The only B2B digital marketing channel more effective than SEO is AI-powered SEO. SEO technology with AI, machine learning, and automation can help digital marketers achieve better results faster, leading to a higher ROI and overall company growth. At this point, the question is, why wouldn’t you want to leverage the power of AI to help accelerate your SEO results?
With that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of the best AI-based search engine optimization tools to help you optimize your optimization strategies 😏.
Best AI Tool For Keyword Research
Keyword research is the process of finding search terms your target audience uses throughout their buyer journey to find the services and products you deliver.
A good keyword strategy involves finding low competition, high-search-volume keywords that are highly transactional for shoe-in conversations. Long-tail keywords are often overlooked, as are local keyword variations.
What AI SEO tool do we recommend using for your keyword research? An old favourite:
Semrush
Summary
A well-respected tool that predates the AI boom, Semrush is what many people call an all-in-one SEO tool with plenty of AI-powered features, an intuitive interface, and advanced keyword research.
Cost
Keyword Research Feature Highlights
- ChatGPT search tracking: Monitor domain visibility in ChatGPT (business plan).
- Keyword Overview: Use AI-powered insights to dive deep into your keyword strategy and analysis.
- Keyword Magic Tool: Access over 26 billion keywords and get thousands of related words ideas from a single seed search term.
- Keyword Gap Tool: When performing competitor analysis, this tool can offer a side-by-side view of your top five competitors using Semrush’s Copilot to give deep insights about where you stand and what opportunities are waiting for you.
Pros
- One of the most widely known and respected SEO tools in the business with a full suite of AI-boosted tools that pretty much cover everything you need as an SEO marketer.
- Lots of data at your fingertips, but its data visualizations make insights easy to grasp.
- Streamlining your other marketing channels is simplified with Semrush’s third-party integration capabilities. Connect to PPC platforms, social media, and content tools.
- Free trial
Cons
- The cost of a business account can be a barrier to entry.
- Pricing plans are limited to one user per plan.
- While data visualizations are certainly helpful, marketers new to the interface may feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data available.
Honourable Mentions
- Moz Keyword Explorer
- Ahrefs
- SEO Surfer
Best SEO Tools For Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the process of optimizing your web page to be fast, responsive, and easy for search engines and AI crawlers to navigate. Conceptually speaking, it’s what happens on the backend of your site to ensure your site is crawled, indexed, and understood.
Now thanks to automation and AI agents (which are autonomous systems that can perform tasks, make decisions, and pursue certain goals all by themselves) AI technical SEO tools are really making marketers lives a whole lot simpler.
What tool do we recommend? Here’s one to beat:
Alli AI
Summary
Alli AI is admittedly pretty cool. What makes it so powerful is how much automation is possible. Alli AI crawls your site, identifies technical issues, and makes recommendations on how to fix your broken links or slow site speed. If you want to be more of a passenger, it can take the wheel and make these fixes for you.
Thanks to its SEO AI Agent (still in beta mode), users can relinquish pretty much the entire technical optimization process.
Cost
Key Content Features
- With just a click of a button, you can command Alli AI to bulk update hundreds of web pages (even though that idea scares us a little bit).
- Its AI-powered internal linking feature can scan your entire site and suggest internal linking opportunities, and then actually do the task for you, saving you what could be hours of manual entry.
- Its schema markup generator helps your marketing team improve your page visibility on AI search engines.
- No matter which CMS you’re using, Alli AI can help you make live edits to your page elements.
Pros
- Really robust AI-powered tools and automations can save users time and effort.
- Offers a wide range of SEO tools beyond its technical SEO abilities.
- Designed to be as intuitive and user-friendly as possible (though, of course, there is still a slight learning curve).
Cons
- Its entry costs might not be affordable to some.
- There are concerns about its customer support.
Best For Content Creation & Optimization
This is probably one of the hardest categories to judge, as there is no shortage of AI writing tools out there. In a way, it makes sense. Generative AI happens to generate SEO content at a speed unmatched by even the most prolific of typists.
ChatGPT
Summary
ChatGPT has become a household name—not just for those who write AI articles, but for anyone who has ever harbored a burning desire to have a relatively intelligent conversation with a robot. Or something like that.
We assume all readers are familiar with ChatGPT, but if you’ve never used it for content creation, be aware that like all AI content optimization and creation tools out there, we don’t suggest publishing ChatGPT content on your site without human oversight (SEO best practices and E-E-A-T being what they are).
Cost
Key Features for Content Creation
- Not sure what to write? Simply give ChatGPT the topic and, almost immediately, it’ll give you a list of content ideas and different ways to approach the topic, with possible outlines and CTAs.
- Know what you need to write about but not sure how to structure your content? You can prompt it to create an outline for you with appropriate headers and keyword considerations.
- Need to fast-track your writing? With the right prompts, ChatGPT can write the first draft for you, allowing you to take over at the end with tweaks, fact-checks, and a final polish to give the piece your own unique voice.
Pros
- Its ability to create volumes of content at speed can save small marketing teams time and money.
- For lighter content creation, its free version may be enough for smaller SEO operations.
- Its versatility drives up its ROI. Marketers can use ChatGPT not just for their content creation, but for various tasks (email, coding, meta data, etc).
- While finding the right prompts is all about practice, it’s the easiest tool to use.
Cons
- ChatGPT, and GenAI in general, can hallucinate, so human oversight is still recommended.
- For longer or more complex topics, it has a tendency to repeat itself or stick with top-level information, which may affect your site authority.
- While ChatGPT is improving all the time, it is still often easy to spot AI-generated content (only a bad thing if you’re trying to convince people of human authorship)
Its entry costs might not be affordable to some.
Honourable Mentions
- Jasper.ai
- Frase.io
- Koala.ai
- Writesonic.ai
Best AI SEO Tool for Off-Page Optimization
In SEO patois, when we say off-page SEO, many of us are actually referring to backlinks. But on a broader scale, referrals and entity mentions from other high-authority sites are also strong signals for both traditional and AI-powered search engines.
When looking for an off-page optimization tool, the winner is pretty clear.
Ahrefs
Summary
Ahrefs has made a big push to amplify its AI features that promise high-powered optimization opportunities across the SEO spectrum—not just for off-page. In fact, it’s even calling itself the ‘marketing platform for the AI era’, so it already sounds like a promising SEO tool for those who are more robotically inclined. And just by glancing at its pricing page with its powerful offerings and add-ons, you might say that Ahrefs is where the pros like to play.
Cost
Off-Page Feature Highlights
- As the self-proclaimed second-most active web crawler (after Google), it boasts the most comprehensive backlink database, which helps businesses gain a more realistic view of referring domains, backlinks, and domain rankings.
- With the help of AI, Ahrefs evaluates backlink quality and helps you narrow down links that are beneficial to your SEO.
- Discovers and suggests link-building opportunities that are appropriate for your industry.
Pros
- By far one of the most comprehensive AI SEO platforms available.
- Reliable and extensive data coverage from multiple search engines.
- Its unique ‘domain rating’ helps users understand the strength of their backlink profile.
Cons
- While there are plenty of add-ons and pricing tiers available , there’s actually no free trial.
- At the time of writing this, there is no mobile app for on-the-go work.
- There is only one user per plan.
Honourable Mentions
- SE Ranking
- SEO Quake
- Google Search Console
- Moz Pro
- Majestic
Best AI SEO Tool for Off-Page Optimization
SEO creates a lot of data, so it’s important to have a tool that’s easy to read, trustworthy, and comprehensive. Add AI into the mix, and you’re looking at insights, predictions, and actionable suggestions.
Google Analytics
Summary
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Google Analytics, or GA4, is the essential SEO tool with AI capabilities known and used by pretty much anyone looking for accurate traffic data.
This free SEO analysis tool may just be the thing aspiring noobs cut their teeth on, as it provides all the reporting, tracking, and analysis features one could need.
With built-in automation, real-time reports, and seamless Google ecosystem integrations, what the heck would an AI SEO tool list be without the SEO mothership?
Cost
Key Analytics and Reporting Features
- Provides accurate and privacy-minded reporting on customer journeys through machine learning.
- Can predict who is most likely to take actions, which allows users to build audiences and drive up conversions.
- Users can see how their audience is behaving on the site with reporting on acquisitions, events, conversions, and more.
- Automatically detects important changes within the data to provide actionable insights.
- Through APIs, users can import interaction data from other third-party systems.
Pros
- The free version is often all any marketing team will need.
- Reports and web analytics are ready to go out-of-the-box
- Its enhanced integration with other Google products makes it easy for marketers to see their campaigns with a wider lens.
Cons
- Puts the onus of GDPR compliance on the website owner.
- While Analytics is usually everyone’s go-to reporting tool, the wealth of data it offers can feel intimidating to people just starting out (but if that’s the case, there are plenty of free online tutorials around).
- Websites with large amounts of data may face data sampling, which is when Google analyzes only samples of your data rather than all of it.
Honourable Mentions
- Google Looker Studio
- Search Atlas
- MarketMuse
- Surfer SEO
What They Don't Tell You About SEO Tools
AI Tools Do Not Replace SEO Expertise
Cars are faster than running shoes, but if you only know how to tie your laces, you may as well start walking. What that (probably mixed) metaphor is trying to say is that AI tools for SEO can only go so far.
If you’re relatively new to SEO and think that these tools can do all the lifting for you, you may be missing out on a wealth of potential by not skilling up on the SEO basics. If this sounds like you, start here.
Google Doesn’t Share Its Data with Third-Party Tools
Google’s algorithms are as closely guarded as Coca-Cola’s recipe. They don’t give any third-party tools access to their data, so if you’re using tools like Semrush, SE Ranking, or Ahrefs, bear in mind that they’re just scraping Google Search data to make their analyses. Juuuust in case your GA4 reports don’t match up with any other data, now you know why.
AI SEO Software Isn’t Going to Make You Rank #1
Not that AI SEO tools are going around like snake oil salesmen making empty promises, but it’s important to keep in mind that even if you use all the right AI SEO tools in all the right ways, you’re not guaranteed a top spot on Google search result pages. SEO is a game that everyone’s playing, so while using AI-powered software can help you complete SEO tasks faster and better than before, you’re up against constant and stiff competition.
Want the truth behind your SEO tools? Listen to our SEO Unfiltered podcast episode.
What They Don't Tell You About SEO Tools
It feels like we’ve barely scratched the surface, but that’s probably because new and innovative SEO and content tools with AI integration are popping up all the time. It’s clear that there’s an industry need, but what’s also clear is that the well-established tools that SEO strategy experts have been using all along (tools like Ahrefs) are still hard to beat.
Our prediction? With the evolution of AI Overviews, zero-click searches, and the new category of generative engine optimization, there will soon be no need to qualify SEO tools as AI-powered because before long, it’ll be a given.
