you can track SEO performance more easily.
• robots.txt and .htaccess management: Lets you edit these key SEO files directly.

The Yoast SEO plugin supports effective SEO on WordPress websites

Yoast SEO comes in a free version and a paid premium version. The free SEO software has all the basic features for SEO, while Premium (99 USD/year) adds advanced tools such as internal keyword analysis, redirect setup and technical support. If you are looking for reliable SEO tools, Yoast SEO is a choice you shouldn't overlook.

The video below was made by the MONA Media team. It shows step by step how to install and use Yoast SEO to review a post before publishing.

Surfer SEO, a website SEO tool

Surfer SEO is a powerful SEO tool that optimizes content based on real data from pages ranking high in the SERP. With the help of artificial intelligence, it makes specific suggestions to improve content quality and compete better on Google.

Surfer SEO helps optimize SEO content

Standout features of Surfer SEO, an automatic website SEO software, include:

• Content Editor: Gives keyword suggestions, density and article structure so your content is friendlier to search engines.
• SERP Analyzer: Detailed analysis of the on-page factors of top-ranking sites, helping you understand how competitors optimize.
• Content Planner: Plans content around topics and related keywords to build a tight set of articles.
• Audit: Checks and evaluates your existing content to suggest effective ways to optimize it.
• NLP (Natural Language Processing): Uses natural language processing to analyze context and improve content quality.

Surfer SEO offers several plans, including Essential (from 99 USD/month), Scale (from 219 USD/month) and Enterprise with flexible pricing. The platform also runs regular offers, including a 7-day trial, so you can try it before committing long term.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is an SEO tool that most marketers use. Offered free by Google, it helps you research keywords effectively and supports both your SEO strategy and Google Ads. With accurate data from Google itself, you can easily analyze keywords, assess competitors and follow search trends.

Google Keyword Planner also helps you in these ways:

• Reach customers by planning ads properly.
• SEO specialists can track how often customers search, which keywords draw interest and which queries are most common.
• With Google Keyword Planner, you can find the keywords that best fit your ad campaigns.

Keyword research tool for SEO: Google Keyword Planner

Features of Google Keyword Planner, an automatic website SEO software:

• Discover new keywords: Enter a keyword, website or category and you get related keyword suggestions.
• Volume analysis: See average monthly searches to judge a keyword's potential.
• Difficulty measurement: Assesses how competitive a keyword is, helping you pick keywords that fit your strategy.
• Bid view: Estimates cost per click (CPC) so you can plan your budget.
• Location and time analysis: Filter results by region or follow search trends over time.

KWFinder, website SEO software

KWFinder is an SEO tool developed by Mangools that specializes in keyword research, with a clear and easy-to-use interface. This online SEO tool analyzes keyword difficulty, search volume and other key factors to refine your content strategy.

SEO Tool: KWFinder 

Standout features of KWFinder, website SEO software:

• Keyword research: Gives a list of promising keywords with data on competition and search trends.
• SERP analysis: Shows the top 10 search results to help assess competitors.
• Related keyword suggestions: Suggests expanded keywords and common questions.
• Location-based data: Supports keyword research for a specific country or region.
• Rank tracking: Checks your website's keyword positions on search engines.

KWFinder is part of the Mangools SEO toolset, which comes in three plans: Basic (29.90 USD/month), Premium (39.90 USD/month) and Agency (79.90 USD/month) when paid yearly. Mangools also offers a 10-day trial for 1 USD so you can try it before deciding to upgrade.

Rich Results Test, a free SEO tool 

Google's Rich Results Test is one of the most useful free SEO tools, and you shouldn't skip it. It checks whether your page is eligible for rich results on Google, such as reviews, images, FAQs, articles and events.

The strength of Rich Results Test is that it analyzes the Schema data on your page, a "hidden layer of information" that helps Google understand your content better and so makes the page more likely to stand out in search results.

Rich Results Test, a structured data checking tool

This free website SEO tool also has these standout features:

• Checks quickly and accurately whether a page can show rich results on Google.
• Supports many structured data types, from articles, products and events to recipes and courses.
• Easy interface: just paste a URL or a piece of code and run the check right away.
• Completely free and built directly by Google, so it is highly reliable.

SEO trends for 2026 also show that Schema matters more and more to Google, and to search engines that use AI. Rich Results Test is a useful tool for improving your website's visibility and ranking over the long term.

Detailed, a free SEO support tool (Chrome extension)

A free, convenient SEO tool that works right in the browser, and one SEO specialists shouldn't overlook, is Detailed (a Chrome extension). It isn't an "in-depth" tool, but it is very useful if you want a quick look at the on-page SEO factors of any page with one click.

Detailed has a clear interface that is easy to use even for people new to SEO. You don't need to install complicated software or register an account. Just add it to Chrome and use it right away.

Detailed: Chrome extension

Standout features of Detailed, a free web SEO tool:

• Quick view of the meta tags (title, description and so on) of the page you are on
• Check the heading structure (H1, H2, H3 and so on)
• Show the list of internal links on the page
• Analyze images, including the ALT attribute
• Check schema (structured data) if present
• Quick social stats (Open Graph, Twitter card and so on)

The biggest plus is the Overview tab, which gives you a clear, quick picture of the page's SEO status. For beginners or anyone who needs a light audit, Detailed is a free and effective "assistant on the spot".

Tool SEO web SERPROBOT

SERPROBOT is one of the SEO tools that track keyword rankings automatically and accurately. With this website SEO tool, you can easily see where your site stands on search engines and plan your optimization from there.

SEO software: SERP Robot

Standout features of SERPROBOT include:

• Rank tracking: Checks your website's position for specific keywords, so you know how your SEO campaign is doing.
• Automatic reports: Get regular ranking reports by email, saving the time and effort of manual tracking.
• Competitor tracking: Compares your rankings with competitors, giving you an overview of the market.
• Historical data: See ranking changes over time to judge trends and adjust your strategy in time.
• Multi-country support: Tracks Google rankings in many countries, suited to global SEO campaigns.

SERPROBOT offers flexible plans, from a free plan for 5 keywords to paid plans starting at 19 USD/month for 100 keywords. Choose the plan that fits your needs to get the most out of your website's SEO.

Keywordtool.io keyword research tool

KeywordTool.io is an SEO tool that finds and analyzes keywords quickly and accurately. It pulls data from many sources, including Google, YouTube, Instagram and other platforms, giving you an overall view of search trends.

Long-tail keyword research software: KeywordTool.io

Keywordtool.io stands out for features such as:

• Rich keyword suggestions: Gives hundreds of related keywords from a single seed keyword.
• Multi-platform support: Researches keywords on Google, and on other popular search engines and social networks too.
• Country-based data: Shows results for a specific market, helping tailor your SEO strategy by region.
• Discover search questions: Finds the common questions people are asking.
• Competitor analysis: See the keywords other websites rank for, so you can plan your content optimization better.

KeywordTool.io offers a free trial with basic features. If you want advanced data such as search volume, CPC or keyword difficulty, Pro plans start at 69 USD/month.

Google Trends: Google's SEO tool

Google Trends is a free SEO tool from Google that lets you follow and analyze search trends in real time.

Google Trends is an SEO tool that supports keyword research 

Standout features of Google Trends, an SEO support tool:

• Search trends: Understand how much interest people have in a topic across different periods.
• Keyword comparison: Compare popularity across several keywords to refine your content strategy.
• Regional data: Identify search trends in a specific country or region.
• Related topics: Discover related topics and search phrases to expand your content effectively.
• Trend forecasting: Spot future search trends to stay ahead of competitors.

By subscribing to updates on Google Trends, you can see the trends, topics and most-searched keywords, and use them to come up with content ideas for your website.

Tool SEO web Spineditor

Spineditor is an all-in-one SEO tool that helps users optimize a website effectively. Developed by Vietnamese makers, Spineditor offers a full set of SEO features to make your strategy as effective as possible.

Online SEO tool for checking keyword rankings: Spineditor

Standout features of Spineditor:

• Keyword research: Finds related keywords and estimates search volume to build the best content strategy.
• Keyword ranking tracking: Gives accurate keyword ranking data on Google to help judge SEO results.
• Google index check: Finds out whether a URL or website is indexed by Google, so you can spot and fix indexing problems.
• Duplicate content detection: Checks content uniqueness to avoid breaking Google's policies.
• Content spinning: Creates different versions of an original article, reducing duplication when posting on several platforms.
• Domain check: Assesses key metrics such as PA (Page Authority), DA (Domain Authority) and the index status of domains.

At only about 1,000 VND/day, Spineditor is one of the reasonably priced SEO tools, suited to individuals and businesses that want to raise their search ranking.

Rank Math: a website SEO tool

Rank Math is a powerful SEO tool for WordPress that optimizes a website thoroughly without much effort. With a friendly interface, Rank Math offers many features to help optimize content, so posts meet SEO standards from the moment you write them.

Rank Math is effective web SEO software

Rank Math has these highlights:

• Content optimization support: Scores your SEO and suggests improvements right in the post editor.
• Schema Markup: Automatically marks up structured data to improve visibility on Google.
• Google Search Console integration: Pulls search data directly inside WordPress.
• SEO Analytics: Analyzes SEO performance with detailed reports.
• 404 Monitor: Detects and fixes 404 errors so they don't hurt the user experience.

Rank Math has a free version with enough features for most websites. If you want to upgrade, the PRO plan starts at 59 USD/year and adds keyword analysis, rank tracking and many advanced tools to improve your SEO strategy.

Small SEO Tools

Small SEO Tools is an online service offering a range of free SEO utilities, such as content duplication checks, keyword analysis and article optimization. Its plagiarism checker in particular is popular with individuals and small and medium businesses because it is convenient and free.

Small SEO Tools is free website SEO software

Standout features of this SEO tool include:

• Plagiarism check: Helps make sure content is original and avoids penalties from search engines.
• Keyword analysis: Supports keyword research and finds SEO optimization opportunities.
• Backlink analysis: Checks and assesses the quality of links pointing to your website.
• Spelling and grammar check: Keeps your text accurate and professional.
• On-page SEO analysis: Helps optimize on-page factors to boost SEO results.

These features help writers optimize quality articles and keep them unique for Google to index, which improves the ranking of the post and the website.

Majestic website SEO software

Majestic is an in-depth SEO tool focused on building backlinks with a huge data store. If you are looking for an online SEO tool that assesses link quality, Majestic is worth considering thanks to its proprietary metrics such as Trust Flow and Citation Flow.

In detail, the easy SEO tool Majestic stands out for features such as:

• Site Explorer: Gives detailed reports on the backlink profile of any website.
• Comparison tool: Assesses and compares backlink profiles across several websites.
• Clique Hunter: Finds and makes the most of new link building opportunities.
• Neighborhood Checker: Checks the quality and safety of linking sites.
• Backlink History: Tracks how backlinks grow over time.

On pricing, Majestic, an SEO support tool for websites, has three main plans: Lite (49.99 USD/month), Pro (99.99 USD/month) and API (399.99 USD/month). If you want to try it first, you can sign up for a 7-day trial for 7 USD.

Google PageSpeed ​​Insights

PageSpeed Insights (PSI) is a free SEO tool from Google, designed to measure and evaluate page speed on both mobile and desktop. It gives detailed performance analysis along with specific suggestions to improve each URL, helping you cut load times and give users a better experience.

Google PageSpeed Insights is a tool for measuring a website on desktop and mobile

Standout features of PSI, professional SEO software, include:

• Performance analysis: Evaluates page load speed using key metrics (FCP, LCP, CLS, INP) and gives a performance score.
• Field data and lab data: Gives both data from real users (Field Data) and controlled test data (Lab Data) for a full picture.
• Optimization suggestions: Gives specific suggestions to speed up loading, such as optimizing images, reducing code and using caching.
• Multi-device analysis: Analyzes performance separately for mobile and desktop, reflecting the differences in user experience.
• Diagnostics and standards checks: Identifies specific performance problems and checks whether the site meets modern web performance standards.

Lý Quốc Siêu, Marketing Manager at MONA Media: "Alongside choosing a quality SEO tool, you also need to pay attention to an effective SEO roadmap. That will help you plan the SEO for your whole website in detail, and it supports raising your site's search ranking."

If you don't have much knowledge or experience in optimizing a website for search engines, let MONA Media help you do it. We take on full-service delivery SEO services for professional services. As proof, MONA has successfully delivered more than 300 SEO projects for 500+ clients (as of April 2025) across many fields and industries. We bring clients not only traffic but also conversion rate, leads and revenue. You can see the real SEO case studies we have done at: https://mona.media/dich-vu-seo/case-study/ Please CLICK THE BUTTON BELOW and we will provide SEO consulting for your business quickly for your company website, 24/7! Contact MONA directly through the channels below to get a detailed SEO quote : Hotline: 1900 636 648 Email: info@themona.global Address: 1073/23 Cach Mang Thang Tam, Tan Son Nhat Ward, Ho Chi Minh City

Choose SEO tools by the job at hand, not by a ranking list

The list above has more than twenty names. It's normal to finish reading it and still not know where to start, because every ranking list is ordered by how well known a tool is, not by the job you need to do.

The way we choose for the 300+ SEO projects we have delivered is much simpler. Write down the job first, then look for what does that job. A website running SEO really has only six groups of work that repeat.

Job 1: know what people type to find you. This is the root of everything. Pick the wrong keywords and nobody reads the post, however well it is written. Google Keyword Planner is free but only gives broad estimates, which is fine for a first sketch. For exact numbers on each keyword, you have to pay for a dedicated keyword research tools tool. Google Trends is free and still useful when you want to know whether a topic is rising or falling with the seasons.

Job 2: see what technical problems your website has. Error pages, duplicate pages, pages nobody links to, empty title tags. Screaming Frog can crawl the whole website and point out each error. Google Search Console is free forever and shows what Google actually sees on your website. The two complement each other and don't replace each other.

Job 3: know where you rank and whether you are going up or down. Search Console answers most of this. It shows impressions, clicks and average position for each keyword. You only need separate rank tracking software when you have to report to clients or track hundreds of keywords at once.

Job 4: see what your competitors live on. This is the group where free tools are almost no help. To know how many keywords a competitor's website has, which pages bring in the most visitors and who links to it, you have to use software with its own database. Ahrefs and Semrush do this. No free option can replace them, because that data costs money to collect.

Job 5: write content that matches what searchers want. Reading the top ten results closely and then writing something better costs nothing and still works. Content scoring software makes it faster, but it scores by counting words, so don't chase the score and forget the reader.

Task 6: check everything before you publish. Title tags, meta descriptions, headings, alt text on images, and whether your structured data is valid. If your site runs on WordPress, the free version of Rank Math or Yoast covers most of this. Google's structured data testing tool is free too.

These six groups of tasks make up all of day-to-day SEO work. Check which group you're missing, then buy only that. It costs far less than paying for expensive software and using two of its features. If you're not sure where your website has gaps, the sensible first step is to run an SEO Audit so you have a concrete list of issues before you spend any money.

Which tools are worth paying for, and which are fine on the free plan

The question we hear most in consultations is how much to pay each month for SEO software. The honest answer: most small and mid-sized businesses in Vietnam can do solid SEO on a zero budget for the first six months, as long as they're willing to do the work by hand.

Below are the list prices on each vendor's website, recorded on 4 August 2026. Prices change, so check again before you sign up.

The free tools you'd be foolish to skip

Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Google Trends, Google Keyword Planner, PageSpeed Insights and the structured data testing tool are all completely free, with no time limit. Search Console in particular has no substitute, because it is Google telling you directly about your own website.

Screaming Frog lets you crawl 500 URLs without paying. For a mid-sized business website, 500 pages is usually enough to cover everything that matters. Rank Math and Yoast both have free versions that handle pre-publish checks.

Ahrefs also has a free version for website owners. Once you verify ownership, you can see the technical issues on your site and who links to you. It won't show you competitors, but for checking your own site it's enough.

The tools worth paying for, and how much

Here's how to read the table. If you have one website and do the work yourself, a sensible spend is Ahrefs Starter plus the paid version of Screaming Frog, around 46 USD a month in total. That's enough for serious work without wasting money.

If you hire an outside team for SEO, the software is their job, not yours. An agency that takes on a project and asks the client to buy the tools is a sign you should take a second look.

Three common ways to waste money

The first is buying the top plan from day one. Ahrefs Advanced at 449 USD a month and Semrush Advanced at 549 USD a month are built for companies managing dozens of websites. A business with one website on that plan is paying for features it never touches.

The second is buying both Ahrefs and Semrush. The two overlap a lot. If you really need one, buy one, use it fully, then decide.

The third is buying software that promises to push you to the top automatically. A lot of these are sold in Vietnam. Google ranks pages on real content and real links, and no software gets you there at the press of a button. Put that money into writing more good content and you'll see clearer results.

Which SEO tasks AI can do, and which ones go wrong if you hand them over

For about two years now, nearly every company has asked us whether we use AI for SEO. We do, but not the way many people imagine. AI can't replace SEO software, because it has no ranking data and can't crawl a website on its own. Where it shines is reading and organising the data the software exports.

Think of it this way. SEO software is the measuring device that gives you the numbers. AI is the person who reads those numbers and tells you what to fix first. They do different jobs, and they're fast when you put them together.

Four jobs AI does better than people, and how to combine them

Grouping thousands of keywords into topics. Export a report from Search Console to a spreadsheet, usually a few thousand rows. Give the file to Claude or ChatGPT and ask it to group keywords with the same search intent and suggest which page each group belongs on. By hand this takes days; the machine does it in minutes. Someone still needs to review the result, but the heavy lifting is done.

Reading crawl results and ranking issues by priority. A Screaming Frog crawl usually returns a very long list, and a newcomer won't know what to fix first. Export that list, give it to AI and ask it to sort issues by their impact on rankings, and you get an ordered to-do list instead of a raw data table.

Finding pages on your site that compete with each other. This is a common problem that site owners rarely spot themselves. Two or three articles targeting the same keyword split their strength and none of them ranks. Give AI the list of titles and URLs for the whole site, ask it to point out pages with the same intent, and you'll get a list of pages to merge. We found this exact problem on our own website that way.

Drafting meta descriptions and title tags in bulk. An ecommerce site with a few thousand products can't write every meta description by hand. It's repetitive work with a clear pattern, so it makes sense to hand it to a machine. You still need to read it before publishing, because machines tend to write everything the same way.

On cost, the free versions of Claude and ChatGPT handle most of the jobs above. Claude's paid plan is 20 USD a month, or 17 USD a month billed annually, and it's worth paying for when you do this regularly and need to process large files.

Three jobs AI gets wrong

Asking AI how many searches a keyword gets. It will give you a very plausible number, and that number isn't real. Search volume data lives in the databases of Ahrefs, Semrush or Google, not inside a language model. We've run into this many times when reviewing reports prepared by new staff. If the number is wrong, the plan built on it is wrong too.

Asking AI where your website ranks. Same problem: it can't check Google in real time. If you want to know your rankings, open Search Console or a rank tracking tool.

Letting AI write a whole article and publishing it as is. This is the biggest failure and also the most common. An article written entirely by a machine is usually grammatically correct, covers the points, and is empty. It has no real examples, no figures specific to your business, and none of the experience only people in the trade have. Google keeps getting better at spotting this kind of content. The right approach is to let the machine handle the outline and the research, and let people bring the experience and real examples.

If you want to go deeper on this, we've written separately about AI SEO and about how AI tools read content and cite it in their answers SGE.

This works in other industries too

The way we combine software and AI above isn't unique to SEO. We use the same approach in many other areas: retail chains reading inventory reports with thousands of rows, education sorting thousands of registration forms, restaurants reading customer reviews every week, real estate screening lists of interested buyers, healthcare ordering appointments by priority. The principle is the same: let the machine read and sort large volumes, and let people make the decisions.

By now you have all three pieces: which tool you need for which job, which ones are worth paying for and how much, and where AI fits in. What's left is to sit down and do the work.

If you already have a website and aren't sure where its gaps are, or you've bought software and don't know which numbers to read first, we can review it for you. One SEO Audit session will show where your site is losing rankings, which pages are competing with each other, and what to fix first to see results early. Call 1900 636 648 to book a time, or leave your details on our website and we'll get back to you within the business day.

Comparison of 20+ free and paid SEO tools for ranking on Google in 2026

Below is a summary table of the SEO tools worth using for your website that are highly rated by SEO professionals, so you can compare them and easily pick SEO Tool the one that fits your needs.

Along with using the right SEO tools, keep up with the latest SEO practices so you don't fall behind.

In 2026 SEO is about working smarter, and the short video below covers the essentials:

MONA's own SEO toolkit: 21 free page-checking tools

Before a meeting to sign an SEO contract, we open the client's website, check everything from the canonical tag to the heading outline, then follow the URLs that need checking. We do this every day. Some pages need an image alt text check, others need a look at redirect chains or the sitemap. We built this set of SEO tools ourselves to do those jobs faster, without limits on the number of checks.

The toolkit currently has 21 SEO tools and a library of 57 bot profiles, free to use, no account needed. The URLs you enter are not stored, and many tools run right in your browser. We wrote them so that every time we review a client's site before a contract, from headings and image alt text to redirect chains, we have tools with no usage limits and send fewer URLs to overseas services.

To be straight with you: MONA's toolset does not replace Ahrefs or Semrush for backlink and search volume data. When you need to research links from other websites or keyword search volume, keep using the tools that are strong on that data. What MONA can replace is the page-inspection work agencies still do by hand every day, from reading headings to checking each old URL. They are two different jobs. Don't drop a data tool just because the on-page checks now have a free option.

Say you want to review a page before talking through an SEO plan. Start with the canonical check: try the http, www and trailing-slash variants of the URL. The question to answer is whether Google sees 1 page or 4 copies across those variants. Then look at the H1–H6 outline for a missing H1, several H1s or skipped levels, and check the image alt text to see which images have no description.

For old URLs, open the redirect checker and paste in the list you need to review. You can follow each redirect chain hop by hop before moving on to broken links. The broken link checker looks at every link on the page for 404 errors, and the sitemap checker counts URLs and validates them against the sitemaps.org standard.

How the page displays is checked separately. The Open Graph tool shows how your Facebook and Zalo tags look. For Google results, the preview tool measures title and description length in pixels so you can review the text that will show. The favicon is downloaded and measured to confirm it reaches 48px, and the keyword density tool lets you review the copy on the page before you go back to whoever writes your content.

On the technical side, the website speed check uses PageSpeed Insights, including LCP, INP and CLS from real users. The WordPress security tool reads the WordPress version, plugins and theme, then looks them up in the CVE database. The domain lookup covers A, MX, NS and TXT DNS records, RDAP and Vietnamese domains. For image compression, you choose where the image will be used and the tool compresses to the matching limit, and your images never leave your computer.

For AI, we need to know which bots are blocked and which rule line is causing it. The AI crawler checker gives a score from 0 to 100 along with that information. There is also a comparison table for 20 websites at once and a library of 57 bot profiles, including Coc Coc, for looking up any specific bot. The schema tool reports which types are already on the page and then generates the missing ones, so you can see what a page has before adding to it.

If you are also opening your site to prepare for an SEO contract discussion, go to MONA's free SEO tools and try one page first. We suggest starting with canonical, headings and old URLs, so the meeting begins with a list of things to review on your own website.

Frequently asked questions about free and paid SEO tools

1. Which tool should you use for on-page SEO?

Yoast SEO is a tool many SEO specialists consider worth using for on-page SEO, thanks to its friendly interface and strong features for optimizing page content. It suggests how to improve on-page elements such as the title, meta description, focus keyword and URL structure. Yoast SEO also includes a readability analysis, so your content works for both search engines and readers.

2. Which tool should you use to analyze backlinks?

Ahrefs is a strong backlink analysis tool because of its huge, frequently updated backlink database. It lets you track your own backlinks and analyze competitors' strategies. Ahrefs also shows the keywords your competitors rank for, which helps you spot opportunities.

3. Which SEO tools are worth using for keyword research?

Worthwhile keyword tools include Google Keyword Planner, Keywordtool.io, Google Trends and others.

4. Which tool should you use for local SEO?

Google My Business (GMB) is a free SEO tool that lets a business manage its presence across Google, including Search and Maps. With it, a business can provide details such as address, opening hours, photos and customer reviews. Local SEO not only improves visibility in local search results but also brings in potential customers in your area.

5. How to choose the right SEO software for your website

A good SEO tool doesn't have to be expensive. It just has to fit your goals, budget and the size of your site. Here is a simple guide in 3 stages:

If you are new to SEO, your site is small (under 1,000 pages) and you don't need deep analysis yet:

• Google Analytics (GA4): Track traffic, user behavior and conversions.
• Google Search Console (GSC): Check indexing errors, the keywords you rank for, CTR and Core Web Vitals.

When you need deeper analysis (backlinks, competitors, content strategy):

• Ahrefs: Strong on backlinks and hard keyword research. A good fit if you focus on competitive markets or have a large site.
• SEMrush: More complete, covering keyword research, content, ads and technical audits. Good for agencies or ecommerce.

Whichever tools you use, add AI to get more out of them:

• ChatGPT / Gemini / Claude (free, or about 200k VND/month):
  → Suggests LSI keywords, writes outlines and drafts content that follows E-E-A-T.
• SurferSEO / Frase (about 500k VND/month):
  → Analyzes the top 10 results, optimizes headings and keyword density → Reaches an SEO score above 90.

SEO is a long process that takes patience, flexibility and the ability to adapt to constant changes in Google's algorithm. We hope TOP 20+ SEO tools, and the professional SEO software above that can help you reach the top of Google, will help you save time on analysis and optimization and improve the performance of your work. But more important than any of them: whichever tools you use, the core is still a strategy and execution that fit your specific goals. SEO means optimizing for search engines, and it also means delivering real value to users. Do that well and high rankings and steady traffic will come to your website naturally.