Is your website performing as well as it should? Is it delivering the best value for your business or is it simply taking up digital real estate? Website performance measurements and SEO metrics can help answer that.
Understanding your site’s overall performance can provide you with the information you need to boost your rankings on Google, drive greater business visibility online and grow your business. Website SEO audits are great tools for this.
Measuring website performance is more than counting how many visitors you get each month or how many people opt in to download or view your content. Those numbers only paint a small part of the picture.
You may have heard about the benefits of website and SEO audits — true
You may have also heard that they could be expensive and complex — possibly true
What you may Not have heard is that there are a number of website and SEO analysis tools that are available for free or very low cost — and you don’t have to be an expert to use them.
These tools and services provide useful, high-level information and deliver a quick analysis of many aspects of a web page or website’s health. Monitoring website uptime should also be part of your strategy.
This can form a solid starting point for additional analysis.
In this post I’ve compiled information on a number of different tools and services, both free and paid, including WooRank, SEO SiteCheckup, Nibbler, UpCity, ClickX, SEOmator, Site-Analyzer, Insites, and SEranking. Plus more advanced services including SEMRush, Raven Tools, Moz Pro,Screaming Frog, Deep Crawl, aHrefs, and Majestic.
Getting Started – Do You Know What You Don’t Know?
“I don’t want to invest time, energy and resources without understanding what my most important priorities are. I don’t know what I don’t know.”
Performance metrics and measurements for websites, search engines, social media and email marketing can frequently seem complex and opaque. Many business owners are hesitant to commit scarce budget dollars on audits and metrics when they don’t know what to expect.
Tools and services can range from the very basic, hands-off reports to a range of powerful, knowledge intensive tools for in depth technical SEO audits. Regardless of what some webmasters claim to be the best solution, their needs might be far different from your own.
DIY Website SEO Audits – Getting Started
To help you get a better understanding of your audit and assessment options, we identified four distinct types of tools or services available for website and search engine optimization audits starting with several free or low-cost options. The types of tools and services covered include:
- Free automated audit tools.
- Paid automated services that generate more in-depth reports on a monthly or ad-hoc basis.
- Robust monthly monitoring, auditing and reporting services that contain a range of configuration options, reporting options and analysis tools.
- Four professional auditing and analysis tools.
Note: Many web tools and services can change frequently. The tools listed in this post continue to evolve, so be sure to check several different options to determine which ones best meets your business needs and budget.
Why Do An SEO Audit In the First Place
Unsure if you need an SEO or website audit? Before going any further with audits tools and services let’s take a quick step back and look at why you may need a website or SEO audit. Here are eight reasons:
- To gain a clear view of what’s working well and what could be causing performance issues.
- To identify issues before they become problems.
- To improve your website search engine rankings because website & SEO problems affect search rankings and the volume of visitors coming to your website.
- The information will help you better understand and diagnose noticeable reductions in traffic, leads or sales.
- To improve the user experience for your website visitors. Website quality effects your visitor’s user experience. A better user experience means more conversions and more repeat visits. Repeat visits are especially crucial for ecommerce websites as most visitors don’t purchase on the first visit.
- To enhance the perceptions website visitors have of your website, your brand and your business.
- To uncover any problems that may have been introduced into your website during any major website changes, upgrades or redesigns.
- To perform a periodic review similar to an auto tune up or a dental, or doctor’s appointment.
What is Technical SEO? – See Our Guide for Technical SEO 101
Free or Low Cost Website & SEO Audit Tools
Here are five free tools that can assist you in conducting website and SEO audits. If you haven’t performed or read the results of an audit before these are good starting points for learning more about you website’s performance. They are also useful in identifying what other questions you need to get answered about your business web presence.
1. WooRank
Cost: Free for an single URL. Monthly pricing starts at $50/month. 14-day free trial available.
Overview: A robust and well known free audit tool, WooRank has been around for several years. WooRank continues to add new features and evolve with the web. They also provide a range of useful SEO and website information on the WooRank website.
Reporting Generated: Onscreen report only. Signing up for free 14-day trial provides more reporting options.
Information Included in Free Version:
- On page & technical SEO information
- Keyword usage data
- Backlinks & social media data
- Usability & mobile friendliness
- Site technologies & page performance
- Marketing checklist
- Broken link information for the given page
- Speed optimization information for the given page
Paid Version Benefits Compared to Free Version:
Paid monthly plans start at $50/month and provide keyword tracking, competitor keyword ranking info, search rankings changes, website uptime monitoring, and basic site crawling to locate issues and errors.
Additional features of the paid version that are not in the trial version include PDF versions of the reports, advanced reviews, competitor analysis, social insights and integration with Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
Limitations:
One drawback of the free report is that much of the information is focused on the specific page (URL) that was entered for analysis. To receive more in-depth data for other pages the report needs to be run for each page. If you have 10 pages you need analyzed, it will take you longer to run reports for all ten pages and analyze data from each report to get a bigger picture view.
2. SEO SiteCheckup
Cost: Free for an single URL. Monthly pricing starts at $25/month. 14-day free trial is available.
Overview: SEO SiteCheckup provides a free website and SEO audit report that delivers very useful information. They also host a range of free tools for checking and analyzing specific aspects of website and SEO performance.
The SEO SiteCheckup blog has a number of useful and informative articles that provide in depth background information on a range of SEO, website, search engine and marketing topics.
Signing up for a free account allows access to some additional features. If you chose not to create a free account you will be limited to generating only one report per day.
Report Generated: Onscreen, Printed, Email, PDF download.
Top Features and Information in SEO SiteCheckup Free Report:
- On page & technical SEO information
- Keyword usage data
- Backlinks & social media
- Mobile friendliness, usability and page image
- Site technologies & page performance
- Google Analytics use
- Broken link information for the given page
- Speed optimization information
Limitations:
As with WooRank, much of the information is focused on the specific page (URL) that was entered for analysis. To receive more in-depth data for other pages you need to run separate reports for each website page you want to analyze.
Paid Version Benefits Compared to Free Version:
SEO Site CheckUp paid plans include additional features such as keyword position tracking, backlinks analysis, site uptime monitoring, competitor analysis, site wide broken links checking and more.
3. Nibbler
Cost: Free for a one-page report that includes 5 URLs. There is no paid version available. However the same company offers a paid only tool known as Insites. We cover Insites in the next section.
Overview: Nibbler is a free tool that performs 17 test on up to 5 linked pages from a single website. The report includes numerical grades for each of 19 categories. The tool provides detailed results for each of the five pages tested and includes a Help section with additional information in each of the 19 categories. Nibbler also provides recommendations by section.
While there is no paid version for Nibbler the company that owns Nibbler also offers an expanded paid only tool known as Insites. We cover Insites in the next section on paid tools.
Report Generated: Onscreen only.
Top Features and Information in Nibbler Free Report:
- On page & technical SEO information
- Usability & mobile friendliness
- Social Media property information & social interest
- Content Amount information on all 5 pages
- Domain Age and Expiration information
- Incoming Links
- Server Behavior
- Code quality
Limitations: As with WooRank and SEO SiteCheckup much of the information is focused on the specific page (URL) or small number of pages. To receive more in-depth data for other pages you need to run separate reports.
Paid Version Benefits Compared to Free Version: There is no paid version available.
4. UpCity
Cost: Free for a ” Report Card” for a single URL. There is no paid version, however UpCity offers inbound marketing service plans for small businesses that start at $1,250/month.
Overview: The SEO Report Card created by UpCity is a free basic report for a quick analysis on your website. This report allows you to include a target keyword to focus on in the analysis. The report looks at a range of areas including rank analysis, link building, on-site analysis, website accessibility, trust metrics and current indexing.
Report Generated: Onscreen only.
Top Features and Information in Free Report:
- Keyword usage data
- Can Include a competitor for comparison
- Rank analysis for a targeted keyword
- Link Building analysis and opportunities
- On page Analysis
- Website Accessibility and performance check
- Current Indexing Check
Limitations:
Unlike WooRank and SEO SiteCheckUp much of the information in the UpCity report is focused on the usage and ranking of a specific keyword on the specific page (URL). The report does not included broader website or SEO analysis and lacks the depth of WooRank and SEO SiteCheckUp. Additionally there is minimal added information about the results that are found in the report.
Paid Version Benefits Compared to Free Version:
UpCity is also a bit different than WooRank or SEO SiteCheckUp in that they don’t offer broader or more in-depth paid analysis and reporting packages. UpCity’s main focus is on providing premium inbound marketing solutions for local businesses and agencies.
5. ClickX SEO Grader
Cost: Free for an individual URL. Monthly pricing ranges from $299/month for 100 keywords and 5 competitors, $499/month for 200 keywords and 15 competitors, to $899/month for 500 keywords and 20 competitors. 14-day free trial is available.
Overview: The ClickX SEO Grader report provides a useful collection of data describing the performance of a website and its SEO elements. Categories include SEO, website performance, backlinks, competitor data, and a local audit.
Unlike some of the other free tools in this section the ClickX report also contained information on top organic keywords, organic competitors, competitor relevance, common keywords and organic keywords. SEO Grader also offer options for a PPC audit and a Local audit.
Report Generated: Onscreen only
Top Features and Information in Free Report:
- On page & technical SEO information
- Top Organic Keywords
- Backlinks quantity and domains
- Links to social media properties
- Mobile performance, friendliness, usability and page image
- Main Organic Competitors
- Trust Flow and Citation Flow information
- PPC Audit
- Local Audit
Limitations: The ClickX Grader report provides useful information but without the level of detail seen in the WooRank, SEO SiteCheckUp or Nibbler reports. ClickX also lacks the recommendations and help information found in some of the other free tools. The ClickX report does have some unique features including detailed information on the top ten organic keywords for the page, details on the main organic competitors, and the ability for a business to run a Local Audit by entering business name, address and phone number (NAP).
Paid Version Benefits Compared to Free Version:
ClickX paid services are focused on an “All-in-one software to Plan, Execute, and Measure your Inbound Marketing.” These services are significantly more expansive (and more expensive) than website audits or SEO audits. Similar to UpCity, ClickX also provides marketing solutions to small businesses and agencies.
Free SEO Audit Tools Wrap Up
While all five companies offer a free report, the data collected and the way it is presented varies. We recommend trying each one, seeing how they compare and which one best meets your needs.
Below are some pluses and minuses for the free tools category.
Pluses: Free Tools & Services
- No Cost: Each service is free for some period of time or number of uses.
- Useful Information: Information provided can be helpful in identifying high-level issues.
- Quick and Easy: Most free tools or services run quickly, with some displaying the results immediately.
- Reports can be Stored: Some free tools offer reports that can be printed or downloaded as a PDF. This could allow you create a historical record of improvements.
- Advice Provided: Most services and tools will provide recommendations or suggestions on how to address major issues that were found.
Minuses: Free Tools & Services
Some of the limitations of a free SEO or website audit report:
- Single Page Focus: Many tools will only analyze a single URL (or only the website home page).
- Onscreen Only: Some only provide an onscreen report, not a document that can be saved, shared or printed.
- Limited Scope: They do not crawl all the pages of your website to identify any broad or site-wide issues or problems.
- No Page Load Time Info: Most free tools do not measure page load time which is an important ranking factor in the search engine. When a page is slow to load many people leave.
- Knowledge Required: While these reports can be run with little technical or SEO expertise it will be very beneficial to have a basic knowledge of SEO and online marketing terminology to make the best use of results.
- No Clear Priorities: Reports do not prioritize which errors, issues or problems to address first and which are lower impact or priority.
- No Error Reporting: Most of these tools and services do not analyze broken links, missing pages, or server errors that can affect an entire website.
Other options: To address the limitations of free tools, there are a number of excellent paid tools and services for performing your own website and SEO audits, both as a one-time event or on an ongoing basis.
SEO Suggestion: Regardless of how you do audits be sure that you are using Google Analytics and Google Search Console on your website.
B. Paid Automated Website SEO Audit Tools
There are several automated audit and analysis tools available. These are paid services based on monthly subscriptions.
They are designed to provide automated reporting that can be run on a regular basis or manually as needed.
If you have the need and resources to conduct regular audits, consider utilizing a paid SEO & website audit services. These services are focused on businesses looking to do regular reporting or SEO agencies performing regular reporting and analysis services for clients.
Paid services provide more in-depth analysis and crawling of your website. The included features, approach to analysis, and reporting formats vary. Most offer a short trial period to get a more hands-on evaluation.
1. SEOmator
Cost: Plans start at $5 for a single project, $19/month for 5 projects, $49 per month for 15
projects and $179/month for unlimited projects. A project represents a specific website. A free 7-day trial is also available.
Overview: SEOmator delivers in-depth SEO analysis and an SEO audit automation tool for website optimization professionals and agencies. The tools looks at a range of items including content, site structure, structured data, crawling issues, HTML tags, internal linking and mobile usability.
According to it’s website, “Seomator is a comprehensive and easy to use solution for Website Crawling and SEO Audit. We monitor technical and architecture issues of websites (alt tags and title tags, duplicate content and links to non-existent images), analyze them, and provide our reports with tips that help SEO Professionals to improve website quality and its ranking in Search Engine Result Pages (SERP).”
2. Site-Analyzer
Cost: Tiered Plans range from $39/month, to $99 per month, $199/month and $499/mo. Monthly fees buy credits to generate reports and units to track keyword rankings.
Overview: Site-Analyzer is a website optimization tool that will analyze a website and generate a multi-point audit report. It is a little different than some other tools in the sense that you use “credits” and “rank tracking units”when generating reports and tracking keywords rather then having set monthly limits.
The tool provides capabilities for crawling an entire website, performing on-page analysis, ongoing rank tracking, backlinks analysis, competitor tracking and more.
According to the Site-analyzer website “The analysis report is made of more than 50 criteria based on the optimization of your server configuration, HTML tagging, text content, multimedia content, internal and external networking and page popularity.”
3. Insites
Cost: Plans range from $60/month (Starter – 10 reports/mo., 100 pages per report), $120/month (Agency – 30 reports/mo., 100 pages per report). A free report is limited to inspecting 20 pages.
Overview: From the Insites website: “Insites automates a massive range of checks that would otherwise take an extraordinary amount of time and expertise to perform. For example, Insites can check whether every page of your website is laid out correctly on mobile phones – a task that could take a person hours or even days. Insites frees up your attention to focus on improving your websites.”
Insites focuses on six key areas: website quality, user experience, digital marketing, web accessibility, website compliance, and website inventory.
4. SEranking
Cost: Plans start at $12/month for 100 Keywords and 7,000 pages, to $39/month for 250 Keywords and 25,000 pages, to $89/month for 1,000 Keywords and 150,000 pages to $899/month for 20K keywords and 700K pages. Discounts for longer terms are offered.
Overview: SEranking includes a range of tools and options. These include SEO tools, competitor research (including backlinks and PPC), B2B features such as page change monitoring, and a social media management tool.
From the website: “What makes SE Ranking one of the best SEO software solutions is the unique module designed to push your website ranking into the top 10 search results by finding and eliminating on-page vulnerabilities. 100% accurate keyword position tracking with real-time positions of your website’s keywords in major search engines. SE Ranking SEO platform allows tracking rankings on a country / region / city level as frequently as you wish.”
Results: Paid Automated Audit & Analysis Tools
The paid tools and services in the section above have varying capabilities, reporting options and pricing structures. When considering implementing any of these it is best to test drive first, either using a free option when available or signing up for a lowest cost initial subscription to do a full evaluation.
The degree of automation varies within the group. Some tools provide more options for configuration and fine tuning for a business’ specific needs. In general these automated paid services don’t provide targeted analysis, specific recommendations, or prioritized solutions specific to a given website.
Most don’t address specific questions regarding the reported results or issues. More knowledge or resources may be need to get the most out of these tools.
C. Monthly SEO Auditing & Monitoring Services
There are a number of excellent paid tools that businesses, professional SEOs, developers and internet marketers use. Our top three picks are powerful, highly functional SEO audit and analysis tools for businesses, SEO consultants and digital agencies that want to get quality reports with a high level of technical detail and recommendations.
The approaches, interface and options can vary with each of these services, but they all offer the benefits of:
- In-depth data gathering
- Detailed reporting
- Flexible configurations
- Ongoing reporting and analysis
- Keyword ranking analysis and tracking
- Ability to connect to Google Analytics & Google Search Console.
All three of these services have been around for several years or more. They are mature and feature-rich. Having used each of these tools at one time or another I can attest to the fact that there is a learning curve to take full advantage of the benefits of each.
1. SEMRush
Cost: Plans start at $120 per month, scaling to $199/mo. and $399/mo. Cost is based on the number of projects, results per report, reports per day, keywords to track and pages to crawl.
Overview: At its heart SEMRush is a powerful keyword research, monitoring and tracking tool. It is also much more than that as it is also a useful tool set for competitive research, website SEO Audits, PPC analysis and research, domain comparisons, and backlink audits.
SEMRush can generate a wide range of analytics reports including automated weekly and monthly reports as well as on-the-fly reports in a wide range of areas. SEMRush also provides a number of social media tracking and analysis features, an informative blog and an ongoing series of SEO-related webinars.
This is powerful set of tools that anyone doing comprehensive SEO work should check out. At $100/month and up it isn’t cheap, but there is a lot of bang-for-the-buck. You can find plenty of third party articles and reviews about SEMRush online.
2. Raven Tools
Cost: Plans are $109 per month and $249 per month based mainly on the number of users, number of pages per website and the total number of pages crawled per month.
Overview: Raven Tools delivers a suite of options for SEO website audits, backlink data analysis, keyword rank tracking, and generating a wide range of automated detailed reports.
This tool set includes the ability to access more than twenty data connectors, including Google Analytics, Google AdWords, Search Analytics from Google Search Console (GWT), Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, Twitter, and others.
Detailed SEO audit reports can show progress over time and assist in identifying issues to address while providing suggestions for improvements. Raven provides that capabilities to create custom SEO, Social and PPC marketing reports that can be scheduled to be run weekly, monthly or quarterly.
Reports can incorporate data from third party sources such as Google Analytics, Search Console, AdWords, Facebook, Bing Ads and others.
Agencies can also use this tool set for generating branded white label reports for clients. As with SEMRush you can find plenty of third party articles and reviews about Raven Tools online.
3. Moz Pro
Cost: Plans start at $99 per month, $149, $249 and $599 based mainly on the number of campaigns, number of keywords tracked, pages crawled per week, keyword reports per day and the number of users with access. Moz offers a 30-day free trial, credit card required.
Overview: Moz Pro is a very SEO-centric set of tools including SEO auditing, keyword research, ranking analysis and tracking, backlink analysis, locating new link opportunities, competitive analysis and tracking, and a wide range of reporting options – both scheduled and ad-hoc.
The Moz tools include their own Page Authority and Domain Authority metrics that are useful and well known SEO analysis metrics. Their Site Crawl and On-Page Optimization tools provide detailed, targeted information for locating technical SEO problems along with solutions on how to address problems.
Moz also offers free version of some of their tools as well as their Moz Bar browser plug in for examining and analyzing important search, social and page metrics of any site as you visit the site. As with most free tools there are limitations.
D. Additional Tools for SEO Audits & Website Crawling
Beyond the audit and reporting tools in the previous section there are some additonal powerful tools and services that are commonly used by SEO professionals, businesses or agencies.
These tools provide the greatest value for larger web environments and ecommerce sites. They include: Screaming Frog SEO Spider, Majestic and aHrefs.
These are advanced tools a wide and deep set of features. They are being included here mainly as a reference point to check out as your business grows. With the exception of Screaming Frog SEO Spider (one-time annual cost) these tools require a monthly fee of $75 or more.
Below is a high level overview of Screaming Frog SEO Spider, DeepCrawl, Majestic and aHrefs. Check the individual websites for more details on the features, functions and uses that these tools provide.
1. Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Cost: Limited version is free. Full-featured paid version $210 annually.
Overview from Screaming Frog Site: “The Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a website crawler, that allows you to crawl websites’ URLs and fetch key onsite elements to analyse onsite SEO.
The SEO Spider is powerful, flexible and able to crawl both small and very large websites efficiently, allowing you to analyse the results in real-time. It gathers key onsite data to allow SEOs to make informed decisions.”
Some of the common uses for SEO Spider include: Find Broken Links, Analyse Page Titles & Meta Data, Extract Data with XPath, Audit Redirects, Generate XML Sitemaps, Discover Duplicate Content, Review Robots & Directives, and Integrate with Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
2. aHrefs
Cost: Ranges from $99 per month for the Lite version with a single user, to $999 per month for the Agency version with 5 users.
Overview from aHrefs website: “Tools to improve your search traffic, research your competitors and monitor your niche. Ahrefs helps you to learn why your competitors are ranking so high and what you need to do to outrank them.”
“The tools you get with Ahrefs – New tools and features are added every week – Competitive Analysis, Keyword Research, Backlink Research, Content Research, Rank Tracking, and Web Monitoring.”
3. Majestic
Cost: Range from $49 per month for the Lite version (1 user), to $149/month for the Pro version (1 user), to $399 per month for the API/Agency version (5 users).
Overview from Majestic website: “Majestic surveys and maps the Internet and has created the largest commercial Link Intelligence database in the world. This Internet map is used by SEOs, New Media Specialists, Affiliate Managers and online Marketing experts for a variety of uses surrounding online prominence including Link Building, Reputation Management, Website Traffic development, Competitor analysis and News Monitoring.“
Majestic is well known for their custom Trust Flow and Citation Flow scores used in linking analysis and identifying linking opportunities.
“Measurement is a crucial tool for keeping pace with a rapidly changing online world”
— Mike McEvoy
SEO Website Audit Done for You
Overwhelmed by the options and tools available? Unsure of what needs to be audited and what the data means?
Check out our SEO Website Audit Service. WE examine of wide range of factors and then deliver specific, easy to understanding findings with clear actionable recommendations. More info here: Web Presence Solutions SEO Website Audit Service.
SEO Audit Tools – Conclusions
Whew! If you’ve read this far you now have a functional overview of many current website audit / SEO audit tools and services. The next step is deciding which tools and services best meet your needs.
Your specific needs will help you determine how much time, energy and budget dollars you want to invest in understanding, monitoring and maintaining website performance, technical SEO, internet visibility and search engine rankings for your business.
Once you have a better understanding of the tools available, you will be better prepared to make a sound decision based on your own specific needs and budget. Definitely a better process than just following a path someone else has taken.
- If you are unfamiliar with SEO audits or website audits it may be best to start by using two or three of the free tools. If you discover you have identifiable website or SEO issues, it may cost you less in time, money, and lost business to get expert advice.
- An important item to remember is that all the tools and services listed here continue to evolve, some at a rapid rate. So consider this post to be a starting point only. It is also important to note that there may be other useful tools and services beyond those included here.
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