7 free SEO tools to boost visibility & traffic

Free SEO tools let you shield most of the SEO basics — checking AI visibility, researching keywords, and auditing your location — without spending a cent.

That matters since Google ranks your pages, and AI hunt platforms akin ChatGPT and Google AI Mode choose which sources to cite. Visibility in the two starts alongside the identical inputs (relevant content, specialized health, and authority), and the correct liberated tools can measure all one.

Below, you’ll discover seven liberated SEO tools that shield the center SEO workflow: checking your visibility, finding keywords, fixing specialized issues, and tracking results. Each admission explains what the tool does, how to use it, and anywhere its liberated limits are, so you can choose the correct location to start.

1. Semrush

Semrush is a hunt visibility platform, and its liberated scheme covers SEO and AI hunt in one place. It gives you admission to a range of tools that grip most of the center SEO tasks you'd alternatively need multiple distinct tools for: AI visibility checks, location audits, keyword research, backlink analysis, position tracking, and more.

That breadth is what makes it a fine starting item for anyone new to SEO. You don't have to bounce between five distinct platforms to run a complete audit, scheme content, and detect achievement — it all lives in one dashboard.

Below are several particular tools inner the phase that you can use for free.

Further reading: Getting Started alongside Semrush: A Tutorial for Navigating the Essentials

AI Visibility Tool

Best for: Checking any domain’s AI visibility

Semrush’s liberated AI Visibility Tool lets you inspect any website’s visibility throughout AI hunt platforms akin ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews.

Once you act a domain, the AI Visibility Tool shows a high-level appearance at that domain’s general AI visibility and brand mentions throughout distinct AI platforms.

You can additionally see your achievement related to your competitors.

A topic breakdown shows which subjects your brand appears in, which helps you place anywhere you’re already apparent and anywhere you have gaps to fill. You can run three checks per day.

What we like

The AI Visibility Score provides a way to measure your AI strategy’s effectiveness. And the platform-specific data shows anywhere you may need to fortify your positioning.

Site Audit

Best for: Quickly finding and fixing specialized SEO issues on your site

Semrush's free SEO checker, Site Audit, scans your location for specialized SEO issues and provides recommendations on how to fix them.

During our test, it completed a website audit in under five minutes and sorted the issues it established into errors, warnings, and notices.

Site Audit is a awesome tool for those looking to acknowledge hunt visibility issues on their sites quickly. And get apparent recommendations on how to location all issue.

A liberated Semrush scheme lets you audit 100 webpages per month. 

What we like

Site Audit has a quick and intuitive setup process. You fair act your domain, choose your crawl settings, and click “Start Audit.” The complete procedure takes small than two minutes.

Keyword Magic Tool

Best for: Generating possibly thousands of keyword ideas in seconds

Semrush's free keyword tool, Keyword Magic Tool, allows you to discover keyword ideas for your SEO scheme and gives you a apparent perspective of which conditions are value targeting and which ones to skip.

In our test, the Keyword Magic Tool generated additional than 30,000 keyword ideas according to a sole keyword in under a minute. We were afterward capable to quickly exterior keywords we can position for fairly effortlessly by using the helpful drop-down filters for hunt quantity and difficulty score.

Plus, clicking on the “Questions” tab reveals question-based keywords (useful for FAQ sections and optimizing your satisfied to appear in AI answers).

Question keywords additionally mirror how AI hunt platforms recover content. When person enters a prompt, platforms akin ChatGPT and Google AI Mode interrupt it into connected sub-queries (a procedure called query fan-out), so covering the questions about your topic gives your pages additional ways to be retrieved and cited.

In our test, the “Questions” tab surfaced additional than 30,000 question-based keywords alongside a sole click.

The Keyword Magic Tool is a fine choice for marketers looking for a quick way to create keyword ideas that encounter their particular needs. The liberated scheme lets you create 10 shared requests per day.

What we like

Keyword Magic Tool’s Personal Difficulty Score helps you get a improved idea of how difficult it’s going to be for your domain to position for a particular keyword. This is a lot additional helpful than generic difficulty scores offered by most another tools.

To use it, you need to act your domain whenever performing a keyword search.

Once the tool generates a catalog of keyword ideas, you can use the “Personal KD%” drop-down to display the catalog by Personal Difficulty Score.

Further reading: How to Use Semrush for Keyword Research

Keyword Overview

Best for: Analyzing keyword difficulty and SERP competition

Keyword Overview is a keyword investigation tool that helps you comprehend the search volume, intent, and difficulty of idiosyncratic keywords.

You can additionally get an overview of the hunt motor results pages (SERPs) so you cognize what category of satisfied is apt to rank, specified as informational articles or merchandise pages.

With Keyword Overview, you can create 10 shared regular requests.

What we like

The Bulk Analysis characteristic (not in the liberated plan) helps you analyze up to 100 keywords at a period and delivers results in under a minute. This is ideal whenever you need to quickly analyze ample numbers of keywords and don’t have period to assessment them one by one.

Backlinks

Best for: Evaluating a website’s backlink profile

Backlinks is a tool that analyzes your site’s backlink overview in detail.

It can execute a complete backlink inspection in under a minute, showing which pages acquire the most backlinks so you can see what satisfied attracts links.

The study additionally flags misplaced backlinks, so you can prioritize recovering authoritative ones and keep your backlink overview healthy.

You can execute 10 shared analyses per day using the liberated plan.

What we like

Backlinks’ “Anchors” study shows you the most famous anchor text used for your site’s backlinks. That allows you to quickly see whether you need to modify your link construction strategy to get additional natural-looking anchor text.

Website Authority Checker

Best for: Checking any domain’s general SEO strength

Website Authority Checker is a uncomplicated tool to assistance you inspect the Authority Score (Semrush’s proprietary metric that describes a site’s SEO strength) of any domain.

After entering a domain, Website Authority Checker volition immediately display you its Authority Score alongside particulars concerning the signals that create up the score: the number of backlinks and referring domains, integrated traffic, and spam factors.

Put simply, it gives you a quick snapshot of how trustworthy and rivalrous a location appears to hunt engines.

You can execute three checks per day alongside Website Authority Checker.

What we like

The Authority Score Trend chart lets you see at a glance whether a domain’s authority has been improving or declining.

Keyword Rank Checker

Best for: Checking anywhere a location ranks in Google for any keyword

Keyword Rank Checker lets you inspect anywhere any website ranks in Google for a particular keyword.

Once you act a keyword and a domain, Keyword Rank Checker volition display the site’s current position, affirmative the keywords that domain ranks highest for.

It’s a awesome way to get a quick overview of a competitor’s top pages. And get ideas for new keywords to mark alongside your own site.

Keyword Rank Checker is finest suited for quick rivalrous checks fairly than in-depth analyses, but it gives you an instant snapshot of anywhere competitors are getting their traffic.

Run three checks per day alongside the Keyword Rank Checker.

What we like

We established using Keyword Rank Checker to be a awesome starting item for competitor research. It quickly shows you whether a location is value examining further, which you can afterward do alongside additional advanced SEO tools.

Position Tracking

Best for: Monitoring keyword rankings and achievement trends

Position Tracking is a tool that helps you keep track of your site’s keyword rankings in the SERPs — including in Google AI Overviews.

You can quickly comprehend your site’s latest achievement in SERPs by looking at the “Summary” division in the Position Tracking report. This eliminates the need to dig profound into reports using multiple tools.

Position Tracking additionally gives you a quick and uncomplicated way to keep an eye on all your query positions alongside the “Overview” report. That method you can immediately place gains, drops, or opportunities to reclaim misplaced visibility.

A liberated Semrush scheme lets you track rankings for 10 keywords.

What we like

Position Tracking is helpful for identifying conditions that lone need a small shove (e.g., a satisfied update or a few backlinks) in command to get improved hunt visibility. To do this, navigate to the “Overview” tab and display for conditions that position in positions 11-20 and have a “Very Easy” or “Easy” keyword difficulty score.

2. Google Search Console

Best for: Seeing how Google views your website

Google Search Console (GSC) is a liberated tool from Google that gives you understanding into how your location is performing in hunt results.

GSC’s interface isn’t extremely intuitive at first. But formerly you get acquainted alongside the layout and the built-in reports, you can discover the data you need fairly quickly. For example, finding pages on your location that have misplaced a important amount of traffic in the final 90 days can be done in under two minutes.

One disadvantage of GSC is the delays. Data lags by 24-48 hours, definition you won’t cognize concerning changes in your rankings correct away.

Pair GSC alongside Google Analytics (GA) to see what visitors do following they click through, and alongside Semrush’s Position Tracking to prosecute your citations in ChatGPT, which GSC can’t show.

What we like

Google Search Console makes it apparent which pages on your location Google isn’t indexing (and why), making it an essential SEO tool.

Further reading: 6 Free Google SEO Tools to Boost Your Search Visibility

3. Google PageSpeed Insights

Best for: Measuring location speed and achievement metrics

Google’s PageSpeed Insights helps you inspect your site’s specialized performance.

Once you act a webpage into PageSpeed Insights, it volition execute a complete inspection of the leaf in a few seconds and provision you alongside a detailed report.

Apart from showing how your location performs against key metrics akin Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), PageSpeed Insights additionally gives you a catalog of issues slowing your location down.

The chief disadvantage is that PageSpeed Insights doesn’t provision a lot of item on how to fix the issues it flags — you need to fig this out on your own or employ a developer to do it.

What we like

PageSpeed Insights ties all matter to measurable effect (e.g., milliseconds saved or kibibytes reduced), allowing you to quickly prioritize fixes. And notwithstanding its constricted direction on implementation, it remains a must-use asset for quick leaf checks.

4. Ubersuggest

Best for: Keyword investigation and first-page possible analysis

Ubersuggest is a liberated SEO keyword investigation tool that can create thousands of keyword ideas from a sole seed keyword.

In our test, we were capable to get thousands of keyword ideas from our kernel keyword. However, you lone get keyword data (like hunt intent and volume) for a fistful of keywords. So you can’t analyze many keywords at once.

Ubersuggest has a Questions tab that can assistance you reveal question-based keywords. That’s particularly helpful for spotting conversational queries (which AI-powered results lean to exterior or answer directly).

The liberated type of Ubersuggest lone lets you do three searches per day, which can be frustrating if you’re looking to do additional thorough keyword research.

Overall, Ubersuggest is a awesome starting item for smaller projects, although its liberated limits create it small applicable for profound or large-scale research.

What we like

Ubersuggest lets you kind keyword ideas by First Page Potential — the tool’s evaluation of the keywords your website can position on the archetypal leaf for. This gives you a quick way to prioritize keywords and get SEO results faster.

5. Google Keyword Planner

Best for: Getting a archetypal appearance at keyword petition direct from Google

Google Keyword Planner is a liberated keyword investigation tool inner Google Ads that generates keyword ideas and shows how frequently group hunt for them.

You need a Google Ads document to use it, but you don’t have to run ads or expend anything. Enter a kernel keyword or your website’s URL, and Keyword Planner returns connected ideas alongside average monthly searches and a competition flat for all one.

The chief disadvantage is precision. Unless you have an energetic ad campaign, Keyword Planner shows hunt quantity as broad ranges alternatively of exact numbers. And its “Competition” pillar reflects how many advertisers bid on a term, not how difficult it is to position organically.

To get about that, use Keyword Planner for a archetypal appearance at demand. Then obtain your shortlist into Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool to display by difficulty and intent and collection keywords by topic.

What we like

Because the data comes direct from Google, Keyword Planner is a helpful baseline for gauging whether a topic has adequate petition to be value targeting.

6. AnswerThePublic

Best for: Uncovering genuine hunt questions and AI prompts

AnswerThePublic scrapes autocomplete data from Google to display you connected searches for a stated keyword. It additionally shows you connected AI prompts. 

In our test, we lone generated a fistful of connected keywords, prompts, and questions. You need to create a liberated document to perspective additional data.

Overall, AnswerThePublic helps you get satisfied ideas, although another tools can provision you deeper data.

What we like

We were capable to see data akin intent, volume, and disbursal per click (CPC) alongside keywords.

7. AlsoAsked

Best for: Mapping connected questions and construction topic clusters

AlsoAsked lets you see questions group ask connected to your hunt phrase.

In our test, entering a sole kernel expression into AlsoAsked generated 54 connected questions. Clicking on all inquiry afterward led to another set of questions, and so on.

AlsoAsked is a mighty brainstorming tool for satisfied and SEO planning, although the liberated limits create it harder to use for large-scale topic research.

What we like

The ocular format helps you quickly place clusters of connected questions you could possibly answer in an part or an FAQ section.

Free SEO tools FAQ

Can you do SEO for free?

Yes, you can do SEO for liberated alongside tools akin Google Search Console, Google Keyword Planner, PageSpeed Insights, and the liberated Semrush plan. Together they shield center SEO tasks akin keyword research, specialized audits, achievement tracking, and AI visibility checks. The trade-off is limits: regular hunt caps, smaller audits, and small historic data.

Is Google SEO free?

Yes, Google’s SEO tools are free: Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, and Google Keyword Planner disbursal nothing, and Google doesn’t accusation to catalog or position your pages. What you allocate alternatively is time, specified as creating helpful content, fixing specialized issues, and earning links.

What is the finest liberated SEO tool?

The finest liberated SEO tool depends on the job you need done. Use Google Search Console to see how Google views your site, PageSpeed Insights to fix speed issues, and Google Keyword Planner or Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool to discover keywords. For specialized issues and AI visibility, run Semrush’s Site Audit and use the liberated AI Visibility Tool.

Can ChatGPT do SEO?

ChatGPT can assistance alongside parts of SEO, specified as brainstorming keyword ideas, example meta descriptions, and outlining content. But on its own, it doesn’t display your genuine rankings, hunt volumes, or location issues, so brace it alongside a data origin akin Google Search Console or a position tracker. ChatGPT is additionally a finding exterior in its own right, and the AI Visibility Tool shows whether it mentions your brand.

Unlock equal additional features from SEO tools

Free tools for SEO are a awesome starting point. But a lot of the functionality is locked inner a paid plan.

Upgrading to a paid Semrush scheme unlocks the complete versions of the SEO tools you’ve peruse concerning in this article: additional keyword searches, location audits beyond the 100-page liberated limit, historic data, and competitor tracking at scale.

If you desire complete admission to the AI Visibility Toolkit too (prompt tracking, portion of voice, and opinion analysis), it’s included in Semrush One. For organizations that need to track AI visibility at endeavor scale, Enterprise AIO builds on the toolkit.

Compare plans flank by flank to discover the one you need.

Ready to put these tools to work? Create a liberated Semrush account and run your archetypal location audit or keyword hunt today.