to create a winning SEO tool suite for 2023

Many paid and free platforms, tools and software are available to SEO professionals. How can you stand out if your competitors use the same tools, data and approaches?

At SMX Next I shared my tools for SEO in 2023. You can read the highlights of the session if you missed it.

It’s important to note that SEO is moving at a rapid pace, and that there has been a shift in the way you think about one of these tools. But we’ll get to that soon.

What will this article cover?

Let’s get started.

Why do we use SEO tools?

Like with almost every decision we make regarding tools, it is important to ask the question “Why?” What is the purpose of tools?

For the following tasks, we usually use SEO tools:

We use tools to save our time. Think of all the tools that you use or want. They either speed up information collection or make it easier to draw conclusions.

Think about the tool you use, and the task you use it to accomplish. It will most likely fit at least one of the above purposes.

There are many tools available. This list is not exhaustive.

I have only included tools that I use and would be able to apply to most people. They’re useful tools that I have found invaluable in my daily routine.

What are they then?

You know the ones!

You probably know what my list is of usual suspects. Let’s not forget them.

Semrush

Why did Semrush choose to make this list?

Semrush is an all-in-one tool that covers many areas of SEO, SEM, and SMM. It does these things well.

The following are some of the tools I use frequently in the suite:

It’s likely that you are familiar with most of its functions. If not, I recommend a trial.

Semrush is usually affordable for the many purposes it serves. However, it can be expensive if you need to add users or white label reports. It’s also well-known, so it’s a valuable skill to know how to use it.

Screaming Frog

This is hands down the most value-oriented tool on the market.

For those of you who don’t know, Screaming Frog is a crawler.

It will ask for a URL or list of URLs. You can then configure the crawler to do what you want (depth, user agents and paths, etc. It will return an audit of your site with different visualizations and filters.

You can use the free version for as many URLs as you like, but it only allows for limited customizations. You’ll need to pay $210/year for a paid version. It is the best value tool available.

It is good for:

You can use the rest of my usual suspects, so I won’t have to go into them all.

This is all I have to say about Bing Webmaster tools:

It is similar to Search Console but has far more information. This makes it the undiscovered hero of SEO tools.

These are the unusual suspects

Tools for technical SEO

Jet Octopus a technical SEO suite. (And no, I do not know how these companies got their names.

Screens such as:

Similar to Semrush, but with different filtering options. And a different crawler. Jet Octopus allows you to group issues in the sections you will find them in. It’s a combination of Semrush Webmaster Tools and Jet Octopus.

It also gives me a new way to look at site structures. I would not give up Semrush, but it is one I would consider adding to the mix if I had the money and want to ensure I have an easy-to use alternative way to view things.

Some other unusual options for technical SEO:

Merkle – Free SEO tools that cover everything from prerendering to schema.

Structured data testing tool: To test your schema.

Mobile Mooxie: A free and paid tool to test your mobile SEO.

Uptime robot: To ensure that your site(s), are up.

Content tools

Without great content, all the technical SEO in this world will not get you ranked. Let’s take a look at the content side.

The shockingly affordable Infranodus is my favorite content-related SEO tool (though it isn’t a tool for content, it is what I use most).

Infranodus offers a wide range of tools at a staggering EUR9/month (about USD equivalent).

My most used tools are the ones that allow me to dig into the top Google results and see how they connect to other pages in a list.

You can simply enter a query to get an interactive map of the connections between the terms in the search results. This helps me understand not only how Google may see a concept but also how it might be perceived by a user.

It is here in action:

Of course, there’s more:

I do have tools that I use to keep an eye on competitors’ and my own links.

These are my favorite tools in this category:


Ahrefs

Although technically Ahrefs can be compared to Semrush’s suite of tools, I think it shines in links.

It catches backlinks quicker than other tools and has a stronger database.

This is why I always start by looking at new links, analyzing competitor information, and checking for any gaps in existing link profiles.


Majestic

Majestic has been a while since I last used it, but I thought it was worth mentioning because it is a great backlink tool that you should consider.

One point I reached a threshold, and I had too many tools. I decided to make a “one-in, one-out” policy to keep it under control.

There was a lot of duplicate content in the link category, so I had to eliminate some tools. Majestic, for those with this problem, is a solid choice to consider. It might even be worth revisiting.


Search Console

I hope you don’t need me to explain why Search Console is important for monitoring your backlinks. But here it is, summarized in a Stable Diffusion image.

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Terms.

A few AI tools

AI is something we must not forget. There are many AI-driven tools available. I don’t know which one is the best. I haven’t tried them all, and I am far from deciding which one (though Jasper has already taken a lead).

Nevertheless, some core technology can be accessed for free!

While ChatGPT has been the subject of much hype, I prefer to access the technology (GPT-3 in the OpenAI playground). It’s the exact same technology, but with (IMO), better flexibility and interface.

Sign up for an OpenAI account to access the API and perform NLP-related tasks or simply play in their playground.

It can be used to:

Popular nowadays are AI tools for image creation. For:

In my previous article The new wave of machine-learning libraries has many benefits for SEO and marketing.

These are the main tools that you can use to create text-to-image templates:

A forecasting tool is also available

I created a forecasting tool that you can use as a Google Colab.

It allows you to connect with your Google Analytics (only Universal Analytics at the moment, since most people don’t have more than a year of GA4 data, which is necessary for forecasting).

You can also choose to forecast the next few month based on a particular segment of your analytics (organic for example).

It is nice to know what the future holds.

A tutorial was written by me on how to use it (very simple) in a Search Engine Land article Forecasting web visitors using Google Analytics and Facebook Prophet.

Our tools are here to help.

These tools aren’t the only ones that I use. I have 39 bookmarks! These are the ones that I have found to work over the years.

You may need different tools depending on your budget or situation. It doesn’t matter what tools you use, it matters that you have the right tools to accomplish all your main tasks.

Watch: How to create a winning SEO tool suite for 2023

Here is the entire video of my SMX Next presentation.

Search Engine Land first published the post How you can build a winning SEO tool set for 2023.

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