14 SEO Software Tools for Agencies in 2024
Is running a digital marketing agency easier now than 10 years ago? One thing is certain — today, marketers have more great agency SEO software to choose from than ever before.
But how can agencies decide what’s worth buying?
While industry giants like Ahrefs and Semrush are trying to rule this market segment, other more specialized and innovative tools appear, offering attractive features and an unseen level of customer support.
But how do you choose the best SEO software tools for your agency? We researched so you don’t have to and found the winners for 14 categories.
Aug 21 2024 ● 12 min read
Table of Contents
- What is SEO agency software?
- Top 14 SEO agency software tools
- 1. Google Analytics 4 — Best for website traffic monitoring
- 2. Ahrefs — Best for all-purpose SEO analysis
- 3. Semrush – Best SEO + paid advertising analysis tool
- 4. Google Search Console — Best for technical SEO analysis
- 5. SE Ranking — Best SEO analysis budget option
- 6. Whatagraph — Best all-in-one SEO reporting tool
- 7. Clearscope — Best for SEO content briefs
- 8. SEOwind — Best AI-powered SEO content writer
- 9. AgencyAnalytics — Best for simple client SEO reports
- 10. Screaming Frog — Best SEO audit tool
- 11. BuzzSumo — Best for content intelligence
- 12. Respona — Best for link building
- 13. BrightLocal — Best for local SEO campaigns
- 14. Hunter.io — Best for link outreach
- Conclusion
What is SEO agency software?
SEO agency software is an umbrella term for different SEO tools that help agencies plan and execute SEO strategies for their clients. In other words, they should help agency professionals audit, research, strategize, optimize, and communicate different aspects of their SEO efforts within their team and to their clients.
This is why automation is an important factor for choosing any software for an SEO agency. Saving time is as essential as presenting results in a way that clients from a non-marketing niche can understand.
Top 14 SEO agency software tools
Since no tool can excel in all aspects of SEO, we chose the best tools for categories such as SEO audit, technical SEO, link outreach, etc. However, some of these solutions are comprehensive SEO platforms that include a palette of useful SEO tools, so take your pick.
1. Google Analytics 4 — Best for website traffic monitoring
Google Analytics 4 is a go-to software for tracking website traffic and conversions for many agencies. One of the most used GA4 reports is the Traffic Acquisition Report. It lets you analyze your client’s traffic sources, including PPC, social media, and organic search.
Another popular report is the Pages and Screens Report, which gives you traffic for individual pages. If you have configured the conversion actions, you can see there how many sales are linked to pages on your client’s website. Similarly, if your client has an online store, you can visualize the conversion funnel from session to purchase.
Best Google Analytics 4 features for agencies:
- Event-driven data model
- User-centric reporting
- Cross-platform tracking
- Advanced funnel analysis
- Exploration reports
Pros:
- Built-in website performance reports
- User ID tracking
- You can create detailed reports of user behavior
- Insights into traffic trends and anomalies
- Predictive metrics
- Real-time insights
- Built-in privacy controls
- Life cycle reporting
Cons:
- Steep learning curve
- Limited choice of built-in reports
- Difficult to integrate with non-Google platforms
- Tracking specific social media interactions requires manual setup
- GA4 is still evolving some features that were readily available in Universal Analytics
Pricing: Google Analytics 4 is free if you use the free version. A paid plan called Google Analytics 360 includes advanced analytics features, such as attribution modeling and data integration.
Google Analytics 4 user ratings and reviews:
- G2: Rating: 4.5 · 6,385 reviews
- Capterra: Rating: 4.7 · 8,077 reviews
2. Ahrefs — Best for all-purpose SEO analysis
Ahrefs is an SEO agency platform that offers a wide range of features such as keyword research, competitor audits, link building, and rank tracking. Even after increasing their pricing, Ahrefs is one of the most popular SEO tools.
One of the most useful Ahrefs features for agencies is the Lowest DR filter in the Keyword Explorer space, which you can use to find uncompetitive keywords. Since one of the most important ranking factors is overall website authority, keywords with a lower authority website ranking are worth pursuing.
Ahrefs also has a solid backlink analysis tool, a content explorer, and a Site Explorer tool that can analyze your clients’ websites’ backlink profiles.
As a rank tracker, Ahrefs has many features like its main competitor, Semrush. You can use it to monitor specific clients' web pages or domains to see how they rank for keywords over time. You can also perform competitor analysis and site audits and explore historical ranking data with customizable charts.
In the competitor analysis role, Ahrefs is more useful than other keyword research tools and tools that are more oriented toward content optimization. The Content Gap functionality can show a detailed comparison of keywords that specific competitors rank for, including which featured snippets they are winning.
Best Ahrefs features for agencies:
- Site audit
- Competitor research
- Keyword explorer
- Site explorer
- Visualize SERP performance
Pros:
- Keyword research is available for a variety of search engines
- Almost all tools you need for SEO services
- Audit Core Web Vitals
- Easy to perform broken links analysis
- Tells you the word count of the top-ranking content pieces on a particular topic
- Traffic potential metric can point to untapped keywords
- Interface available in 14 languages
- Smooth learning curve
Cons:
- Misses some basic functions, such as local SEO
- Competitors offer more comprehensive keyword research and suggestions
- Search volumes and keyword rankings are not updated daily
- Has some free tools but no free trial
- Restrictive reporting limits
- Poor search intent feature
- No phone support
- No built-in project management tool for link-building
- Confusing pricing model
- Even the most expensive Enterprise plan comes with just one power seat
Pricing:
An agency SEO platform with such capabilities must be expensive. However, with Ahrefs, you are not just buying functionality but also access to enormous amounts of data, including competitor intelligence. Ahrefs offers four main pricing plans: Lite, Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise.
The key differences between these plans include access to core features, such as content gap analytics, link intersect analytics, and broken backlink identification, the number of projects you can work with, the number of keywords you can track, and the number of reports you can pull.
Perhaps the biggest downside of Ahrefs' pricing structure is that the most affordable Lite plan is very limited in terms of core features, prompting many professionals to choose the Standard plan immediately.
Ahrefs user ratings and reviews:
- G2: Rating: 4.5 · 535 reviews
- Capterra: Rating: 4.7 · 563 reviews
3. Semrush – Best SEO + paid advertising analysis tool
Semrush is a household name for agency SEO software, and not without a reason. It’s not just SEO software but an online visibility platform that also includes PPC, social media, and digital PR tools. One of its most helpful features is competitive research. You can assess your client’s top competitor authority score, estimated search traffic, and total backlinks.
But it doesn’t stop there. Under Organic Research, you can see the competitor’s most trafficked pages, the keywords those pages rank for, and the number of backlinks that point to those pages. You can use this information to impress a prospective client and build an effective campaign.
Semrush excels in keyword research as well. Its Keyword Magic Tool saves your team hours each month on keyword research tasks. For each keyword you type, you can see all keyword variations, the combined search volume, and average keyword difficulty. You can then filter and sort this data, see questions related to the topic, filter keywords by exact match phrases, or find related search queries.
The Keyword Manager makes it easy to generate topic cluster ideas and see how topics relate. Without Semrush, this task would require intimate knowledge of the niche and extensive planning to drive a favorable ROI. This SEO analytics tool, on the other hand, can identify all related keywords and group them into topic clusters, which you can drill down into to understand the difficulty, traffic potential, and intent. To impress clients even more, you can display the cluster as a mindmap.
Building links for clients is a fundamental service for digital marketing agencies, and the first step in the link-building campaign is to create a quality prospecting list. Semrush has the Referring Domains dashboard that makes it easy to filter out low value links.
Out of all domains it scans, some of the links will be inactive, low quality, or irrelevant. For some clients this can amount to thousands of domains, and vetting them manually would take too much time. Instead, you can add a filter to target websites with active links and a desired authority score.
Best Semrush features for agencies:
- Site Audit tool
- Keyword Magic tool
- Position Tracking tool
- On-Page SEO Checker tool
- Backlink Checker tool
- Semrush Copilot (AI assistant that analyzes your data and alerts you when your rankings decrease or increase)
Pros:
- Organic and PPC keywords in one platform
- White label reports and client portals for agencies
- Advanced competitor metrics
- Semrush Academy training resources
- Easy to track performance trends for each client
- Visual reporting
- In-depth backlink analytics
- Regular software improvement updates
Cons:
- Pricing can accumulate as you add users, projects, and add-ons
- Limited local search data
- User interface can be overwhelming for first-time users
Pricing:
Semrush has three pricing plans called Pro — for newbies and small teams, Guru — for agencies and mid-size businesses, and Business — for large agencies and enterprises. The main difference between these plans is in the number of projects, keywords to track daily, pages to crawl in a month, etc. An interesting difference is in the number of scheduled PDF reports you can send, which goes from 5 to 20 and 50. You can bypass this limitation by having all your SEO strategy reports sent through Whatagraph, where there are no such limits.
Semrush user ratings and reviews:
- G2: Rating: 4.5 · 2,119 reviews
- Capterra: Rating: 4.7 · 2,237 reviews
At Whatagraph, we use a variety of tools on a weekly or even daily basis to meet our monthly SEO key performance indicators. These tools include Google Search Console, Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, Buzzstream, among others. We adeptly incorporate these tools into our strategies based on the specific aspects of SEO. For instance, in our content strategy and on-page optimization efforts, we rely on Ahrefs, Google Search Console, and AI tools — not for generating new content, but for identifying opportunities and streamlining certain processes. For technical tasks and site audits we turn to Ahrefs, while Screaming Frog has proven itself invaluable for crawling our website.
4. Google Search Console — Best for technical SEO analysis
Google Search Console is a great tool ensuring that search beginners can find and index your website. This agency SEO tool provides basic technical SEO functionalities to include factors like meta tags, internal linking, and sitemaps.
For example, It has a useful Index Coverage Report that gives you a better understanding whether your client’s website is getting crawled or having any issues that prevents it from being indexed. This is one of the first things you want to check when assessing the new clients website.
The GSC’s Performance Report, on the other hand, lets you track the clicks and impressions your client’s website gets from Google. You can also see the position and average CTR there. Using this data, you can advise clients on how to improve their performance by updating existing content or creating new.
Best Google Search Console features for agencies:
- URL inspection tool
- Performance analytics
- Website submission
- Email notification
- Mobile responsiveness analysis
Pros:
- Offers the most accurate performance data for Google search
- Quick access to technical issues
- Can be used to manually submit page indexing requests
- Free to use
Cons:
- UI might be confusing for beginners due to the sheer number of functions
- Without paid plugins, data is limited to 1000 rows
- Three-day data delay
- Data is limited to Google search
- Can be challenging to set up and monitor for multiple clients
Pricing:
Google Search Console is free to use.
GSC user ratings and reviews:
- G2: Rating: 4.8 · 402 reviews
- Capterra: Rating: 4.8 · 198 reviews
5. SE Ranking — Best SEO analysis budget option
SE Ranking is an all-in-one SEO software for agencies that helps you research, track, and optimize your site. The tool offers a range of services, from site audits and backlink analysis to competitive research. Starting as a keyword position tracker, SE Ranking developed into one of the best SEO tools, especially for agency startups that need a capable solution for client SEO optimization on a budget.
For example, SE Ranking can help you discover what others are looking at on the internet, help you move the content strategy from a standstill by producing fresh content that is likely to generate organic traffic. It can also uncover chances for link building and point to technical SEO issues with your client’s website’s content.
The tool uses custom-made algorithms and Google’s NLP processing for its on-page SEO checker and AI writing assistant.
Its content editor feature simplifies the content creation, from adding target keywords to creating data-driven SEO content briefs for your writers. You can use it to create outlines using the AI writer. The AI can extract the top 10 SERP pages for your keywords and create a content brief with a table that displays your competitor information by seven metrics: Content Score, Domain Trust, Page Trust, Total Traffic, Referring Domains, Words, and Visibility.
SE Ranking’s AI writer wizard allows you to select from 11 tones for your article and then generate a list of article topics. Once you select a topic, you can instruct the wizard to generate headings and it will create a detailed writing framework for you. From there, you can instruct it to prepare a draft, where the writer automatically produces the introduction and includes the outline from within the editor. As it completes one paragraph after another, you can give it some manual input or ask it to reword a section.
The keyword rank tracker is perhaps one of SE Ranking’s best features. It shows the average search engine ranking position for any keyword over a selected period. You can track client keywords from any location or device across Google, Bing, Google Mobile, Yahoo, and YouTube. You can analyze Google SERP features, Maps results, and even Google Ads positions. SE Ranking also allows you to see the data in individual graphs by clicking on each keyword within the table.
SE Ranking also comes with a comprehensive competitive research module that allows you to track up to 20 competitors per project (or more on a higher plan) and 100 search results for each keyword. The overview page shows you how likely it is your client’s website will rank in search results based on the quality of your backlinks profile and the number of referring domains. Scrolling down, you can see which countries your client’s competitors get the most traffic in both for organic and paid campaigns.
Best SE Ranking features for agencies:
- Keyword rank tracking tool
- Competitive research
- Backlink checker
- Website audit
- Content ideas finder
- AI writer
- Content editor
- Integrations
Pros:
- Excellent competitor and keyword research
- Versatile range of SEO tools for SEO agencies on a budget
- Helpful AI-powered content marketing tool
- Automated reports on schedule
- Great value for money
Cons:
- Steep learning curve due to a large number of tools and customizations
- The Agency Pack add-on is available only for the annual subscription
- AI writer has a word limit
Pricing:
SE Ranking offers three main tiers: Essential, Pro, and Business. Each plan includes different features, benefits, and usage limits. The Essential plan allows you to track 10 client sites and 5 competitors per site and create up to 100 daily competitive or keyword research reports. The Pro plan lets you track unlimited client websites, 10 competitors per site and has historical data tracking for 3 months. It also brings in the live customer support. The Business plan upgrades the offer even more with 8 hours of team training.
SE Ranking user ratings and reviews:
- G2: Rating: 4.8 · 1,334 reviews
- Capterra: Rating: 4.7 · 284 reviews
6. Whatagraph — Best all-in-one SEO reporting tool
Whatagraph is an easy-to-use platform for SEO agencies that helps you monitor and report on your client’s marketing performance with direct integrations to popular SEO, PPC, and other digital marketing data sources, including web analytics, email marketing, e-commerce platforms, and CRM systems.
So, what makes Whatagraph a unique SEO marketing platform on this list?
Whatagraph can connect data from all your SEO agency tools, organize it, and present it in easy-to-understand live dashboards or scheduled reports.
Let’s say that your agency uses:
- Ahrefs for keyword research and competitor analysis,
- Google My Business for local SEO strategy,
- Google Search Console for technical SEO audits, and
- Google Analytics 4 for tracking website traffic and conversions.
Instead of creating bulky individual reports from each of those tools, which are not compatible, you can simply connect all those tools to Whatagraph and create a custom report for your client, handpicking the data points you want to present.
Thanks to professionally built templates, you can easily create any custom report tailored to your client’s requirements and with the business KPIs of choice.
And it all takes place within one platform — Whatagraph.
Instead of using different tools to collect, clean, and analyze data, Whatagraph integrates all your data into one fast and easy-to-use platform. You can organize data by the specific client reporting needs. Unify metric names, group countries in tiers, or blend key metrics with data from other channels.
As a result:
- Data is easier to organize and analyze.
- Your team can track their performance on internal dashboards and overviews.
- You can automate the way you report to clients.
Marketing analytics processes become more efficient, and everyone — from clients to teammates — can finally understand marketing data and focus on strategy and execution with hours saved.
Best Whatagraph features for agencies:
- Native integrations to popular marketing sources
- Connect any data source using Custom API, Google Sheets, or BigQuery
- Organize connected data without coding
- Drag-and-drop visualization builder
- Cross-channel insights
- Overview (monitors the performance of all your clients or campaigns)
- Library of pre-made report templates
- Edit multiple reports in bulk
- Save anything as a template
- Custom branding and white-label features
- Automated report sharing
- No-code data transfers to BigQuery data warehouse
Pros:
- All-in-one marketing analytics solution
- Easy to use by anyone on your team
- Engaging visual reports
- Fast campaign performance and insights
- Results easy to interpret
- Excellent live chat customer support
Cons:
- No freemium plan
- Just one data warehouse destination (BigQuery) is available so far
Pricing:
Whatagraph has three pricing plans: Essential, suitable for in-house teams, Advanced, recommended for agencies, and Enterprise, a custom plan for large marketing agencies and businesses with complex reporting needs.
The pricing plans are based on the amount of “source credits” and access to customization and data organization capabilities. You can use source credits to connect data sources, send data from a source to a warehouse, and blend cross-channel data together.
Whatagraph user ratings and reviews:
- G2: Rating: 4.5 · 267 reviews
- Capterra: Rating: 4.4 · 83 reviews
Try Whatagraph for free to learn more about how much time you can save while tracking consolidated performance from multiple SEO tools for your clients.
7. Clearscope — Best for SEO content briefs
Clearscope is an AI-based SEO tool for agencies that lets you optimize every piece of content your agency creates. Great content is the backbone of every SEO strategy. However, developing such content is not easy, especially when you consider why the top 10 search results are ranking so high.
In the neverending struggle to be helpful to readers, optimized for search engines, and weather through regular Google algorithm updates, content is becoming more complex. Clearscope can help you see how your content compares against the top 10 Google search results and also make recommendations about what words or phrases your piece is missing.
You start by entering a keyword to start a report, which launches the content optimization space. There you can start writing from scratch, load a template, drop in the text from an existing post, or extract content from a URL. The report instantly gives you an overall content grade, readability rating, and a list of related keywords.
Each report you create with Clearscope has secondary keywords you can mention in your content. As you progress with writing, Clearscope will highlight secondary keywords in yellow and check them off in the sidebar so you know which ones you covered. You can also toggle the keyword tab and switch to Research with additional questions and citations.
Overall, Clearscope is good in its primary role—content optimization—but it’s not a very versatile and affordable tool outside that.
Best Clearscope features for agencies:
- Keyword reports
- SEO-focused briefs and outlines
- Search intent analysis
- Text editor
- Integrations with Google Docs and WordPress
Pros:
- Detailed content insights
- Content length suggestion
- Content grade and readability score
- Page performance tracking
- Easy report sharing with team and freelancers
Cons:
- High-priced plans
- Pricing is based on monthly credits
- UI can lead you to accidentally generate a report when you just wanted to check a keyword
Pricing:
Clearscope has three pricing plan: Essentials, Business, and Enterprise. All plans come with unlimited users, unlimited projects, and AI content outlines. The Business plan brings more content inventory pages than Essentials, and a dedicated account manager. The Enterprise has everything in Business, plus custom credits, custom agreements, crawler whitelisting, and single sign-on (SSO).
Clearscope user ratings and reviews:
- G2: Rating: 4.9 · 91 reviews
- Capterra: Rating: 4.9 · 60 reviews
8. SEOwind — Best AI-powered SEO content writer
SEOwind is a powerful AI-driven content creation tool designed to improve content creation and optimize SEO performance. It streamlines the process of researching, writing, and analyzing SEO content briefs, allowing content creators to quickly generate SEO-optimized content outlines, headings, and keyword lists.
Using the optimized brief, content writers can create content that ranks higher in search results, influences more relevant organic traffic, and eventually converts better.
Each brief created with SEOwind focuses on several essential content elements, such as length, the number of headers, and recommendations on what those headers should be based on the top 10 Google results for the given keyword.
The tool uses AI to create engaging and unique title tags and meta descriptions and can also suggest FAQs from “People Also Asked” and Quora.
Another AI-powered feature of SEOwind is the content brief analytics, which allows users to get a deeper look at content briefs and spot areas for improvement.
Thanks to its intuitive interface and innovative AI capabilities, SEOwind is a perfect tool for SEO agencies looking to scale their content output while saving time.
Best SEOwind features for agencies:
- Automates content brief research and analysis
- Generates SEO-optimized content outlines
- Offers data-driven insights to improve SEO
- AI-powered writing assistance
- Keyword research tools
- Mobile keywords
Pros:
- User-friendly interface
- Time-saving and efficient
- Detailed competitive content analysis
- Internal linking via GSC integration
- Responsive customer support
Cons:
- Lacks content audit feature
- Free trial of just 3 days
Pricing:
SEOwind offers three pricing plans designed to meet different business needs.
The Basic plan includes up to 8 AI-generated articles per month, support for 1 project/domain, custom brand voice, AI-generated content outlines based on SERP analysis, AI keyword clustering, secondary keyword research, AI title and description generation, and more.
The Pro plan allows you to create 30 AI articles per month and 3 projects/domains, with additional features like enhanced keyword clustering and more comprehensive SERP analysis.
The Agency plan enables up to 100 AI articles per month, support for 12 projects/domains, and advanced features such as internal linking, company and product information integration.
There is also a consulting package add-on, available for $200, that grants you five individual meetings with a focus on SEO tactics and content strategy.
The tool has a 7-day cancellation policy with full money return.
SEOwind helps agencies create high-quality, SEO-optimized content by streamlining the research process with AI-driven tools. It gathers crucial data points like search intent, SERP analysis, statistics, and expert quotes, forming the foundation for content creation. With 80% of the focus on thorough research, SEOwind ensures that your content is deeply informed and impactful, while the final 20%—the AI writing—transforms this research into compelling, high-ranking content that drives significant organic traffic growth for agencies.
SEOwind user ratings and reviews:
- G2: Rating: 4.9 · 42 reviews
- Capterra: No reviews
9. AgencyAnalytics — Best for simple client SEO reports
AgencyAnalytics is an SEO platform for agencies that allows you to create SEO reports much quicker and easier than if you’d use Looker Studio. It integrates with Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and almost any SEO tool like Ahrefs and Semrush.
AgencyAnalytics can connect your data and pull it into white-label reporting dashboards or client reports. To build these dashboards, you can use drag-and-drop blocks or one of AgencyAnalytics templates. If your clients prefer periodical reporting, you can set up automated reports that go out at the same time every month.
Best AgencyAnalytics features for agencies:
- White-label reporting
- Integrates with 80+ different data sources
- Cross-campaign data
Pros:
- A wide choice of integrations
- Customizable reporting dashboards
- Automated reporting
- Built-in keyword rank tracker
Cons:
- Very basic data organize features
- No data blending
- No option to edit reports in bulk
- Expensive for startup agencies
- Limited widget customization
- Reports older than 60 days get deleted
Pricing:
AgencyAnalytics pricing has three pricing plans — Freelancer, Agency, and Enterprise. Your subscription cost is based on the number of Client Campaigns you run. More advanced features like custom branding, custom metrics, and report approvals are reserved for the higher tiers. However, the AgencyAnalytics pricing page leaves many questions unanswered. Are some of the features available as add-ons? Are there limits within each plan? What does a Client Campaign include? etc.
AgencyAnalytics user ratings and reviews:
- G2: Rating: 4.7 · 316 reviews
- Capterra: Rating: 4.8 · 114 reviews
10. Screaming Frog — Best SEO audit tool
Screaming Frog is one of the most popular SEO software solutions in the market, as it allows agencies to easily scan website pages and perform technical and on-page SEO audits for their clients. This SEO tool crawls and catalogs the whole site, extracting data as it goes, such as text, meta tags, visuals, alt descriptions, and other factors important for SEO.
To make the information presentable to clients, Screaming Frog organizes the findings in tables.
To run an SEO audit, you need to connect the Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google PageSpeed Insights, and Ahrefs API and run the craw. Among all the SEO opportunities that the tool finds, these four are the most impactful:
Crawl depth: If you see pages in the Crawl Depth column aht are more than three clicks deep into the site architecture, you’ll need to move them closer to the home page so Google can crawl and index them more easily.
Internal link coverage: The Unique InLinks section can reveal pages that have less than five internal links. These are the pages that you should try to build internal links from other relevant pages on the client’s website. However, if no relevant pages exist, this tells you that you need more topically relevant SEO content.
Poor engagement rate: The metrics in the Engagement Rate column contains data that comes from Google Analytics 4. It shows you how engaged users are with your client’s content. If the engagement rate is low, something probably needs fixing on that page. As a rule of thumb, poor UX and engagement also leads to poor SEO performance, which brings us to:
Pages with poor SEO performance: Pages with zero impressions and clicks from Google Search Console, zero traffic from Google Analytics, and no backlinks from Ahrefs are poor performance pages which require closer SEO analysis.
Best Screaming Frog features for agencies:
- Evaluate headings and meta tags
- Discover broken links
- Find duplicate content
- Check redirects
- Generate sitemap.xml files
Pros:
- Can set crawling customization for each client
- Identifies client’s website technical issues
- Integrates with GA4 and GSC for combined data analysis
Cons:
- Crawler may crash or freeze with large databases
- Outdated UI which can be overwhelming for new users
- Steep learning curve
- Limited reporting options
- Only available on desktop
- Requires considerable storage as there’s no cloud-based option
Pricing:
Screaming Frog has a Free and Paid version. The Free deal offers basic website audit functions and allows the crawl of 500 urls. The Paid plan is charged annually and gives access to every feature that the free tool lacks.
Screaming Frog user ratings and reviews:
- G2: Rating: 4.7 · 93 reviews
- Capterra: Rating: 4.9 · 126 reviews
11. BuzzSumo — Best for content intelligence
BuzzSumo is an outstanding SEO agency tool for identifying topics and angles that are likely to gain the most backlinks and social signals. This software is an invaluable link building asset, as it allows you to quickly find ideas that already create a lot of buzz in the client’s niche.
Acquired by Brandwatch in 2017, this marketing SEO platform software allows agencies to track the performance of content competing for relevant industry keywords so they can see how the clients’ content marketing campaigns are performing in relation to the competition.
Also, you can analyze the client’s or competitors’ existing content and get insights like which titles are getting the most social media engagement.
Best BuzzSumo features for agencies:
- Brand monitoring
- Content research
- Influencer discovery
- Content discovery
- Competitor intelligence
Pros:
- Backlink checking
- Slack alerts
- Excellent influencer database and search
Cons:
- The tool can get expensive, depending on requirements
- UI can be overwhelming for novice users
- Collected data may not be too relevant and requires filtering
Pricing:
BuzzSumo comes with four pricing plans that are based on the number of users and alerts you can set. The basic Content Creation plan comes with Content Analyzer, Trending Feeds, and Question Analyzer tools, while for Coverage Reports, YouTube Analyzer, and Granular Location Search, you need to upgrade to higher plans.
BuzzSumo user ratings and reviews:
- G2: Rating: 4.5 · 103 reviews
- Capterra: Rating: 4.8 · 198 reviews
12. Respona — Best for link building
Respona is a capable software for SEO agencies that helps scale link-building campaigns for clients. Once you start using Respona, your job is made easier by more than 15 link-building campaign templates. When you complete your template, you can use Respona to source link-building opportunities. You can also integrate Respona with Semrush to create a prospecting list by analyzing search results and competing URLs and then run automation to find contacts for websites.
Another useful feature is the Contact Vetting. When Respona finishes the automation, you can select your prospects in bulk or vet them individually. Respona will find the best contact for each website, including verified emails, and LinkedIn profiles.
Best Respona features for agencies:
- Campaign templates
- Link-building opportunities
- Contact vetting
Pros:
- AI-powered email personalization
- Content-based prospect search
- Bulk or manual vetting
- Email templates for link-building campaigns
- Automated contact list generation
Cons:
- No options for monthly billing
- Relies on third-party tool subscriptions for vetting data
Pricing:
Respona comes with three pricing plans: Pro, Unlimited, and Enterprise. The Pro plan offers 5 email accounts and 300.000 data credits which can be distributed and spent on various discovery actions. The Unlimited plan includes everything in Pro, plus white gloves onboarding and double the amount of active contacts — 100k vs 50k. The Custom plan brings over a dedicated account manager, enhanced security functions, and advanced permissions.
Respona streamlines your entire link-building outreach process, from finding relevant websites and getting the contact info of the right person to sending hyper-personalized pitches. Simply input a few details about your client (their website address, keywords, etc.) and watch Respona set up campaigns in minutes, saving your team tens of hours. Respona also provides all the tools you need to manage conversations via the collaborative Inbox tab and track links using its built-in CRM tools.
Respona user ratings and reviews:
- G2: Rating: 4.9 · 173 reviews
- Capterra: Rating: 4.9 · 44 reviews
13. BrightLocal — Best for local SEO campaigns
BrightLocal is an all-in-one local citation and SEO tool for digital agencies. It allows them to promote their clients’ brick-and-mortar stores on the web, tapping into the potential of local SEO. Using BrightLocal, you can get comprehensive insights into rankings in a particular area, identify SEO problems, and create personalized, white-label reports.
Assisting local businesses with getting traffic and leads through search engine optimization is one of the most requested services for many agencies. However manually optimizing Google Business Profiles (GBPs) and citations takes time, especially if you service many clients with similar requirements. This is where BrightLocal comes in.
Offering a single source of truth, this agency search engine optimization tool eliminates manual searching for your clients’ GBP on Google to make necessary updates. Instead, you can make all the changes in BrightLocal, and your clients’ will get automatic updates via email.
Once you import a Google Business Profile via BrightLocal, the tool will find citations relevant to your client’s listing. Apart from the list of citations and links to the websites where you can add them, there’s also a citation score that shows you if there are any errors to fix. And if you don’t want to add citations manually, BrightLocal offers a paid citation service that you can request from your account manager.
Finally, there’s the reputation management feature that allows you to see and respond to reviews straight from the tool without going to the websites where the reviews were published.
Best BrightLocal features for agencies:
- Local SEO audits
- Local rank tracker
- Citation builder
- All-in-one white-labeling
- Third-party connection to Facebook and Twitter
- Reputation manager
Pros:
- You can manage multiple GBPs from one dashboard
- Citation building and cleanup features
- Local rank tracking
- Free online training courses
- White-label reports
Cons:
- Limited keyword research
- Sluggish operation from time to time
- Overwhelming interface for new users
- Wide range of integrations make the tool difficult to learn
- No way to include several regions and their local keywords in one ranking report
Pricing:
BrightLocal has three pricing plans called Track, Manage, and Grow. Track includes tracking local rankings, monitoring GBP, competitor insights, and citations auditing. Manage includes everything in Track and enhanced listings management across multiple platforms like Google, Bing, Facebook, and Apple. There is also an option to suppress external edits and schedule GBP posts. Grow brings advanced review management capabilities such as responding to reviews directly from the tool, creating review generation campaigns, and website review widgets.
BrightLocal user ratings and reviews:
- G2: Rating: 4.2 · 220 reviews
- Capterra: Rating: 4.8 · 276 reviews
14. Hunter.io — Best for link outreach
Hunter.io is an all-in-one outreach platform that enables agencies to identify companies matching their ideal client profiles, find accurate email addresses of key decision-makers, and send personalized outreach campaigns automatically.
One of the things that marketers love about this SEO agency software is its minimalist yet efficient UX.
A valuable link-building tool in every SEO specialist’s stack, Hunter offers an easy way to validate contact information at scale. Using a combination of proprietary technology and artificial intelligence, Hunter allows you to find, verify, and enrich contact details.
Best Hunter features for agencies:
- Discover: Set filters that align with your ideal customer profile (ICP) to generate a list of companies that fit your services. For example, if you provide technical SEO services for SaaS businesses in Europe, Discover can help you pinpoint relevant companies in just a few clicks.
- Lookalikes: A dynamic new feature that allows you to find companies similar to your ideal clients. For instance, if you've worked with Client A, you can easily find companies like Client A with a single click.
- Email Finder: Lets you find the email addresses of decision-makers using their full names.
- Domain Search: Helps you find email contacts within a specific company.
- Email Verifier: Ensures email addresses are valid to avoid deliverability issues.
- Signals: Perfects the relevancy and timing of your cold emails by allowing you to discover companies that are currently hiring for specific roles or have recently received funding.
- Campaigns: Automate your cold email sequences, track performance, rotate email accounts, and manage all inboxes from one place.
- Integrations: Seamlessly connect Hunter with your CRMs or other automation software.
- Chrome Extensions & Google Sheets Add-On: Find and verify emails in bulk using the Google Sheets Add-On.
- API: Build custom applications leveraging Hunter’s extensive data.
Pros:
- Communication campaigns planning
- Finding emails from website domains
- Automates cold mail campaigns
- Accurate contact info
- Integrates with Google Sheets
- Responsive customer team
Cons:
- Complex credit usage model
- Sometimes, it pulls up old emails for companies that are not used anymore
Pricing:
Hunter has four pricing plans: Free, Starter, Growth, and Business. The Free plan allows you to use one email account and run 25 searches a month. You can have up to 500 recipients per campaign, but on the other hand, all Campaign features are out of limit. The remaining three plans have all functionalities unlocked, with the only difference in the number of yearly searches and verifications, as well as connected email accounts and recipients per campaign. For yearly subscriptions, monthly credits carry over.
As a small business owner, Hunter has everything I need to acquire new clients. Their Discover feature helps me to find companies that match my ideal customer, Signals help me identify companies that need my services right now, Finder and Verifier help me to find emails of decision makers, while Campaigns help me to reach out to decision-makers in a personal yet automated way.
Hunter.io user ratings and reviews:
- G2: Rating: 4.7 · 402 reviews
- Capterra: Rating: 4.6 · 620 reviews
Conclusion
Choosing the right SEO software tool can significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of SEO processes in your agency.
From tracking keyword rankings to analyzing backlinks and optimizing on-page content, each tool on our list has been selected for its unique capabilities and proven track record in helping digital agencies like yours demonstrate value to clients.
As you plan the SEO strategy for new clients, the right SEO reporting solution can make a lot of difference.
Whatagraph is both intuitive to use on the agency side, and easy to understand on the side of clients reading the SEO reports.
In addition to multiple time-saving and scalable features built primarily for agencies, Whatagraph is an SEO reporting platform that covers the entire data journey, from connecting diverse SEO tools to organizing their data to creating beautiful SEO reports.
Sign up for a free trial today and save time connecting and sharing SEO insights to your clients!
Published on Aug 20 2024
WRITTEN BY
Nikola GemesNikola is a content marketer at Whatagraph with extensive writing experience in SaaS and tech niches. With a background in content management apps and composable architectures, it's his job to educate readers about the latest developments in the world of marketing data, data warehousing, headless architectures, and federated content platforms.