SEO reporting tools help you optimize your site for search and skyrocket your traffic. But with so many tools to choose from, it can be tough to find the right match. To help you pick one, I’ve gathered the 13 best SEO reporting software and tools for keyword research, backlink tracking, competitor analysis, and more.

Whether you’re a growing business looking for comprehensive software or a newbie blogger in need of a free tool, I’ve got you covered.

What’s the best SEO reporting software?

Before we jump into my recommendations for the best SEO reporting software, let’s consider what exactly SEO reporting software is.

SEO software analyzes your site and reveals how it’s ranking in search (i.e., Google). The best SEO reporting tools help you conduct keyword research, explore backlinks, identify broken links, study your competitors, and discover ways to optimize your site.

Using keywords is absolutely crucial to ranking on Google, since you want to create content that people are searching for. But it’s only one piece of the puzzle — backlinks from other websites are also critical for building your site’s domain authority and proving to Google that your site is trustworthy.

With SEO reporting software, you can also audit your website or blog for technical problems such as redirecting, slow loading speeds, duplicate content, server error pages, and security issues. SEO software helps bloggers and business owners identify areas that need improvement.

Now that you understand how SEO reporting tools can help your website, read on for my recommendations for the best SEO reporting tools for small businesses and blogs.

• Ahrefs
• SEMrush
• Moz
• Google Analytics
• Google Search Console
• Screaming Frog
• SEO PowerSuite
• Sitebulb
• KW Finder
• Raven Tools
• GrowthBar
• SE Ranking
• Google Data Studio

1. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is one of the best SEO reporting tools out there. Not only can you do a deep dive on keyword research, but Ahref’s backlink exploration feature shows you links to your site from other sites. With this leading SEO reporting tool, you can also compare your backlinks to your competitors’.

Plus, Ahrefs reveals sites’ domain rating and URL rating. While not directly used by Google, both these ratings offer insight into how much Google trusts your site. They are numerical values from 0 to 100, which 100 being the best.

Other outstanding features include:

• Site explorer: Gives in-depth insight into the organic search traffic and backlink profile of any website. It also shows whether your competitors are doing paid search advertising and where they’re sending paid traffic.
• Keyword research:  Helps you find suitable keywords to increase the rankings of your blog content. You can use filters like “phrase match” and “having same terms” to find new ideas you might not have thought of. You can also see what keywords a competitor is ranking for that you can pursue, too.
• Site audit: Crawls all the pages on your site to provide an overall SEO health score, flag SEO issues, and give recommendations on how to improve them.
• Rank tracker: Monitors your rankings over time and compares them with that of your competition.
• Content explorer: Helps you discover and analyze content that’s performing well in your niche.

Ahrefs is best for…

Everything. This powerful tool helps you conduct in-depth keyword research, learn from competitors, optimize your site, and track backlinks.

It’s an excellent and popular option among bloggers and businesses. However, it may be cost-prohibitive (and too advanced) for beginner bloggers.

If you’re a beginner, you can rely on more affordable or free SEO reporting software to start and consider upgrading to Ahrefs later on.

Pricing

Ahrefs offers five plans: Lite, Standard, Advanced Legacy, Advanced, and Agency. Pricing starts at $82 per month when paid annually and goes up from there.

If you want to try it for seven days, even if only to conduct a bunch of keyword research, you can do so for $7.

2. SEMrush

Along with Ahrefs, SEMrush is another leading SEO research tool among bloggers and businesses. This tool similarly helps you research keywords, analyze your competitors, and audit your site’s backlinks.

Key SEMrush features include:

• Backlink audit: Find out what sites are linking to you, as well as which sites are linking to your competitors.
• Spyglass: Analyze your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses and learn from what they’re doing to rank better.
• SEMrush ranking tool: Evaluate your rankings over time, as well as compare them to other sites in your niche.
• Content audit tool: Track your content performance, including social shares, organic traffic, and page status. You can also see all your blog titles and article word counts in one place (and identify patterns).

SEMRush is best for…

Keyword tracking and backlink auditing. SEMrush delivers an in-depth comparison of your keywords and recommends alternative keywords that could rank better on search engines. Plus, it helps you analyze your competitors and learn from what they’re doing.

Like Ahrefs, SEMrush is a fairly expensive tool relied on by successful bloggers and businesses. It might be too pricey if you’re just starting out. Plus, you might not make the most of all its features until you gain experience with SEO analysis.

Pricing

SEMrush has three plans, the Pro, Guru, and Business. Pricing starts at $99.95 per month when billed annually.

You can try it for free for 7 days.

3. Moz

Moz offers an all-in-one SEO reporting tool. From keyword research to content ranking, Moz is an outstanding platform to monitor your site’s performance and boost its SEO.

While Ahrefs uses “domain rating” to measure the health of your site, Moz uses the term “domain authority.” It’s also a number between 0 and 100 that suggests how reputable your site is in the eyes of Google.

Moz’s SEO reporting tool allows you to:

• Analyze search engine results pages (SERPs) to see your rankings.
• Evaluate your link-building capacity to stay ahead of competitors.
• Audit your content and formulate ways to improve your on-page SEO.
• Find out how your site ranks for keywords.
• Surf the web for ideas and content related to your target keywords.

Moz is best for…

Keyword research. Moz gives you a large volume of valuable data showing how specific keywords could rank on search engines. The tool also indicates the number of competitors ranking for a particular keyword.

Pricing

This SEO reporting tool has four plans, the Standard, Medium, Large, and Premium. Plans start at $79 per month when paid yearly or $99 when paid monthly.

You can try a 30-day free trial of Moz to see if it’s the best SEO reporting software for you.

4. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a 100% free SEO reporting tool. It evaluates your site’s organic traffic and reveals areas that need improvement. This free tool is a must for analyzing your traffic and audience and optimizing your blog.

With Google Analytics, you can see,

• Your blog visitors and how they interact with your site.
• The most popular content on your blog, based on the number of visits.
• The specific keywords leading visitors to your blog.
• Bounce rate (the percentage of visitors leaving your blog right after arriving) and how long visitors stay on your site.
• The geographical location of your visitors and devices they use.

Google Analytics is best for…

Monitoring your site’s traffic and referral sources on a daily basis and over time. This includes page views and sessions, as well as traffic sources.

All bloggers and website owners should use Google Analytics. It provides excellent insights into your site’s performance, which you can use to inform your content calendar.

Pricing

Free

5. Google Search Console

While Google Analytics mainly helps you see how many people are visiting your site and how they found it, Google Search Console helps you check on your site’s SEO performance and technical structure.

This SEO tool,

• Shows what keywords your site is ranking for and how much traffic they’re bringing in.
• Identifies errors such as incorrect tags, broken links, and misspelled meta-descriptions.
• Helps you improve your visibility and rankings in search engine results.

Google Search Console is best for…

Bloggers and website owners looking to improve their site’s ranking, visibility, and presence in SERPs.

Pricing

Free

6. Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog is a website crawler that scans your website’s SEO. Its SEO Spider Tool searches for errors or technical issues while tracking your backlinks and rankings.

Here’s what to expect from this colorfully-named SEO reporting software:

• Identifies on-page issues that reduce your site’s visibility in search engines.
• Monitors your backlinks.
• Identifies technical errors such as server response errors, redirects, and duplicate content.
• Creates a detailed report exportable to programs such as Microsoft Excel.
• Integrates with other SEO tools such as Google Analytics.

Screaming Frog is best for…

Analyzing medium and large sites for errors that limit their visibility on search engine results. And it seems to be quite popular among major companies:

Pricing

Screaming Frog has two main plans, a free plan and a paid plan with more features that starts at £149.00 per year (about $205 USD). Note that Screaming Frog is a UK-based company, but it’s used by businesses worldwide.

7. SEO PowerSuite

SEO PowerSuite is one of the best SEO reporting tools, especially for beginner bloggers on a tight budget. It has a free version and comes with essential features such as rank tracking, competitor spying, and a link assistant for backlinks.

SEO PowerSuite features include:

• Rank tracking to evaluate how your website ranks for specific keywords.
• SEO spyglass for tracking your competitor’s statistics such as ranking, backlinks, and areas of weakness.
• Link assistant that identifies third-party sites linking to your site and opportunities for creating more links to make your site more authoritative.
• Website crawler that audits your blog to produce data on organic traffic, social shares, and on-page SEO.

SEO PowerSuite is best for…

Small businesses and bloggers who want to access comprehensive SEO reports on a budget.

Pricing

SEO PowerSuite has a 100% free plan, making it a great tool for bloggers. To save your projects’ SEO history and access other features, you can purchase a license, which starts at $299/year.

8. Sitebulb

Sitebulb audits your website and produces color-coded reports, maps, and graphs. You can use these visuals to optimize your site for better results.

Sitebulb’s SEO reporting tool can:

• Identify indexing issues that reduce site visibility.
• Unearth duplicate content, incorrect title tag, meta description, and URLs.
• Spot broken links, on-page issues, and redirects.
• Produce reports in PDF format for later viewing or instant sharing with third parties.

Sitebulb is best for…

Bloggers and small business owners looking for an all-in-one SEO tool that creates visual graphics and data representations.

Pricing

The platform offers two plans. with pricing starting at $13.50 per month.

9. KWFinder

KWFinder is one of the best SEO reporting software for discovering long-tail keywords. It also points out which keywords would be tough to rank for so you don’t waste your time on them.

With KWFinder, you can:

• Identify backlinks and find opportunities for more.
• Track your blog’s search engine rankings.
• Find the best keywords that resonate with your target audience based on locality. For instance, it can help you find keywords that match your country or city.
• Identify relevant long-tail keywords, which could increase your website’s chance of ranking higher in search engines.

KWFinder is best for…

Keyword research. It provides a useful keyword difficulty score so you can come up with a content plan and optimize your chance of ranking.

Pricing

This tool comes has three plans starting at $29.90 per month. Before subscribing to any of its paid plans, you can take advantage of its 10-day free trial to find out how this tool works and decide if it’s the best SEO reporting tool for you.

10. Raven Tools

This cloud-based SEO reporting tool allows you to manage your website’s SEO, customer interaction, social shares, and marketing campaigns.

With Raven Tools, you can:

• Analyze your blog’s performance in search engine results.
• Manage backlinks.
• Create, monitor, and evaluate marketing campaigns.
• Spy on your competitors for keywords, strengths, and weaknesses.
• Pull data from third-party SEO tools and Google Analytics to generate a single detailed report.
• Rank tracking on SERPs.

Raven Tools is best for…

Bloggers and small business owners who need a simple SEO reporting tool with basic tracking.

Pricing

Raven Tool has five plans. The cheapest one allows two users, while the most expensive one allows up to 40 users. Plans start at $39/month when paid annually.

11. GrowthBar

GrowthBar is one of the best SEO reporting tools for keeping track of your SEO and rankings, as well as your competitors’ stats.

You can use this SEO tool to:

• Find the best keyword suggestions for your content.
• Track keyword rankings to identify how your website compares with other sites in your niche.
• Identify errors on your site, such as website crawl errors or DNS errors.
• Evaluate your site’s organic traffic.
• Identify backlinks.
• Evaluate social media and Google ad performance.

GrowthBar is best for…

Keeping tabs on your competitors and evaluating your paid ad performance on Google and social media.

Pricing

This reporting tool has three plans starting from $29 per month.

12. SE Ranking

SE Ranking is a leading SEO reporting software that can help you create a comprehensive SEO strategy for your site. This SEO tool offers the following:

• Website crawler to spot errors on your site.
• Backlink explorer to check links from third-party sites that direct traffic to your site.
• Keyword suggestions for choosing the best keywords when creating content.
• Competitor tracking to evaluate your competitor’s stats and identify opportunities to outrank them.
• Marketing plan creation for better SEO results.
• Social media analytics and auto-posting.

SE Ranking Is Best For

Business owners and digital agencies seeking accurate SEO tracking, deep website analysis, and a comprehensive marketing plan that includes social media posts.

Pricing

SE Ranking offers plans starting at $31 per month. This platform also allows you to customize your plan based on your specific needs.

13. Google Data Studio

Are you a visual learner? Do you need a tool for presenting visual data in charts and tables or collaborating on reports with your colleagues?

Google Data Studio has got you covered. This free tool connects to a variety of data sources, like Google Analytics, SEMrush or your social media accounts.

Once it’s connected to your SEO and website data, you can tell your data story with charts, graphs, pivot tables, geo-maps or other visual aids.

You can create branded reports that show how your site is performing over time and help you identify areas that need optimization.

Google Data Studio is best for…

Gathering website statistics and data from various sources such as social media and third-party SEO tools to create visual reports.

Pricing

Free

How to choose the best SEO reporting tool

When it comes to choosing the best SEO reporting software for your website, consider these important factors:

• Accuracy and integration: The best SEO reporting tools have a reputation for accuracy and integrate with third-party applications, such as SalesForce and Shopify.
• Useful features: Features such as keyword research, position tracking, competitor data, backlink monitoring, and site analytics are the most important. If you find a tool with these features, that’s a great place to start your SEO campaign.
• Cost vs. value: If you’re a beginner blogger or business owner, you want a reporting tool that will support your SEO strategy without draining your wallet. In that case, you might consider free or low-cost tools to start with. You could also use a site’s free or promotional trial to do a bunch of keyword research that fills your content calendar for months.
• Social media reporting: Although these SEO reporting tools focus on search traffic coming from Google, you might also appreciate tools that connect to your social media channels.

Using an SEO reporting tool could be a game-changer for your blog or online business, especially if your goal is to increase traffic to your site.

Of course, these SEO tools can only take you so far. To bring in consistent traffic, you also need to create outstanding content.

Ready to learn how? Head to this guide for a detailed look at how to write an article that ranks #1 on Google.

About Rebecca Safier

Rebecca Safier is a blogger and digital marketer who teaches others how to use SEO and other best practices to build profitable blogging businesses.