5 SEO magic wands

There are hundreds of tools to help SEO and each year new and improved ones appear offering more features, capabilities, and convenience. Some of them can help automate yet another routine task and save time or simply be an improvement on those we already use. However, you need a basic tool, multitool, which is used constantly. It's like a basic wardrobe - you can buy fashionable, bright accessories every season, but you need classic jeans, a turtleneck and a little black dress (optionally replaced with a white shirt). This is what will be discussed, these universal magic wands.

SEMrush

This year marks the 10 year anniversary of the launch of the brainchild of Oleg Shchegolev and Dmitry Melnikov. It currently has more than 2.5 million users, including Ebay, Booking.com, HP, Quora and many others.

It also has more than 100 regional databases, over 130 million domains, and over 800 million keywords are about SEMrush. The Live Update Algorithm, which SEMrush uses to update its data depending on popularity in search queries, is updated daily, weekly or monthly. The more popular the keyword, the more often it is updated.

It is able to do almost anything - from selecting keywords to content analysis. What can't it do? For example, check the indexation of pages on the site.

A possible reason not to use it (not taking into account that the cost is above average), is if you are promoting a website with runet, this is because the service does not work with Yandex.

Alexa Marketing Stack

Makes a bet on the analysis of competitors and audience.

Alexa will show the level of competition concerning keywords and let you know if the site is popular based on how many monthly visitors it has. Alexa will also find competitor sites and inform you about them. However, keep in mind that the data is limited to users who have the Alexa Toolbar installed. Some users point out that this allows ratings to be manipulated and, in terms of analyzing Alexa’s traffic, it’s not the most reliable solution, which means less free Google analytics.

However, it all depends on your needs. If you already have enough of the Analytics functions then, actually, Alexa would not be as good. We are, however, looking for new tools besides masthub as we are on the lookout for more opportunities! To adopt the best from our competitors, choose and build a strategy and follow the dynamics of website promotion. Alexa is interesting in this regards, it gives you the opportunity to get an overview and judge the trends.

Ahrefs

Links, links, links. If you want to know all about links, then you have come to the right place.

The largest backlink index.

The official website calls their index a “mini search engine”, and their crawler “second most active after Google”. Have a look for yourselves.






Among the minuses and lags, users note:

• insufficient data on niche keywords,
• not the most effective site audit,
• a difficult UX & UI,
• rank tracker does not allow the tracking of individual subdirectories,
• inaccurate estimates of organic and paid search queries.

Similarweb

This is what is written about them:

Our approach to data is guided by the principle of “methodological pluralism”- a tenet in the philosophy of science that all methodologies have strengths and weaknesses, and the best approach to “triangulation the truth” is to use multiple algorithms and data sources, with the goal of merging their strengths and canceling their weaknesses. This unique, multidimensional data collection approach is the foundation of our entire business.

However, when I try to view the data, I often encounter the message "not enough data". As with any other platform, you cannot expect 100% accuracy. The fact that this is the service's goal is a positive.

Some users note that some features are not available in all countries, even in the Pro version. So before purchasing the program, it is worth clarifying this point in order to avoid disappointment. Also, when looking at reviews, I came across negative comments concerning the support service, the keyword in them was “long”

Serpstat

In 5 years, the platform has evolved from an internal tool of a SEO-agency into an international service and entered the top 100 of the g2crowd rating this year.



Services with similar capabilities market themselves differently. Some as marketing tools, some as a universal set for website promotion, a set for web analytics, etc. With Serpstat, everything is unambiguous - a Swiss knife, honed for SEO. Full site audit, monitoring (including competitors), ppc data, content analysis.

In terms of shortcomings, users note:

• not enough data on Adwords in the US
• incomplete backlink database (in comparison, for example, with Ahrefs) 
• it is not possible to see the total site traffic (across all channels and regions)

Although all the services mentioned above are international and are not limited to one country, the completeness of the bases by country differs significantly. This is worth remembering when making a choice.

You can learn about the main features on SEO software comparison table

And also, that the external tool will not give completely reliable data with regards to traffic. There are internal analytics tools for analyzing your site, but that's a different story. We only observe trends and draw ideas from competitor traffic.

Here, for example, data on the total traffic for the month for all 5 services were obtained by using two of them.


In conclusion, I’ll say that although the perfect SEO magic wand does not exist, there are popular models which give you a variety to choose from. Observe its workmanship, reliability and ease of use. But learning a few spells is a task we'll leave to you!

Try a few trials, compare and choose the best specifically for your projects!