Every entrepreneur and small business owner needs to get SEO right if they want to be competitive in both the online and local markets in which they operate.
Making sure your website gets seen by the right people—your prospects—at the right time—when they’re ready to buy—is just the first-level challenge. You also need to make sure your site is optimized for local search traffic and ranking well organically to prospects who are in an earlier stage of the buyer’s journey.
To solve those business website challenges, many owners and entrepreneurs turn to reputable online SEO tools. For many years, Moz has been considered to be at the top of that list.
Moz and What It Can Do for Entrepreneurs
Moz Pro is a suite of SEO tools that includes keyword research, site audit, rank tracking, link building, and much more. One of the first SEO tools to hit the market, Moz Pro remains quite popular with businesses of all sizes.
However, some find Moz Pro to be prohibitively expensive, and many find its value—that is, what it offers in exchange for those high prices—to be less compelling than some of its competitors. While it does offer a free plan, that level provides access to limited features. Additionally, many users find the UI/UX (user interface/user experience) non-intuitive, with a steep learning curve.
These are just a few reasons why entrepreneurs might want to seek a different alternative to resolve their SEO challenges. In addition to tools offered by search engines, such as Google Search Console (a free tool that Google offers to help monitor site performance, indexing issues, and more), consider some of the Moz alternatives we’ve listed below.
1. Semrush
Semrush is a comprehensive suite of SEO tools that offers keyword research, competitor analysis, site audit, backlink analysis, and more. Like Moz, it will help you research and analyze keywords, including search volume, related keywords, and more.
Both sets of tools also help you choose keywords that are accessible and competitive, but SEMrush helps you assess how many links you’ll have to build in order to rank for that specific keyphrase. While Moz offers ranking data for results from Google, Bing, and Yahoo! Search engines, SEMrush only provides Google data.
SEMrush may also provide more help in the field of social media analysis with SM content optimization, management, and performance analysis tools. It offers a free trial, plus a free version with limited functionality as well as three paid plans.
Click here to try Semrush for free for 14 days.
2. Ahrefs
A popular SEO tool, Ahrefs offers keyword research, site audit, competitor analysis, backlink analysis, and more. Ahrefs lets you audit your own site for top keywords and performance, backlinks and anchor text, overall domain performance, and competitive domains.
Many users find the Ahrefs interface to be more simply designed and intuitive to navigate and use. It also provides robust domain data, including estimated domain traffic with the ability to view changes to a site’s performance over time.
Ahrefs will also show you keyword research data for ten search engines, not just Google. Like SEMrush, it lets you know how many backlinks you’ll need to build in order to rank well for selected keywords. Websites can use a free Webmaster tool’s version, or you can sign up for one of four paid plans.
3. Raven Tools
Raven Tools is a suite of SEO tools that includes site audit, keyword research, backlink analysis, rank tracking, and more. Users rank it especially highly for its keyword analysis and SERP (search engine results pages) rank tracking. Unlike some other alternatives on our list, it doesn’t offer a free version, but it does provide a free full-feature trial for seven days.
As part of its suite of tools, Raven Tools gives you access to SEO audits, on-page SEO analysis, SERP analytics, and page speed data. In addition, you can find tools for keyword tracking, backlinks tracking, and paid ad tools. With five paid plan levels from $50 to $480 a month, you can find the package that suits your business site’s needs.
4. Majestic SEO
Majestic SEO provides a backlink analysis tool that yields information on backlinks, anchor text, and referring domains. That’s the primary difference between Majestic and Moz. Whereas the latter site aims to provide a fully featured suite of SEO tools, Majestic is aimed at a narrower slice of the market. It does backlink analysis very well, however, including analysis of top incoming backlinks, tools to help you build more incoming links, comparison tools for your competitors’ domains, and other relevant metrics such as anchor texts and referring domains.
There are no free versions (and no free trial offers either, for that matter). Majestic SEO does offer three paid plans, which doesn’t provide as much choice as other sites we’ve profiled here. However, if you’re looking for help with your backlinks, it’s definitely one to consider.
5. Screaming Frog
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a site crawler that helps you identify technical SEO issues on your site. It manually analyzes each page on your site for broken links, duplicate content, missing title tags, and much more. You can also connect it with your Google Analytics account to get the most out of the data your GA account generates for you.
Unlike many of the other Moz alternatives here, which operate on an SaaS web-based model, Screaming Frog is a desktop program for both PCs and Macs. It offers a free version and a single paid version that costs about $260 for a license that must be renewed yearly.
6. BrightLocal
BrightLocal provides a targeted set of tools that help you manage your local business listings, monitor customer reviews, and track your local search rankings. It’s a good choice if you’re looking primarily for local SEO and reputation management tools, with access to local SEO and Google business profile audit reports.
BrightLocal offers a two-week free trial with access to all features, as well as three paid levels to its all-in-one suite of tools. In addition, you can pay-as-you-go for access solely to its Citation Builder tools, starting at $2 per website, including submission to hundreds of sites, removing duplicate listings, and repairing errors in existing listings.
7. SpyFu
SpyFu is a competitive analysis tool that provides insights into your competitors’ SEO strategies, including their organic search rankings, paid search campaigns, and more. If you’re mostly in search of tools for competitor analysis, rank tracking, and domain comparison functionality, SpyFu is a good alternative to Moz Pro.
SpyFu offers both a free trial and a free version, as well as three paid versions that let you run customized monthly reports.
The Bottom Line
If you need a comprehensive set of SEO tools but Moz Pro is a little out of your price range, or more than what you need, there are lots of Moz alternatives you can choose from. Consider exactly what SEO needs your site is currently experiencing before you choose an alternative SEO tool to try. For example, if competitor analysis is more important to you, look at Ahrefs or SpyFu. If you’re more concerned about local SEO and SEM, consider BrightLocal.
Check for a trial period or a free plan in order to test out the interface and UX generally, since you’ll want to pick an option that feels intuitive to use and that you can navigate with relative ease. Make sure the plan you’re considering meets both your business needs and your budget. That’s the best way to make sure you’re using the right SEO tools for your business and website.
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Featured Image Credit: Photo by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi; Pexels; Thank you!
