If You Could Have Only One Paid SEO Tool...

[PeaSoupDigital]

Greetings,

Not everyone has the luxury of being able to afford subscriptions to all the top SEO and marketing tools. So if you could choose only one, not including MOZ, which would it be? Screaming Frog? Ahrefs? SEMRush?

Discuss.

Lewis

[Ray-pp]

That's a tough one - if I could only choose one tool for SEO & marketing, then it would have to be something that encompasses both Organic and Paid search. I would be inclined to go with something like Raven Tools or SEMrush, which has a suite that can cover many areas needed for my total analyses.

[Toddfoster]

Hello Andrew,

This is a difficult question. It's like asking someone to choose only one of hundreds of types of cheesecakes, brownies and ice cream.

I will give 3 plausible answers:

1. Brightlocal.com

Brightlocal is my go-to answer for all things local SEO. It gives so many benefits that I don't think I could live without it on a local scale. Benefits include:

• Rank checker (SERP Rankings)
• Website Check-up (site auditor)
• Google+ Local Wizard (Checks your Google+ account and can be used for competitor analysis)
• Citation Tracker (Small link-building potential)

And there is still more coming.

The beauty of this tool is not only in its accessibility and general usefulness but also that it is an all-in-one answer to most of your local SEO needs. This means that with 1 tool even a start-up business could compete with established businesses and build their client base. This makes it extremely powerful, especially in the scenario you set up.

2. MajesticSEO or Ahrefs

These two products effectively do the same thing - competitor analysis, site metrics and ranking. They are both very powerful and useful to have. I personally prefer Ahrefs because I have used it more than MajesticSEO, but both have a good product. I typically use one or the other as part of a greater strategy, so it is hard to say that these would be the only tools I would want in my bag, but it is a great starting point from which you could work if it was all you had.

3. SEO Powersuite

I don't know if this is cheating based on the scenario you set up, but I am going to go with it anyway. The SEO Powersuite is what I would want up my sleeve for any SEO challenge. It encompasses most technical aspects of SEO within 4 tools: SEO Spyglass, Rank Tracker, Website Auditor and Link Assistant. These are all powerful tools in their own rights that allow you to formulate raw data, measure and analyse it, and to create professional customized reports for clients. It is technically 4 tools in 1, and can be pretty expensive for a start-up business, but it is definitely worth it if you can afford it. I would take the Powersuite over even Brightlocal, but I have a feeling that this wasn't in the spirit of the question you were asking.

Can't wait to see what others have to say on the topic!

[Bryan_Loconto]

Wow this is a tough question... Asking us to choose one is like when you are at a fine restaurant and they bring out the plate with all the different desserts on it!! I never do well in that scenario and just order one of each LOL

Being that some tools are better than others at different aspects of SEO, I would have to agree with Robert and go with SEO Powersuite. It encompasses just about everything and covers them well in my opinion.

However, I would not be able to make it through a day without Moz, Screaming Frog, Ahrefs and more recently I've grown to like SEO Review Tools. Interested to see what else is favored!!

[EGOL]

My approach to SEO is different from most people.  I spend almost 100% of my time creating content and then toss it up to see what happens over the next year - or two.  I generally spend a few days on each article because I am trying to make it the best on the web for that topic.  So, I don't use very many tools......

A) Moz Rank Checker to watch my content climb the SERPs.

B) WordTracker because I like to know the search volume for different topics.   If nobody is searching then I should not spend a few days to produce that content.

C) Moz Keyword Difficulty for entertainment purposes before launching a new piece of content... but for me it's not about how difficult the competition is in PA and DA metrics, it is instead all about WHO is in the SERPS and how difficult it will be to beat their content.   If I can beat their content I do not fear their PA, DA or any other metric.

D) Analytics to monitor where my traffic is coming from,  what pages on my site are producing traffic, and what pages  bring in traffic that processes through the shopping cart.

E) I use crazyegg on a few pages of my site to see how visitors are behaving and use that information to improve visitor engagement on pages.

So, the only things outside of moz that I use and that incur a cost are wordtracker and crazyegg.  If I could only have one it would be crazyegg, because I believe that visitor engagement is an extremely important ranking factor.

[max.favilli]

If I could have only one I would go for semrush.com