SEO tools for small businesses: what each one reports, what is free and what it costs

SEO tools for small business fall into a handful of jobs: reading search traffic, keyword research, crawling a site, reading backlinks, tracking rankings, local listings, content, social media and reporting. This page lists the tools by job, with what each one's own page says it reports, where its free version stops when the page gives a number, and what its entry plan costs when the page gives a price. Everything was read on 4 October 2026 in the currency each page showed, and several vendors price by region, so you may see a different figure.

The list runs in groups by job, from the starting set through to reporting, and five questions at the end answer the ones people ask.

How to choose SEO tools for a small business

Five jobs cover what a small business needs from SEO tools, and each one maps to tools named further down this page. Competitor data is the first job: Semrush Position Tracking lets you "Add up to 20 competitors". Backlink reports are the second, the job of Moz Link Explorer and Ahrefs Backlink Checker. A site crawl is the third, done by Sitebulb and Screaming Frog. Rank tracking is the fourth, sold by Mangools and SE Ranking. Keyword research is the fifth, the job of Google Keyword Planner and KWFinder.

Google Analytics' own page makes its case in one line: "Google Analytics gives you the tools, free of charge, to understand the customer journey and improve marketing ROI." WooRank's home page lists website reviews, keyword tracking and a site crawl, and offers a free trial. A free version is described below only where the tool's own page states one and gives its limit, and every page quoted in this section was read on 4 October 2026.

The starting tools

Three paid tools open the list, and Google Search Console, Google Analytics and Google Keyword Planner follow them.

SE Ranking's home page lists a rank tracker, a website audit, a competitor analysis tool and a backlink checker. Its Core plan was shown at €87.20 a month on an annual basis, with 10 projects, 2,000 keywords tracked daily and 250,000 pages a month in the audit, plus a 14-day free trial.

Yoast SEO is a WordPress SEO plugin. Its free version lives on WordPress.org, and its own page says "The bulk editor is free." The Premium plan is sold at €118.80 a year excluding VAT, billed annually. The plugin also makes XML sitemaps automatically.

Ubersuggest's plan page lists reports per day of 150, 300 and 900 across its three tiers, between one and fifteen projects, and backlinks shown per tier of 2,000, 5,000 and 10,000, with three years of link history. The page says "We offer a one-time 7-day free trial for monthly subscriptions." It adds "Our prices are geolocated, meaning they vary by region." All three entries in this group were read on 4 October 2026.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is described on its own about page in one sentence: "Search Console tools and reports help you measure your site's Search traffic and performance, fix issues, and make your site shine in Google Search results".

The Performance report gives four numbers: clicks, impressions, CTR and average position. Clicks count how many times a user clicked your site from search results, impressions count how many times your site appeared, and CTR is the click count divided by the impression count. The help page defines the last of the four as "Average position: The average position of the topmost result from your site." These four numbers sit in our wider list of SEO metrics by tool.

The Links report lets you "See backlinks to your site" through three tables: top linked pages, top linking sites and top linking text. Its own limits are that "Tables are limited to 1,000 rows", that you can "Export up to 100,000 rows of data", and that "The report doesn’t specify if a link is marked as nofollow." Our guide to dofollow and nofollow backlinks explains what that marking means for a link. Search Console's about page says you receive email alerts when issues are identified on your site. This entry was read on 4 October 2026.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics 4 counts what visitors did on your site. Sessions, engagement rate and event count are its own metric names, and a conversion is a key event: "A key event is an event that measures an action that's particularly important to the success of your business." The engagement rate is the percentage of sessions that were engaged sessions, and the bounce rate is its opposite. This entry was read on 4 October 2026.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner's own page says "Google Keyword Planner helps you research keywords for your Search campaigns." It adds that you can "View monthly searches: View estimates on the number of searches a keyword gets each month", and one account step comes first: "You must complete your account setup by entering your billing information to access basic features".

Five other keyword tools sit alongside it:

• Ahrefs Free Keyword Generator lets you "Find relevant keywords from our database of over 8 billion queries. Just enter up to ten words or phrases and choose from one of six keyword ideas reports."
• Ahrefs Keyword Difficulty Checker says "We measure Keyword Difficulty on a scale from 0 to 100, with the latter being the hardest."
• Moz Keyword Explorer offers a free version, and its page puts its keyword suggestions at over 1.25 billion.
• KWFinder by Mangools says "Get 5 lookups per 24 hours, 15 related and 5 competitor keywords per lookup for free.", and the Mangools Basic plan was shown at €452.40 a year.
• AnswerThePublic, part of NP Digital, showed a Starter plan at €13.33 a month billed annually, with 100 searches a month.

Once the keywords are chosen, our academy guide covers keyword research for on-site SEO. This entry and its list were read on 4 October 2026.

Advanced SEO tools

Two paid suites come next, both read on 4 October 2026.

Ahrefs' plans page lists Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, Site Audit, Rank Tracker and Web Analytics. The Lite plan was shown at €119 a month with 5 projects and 750 tracked keywords, and the Starter plan at €27 a month, both as the page shows them with annual billing switched off, so billed monthly. The free tier has a new name, "Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is now Ahrefs Free", and its table lists 5 K crawl credits a month per project in Site Audit and 1 K backlinks and keywords visible at once in Site Explorer.

Semrush's SEO plan was shown at €112.52 a month billed annually, or €134 paid monthly, with 5 websites to monitor and 500 keywords tracked daily. Its free account costs $0 a month, needs no credit card and allows 10 reports a day.

Site audit tools

A crawl reports a site's broken links, its redirects, and the page titles and meta descriptions that are too long.

Sitebulb says it can "Find and fix technical issues with easy visuals, in-depth insights, and prioritized recommendations across 300+ SEO issues." Its plans are Lite at $18 a month for 10,000 URLs per audit and Pro at $42 a month, both billed monthly (the page opens on its monthly view), with a 14-day free trial, on a pricing page titled for SEO professionals.

Sitechecker.pro combines a website crawler, a rank tracker and a one-time site audit. SE Ranking's audit is the one described in the starting tools above. SEO PowerSuite is a set of four desktop tools: Rank Tracker, WebSite Auditor, SEO SpyGlass and LinkAssistant. Oncrawl's page says it collects and analyses crawl, log and performance data with zero sampling. Google Lighthouse's page says "Lighthouse is an open-source, automated tool to help you improve the quality of web pages." It adds "It has audits for performance, accessibility, SEO, and more." Its SEO audits include checks for a missing meta description, an unsuccessful HTTP status code and an invalid robots.txt. Our guide explains crawl budget, and the entries in this group were read on 4 October 2026.

Backlink analysis tools

For small business link building, the backlink tools below count and list the links that point to a site. Search Console's own definition runs "A backlink is a link on a page from another site that links to a page on your site."

Ahrefs reads backlinks through Site Explorer, and its free checker appears further down this group. Majestic calls itself "Specialists in backlink analysis", and Trust Flow and Citation Flow are Majestic's own scores: "Citation Flow is a score between 0-100 which helps to measure the link equity or "power" the website or link carries." A Topical Trust Flow score places a site against others in over 800 categories, the home page offers a complimentary search, and the Lite plan was shown at $49.99 a month excluding VAT with 1 million analysis units. Our guide explains how link authority is measured.

Moz's Pro Standard plan was shown at $99 a month, or $79 a month paid yearly, and Domain Authority is Moz's own score: "The score ranges from 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating a greater ability to rank." Our Moz Domain Authority guide covers that score in full.

Ubersuggest's backlink report shows 2,000, 5,000 or 10,000 backlinks per tier, with new and lost links over 30 days. Ahrefs' checker page invites you to "Try the free version of Ahrefs’ Backlink Checker." It shows the number of referring domains, the number of backlinks, Domain Rating (Ahrefs' own score) and Ahrefs Rank. Moz's checker page says "Try Link Explorer, Moz’s free backlink checker" and "Get 10 free queries per month." Its free data lists Domain Authority, Page Authority and Spam Score (all Moz's scores), an inbound link count, a linking domain count and recently discovered and lost linking domains. All prices and limits in this group were read on 4 October 2026.

Our free DA and DR checker reports Moz's Domain Authority and Ahrefs' Domain Rating for one domain. In a July 2026 sample of its database, covering 29,632 checks since the tool launched in February 2026 and 15,357 unique domains with the latest check kept per domain, DR was above DA on 42.1% of domains. That sample describes the domains people chose to check, not the web. Our Guest Posts are tiered by the minimum Moz Domain Authority of the placement site, and each site is cross-checked against Ahrefs Domain Rating and live traffic, so we read the two scores together. We have written about why Moz DA and Ahrefs DR disagree. We have also set out what a backlink profile contains. Our guide to the link audit shows how a check on existing links runs.

SERP analysis and keyword research tools

A rank tracker reads one position for one query in one place, while Google Search Console's average position is an average across queries and countries. Our guide shows how to check a ranking yourself, and the six entries below were read on 4 October 2026.

Ahrefs Rank Tracker is included from the Lite plan, with 750 tracked keywords. Semrush Position Tracking lets you "Track daily changes and automate reports", with reports sent to your inbox, and the SEO plan tracks 500 keywords daily. SE Ranking runs rank tracking across major search engines. Mangools' Basic plan includes rank tracking for 200 keywords, updated weekly. SERPWoo's page says its makers invented the world's first SERP tracker. Its footer still reads 2013 to 2023. ProRankTracker offers daily top-100 rank tracking and reporting for agencies and SEO teams.

On-page tools

Semrush's On-Page SEO Checker address now opens Semrush's Content Toolkit page. MozBar's page says "The Moz SEO toolbar is a free extension for both Google Chrome and Firefox that gives you instant access to metrics such as Page Authority, Domain Authority, and Spam Score." Both entries were read on 4 October 2026.

Website speed and performance tools

Google Lighthouse bands its performance score as "0 to 49 (red): Poor", "50 to 89 (orange): Needs Improvement" and "90 to 100 (green): Good". The score is built from five weighted metrics in the Lighthouse 10 row: First Contentful Paint at 10%, Speed Index at 10%, Largest Contentful Paint at 25%, Total Blocking Time at 30% and Cumulative Layout Shift at 25%. Google PageSpeed Insights is described this way: "PageSpeed Insights (PSI) assesses the performance of web pages on both mobile and desktop, offering suggestions for optimization by analyzing lab and real-world data." Its field data covers the previous 28 days. WebPageTest was acquired by Catchpoint in 2020 and is now served under LogicMonitor, and a free test needs no account. GTmetrix produces Lighthouse-based reports with Web Vitals and a waterfall chart of each request. These entries were read on 4 October 2026.

Technical SEO tools

Yoast SEO makes XML sitemaps, as noted in the starting tools above. Inspyder Sitemap Creator is a desktop sitemap generator whose site did not answer on 4 October 2026. XML-Sitemaps.com describes its generator as "free, and no registration required." XML Sitemap Generator for Google is a WordPress plugin that generates XML and HTML sitemaps. WriteMaps is a visual sitemap builder for planning websites and gathering content, and it points to XML-Sitemaps for an XML file.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider's page says "Download & crawl 500 URLs for free, or buy a licence for €245 Per Year to remove the limit & access advanced features." Google Search Console adds the Page indexing report. The W3C Validator checks the markup of web documents, such as HTML and XHTML. The Web Developer Toolbar is a browser extension that adds web developer tools, and it is distributed for free. These entries were read on 4 October 2026.

Local SEO tools

Local work splits into rankings, listings and reviews, and three tools open this group, all read on 4 October 2026.

BrightLocal says you can "Track rankings, manage listings, and grow your reputation in one platform." Its Track plan was shown at $31 a month in USD, billed annually at $369 for one location, and it can "Monitor local ranking for up to 100 keywords and four competitors". A 14-day trial needs no credit card. Semrush's Listing Management address now opens Semrush Local, its local business tools page. A Google Business Profile is added or claimed through the product's own help pages, and our guide to local SEO strategies covers the wider work around it.

Local citation management

A citation is a listing of the business name, address and phone number on another site. Our citation building guide covers getting listed. Our citation audit guide covers checking what is already out there. BrightLocal's Citation Builder builds and cleans up listings, and the Track plan can "Monitor citation accuracy and spot opportunity gaps". This group was read on 4 October 2026.

Reputation management and reviews

Trustpilot and Reviews.io are review collection platforms. ReviewTrackers is online reputation management software. My Presences says you can "Manage your listings on 3000+ listing services worldwide" and "Manage and reply to your reviews on 400+ review services and get new reviews." Uberall handles listings management and review management for businesses with more than one location. This group was read on 4 October 2026.

Content optimisation tools

Two tools open the content group. AnswerThePublic surfaces questions and phrases around a keyword, and its Starter plan is described in the keyword section above. Semrush's Content Marketing Toolkit is now titled Content Toolkit.

SEO content templates

SEO Writing Assistant is Semrush's writing tool. Content Fusion now sits on seoClarity, where it creates a content brief for copywriters to download. Semrush's SEO Content Template address now opens the Content Toolkit page. This group was read on 4 October 2026.

Internal linking tools

Our guide to internal link building covers links between the pages of your own site. Link Assistant is SEO PowerSuite's tool, described as "LinkAssistant for link building and outreach", which makes it a link-building tool rather than an internal-linking one. Internal Link Juicer is a semi-automatic internal link building plugin for WordPress. Link Whisper is a WordPress internal linking plugin that automates repetitive linking. Semrush Site Audit is Semrush's technical SEO audit. This group was read on 4 October 2026.

Social media tools

Three tools open the social group, all read on 4 October 2026. Sprout Social covers social media listening and reporting. Hootsuite lists content creation, planning and publishing alongside its social media analytics. Tailwind is a Pinterest tool whose keyword research finds Pinterest keywords for your niche.

Social sharing metrics

Buffer's analytics page is now Buffer Insights, which reports your performance and what to post next. Sendible can schedule performance reports to go straight to stakeholders' inboxes. Cyfe is a business dashboard with a social media dashboard template. Quintly's announcement reads "quintly officially becomes Facelift Data Studio". This group was read on 4 October 2026.

Mentions and influencer tools

BuzzSumo tracks media mentions and finds influencers, and we have written about why brand mentions are worth tracking. Sprout Social returns here for its social media reporting. Buffer is the analytics tool described above. Emplifi is a social media management platform. Sitechecker is the crawler described in the site audit group.

Analytics and reporting tools

Two entries open this group, both read on 4 October 2026. Google Data Studio is the current name again: the Google Cloud blog of 11 April 2026 announced it was "reintroducing a beloved and familiar name, Data Studio (formerly Looker Studio)." The Barracuda Panguin Tool's domain was listed for sale on 4 October 2026.

Custom SEO reports

Google Data Studio, Excel and Power BI all build custom reports, and Power BI's page describes reports built from a natural-language description. Moz offers report templates. Semrush's report templates let you "Work from pre-built report templates or build a fully custom layout". Google Analytics 4 offers Explorations in free-form, funnel and path forms. This group was read on 4 October 2026.

Frequently asked questions

What is search engine optimisation (SEO)?

Search engine optimisation is the work of making a site's pages findable in search results: the pages themselves, the words on them and the links that point to them. The search engine optimisation tools on this page report the numbers that work produces.

What are the best SEO tools for small businesses?

Of the SEO software on this page, the tools whose own pages state a free version are Google Analytics, Ahrefs Free, Moz Link Explorer with ten queries a month, KWFinder with five lookups per 24 hours, the Semrush free account and the Screaming Frog crawl of 500 URLs. A paid plan then adds more for the job that takes the biggest share of your week. The SEO plugins in the list above, all for WordPress, are Yoast SEO, XML Sitemap Generator for Google, Internal Link Juicer and Link Whisper.

Why is keyword research important for SEO?

The keyword tools report what people search for and the estimated number of searches each month, plus a difficulty figure on each tool's own scale. The page you write then answers the question those searches ask.

How can I check my website's speed and performance?

Lighthouse scores a page from 0 to 100 across three bands, and PageSpeed Insights adds field data from the previous 28 days. GTmetrix and WebPageTest run the same kind of test, and the Rank Math plugin for WordPress shows a post's loading speed and PageSpeed Score for desktop and mobile.

How can social media tools help with SEO?

Social media tools such as Buffer and Zoho Social report what was posted and how it performed. A post that reaches people who run sites can lead to a link, and a backlink report then counts that link.