Free SEO tools
You can do a surprising amount of SEO without paying anything. Start with the search engines' own tools, then add free plans from the paid suites as you need them.
Completely free
- search.google.com Free
Google Search Console: Google's own data on how your site performs in search
Search Console shows the queries people use to find your site, your clicks, impressions and average position, plus indexing problems, Core Web Vitals and manual actions. Every website should have it set up.
- bing.com Free
Bing Webmaster Tools: Microsoft's free search console, with a site scan and keyword tool
Bing Webmaster Tools reports how your site performs in Bing and gives you a free site scan, keyword research and backlink data. It can import your sites from Google Search Console in a few clicks.
- ahrefs.com Free
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools: Free site audit and backlink data from Ahrefs for sites you own
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools gives you Ahrefs' Site Audit and Site Explorer for websites you can verify. It is one of the best free ways to run a full technical audit and see your backlinks.
- pagespeed.web.dev Free
PageSpeed Insights: Google's free test for Core Web Vitals and page speed
PageSpeed Insights combines real-user Core Web Vitals data from the Chrome UX Report with a Lighthouse lab test, and lists specific opportunities to make the page faster.
- developer.chrome.com Free
Lighthouse: Open-source audit for performance, accessibility and SEO basics
Lighthouse runs inside Chrome DevTools or from the command line and scores a page on performance, accessibility, best practices and basic SEO. Developers can run it in CI to catch regressions.
- ads.google.com Free
Google Keyword Planner: Google's own keyword ideas and search volume ranges
Keyword Planner is built for advertisers but is useful for SEO too. It suggests keywords and shows search volume ranges and competition straight from Google.
- trends.google.com Free
Google Trends: See how interest in a search topic changes over time
Google Trends shows the relative popularity of search terms over time and by region. Use it to spot seasonal patterns, rising topics and to compare keywords.
Free plans and free versions
- semrush.com Freemium
Semrush: The broadest SEO and marketing suite, from keywords to PPC and social
Semrush covers SEO, paid search, content marketing, local listings and competitive research in one platform. Its keyword database and Site Audit tool are especially popular, and it adds marketing features most SEO-only tools do not have.
- neilpatel.com Freemium
Ubersuggest: Beginner keyword and audit tool from Neil Patel
Ubersuggest offers keyword ideas, content ideas, a basic site audit and rank tracking. It is aimed at beginners and small businesses who want simple SEO data without the price of a full suite.
- spyfu.com Freemium
SpyFu: Competitor research tool for organic and paid keywords
SpyFu shows the keywords your competitors rank for and bid on, along with their history over time. It is especially useful when you work on both SEO and Google Ads.
- screamingfrog.co.uk Freemium
Screaming Frog SEO Spider: The industry-standard desktop crawler for technical SEO audits
Screaming Frog crawls a website from your computer and reports on status codes, titles, meta tags, canonicals, redirects, structured data and much more. It is flexible enough for almost any technical audit and integrates with Google Analytics, Search Console and PageSpeed Insights.
- seobility.net Freemium
Seobility: Easy online site audit with a useful free plan
Seobility crawls your site and scores it on technical issues, on-page structure and content. The free plan is enough for a small website, which makes it a good first audit tool.
- seoptimer.com Freemium
SEOptimer: Instant one-page SEO audit with white-label reports
SEOptimer audits a page in seconds and gives a graded report on on-page SEO, usability, performance and social signals. Agencies use its embeddable audit tool to generate leads.
- siteliner.com Freemium
Siteliner: Find duplicate content and broken links across your site
Siteliner, from the makers of Copyscape, scans your website for internal duplicate content, broken links and page power. It is a quick way to find thin or repeated pages.
- gtmetrix.com Freemium
GTmetrix: Detailed page speed reports with waterfalls and monitoring
GTmetrix tests page speed and shows a detailed waterfall of every request, along with Web Vitals and recommendations. Paid plans add scheduled monitoring, more test locations and alerts.
- answerthepublic.com Freemium
AnswerThePublic: Find the questions people ask around any keyword
AnswerThePublic turns search autocomplete data into maps of questions, prepositions and comparisons around a topic. It is a quick way to find content ideas and FAQ topics.
- yoast.com Freemium
Yoast SEO: The most widely installed WordPress SEO plugin
Yoast SEO handles title tags, meta descriptions, XML sitemaps, schema and readability checks inside WordPress. Its traffic-light content analysis is familiar to millions of WordPress users.
- rankmath.com Freemium
Rank Math: Feature-rich WordPress SEO plugin with a generous free version
Rank Math covers titles, sitemaps, schema, redirects and Search Console stats inside WordPress. Its free version includes many features that other plugins charge for.