As a small business owner, you know that SEO is essential. You also understand that many software programs are the best SEO software for small business owners. How do you know which one to choose? And more importantly, how do you know if it’s even worth your time and money?
Below are some of my favorite SEO software programs for small business owners. I’ll also share some tips on choosing the best SEO program for your needs and what to look out for when using these tools.
Build a foundational understanding of SEO.
Let’s start with the basics. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s the process of optimizing your website for Google’s search algorithm so that your site appears higher in the search results. The higher your site appears in the search results; the more likely people are to click on it. And the more people click on it, the more traffic you’ll get to your website.
You get the point. SEO is essential for your business to succeed!
Now that we’ve got that out of the way let’s talk about some of the best SEO software for small businesses.
Google Search Console — The basis of all SEO.
We’re starting with Google Search Console (often referred to as GSC in the SEO industry) because it’s essential for any business that wants to improve its SEO. Google Search Console is a free tool that gives you insights into how your website is performing in Google’s search results.
With GSC, you can see how many people are clicking on your site from the search results, which keywords they’re using to find your site, and which pages are getting the most traffic. This data is directly from Google, so you know it’s good. You’ll see that the other tools help in this area, but a tool is only as good as the data provided.
You can also use GSC to submit your sitemap (more on that in a minute), test how Google crawls your website, and even get alerted if there’s something wrong with your site.
This free tool from Google is essential to any small business’s SEO strategy. Whether you use the rest of the tools, GSC should be part of your kit.
Semrush — An SEO toolkit that does everything very well.
Semrush is a comprehensive SEO toolkit that offers both small businesses and large enterprises a suite of tools to help with everything from keyword research to competitive analysis. It offers both on-page and off-page optimization features. It also provides competitive analysis to see how your site stacks up against your competitors.
There is a free tier of service that allows you to track up to 10 keywords, but the paid plans start at $99.95 per month. Honestly, as a small business owner looking for the best SEO software, you’ll only need the free plan. You’ll have everything you need to get started with SEO, between keyword research, competitor analysis, site audits, and tracking up to 10 keywords. Now, if you want to track multiple sites on a granular level, I recommend going with the paid plans.
Ahrefs — An SEO toolkit that is ideal for backlink analytics.
Ahrefs is another comprehensive SEO toolkit that offers a suite of tools to help with everything from keyword research to competitive analysis. However, they stand out regarding their backlink analysis features.
The ability to see who is linking to your site, what link it is, and the quality of that link is invaluable for SEO. It’s one of the best ways to gauge the health of your website and see where you need to make improvements.
Overall, it’s similar to Semrush in that it offers both on-page and off-page optimization features. It’s just that their focus is slightly different. Ahrefs starts at $99 per month for the Standard plan, which gives you access to all of its features, but like Semrush, they do have a free plan packed with features.
Yoast — A WordPress plugin to help with on-page optimization.
Yoast is a WordPress plugin that helps you with on-page optimization. It’s one of the most popular plugins for WordPress, and small businesses and large enterprises love it. Yoast offers a free and premium version of the plugin. The premium version starts at $99 per year and gives you access to additional features, like the ability to optimize for multiple keywords, premium support, and more.
The plugin is designed to help you with everything from optimizing your title tags and meta descriptions to adding alt text to your images. And remember when we mentioned submitting a sitemap to GSC? Yoast will create a sitemap for you, and you must paste the URL in GSC. It will also help you create better content by giving you a list of things to improve before you publish. This tool won’t magically make you rank higher in the SERPs, but it will give you a better chance of ranking if you use it properly.
AIOSEO — Just like the name implies, it’s an all-in-one tool.
AIOSEO stands for All-In-One SEO. As the name implies, it’s an all-in-one tool that offers a suite of features to help with everything from keyword research to competitive analysis. However, what sets AIOSEO apart is its focus on helping you with your on-page optimization.
The plugin comes in both a free and premium version. The premium version starts at $49 per year and gives you access to additional features, like the ability to optimize for multiple keywords, priority support, and more.
AIOSEO is an excellent tool for small businesses that want an all-in-one solution to help them with their on-page optimization.
What do we think the best SEO software for small business owners is?
Many different SEO software programs out there are claiming to be the best option for small business owners. But how do you know which one is right for you? And more importantly, how do you know if it’s even worth your time and money? By researching and knowing what features to look for, you can decide which program suits your business needs.
Since all of these tools bring something unique to the industry, it might be worthwhile to try them all out independently or simultaneously. However, if you’re looking for my two cents, I believe that the best SEO software for small business owners is a combination of Yoast and Semrush. Sure, I’ll log into Ahrefs when I’m going for something specific, but these are the two tools I use daily and recommend to small business owners.
Why? Yoast is great for on-page optimization, and Semrush offers powerful features for both on-page and off-page optimization. Plus, their keyword research tool is second to none. Combining these two gives you a well-rounded SEO strategy that can help you rank higher in the SERPs.
Do you need help choosing the right SEO software solution for your business? I’d love to discuss some of the tools with you, maybe even show you around some of them. Give our team of experts or me a call, and we’ll help you.