Best B2B SEO Tools

updated on
July 7, 2023
Terry Williams
Disclaimer: A few of the links you'll stumble upon here are my affiliate buddies. Meaning, if you decide to join their premium crew, I might get a little thank-you bonus – without any extra penny from your pocket! Just know, I only give shout-outs to tools and products I truly believe in and have used.

My Top Ranked Keyword Trackers

#1Product Recommendation
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Semrush

Semrush is an all-in-one SEO solution that suites everyone.
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#2Product Recommendation
ahrefs logo wide

Ahrefs

Junior marketer or SEO expert, you'll find Ahrefs’ toolset powerful yet easy to master.
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#3Product Recommendation
moz logo

Moz

Has a very flexible plan. Excellent for businesses, freelances and agencies that work across the globe
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#1Product Recommendation

Semrush-logo-ads

Semrush

Pricing
Features
Accuracy
Read full review

Semrush

Semrush is a popular all-in-one digital marketing toolkit that provides a wide range of services including keyword research, SEO audits, backlink analysis, rank tracking, content marketing, and competitive analysis.

The article provides a comprehensive review of Semrush, evaluating its key features, pricing, usability, customer support, and how it compares to alternative software tools on the market. Smith has tested and used Semrush extensively in his digital marketing work, lending credibility to his insights. However, as an independent review, the article could have certain biases that need to be considered. The review covers the advantages and limitations of using Semrush for activities like keyword research, link building, rank tracking, and website audits. It offers a useful subjective perspective for marketers considering investing in this software platform.

Features

Semrush Position Tracker is the SERP tracking tool within SEO giant Semrush's all-in-one platform. That being said, it’s a highly accurate tool with a lot of outstanding features—and the power of Semrush's other high-level functions behind it.

Aside from its standard rank tracking features, Semrush offers unique features like Surround Sound (which lets you analyze what pages rank in the top positions for a specific keyword and check how many mentions or backlinks your site gets) and Keyword Analytics (which helps you leverage the most popular keywords in a specific industry or business space to your advantage).

Pros

  • Comprehensive keyword research tools - Semrush provides extensive keyword data and filters to find low competition, high-traffic keywords for targeting. This helps with SEO and content planning.
  • Detailed competitor analysis - Track competitor rankings, backlinks, PPC ads, organic traffic, and more to benchmark your performance. Gain insights into their strategies.
  • Backlink analysis and tracking - Semrush makes it easy to identify link building opportunities and monitor your most important backlinks to spot issues.
  • Rank tracking - Track website rankings for important keywords over time to measure SEO success and progress. Automated rank reports are available.
  • Website audits - Scan your site for SEO issues like broken links, meta descriptions, page speed, etc. Useful for optimizing pages.
  • Readable proprietary reports - Semrush's automated reports are easy to digest with clear data visualizations. Great for presenting findings.

Cons

  • Expensive pricing - Semrush has premium pricing tiers, especially for features like backlink tracking. Could be cost prohibitive for small businesses.
  • Steep learning curve - The huge array of features means a time investment to learn how to use the tools properly. Can be overwhelming initially.
  • Data accuracy issues - Some data like keyword volumes and site traffic may not always be completely accurate or up to date. Requires double checking.
  • Limited integration with other tools - There are integrations available but not as robust as some competitor platforms. Restricts workflows.
  • Mostly self-service - Phone and chat support options cost extra. Limited free customer support.

#2Product Recommendation

ahrefs logo wide

Ahrefs

Pricing
Features
Accuracy
Read full review

Ahrefs

Founded in 2011, Ahrefs aims to help websites improve their visibility and rank higher in search engines through on-page and off-page optimization. The company offers an end-to-end SEO toolkit spanning from keyword research and backlink analysis to rank tracking and content gap identification. Ahrefs crawls over 21 billion web pages monthly, providing access to huge amounts of search engine data.

I will specifically focus on evaluating Ahrefs' core SEO tools such as Site Explorer for backlink research, Keywords Explorer for keyword tracking, Rank Tracker for SERP monitoring, and Content Explorer for uncovering content opportunities. The review will assess the accuracy, depth, and ease-of-use of these tools based on real-world use cases. Additionally, I will compare Ahrefs' pricing and plans to alternative SEO software on the market. The goal of this review is to help digital marketers understand if investing in Ahrefs would benefit their SEO and content strategies. By highlighting the platform's strengths and weaknesses, readers will get an impartial assessment of its value.

Features

Ahrefs rolls a ton of SEO features into one. This tool includes:

  • Keywords Explorer. Find the search volume, difficulty, and long-tail variations for your target keywords. You can get keyword data from 171 countries and 10 different search engines.
  • Rank Tracker. Check how your client’s website ranks on desktop and mobile searches. You can schedule reports to keep an eye on your rankings.
  • Content Explorer. Find relevant topic ideas to write content that ranks.
  • Site Audit. Use this tool to perform organic traffic research, check competitor backlinks, and see PPC data.

While certain features of Ahrefs are free, most require a payment plan. However, the pricing is flexible, with options for small businesses and full-blown SEO agencies.

Pros

  • Huge keyword database - Access to information on over 9 trillion keywords, useful for in-depth keyword research.
  • Backlink analysis - Ahrefs provides powerful backlink tracking and metrics to identify new link building opportunities.
  • Competitive tracking - Gain insights into competitors' organic search performance through rank tracking and traffic estimates.
  • Site audit tools - Crawl website for issues like broken pages, redirects, meta tags. Helpful for on-page optimization.
  • Robust features - Wide range of capabilities beyond just keyword and backlink research, including rank monitoring and content gap analysis.
  • User-friendly interface - Data is presented clearly with easy to customize reports and visualizations.

Cons

  • Expensive subscription plans - The most robust data requires expensive paid plans beyond budget for some users.
  • Accuracy issues - Some data points like search volume and rankings can have discrepancies at times.
  • Limited support - Phone and email support requires higher tier paid plans.
  • Steep learning curve - The extensive features can be overwhelming for beginners and take time to master.
  • Missing integrations - Doesn't integrate with some popular third-party SEO tools many users rely on.
  • Limitations for larger sites - Lacks some enterprise-level capabilities needed for large, complex sites.

#3Product Recommendation

moz logo

Moz

Pricing
Features
Accuracy
Read the Moz Review

Moz

Moz offers an SEO platform with keyword research, site crawling, rank tracking, and link analysis tools aimed at small to large businesses looking to improve website visibility and traffic.

Features

Moz strives to be an all-in-one solution for B2B SEO agencies. With this tool, you can see how your website is performing across the web.

Moz checks how a website ranks across multiple search engines, not just Google. This gives you a more complete picture of how your SEO efforts are affecting a site. It’s also a great tool for link building. Dig deep into a website’s backlink profile to find new opportunities and whether you have any harmful links.

Pros

  • In-depth keyword data including monthly searches, competition, trends
  • Site crawl identifies technical SEO issues to fix
  • Automated rank tracking and reporting
  • Backlink analysis with metrics like Domain Authority
  • Beginner-friendly SEO learning guides and resources

Cons

  • Expensive subscription plans with limited free offering
  • Rank tracking limited to US search results only
  • Occasional accuracy issues with questionable keyword data
  • Confusing interface takes time to learn to use properly
  • Lacking in some enterprise-level capabilities for large sites

Other tools we found useful

Google Analytics

Get a complete understanding of your customers across devices and platforms.
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Ubersuggest logo

Ubersuggest

Get endless keyword ideas
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Screaming Frog logo

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

If you’re running an SEO agency, then you may have dozens of clients. It’s tough to track every individual issue on their website. Need help spotting glitches and technical snags? Screaming Frog is built for that. Run Screaming Frog on a website to get a comprehensive technical audit. Use it to: Discover broken links Identify page titles and meta descriptions that are too long or too short Find duplicate pages & content And more! If you’re familiar with optimizing websites, you know how tricky it can get. Screaming Frog helps make it more approachable. You can take it one task at a time by following each section of the audit.
Read More
Google Search Console Logo

Google Search Console

Gain valuable insights into search engine result pages
Read More

Google Analytics

Get a complete understanding of your customers across devices and platforms.

Features

Google Analytics offers robust, free website traffic analysis. It tracks overall site visits, sources, geography, technology used, duration and more for understanding visitor behavior. Key features include real-time reporting of current visitors; dashboard customization with preset and customizable reports; goal and conversion tracking to optimize user journeys; cohort analysis for advanced behavioral insights; audience overview for demographic data; and integration with Google ads for campaign performance. Analytics provides easy segmentation to filter data for deeper analysis. With its powerful visualizations, granular data, and customization, Google Analytics supplies comprehensive insights to monitor and enhance website performance.

Pros

  • Free and easy to implement
  • Powerful visualization and reporting
  • Customizable dashboards and metrics
  • Tracks overall traffic and visitor behavior
  • Real-time data on current visitors

Cons

  • Can take time to learn and implement fully
  • Data processing delay of 24-48 hours
  • Complex interface with steep learning curve
  • Easy to set up incorrectly or incompletely
Ubersuggest logo

Ubersuggest

Get endless keyword ideas

Features

Ubersuggest provides easy-to-use SEO tools for research, content creation, backlink analysis, rank tracking and more. Its foundation is extensive keyword research capabilities such as keyword ideas, search volume, competition metrics and trends. Users can utilize the platform to perform competitor analysis, identifying opportunities based on top pages, organic traffic, keywords and backlinks. For content planning, Ubersuggest finds related questions and outliers. The tool integrates with Google Analytics for rank tracking, and offers easy-to-interpret reports on rankings and metrics. With its intuitive interface and extensive dataset, Ubersuggest enables SEO professionals to research in-depth insights to inform optimization strategies.

Pros

  • Free limited version available
  • Extensive keyword research capabilities
  • Ideal for generating content ideas
  • Competitor analysis features
  • Backlink analysis to find new opportunities

Cons

  • Limited number of searches on free version
  • Paid plans can get expensive with more features
  • Focused specifically on keyword research vs. full SEO
  • Doesn't analyze website's internal optimization
Screaming Frog logo

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

If you’re running an SEO agency, then you may have dozens of clients. It’s tough to track every individual issue on their website. Need help spotting glitches and technical snags? Screaming Frog is built for that. Run Screaming Frog on a website to get a comprehensive technical audit. Use it to: Discover broken links Identify page titles and meta descriptions that are too long or too short Find duplicate pages & content And more! If you’re familiar with optimizing websites, you know how tricky it can get. Screaming Frog helps make it more approachable. You can take it one task at a time by following each section of the audit.

Features

Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a user-friendly crawler-based toolkit enabling comprehensive audits, analysis, and insights to optimize technical SEO. Key capabilities include site crawling to identify pages, links, images; page analysis examining on-site elements like titles and metadata; detailed link analysis and visualization; redirect mapping; HTML validation for code errors; accessibility checks; sitemap generation; log file uploads; and customizable reporting. The tool provides granular control over crawls and surfaces website data in a meaningful way through tables, filters and graphs. With robust features tailored to SEO professionals, Screaming Frog helps diagnose and resolve technical issues to ultimately improve search visibility and performance.

Pros

  • User-friendly and easy to use interface
  • Comprehensive technical/on-site audits
  • Crawl visualization and link analysis
  • Customizable reporting and exports
  • Integrates with Google Analytics
  • Integrates with Google Analytics

Cons

  • Link metrics not as robust as paid tools
  • Steep learning curve for some advanced features
  • Can be resource intensive on very large sites
  • No rank tracking or keyword research built-in
Google Search Console Logo

Google Search Console

Gain valuable insights into search engine result pages

Features

Google Search Console provides webmasters with free tools to monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot their site's presence in Google Search results. Core features include viewing index coverage to check if pages are being crawled properly, analyzing links and discovering toxic backlinks harming rankings, fixing technical errors like broken pages and redirects, viewing search analytics like top queries and traffic sources, submitting sitemaps, and optimizing title tags and meta descriptions. Search Console aggregates key data and insights webmasters need to diagnose issues hampering their search visibility, connect their site with Google's indexing system, and improve their SEO performance. With its user-friendly interface and integration with other Google products like Analytics, Search Console is an invaluable platform for website owners looking to understand and enhance their site's standing in organic search.

Pros

  • Free tool from Google
  • Monitors index coverage and crawl errors
  • Provides search analytics and performance data
  • Surfaces technical issues to fix
  • Link analysis to identify problematic backlinks

Cons

  • Not as much historical data as paid tools
  • Delay in updating some report metrics
  • Can only view your own site's data
  • Requires ownership verification for site access

Conclusion

So, which tool is right for you?

It depends on what you want to offer your clients.

Need a way to measure website performance? A combination of Google Analytics and Google Search Console should do the trick.

How about keyword analysis? Try Ahrefs or Ubersuggest.

Looking to specialize in the more technical aspects of SEO? Screaming Frog will be a huge asset.

Want to combine all your needs into one tool? Moz and Semrush are both great options.

In summary, you have plenty of options to choose from. I recommend trying the ones that interest you most and seeing which you like best. Use these tools to refine your SEO strategy and get your clients better results!

#1 Product Recommendation: Semrush

Semrush is an all-in-one SEO solution that suites everyone.
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Semrush

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From The Author

Terry Williams

With over 10 years optimizing sites, I've boosted search visibility for brands through customized strategies. Currently, I develop effective SEO solutions for a top agency, immersed in the latest trends and innovations. Read my full bio.

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