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Semrush is one of the biggest (and most expensive) names in SEO tools.

However, there are Semrush alternatives that are equally effective — and sometimes at half the price. And guess what, there’s a lot of them.

G2 lists over 400 SEO tools. Certainly, you don’t need to sift through 400 tools to find the right one. But not doing your diligence could spell disaster for your SEO strategy.

Plus, depending on your use case, you may not need all the bells and whistles (and cost) of Semrush. There are a number of stellar alternatives that might even be more performant for your use case.

For instance:

• AI SEO tools: If you have aggressive content production goals, there are tools with AI writing suites that speed up content output. Many have SEO functionality built in.
• Audit tools: Some tools feature advanced site audit functionality — which if you’re working on a large site, might be an optimal choice.
• Rank trackers: Looking for rank tracking? Some Semrush alternatives have more advanced rank tracking capabilities.
• Blogging SEO tools: Perhaps you’re a blogger. If so, you might consider a tool that specializes in blogging SEO.
• Cheaper all-in-one tools: Some all-in-one tools are almost as powerful and much cheaper than Semrush.

In this blog post, I’ll help you find the best alternative to Semrush. I’ve used all of these tools in my decade+ in digital marketing. I’ll break it down for you by use case, price, features, and ease of use… because let’s face it, Semrush is kind of confusing.

What are the Best Semrush Alternatives?

Any Semrush alternative will be an SEO tool. And an SEO tool is generally a suite of tools for growing organic traffic. Features usually include:

• Keyword research
• Backlink research
• Rank tracking
• Site audits
• AI writing
• and more

If you’re serious about SEO, you probably need an SEO tool or two, or you’re going to be doing a lot of guesswork.

But which one to pick? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

1. GrowthBar: best alternative for bloggers

GrowthBar has the same backlink, Google Ads, and organic keyword capabilities, but it also has special features that make bloggers’ lives way easier. These include a game-changing AI writing feature using GPT-3. Seriously, it will save you hours of time creating content.

As an alternative to Semrush, it’s much more affordable and has equally powerful keyword research and rank tracking. GrowthBar can help you identify exactly which strategies are going to move the needle for your business so you’re not wasting time and money on the wrong places.

Features include:

• Keyword research and tracking
• Keyword difficulty scores
• Competitive research
• Backlink research
• AI content creation using GPT-3
• On-page SEO audits
• AI blog idea generator

Plus, GrowthBar has a Chrome Extension to find insights on the fly. Because let’s be real, bloggers and content creators don’t always have a ton of time!

GrowthBar vs Semrush

Pros	vs Semrush
AI content writing suite that enables you to create full blog posts in half the time. Also enables paragraph and blog idea generation.	Unlike Semrush, GrowthBar doesn’t include metrics like competitive density, trend, and SERP features
Content analytics suite so you can understand how optimized your blog post is for SEO.	GrowthBar does not have a marketplace of apps like Semrush. There are indeed some apps for content analytics.
Advanced keyword research across more than 2 billion keywords. Includes search volume, competitiveness, CPC, “value of position 1”, and more.	GrowthBar does not include keyword trend data or non-English speaking keyword search data.
Track thousands of keywords across up to 10 websites. Export any data to csv for analysis.	GrowthBar does not include advanced rank tracking for other search engines (Bing, YouTube, etc.).
Evaluate your competitors across 8 metrics including backlinks, organic keywords, paid keywords, and even Facebook Ads.	Semrush has more robust competitive metrics. They enable you to see historical backlink data, display ads, etc.
$29/month and excellent customer support.	Semrush has more support documentation and free content.

Monthly Pricing:

• Standard: $29
• Pro: $79
• Agency: $129

2. SpyFu: best alternative for competitive research

SpyFu has tools for SEO research, keyword research, PPC research, and more. In their words, SpyFu “exposes the search marketing secret formula of your most successful competitors.”

They also supply how-tos for various SEO topics to help you find keywords most important to your market, determine how to rank for them, how to make paid ad campaigns, and more. 

Features include:

• Competitor research to see where their organic ranks, ad variations, and where they’ve bought Google Ads
• Online & traditional lead reports
• Exports of PPC & SEO keywords competitors use
• Google Ad word recommendations
• Ad tracking

SpyFu vs Semrush

Pros	vs Semrush
Incredible competitive intelligence data across organic research, Google Ads, backlinks, and more.	Semrush has some of the best keyword research features on the planet. SpyFu has the best Google Ads research.
Second-to-none PPC recommendations and historical data. They even have click fraud monitoring capabilities.	SpyFu has the most robust PPC data in the world. It is superior to all competitors.
Robust keyword tracking.	SpyFu does not include advanced rank tracking for other search engines (Bing, YouTube, etc.).
Keyword research across 5 languages.	The keyword research is not as sophisticated or accurate as Semrush.
Backlink research and backlink list-building features.	Spyfu and Semrush are probably equal when it comes to backlink research.

Monthly Pricing:

• Basic: $39
• Professional: $79
• Team: $299

3. SE Ranking: most affordable all-in-one alternative

SE Ranking first does an SEO audit, and then shares a marketing plan for you to follow along with that helps you rank for specific keywords. It has many of the same tools as Semrush, including keyword research, competitor research, rank tracking, and site audits.

Features include:

• Keyword rank tracker
• Website audit
• On-page checker
• Backlink checker & monitoring
• Page change monitoring
• Keyword research & suggestion
• Keyword grouper

SE Ranking vs Semrush

Pros	vs Semrush
Backlink checker includes Domain Trust, Page Trust, backlink count and follow vs nofollow link ratio. Also includes a realtime backlink checker at a higher tier.	Extremely robust backlink features, similar to Semrush. However, real-time backlink checker is included in Semrush for no extra cost.
A big keyword database with features like: volume, competition, and keyword difficulty. Also see competitor keywords and ranking.	The keyword research is just about as sophisticated as Semrush. Some report that SE Ranking’s keyword research is actually better than Semrush for international keywords.
100% accurate keyword rank tracking that can be adjusted for any country in the world.	No advanced rank tracking features like Bing, YouTube, etc.
Backlink tools, social media tools, competitor research, white label reporting, API	The features are as expansive as Semrush, which is probably the most comprehensive in the business.
Backlink analysis tool specializes in examining backlinks, anchors, backlink monitoring and more.	Semrush has superior breadth of backlink data, but SE Ranking’s data is pretty good.

Monthly Pricing:

• Optimum: $39
• Plus: $89
• Enterprise: $189

4. UberSuggest: cheapest alternative

Ubersuggest is a pretty popular and fairly affordable SEO tool — best for keyword research and light competitive research. Ubersuggest actually lets you try the tool for free for a few queries. The keyword and backlink data is pretty accurate and robust.

Features include:

• Keyword analyzer (keyword overview, keyword ideas, and content ideas)
• Competitor reports (traffic overview, keyword by traffic, top pages by traffic, and competing domains)
• SEO audit to check for errors, site speed, and overall SEO health
• Training
• SEO recommendations
• Backlink discovery tool

Ubersuggest vs Semrush

Pros	vs Semrush
Great keyword research, search volume accuracy, historical data and more.	Ubersuggest’s strongest feature is keyword research. Along with Semrush and GrowthBar, it is one of the most comprehensive keyword suites.
PPC data with good accuracy.	While it doesn’t have the best Google Ads data (that title goes to SpyFu), it is as good as Semrush.
Useful Chrome Extension with keyword recommendations and limited competitor research right in the SERP.	Both have a useful browser Chrome Extension.
Backlink Discovery Tool is strong and accurate for finding competitor backlinks. It also has a historical backlink analysis, which is unique.	It’s not quite as accurate as Semrush, but Ubersuggest’s backlink feature is pretty solid.
Email support	According to G2 reviews, people have had bad experiences with Ubersuggest’s customer support. Speaking from experience, Semrush has helpful support.

Monthly Pricing:

• Individual: $29
• Business: $49
• Enterprise/Agency: $99
• Ubersuggest also has a lifetime subscription for each tier

5. Serpstat

Serpstat is a powerful, reliable, and affordable SEO software that helps you monitor and analyze your website’s Google rankings. It also provides invaluable information about your competitors.

Serpstat’s SEO features attract leads through organic and paid search, track your main competitors and improve your content, as well as SEO and PPC efforts. 

Features include: 

• Keyword research
• Search analytics
• Advertising analysis
• Content marketing ideation
• Competitor research
• Rank tracking
• Marketing intelligence
• On-page audits
• API
• Backlink analysis 

Serpstat vs Semrush

Pros	vs Semrush
Competitive intelligence data across organic research, Google Ads, backlinks and more. Also includes deep metrics like text analytics.	Semrush has more capabilities and deeper metrics.
A big keyword database helps in collecting semantics for a site with such indicators: volume, popularity, competition, keyword difficulty. It also has lists of trending queries.	The keyword research is almost as sophisticated as Semrush. There are fewer keywords in the database, but no other tool has “trending queries” like Serpstat.
Robust keyword tracking in delightful dashboards.	Serpstat does not include advanced rank tracking for other search engines (Bing, YouTube, etc.).
Analyze up to 100,000 key keywords and a list of domains using 18 metrics.	The keyword research is not quite as sophisticated or accurate as Semrush.
Backlink analysis tool specializes in examining backlinks, anchors, link donors, identifying malicious links and tracking all changes in the link profile of your domain and the sites of your competitors.	Both tools have a comparable database of backlinks.
Team features, white-label reports and slick reporting.	Both Semrush and Serpstat have white-label reporting and other agency features.

Monthly Pricing:

• Lite: $69
• Standard: $149
• Advanced: $299
• Enterprise: $499

6. SimilarWeb

SimilarWeb describes itself as a market intelligence platform, but it also has some great SEO features. It’s pretty expensive, but for enterprise customers that want deep, accurate competitive data, it’s best-in-class.

Customers use SimilarWeb for competitive insights, digital marketing sales intelligence, research intelligence, and investor intelligence. It tends to be an enterprise product due to the price and range of features. It’s generally a tool that senior leaders, marketers, and product leaders can use to make decisions together.

Features include:

• Traffic & engagement metrics 
• SEO & PPC keywords 
• Audience interests 
• Traffic sources 
• Popular pages

SimilarWeb vs Semrush

Pros	vs Semrush
Backlink checker includes Domain Trust, Page Trust, backlink count and follow vs nofollow link ratio. Also includes a realtime backlink checker at a higher tier.	Robust backlink features, similar Semrush. And by some accounts, it may be more accurate.
A big keyword database with features like: volume, competition, and keyword difficulty. Also see competitor Google Ads and keywords.	The keyword research is just about as sophisticated as Semrush,
The competitive suite includes competitor display ads, affiliate research, lead gen research, estimated marketing spend and much more.	The competitive insights from Similarweb are on par with Semrush and SpyFu. Similarweb may have the most accurate data… at a hefty price.
Global and country-level data for all metrics.	Both tools have international data.
Investor tools like sector performance, tracking certain companies, etc. Similar to Second Measure.	Semrush has larger suites for marketers, but it cannot claim investor tools like SimilarWeb.

Monthly Pricing:

The digital marketing suite starts at $249/mo

7. SEO Spider, from Screaming Frog

The Screaming Frog SEO Spider is an advanced SEO site audit tool. It’s definitely among the It can be used to crawl both small and very large websites. In real-time, you can view, analyze, and filter the crawl data as it’s gathered and updated continuously in the program’s user interface.

They offer a free version of the SEO which is restricted to crawling up to 500 URLs in a single crawl and it does not give you full access to their dashboard. Their pricing is paid per license, and paid features include:

• JavaScript rendering
• Custom extraction
• Google Analytics integration
• Export key onsite SEO elements to a spreadsheet
• Find broken links
• Audit redirects
• Analyze page titles & meta data
• Discover duplicate content
• Review robots & directives 
• Generate xml sitemaps 
• Visualize site architecture 

8. Google Search Console

Google Search Console tools and reports help you measure your site’s search traffic and performance and fix issues so you can rank higher.

You can set up and use Google Search Console for free, and features include:

• See which queries bring users to your site
• Analyze your site’s impressions, clicks, and position on Google Search.
• Submit sitemaps and individual URLs for crawling
• Review your index coverage to make sure that Google has the freshest view of your site.
• Receive email alerts when Google identifies issues on your site
• See which URLs are affected by issues and tell Google when you’ve fixed them

9. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a WordPress SEO plugin and it’s one of my favorite tools. In Yoast SEO, you can enter the keyword or keyphrase you’d like your post or page to rank for in the search results.

Then they run a check on your content to check whether you’re using the keywords often enough – and in the right spots. In Yoast SEO Premium they also analyze your text on all variations of that word or phrase.

Other features include: 

• Add more related keywords  (premium only)
• Internal linking suggestion (premium only)
• Internal linking blocks (premium only)
• Preview of your page in Google
• Preview of your page in social media (premium only)
• Readability check 
• Full control over breadcrumbs 
• Monitor duplicate content
• Content insights (premium only)
• Redirect  (premium only)
• Focus keyword export (premium only)

And, Yoast Premium is ad free. 

Pricing: $89/site for Yoast Premium.

10. Mangools

Mangools is an SEO tool that focuses on keyboard rankings finding backlinks, competitor authority, and tracking rankings.

They provide an SEO browser extension, SEO volatility check, and SERP simulator for free. Paid tools include:

• Keyword research
• SERP checker
• SERP tracker
• Link miner
• Site profiler

Monthly Pricing:

• Basic: $49
• Premium: $69
• Agency: $129

11. Surfer SEO

Surfer SEO uses a data-driven model to show marketers what’s working for top-performing pages and then how to outrank them. With reverse engineering of the top fifty results, Surfer analyzes 500+ factors that may impact your rankings.

Features include:

• SERP analyzer
• Content editor
• Keyword research
• SEO audit
• Content editor extension

Monthly Pricing:

• Basic: $59
• Pro: $99
• Business: $199

12. Keywords Everywhere

Keywords Everywhere is a browser add on for keyword research that can be used on Chrome or Firefox. This tool combines search volume data, CPC, and competition data onto the interface of your favorite keyword research tool.

You can see all the relevant search volume data in real time while you are on Google, YouTube, Amazon, Bing, Google Search Console, Google Analytics and more.

They also allows access to keyword metrics for any list of keywords and lets you download the list in Excel, CSV or PDF file formats.

Their platform shows:

• Search volume
  1. People also search for
  2. Historical search volume
  3. Page & website level traffic metrics & keywords
• CPC
• Competition 
• 12-month trends

Monthly Pricing:

Keywords Everywhere does pricing by credits, with 1 credit = 1 keyword, with $10 getting you 100,000 credits.

13. Keywordtool.io

Keyword Tool is a free online keyword research instrument that uses Google Autocomplete to generate hundreds of relevant long-tail keywords for any topic.

Google Autocomplete is the feature used in Google Search that works to speed up the searches performed by users on Google. The search terms suggested by Google Autocomplete are selected based on many different factors.

Keyword Tool helps you employ Google Suggest for keyword research. It extracts Google keyword suggestions and presents it to you in an easy-to-understand interface.

Keyword Tool is free, but they also offer paid, pro versions for Google, as well as YouTube, Amazon, Bing, eBay, and Instagram. Some pro features include:

• Search volume data
• CPC data
• Google Ads competition data
• Double the keywords of the free option
• Competitive keyword analysis
• Bulk search volume analysis

Monthly Pricing:

• Basic: $89
• Plus: $99
• Business: $199

Which Semrush Alternative is Best for Competitive Insights?

SimilarWeb and SpyFu are the best tools for competitive insights. They are both incredible market intelligence tools. The former is best for competitor research, sales intelligence, and traffic analytics. The latter is better for PPC research.

Which Semrush Alternative is Best for Google Ads Intelligence?

As I said, SpyFu is the best SEO tool alternative for Google Ads intelligence. In their words, SpyFu “exposes the search marketing secret formula of your most successful competitors.”

You can search for competitor domains and see wherever they’ve shown up on Google: keywords they’ve bought on Google Ads, organic ranks, and ad variations. You can download the keywords they use (PPC or SEO), get Google ad word recommendations, and track your ads.

SpyFu also connects you with competitor domains by finding online and traditional leads methods and filtering them by industry, location, ad spend, or other metrics you’d like to research. 

Which Semrush Alternative is Best for SEO Agencies?

GrowthBar is the best tool for SEO agencies. GrowthBar offers the same keyword research and competitive insights as Semrush, but also has an incredible feature set for companies trying to grow blog traffic — including AI content generation.

Which is the Best Free SEO Tool?

Back to…Google Search Console! Google Search Console is a great free SEO tool that every business should be using. But, its primary benefit is keyword tracking.

If you need keyword research and suggestions, competitive insights, and backlink support, it’s worth it to invest in any one of the other SEO tools mentioned above.

What is SEO?

SEO, which stands for “Search Engine Optimization” is the art and science of maximizing your business’s visibility in Google search results. 

You do this because the better optimized a post is for a search engine, the more visibility it’ll have within the search results. And with more visibility in search results, the more traffic you’ll get to your site. 

Once you’ve achieved a high rank on Google for keywords that are driving traffic and sales to your site, you’re effectively getting “free” leads. So when SEO is done well, the ROI on time and money spent can be incredibly high.

SEO is one of the most important things you can do to grow your business, whether you’re a small start-up or large enterprise. And, one of the most important things you can do to advance your SEO is to use one of the top SEO tools on the market.

Also read: The Ultimate Guide to On-Page SEO

Conclusion

So, do you need to pay thousands of dollars for a great SEO tool? No! While Semrush is the biggest name in the industry, any of these 15 SEO tool alternatives is a great option.

You get just as great of a platform while paying a fraction of the cost and being able to focus on what you need to make your marketing decisions.

Plus, almost all of the SEO tools on this list have some free services, free trials, and annual or other subscription-based discounts. Check them all out to see what fits in your budget and what will work best for your business’ SEO & growth goals.