Best SEO Tools 2025: My Crash Course to Top Rankings

You are pouring time and effort into your SEO, but are you seeing the results you deserve? Outdated tools can hurt your rankings. This crash course on the best SEO tools for 2025 will help you ditch ineffective strategies and focus on what truly moves the needle so you can finally achieve those top rankings.

This isn’t just another list of tools.

I’m not just going to tell you what the best SEO tools are; I’m going to show you how to use them together. I will share a unique, holistic approach, demonstrating how to weave these top tools into a comprehensive SEO strategy, from keyword research and content creation to performance tracking. Get ready to not just learn about the best tools but master them and build a winning SEO strategy.

Implementing this strategy led to significant growth, increasing our page one keywords from 16 to 283 by 20 February 2025.

Key Takeaways

• SEO Utils: Provides a practical suite of features powered by accurate SERP data from DataForSEO, enhancing decision-making.
• Ahrefs: A top choice for robust backlink analysis and competitor research, making it indispensable for SEO success.
• Semrush: A versatile all-in-one platform offering comprehensive SEO insights to streamline your strategy.
• SurgeGraph Vertex: Empowers data-driven content creation, helping you craft high-impact, optimized content.
• Gemini: Refines content and deciphers user intent through advanced SERP analysis, ensuring alignment with search behavior.
• Grammarly: Essential for producing polished, error-free writing that resonates with both readers and search engines.
• ShortPixel: Optimizes images to improve site speed, addressing a critical ranking factor for better performance.
• Google Search Console: Delivers first-party data to monitor site performance, identify technical issues, and refine SEO efforts.
• Serprobot: Offers cost-effective rank tracking, enabling you to measure the effectiveness of your SEO campaigns with precision.

SEO Utils

• What is it for? SEO Utils is a suite of tools designed to help with various SEO tasks, from keyword research and traffic analytics to rank tracking. It’s a collection of useful features all in one place.
  
• How does it help with SEO? SEO Utils offers a range of functionalities that I find particularly helpful:
  
  • Keyword Explorer: I use the keyword research tool to discover relevant keywords for my content. It helps me understand search volume, keyword difficulty, and related terms, which informs my content strategy.
  • Traffic Analytics: I use this to analyze my competitors’ keywords and traffic to identify successful strategies I can emulate. This will help me identify opportunities to improve my own traffic and content strategy.
  • Rank Tracking: The rank tracker lets me monitor my keyword rankings over time. This helps me see the impact of my SEO efforts and identify areas where I need to improve.
    
• SEO Utils Pricing (February 2025): This desktop software offers two license options, each valid for one year of updates: Personal ($54.99) and Standard ($111.59).

How I Use It for Top Rankings

SEO Utils uses SERP data from DataForSEO which I find to be fairly accurate.

Here are my steps:

1. A good first step in an SEO campaign is keyword research, which often includes competitor analysis.
2. I use Traffic Analytics to analyze my competitors’ keywords and identify relevant keywords. This gives me a starting point for my keyword research.
3. After selecting a keyword, I use Keyword Explorer to refine my keyword list. I will analyze the traffic potential and competitors’ strengths.
4. I will then look at the potential traffic a page targeting these keywords can get. This is different from the individual keyword search volume, as a page can rank for multiple keywords.
5. Next, I will look at the “strength” of the top 10 results (DR, UR, RD, and Backlinks) to see if my website has a reasonable chance of beating them.
6. Lastly, I will compile a list of keywords that I feel are “winnable.”

Ahrefs

• What is it for? Ahrefs is a comprehensive SEO suite that provides a wide range of tools for keyword research, competitor analysis, backlink analysis, site audits, and rank tracking. It’s a powerhouse for in-depth SEO analysis.
  
• How does it help with SEO? Ahrefs is invaluable for several key SEO tasks:
  
  • Keyword Research: Ahrefs’ keyword explorer provides detailed metrics like search volume, keyword difficulty, click-through rates, and SERP features. I use it to identify profitable keywords and understand the competitive landscape.
  • Competitor Analysis: I use Ahrefs to analyze my competitors’ backlink profiles, keyword rankings, and content strategies. This helps me identify opportunities to outperform them and gain a competitive edge.
  • Backlink Analysis: Ahrefs’ backlink checker provides a comprehensive view of my website’s backlink profile, including the number of backlinks, referring domains, anchor text distribution, and the quality of the linking sites.
  • Site Audit: Ahrefs’ site audit tool crawls my website and identifies technical SEO issues, like broken links, missing meta descriptions, and slow loading speeds. This helps me fix technical problems that could be hindering my rankings.
  • Rank Tracking: Ahrefs’ rank tracker can monitor my keyword rankings over time to track my progress.
    
• Ahrefs Pricing (February 2025): This subscription software offers five subscription options, Starter ($29/month), Lite ($129/month), Standard ($249/month), Advanced ($449/month), and Enterprise ($1,499/month).

How I Use It for Top Rankings

I use Ahrefs as my alternative tool (to SEO Utils) for keyword research. With the rise of AI Overviews and zero-click searches, keyword search volume has been wildly inaccurate for some time. It’s good to have multiple sources of keyword search volume.

Here are my steps:

1. I analyze my keyword list using Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer.
2. I use Site Explorer to check the overall performance of my campaign, as I prefer certain visual reports, such as the organic keywords graph.

Semrush

• What is it for? Semrush is another all-in-one SEO and digital marketing toolkit. It offers a wide range of tools for keyword research, competitor analysis, site audits, backlink analysis, and content marketing. It’s a comprehensive platform for managing various aspects of online visibility.
  
• How does it help with SEO? Semrush is a versatile platform that assists me with:
  
  • Keyword Research: Semrush’s keyword magic tool helps me discover relevant keywords, and analyze their search volume, keyword difficulty, and related keywords. I use it to build comprehensive keyword lists for my content.
  • Competitor Analysis: I can use Semrush to analyze my competitors’ organic search traffic, keyword rankings, backlink profiles, and advertising strategies. This allows me to identify opportunities to outperform them and refine my strategy.
  • Site Audit: Semrush’s site audit tool crawls my website and identifies technical SEO issues, like broken links, duplicate content, and slow loading speeds. I use it to fix technical problems that could be impacting my rankings.
  • Backlink Analysis: Semrush’s backlink analysis tools provide insights into my website’s backlink profile, including the number of backlinks, referring domains, anchor text distribution, and the quality of the linking sites. This helps me identify and disavow toxic backlinks and build high-quality links.
  • Rank Tracking: Semrush’s position tracking tool allows me to monitor my keyword rankings over time and track my progress.
    
• Semrush Pricing (February 2025): This subscription software offers three subscription options, Pro ($139.95/month), Guru ($249.95/month), and Business ($499.95/month).

How I Use It for Top Rankings

I find these tools inaccurate when I compare their data with the first-party data in my clients’ Google Search Console (GSC). However, we don’t always have GSC to rely on, especially for competitor data.

1. Like Ahrefs, Semrush acts as my backup tool for keyword research. 
2. I use it for directional insights. For example, even if Semrush overestimates search volume (e.g., showing 1,000 searches when the actual volume is 500), it can still reliably indicate that this keyword is more popular than another estimated at 100 searches.

SurgeGraph Vertex

• What is it for? SurgeGraph Vertex is a content intelligence and SEO tool that focuses on helping you create content that ranks. It analyzes top-performing content in your niche to identify what’s working and provides recommendations for creating similar, but even better, content. It emphasizes data-driven content creation.
  
• How does it help with SEO?
  
  • Content Creation: SurgeGraph Vertex analyzes the top-ranking pages for a given keyword and provides insights into their content structure, word count, headings, and other key elements. Then it helps me create an outline and content draft.
  • Content Optimization: The tool provides recommendations for optimizing my content based on what’s working for top-ranking pages. This includes suggestions for keyword density, heading structure, and overall content length. It helps ensure my content is aligned with search engine expectations.
    
• SurgeGraph Pricing (February 2025): This subscription software offers a membership plan based on the length of the subscription: 1 month ($49.99/month), 1 year ($29.92/month billed yearly), and 3 years ($19.42/month billed every three years).

How I Use It for Top Rankings

1. I select a keyword from my list and generate my outline using SurgeGraph Vertex.
2. I then review the outline to ensure an engaging narrative flow. Once satisfied with the outline, I generate the full article.
3. Next, I fact-check the article, verifying all statistics and claims.
4. Lastly, I edit the content for flow and clarity.

Gemini

• What is it for? Gemini is a large language model (LLM). It can be used for a wide variety of tasks, including generating text, translating languages, writing different kinds of creative content, and answering your questions in an informative way. In the context of SEO, it’s a powerful tool for content creation and optimization.
  
• How does it help with SEO? Gemini can assist with SEO in several ways:
  
  • Content Generation: Gemini can help generate various types of SEO content, such as blog posts, articles, and meta descriptions.
  • Content Optimization: I can use Gemini to analyze existing content and suggest improvements for readability, keyword usage, and overall quality. It can help ensure that my content is optimized for both search engines and users.
  • Keyword Research (Assistance): While Gemini isn’t a dedicated keyword research tool, it can help brainstorm related keywords and topics. I can use it to expand my keyword lists and discover new search terms.
  • Answering User Questions: Gemini can help me craft clear and concise answers to frequently asked questions related to my niche. This can be valuable for creating FAQ content or responding to user inquiries on my website.
    
• Gemini Pricing (February 2025): You can try it for one month at no charge. It costs $19.99 per month after the trial.

How I Use It for Top Rankings

1. I use it to refine my text but am careful not to take Gemini’s content word for word due to Google’s AI watermark technology called SynthID.
2. Since Gemini can browse the internet, I sometimes use it to analyze the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) to identify the search intent of a query.
3. By analyzing the search intent, I’m able to craft unique angles for my articles.

Grammarly

• What is it for? Grammarly is a writing assistant that detects and corrects grammar, spelling, punctuation, and style errors. It helps ensure that your writing is clear, concise, and error-free.
  
• How does it help with SEO? While Grammarly doesn’t directly influence search engine algorithms, it plays a crucial role in creating high-quality content, which is a major ranking factor. Here’s how:
  
  • Improved Content Quality: By catching and correcting errors, Grammarly helps me produce polished and professional content. This enhances readability and user experience, which are indirectly important for SEO. Users are more likely to engage with and share well-written content.
  • Enhanced User Experience: Error-free content makes it easier for users to understand and digest the information. A positive user experience can lead to a longer time on the page, lower bounce rates, and increased engagement—all positive signals for search engines.
  • Professionalism and Credibility: Error-free writing projects professionalism and builds trust with your audience. This can lead to increased brand authority and credibility, which can indirectly influence SEO.
  • Avoiding Misinterpretations: Clear and concise writing prevents misinterpretations and ensures that your message is conveyed effectively. This is crucial for ensuring that your content accurately targets the intended keywords and topics.
    
• Grammarly Pricing (February 2025): This subscription software is $30/month when billed monthly.

How I Use It for Top Rankings

1. I use Grammarly to check and correct my grammar.
2. At times, I use it to improve the clarity of my sentences.
3. I ensure my articles are free from spelling mistakes before publishing them.

ShortPixel

• What is it for? ShortPixel is an image optimization tool that compresses images without losing too much quality. It helps reduce image file sizes, which is crucial for website speed and performance.
  
• How does it help with SEO? ShortPixel contributes to SEO primarily by improving website speed and user experience, both of which are direct ranking factors. Here’s how:
  
  • Improved Page Speed: Large image files can significantly slow down website loading times. ShortPixel compresses images, reducing their file size and making pages load faster. Page speed is a critical ranking factor, so optimizing images is essential for SEO.  
  • Enhanced User Experience: Faster loading times lead to a better user experience. Users are more likely to stay on a website that loads quickly, which can reduce bounce rates and increase time on the page—positive signals for search engines.  
  • Better Core Web Vitals: Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that measure user experience, including loading speed. Optimizing images with ShortPixel directly improves Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), a Core Web Vital, which can positively impact rankings.  
  • Improved Mobile Performance: Mobile users are particularly sensitive to slow loading times. Optimizing images with ShortPixel is crucial for providing a good mobile experience, which is increasingly important for SEO as mobile-first indexing becomes the norm.
    
• ShortPixel Pricing (February 2025): This subscription software offers two subscription options: Unlimited Monthly ($9.99/month) and Unlimited Yearly ($99.90/year).

How I Use It for Top Rankings

1. I use it to optimize all the images that I include in my article.
2. I mostly use lossy compression because it offers the best balance between image quality and reduction of file size.

Google Search Console

• What is it for? Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool offered by Google that allows you to monitor your website’s presence in Google Search results.
  
• How does it help with SEO?
  
  • Track keyword rankings: I can see which queries my pages are ranking for, their clicks, impressions, average position, and click-through rates (CTR). This helps me identify opportunities to improve content or target new keywords.
  • Identify crawl errors: GSC alerts me to any issues Googlebot encounters when crawling my site, like broken links or server errors. Fixing these ensures Google can access and index all my content.
  • Submit sitemaps: I use it to submit my XML sitemap, which helps Google understand the structure of my website and ensures all pages are indexed.
  • Monitor indexing: I can see which pages have been indexed by Google and request indexing for new or updated content.
  • Receive manual action notifications: If Google has taken any manual actions against my site (e.g., due to spam), I’ll be notified here.
    
• Google Search Console Pricing (February 2025): Free
  

How I Use It for Top Rankings

Google Search Console recently introduced a 24 hours view and it has since been my favorite feature.

When you publish a new article, there is a short window where Google will test it, and potentially reward it with higher impressions. If you wait for the standard view (7 days, 28 days, or 3 months) the initial “test” period is already over. Hence, the 24 hours view is crucial to make quick adjustments.

Here are my steps:

1. After creating my content and optimizing images, I’m ready to publish. I’ll then submit the article to Google using the URL Inspection Tool.
2. Next, I will monitor the performance of my new article using the 24 hours view.
3. Specifically, I monitor three key metrics: impressions (if they are significant, I will spend more time making the content even better), CTR (if it is low, I will rewrite the title), and top queries (are there any queries that I can better answer in the article?).

Serprobot

• What is it for? Serprobot is a rank-tracking tool that allows you to monitor your website’s keyword rankings in search engines. It provides data on your keyword positions, search volume, and other relevant metrics.
  
• How does it help with SEO? Serprobot helps with SEO by:
  
  • Tracking Keyword Performance: It monitors your website’s ranking for specific keywords over time, allowing you to see how your SEO efforts are impacting your search visibility.
  • Measuring SEO Effectiveness: By tracking your keyword rankings, you can measure the effectiveness of your SEO campaigns and make data-driven decisions about your future strategy.
  • Reporting and Analysis: Serprobot provides reports and data visualizations that make it easy to analyze your keyword performance and track your progress over time.
    
• Serprobot Pricing (February 2025): Each paid SERP Bot costs $4.99/month and provides 75 keyword updates per 24 hours. Hire as many bots as needed.

How I Use It for Top Rankings

SEO tool features can be inaccurate but the hardest thing to screw up is rank tracking. For example, search volume estimations can be wildly inaccurate, whereas rank tracking is a relatively simple process. Therefore, I tend to choose the most affordable tool for rank tracking.

1. I don’t track all keywords because a single page can rank for multiple keywords. I track only the main keywords of my pages.
2. Priority is given to keywords that I’m actively testing strategies or my top-performing keywords.
3. If my keywords rankings are going up, then I know my strategy is working.