SEO agency owners oversee KPIs, reports and action items for many clients at a time. Automating recurring tasks and creating seamless communication with your customers is essential.
SEO software for agencies provides the tools and resources necessary to understand what’s working and where you have room for improvement. But with so many tools on the market, where do you begin to build out your selection criteria?
Contents
Some of the most important tools available in SEO software include:
- Reporting
- Keyword tracking
- On-page audits
- Website errors
- Backlinks
- Competitive analysis
- Content authoring
- Local SEO
- Paid search integration and analysis
You also need to evaluate the software’s ability to track multiple clients and provide reporting just for them. The cost of managing multiple client websites will also be a major factor in your consideration.
Find the top SEO software to manage your clients now.
Identify This Before You Chose Your SEO Software For Your Agency
The best SEO software for agencies differs based on the types of clients you serve, budget constraints and the features you need to match your strategy and tactics. Different agencies take a different approach to SEO, which means there is no one-size-fits-all product that will delight all types of agencies.
Here are some top considerations before you create your software criteria:
Type of Clients
Evaluate your client base or your desired client base. Consider these factors:
- Local clients with brick and mortar locations that need local SEO services
- Local clients with an entirely online business model
- National or even international clients with a wide service range
How you service these clients will differ and you’ll need different tools to report and provide insights for these customers. And if you serve multiple types of clients, you’ll need to look for the best software solution for managing these various relationship types.
Pricing
Each SEO software on the market bases its pricing structure on different factors. Some provide an enterprise account where it won’t matter how many clients you’re servicing or webpages you’re crawling. Others will bill you based on the number of domains you manage or the number of webpages you monitor.
As you look at software pricing, consider your long-term goals for your agency to make sure the software will scale with you as you grow. Moving to a different system later could be a headache and disrupt existing clients.
Many tools provide a free option to begin managing SEO, but this subscription level is often missing some of the more in-depth tools and analysis that agencies require for proper reporting. Be careful getting too involved in free plans if owning an SEO agency is a long-term goal for you and not just a side project.
Features
SEO agencies provide different services to their clients. Some focus heavily on on-page SEO while others offer only backlinking services. Still other agencies provide PR and outreach campaigns.
Before making your software criteria, evaluate your service offering. This will ensure you have the right tools to report your efforts to your customers.
The Best SEO Software for Agencies
Learn more about our top recommendations SEO software for agencies based on agency type and service areas.
1. Best for Full-Service SEO Agenices: SEMRush
SEMRush provides all the main features that full-service SEO agencies need. From keyword research to backlink analysis, you’ll be able to provide reports to your customers.
Its strongest features are keyword tracking with competitive analysis, content writing insights, and website error alerts. The competitive analysis tools are superior to other tools on the market.
Pricing
You can sign up for a free account, but you’ll be very limited in your capabilities and only be able to track one domain. Paid plans start at $119.95 per month.
Just be sure you explore the full details on the pricing page before signing up. All accounts only include one user and adding additional users will be a considerable added cost per month. The basic plan excludes the content marketing tools and local SEO tracking.
Features
- Keyword research
- Rank tracking
- Competitive analysis
- On-page SEO
- Link building/backlink tracking
- PPC research
- Content marketing (only available with some subscription types)
- Local SEO (only available with some subscription types)
2. Best for Link Building: Ahrefs
Ahefs has the basic SEO tools you need to monitor keyword rankings, analyze competitors and find keywords to target. But where it really shines is in its backlink analysis and link-building insights.
Pricing
Plans start at $99 a month for tracking up to 500 keywords. For historical keyword tracking, you’ll need to upgrade to the Standard tier to watch your rankings improve over time instead of just where they are at the moment.
Alerts on ranking changes, new or lost backlinks and online mentions are only available monthly in the Lite subscription. You’ll need to upgrade for weekly and daily updates.
Ahrefs does have many free tools to help beginners start exploring SEO skills. From backlink analysis to keyword research, you can do several free searches to gain valuable insights if you’re just starting your SEO agency journey.
Features
- Keyword research
- Rank tracking (historical data only available with some subscription types)
- Competitive analysis
- On-page SEO
- Link building/backlink tracking
3. Best for Local SEO: BrightLocal
BrightLocal offers local SEO software for agencies. The software empowers agencies to improve rankings near their physical business locations.
While you’ll still be interested in your overall ranking and keyword research, local SEO agencies need more in-depth analysis focused on their community.
Pricing
Prices start at $29 per month for monitoring and optimizing one business. Agencies will need a larger account though to manage multiple businesses and business locations.
If you only focus on reputation management, you can monitor and generate reviews for $8 a month.
Features
- Local search grid (shows your rankings based on the searcher’s location)
- Local competitor rankings
- Business citation tracker
- Citation builder
- Local search audit
- Google My Business audit
- Reputation management
4. Best for Technical SEO: WooRank
Technical SEO requires a host of different features and services to manage the technical aspects of a website. WooRank makes that possible for website developers and technical SEO companies.
Pricing
Pricing starts at $59.99 per month to monitor 1 website and up to 50 keywords or $179.99 per month for up to 5 websites and 250 keywords. Companies looking to manage more than 5 websites can reach out for a quote.
The upgraded account also allows you to create white-label reports to showcase your agency branding and expertise.
Features
- Website technical analysis
- Keyword research
- Rank tracking
- Competitive analysis
5. Best for Smaller Budgets: SpyFu
SpyFu is certainly not the most robust SEO tool on the market, but it does provide the essential keyword research tools and competitive analysis information you need to report on SEO activity.
Pricing
Subscription plans start at $39 per month, but you’ll likely want to upgrade to the Professional plan to get custom-branded reporting and increased tracking capabilities.
But even with an upgraded plan, you’ll only pay $79 per month. Subscribe annually to save.
Features
- SEO research
- Keyword research
- Keyword rank tracking
- Competitive analysis
- PPC research
- Backlink reporting and analysis (though this feature is not very robust compared to competitors)
6. Best for On-Site SEO: Screaming Frog
According to many SEO experts, Screaming Frog is the far superior tool when it comes to on-site SEO. And the great part is you can take advantage of all the basic features free.
Pricing
Crawl up to 500 webpages for free. Upgrading to a paid plan provides additional features including spelling and grammar checks, near-duplicate content flagging and integration with tools like Google Analytics and Search Console.
Paid plans start at $207 a year per user for up to 4 users.
Features
- Page title and meta description analysis
- Redirect audit
- Duplicate content audit
- Broken link monitor
- Robot and directive detection
Free Trials You Can Begin With
Sometimes the best way to discover the best SEO software for agencies is to test a few out.
Here’s an overview of how to get started with these tools:
- SEMRush provides a 7-day free trial. Be prepared to input your credit card information and know that you’ll be billed on the 8th day.
- Ahrefs does not provide a free trial, but your first 7 days are only $7.
- BrightLocal offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. You can test out the platform with no strings attached or risks of surprise billing.
- SpyFu does not offer a free trial, but it does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee if you aren’t satisfied with the service.
- WooRank gives you 14 days to test the service without a credit card.
- Screaming Frog offers all its basic services for free all the time.
Explore More: BEST LOCAL SEO SOFTWARE
