Running a blog is hard work, especially if your goal is to grow via organic traffic.
You can’t just write about anything and expect the traffic to explode. You need to have an SEO strategy, perform keyword research, figure out PR, do on-page SEO, monitor your rankings, and more. Not to mention the actual content creation.
It’s a lot to manage for anybody.
Fortunately, there are tons of recommended seo tools to improve a blog’s search engine ranking out there that can take some of these tasks off your plate and help make your job as a blogger easier.
In this article, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite SEO tools for bloggers, what their best use case is, and what users are saying about them.
Ready? Let’s dive in!
| Best Use Case | Biggest Downside | Pricing | G2 / TrustPilot Rating | |
| TopicRanker | Finding easy to rank keywords based on SERP weaknesses | Relatively new company | $9 – $129 per month | N/A |
| JustReachOut | Finding and pitching journalists for PR | Limited international search results | $147 – $497 per month | 4.6 stars |
| Exploding Topics | Uncovering emerging trends to write content about | High price point | $79 – $499 per month | 3.9 stars |
| Link Whisper | Building internal links | Link suggestions are sometimes irrelevant | $97 – $187 license fee | 4.5 stars |
| Rank Math | On-page SEO and content optimization tools in WordPress | Buggy software updates | $6.99 – $49.99 per month | 4.8 stars |
| Google Search Console | Monitoring your blog’s performance on Google | Not great for non-technical bloggers | Free | 4.7 stars |
| Semrush | Comprehensive keyword research & competitor analysis tools | Very expensive | $129.95 – $499.95 per month | 4.5 stars |
TopicRanker
Pricing: $19 – $129 per month
What It’s For: Finding easy to rank keywords based on weak spots in SERPs
TopicRanker which was founded in 2022 is one the best keyword research tools which uses AI-powered bulk SERP analysis to suggest easy-to-rank target keywords in your niche based on specific weaknesses and problems identified in search results that your competitors are struggling with.
TopicRanker eliminates a lot of potential mistakes that newbie bloggers commit when doing keyword research. This is because TopicRanker surfaces golden keyword opportunities for your blog based on specific problems and weaknesses in the search results, such as:
- Low authority & backlinks sites ranking in top 10 spots
- Title mismatch – the search query googled does not match the title in top 10 results that are ranking
- Outdated content
- Thin content – content ranking in top 10 is less than 800 words in length
- Poor load score on mobile for top 10 ranking – takes more than 3 seconds to load
- Poor readability for top 10 ranking
- High spam score of the domain ranking in top 10 and others
When you use Ahrefs, KeywordTool.io or any other keyword tool you pick a keyword from their reports based on keyword difficulty metric and the search volume. You overlook a MAJOR factor: Do the search results actually have any real issues you can correct?
TopicRanker only shows keyword suggestions where one of the above problems exist in the SERP, so you can capitalize on those issues in your own piece of content to increase your chances of outranking your competitors.
What customers are saying:
I am a private practice physical therapist, TopicRanker has been a game changer. In just one week I found two SERPs with weak spots, published two landing pages targeting these keywords and I am already ranking high on Google in just days and moving up!
-Marissa St Germain, Dover Physical Therapist @ MagnifyPT
Besides helping you finding easy to rank keywords, TopicRanker plans also come with a suite of writing tools that can be a gamechanger for your content creation process:
- Title Generator: Unlock the Power of Engaging Headlines
- Content Brief Generator: Your Blueprint for Success
- Article Writer: Jumpstart Your Content Creation
- Meta Description Suggest Tool: Elevate Your SEO Game
JustReachOut – 4.6/6 stars
Pricing: $147 – $497 per month
What It’s For: Finding and pitching relevant journalists to land press mentions
| Businesses Like JustReachOut For: | Businesses Dislike JustReachOut For: |
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What customers are saying:
“Dmitry and his team are top-notch! They’ve gone above and beyond to help clarify how to best approach media outlets for our software company. We’ve been featured in Business.com, Forbes, Entrepreneur, and other media outlets. Plus, their software makes the job of finding our best sources super simple.”
-Chris B.
“JustReachOut is the perfect platform for the DIY PR person who needs additional guidance. Dmitry and his team have a wealth of experience and do an excellent job of imparting their PR wisdom. I’m continually amazed at how the platform continues to evolve. This is way more than just a database of contacts.”
-Stephen J.
JustReachOut is an AI-powered PR software and outreach tool. It has a database of more than 700k journalists in a variety of industries that you can pitch to land legitimate press mentions for your blog.
Plus, JustReachOut verifies their email addresses so you don’t have to spend time searching for what email to use. If you’ve never written PR pitches before, the tool provides some standardized templates to get you started. You can also schedule automatic follow ups in case you don’t get a response.
Another useful feature that JustReachOut has for bloggers is broken link building. This is a feature that surfaces broken links on established blogs in your industry.
If you have a relevant piece of content that would fit context of these broken links, you can pitch your piece to be plugged into its place. This is a great and relatively simple method for building authority backlinks to your blog.
Exploding Topics
Pricing: $79 – $499 per month
What It’s For: Uncovering emerging trends to write content about
G2 Rating: N/A
Exploding Topics is a tool that finds emerging trends and topics before they take off. This is useful to you as a blogger because it allows you to get ahead of the curve and beat your competitors to hot topics.
If you know what topics, products, and services are going to be the next big thing, you can take advantage of that by shifting your focus and content strategy in that direction.
In a lot of ways Exploding Topics is similar to Google Trends. The main difference is that Exploding Topics serves the information right to you so you don’t have to do as much digging. All you have to do is select a category that relates to your blog’s niche, then Exploding Topics will bring up a list of trending topics in that category.
Link Whisper – 4.5/5 stars
Pricing: $97 – $187 license fee
What It’s For: Building internal links to boost your SEO
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What customers are saying:
“[Link Whisper] simplifies the process of adding internal links while creating content, saving time by suggesting relevant links within your site. Also it improves the overall structure and organiz=zation of your website by creating a network of interconnected content.”
-Karan S.
“[Link Whisper] helps a lot in finding the right internal links for posts right while editing them in the WordPress editor. Although we do not use it much for some posts it can help find relevant old articles to be linked and pass on the link juice. The suggestions sometimes are not that relevant just because of having some words in the article makes them look like they are relevant when they are not. Otherwise it is good at choosing the suggestions.”
-Himanshu S.
Link Whisper is one of the few seo plugins for wordpress which focuses on building internal links on your blog. Internal link building makes it easier for search engines to understand your blog’s architecture and subject matter. But the problem with building internal links is that it gets extremely tedious the more posts you have.
Link Whisper automates the link building process by providing automatic link suggestions as you write in WordPress.
The more articles you have published, the more link suggestions the tool will provide. You can view all of your blog’s internal and external links in a centralized dashboard and figure out which of your posts need more internal links. It’ll also show you any broken links or 404 pages on your blog so you can edit or remove them.
Rank Math – 4.8/5 stars
Pricing: $6.99 – $49.99 per month
What It’s For: One of best on-page SEO tools. On-page SEO and optimizing content in WordPress
G2 Rating: 4.8/5 (108 reviews)
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What customers are saying:
“I switched to Rank Math about a year ago and I am blown away by the amount value it provides. I realized that many of my posts had very low Rank scores, which helped me to all of a sudden realize why my posts weren’t getting much traffic. I started to rework my posts based on the feedback Rank Math provided and can consistently get my scores at 90+ now. I’ve seen a tremendous amount of growth in website traffic, from about 1,000 users a month to over 10,000. Seriously, without this tool my SEO would be a mess.”
-Justin T.
“I used Yoast and AllinOne SEO plugins for wordpress before but after switching to RankMath, I never looked back. Rank Math can easily import data from other plugins too. I am using RankMath on more than 10+ websites where 8 websites are daily using Rank Math…It has powerful seo analytics, advanced schema integration, a news and video sitemap, 404 monitors, redirection and an Instant Index feature that is very useful for my websites.”
-Mukesh P.
Rank Math is one of the best on-page seo tools and seo plugins for wordpress blogs. It comes with built-in suggestions that make it easy to optimize your content even if you’re not all that knowledgeable when it comes to SEO.
Rank Math will give every post you write an SEO score with suggestions for how you can further optimize the content to improve it. While achieving a high SEO score isn’t a foolproof method for ranking in search, it’s an easy way to ensure you’re following best SEO practices.
Some other useful features Rank Math has for bloggers include internal/external link suggestions, keyword suggestions, content readability, sitemaps, and a rank tracker.
Because of its configuration wizard, the plugin is relatively easy to set up and you can also choose exactly how much control you want over your site’s SEO — it has an “Easy” mode that’s designed for beginners, and an “Advanced” mode that allows you to access more complex options and settings.
Search Console – 4.7/5 stars
Pricing: Free
What It’s For: Monitoring and improving your blog’s performance on Google
G2 Rating: 4.7/5 (387 reviews)
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What customers are saying:
“This is a must-have tool for any website owner. It is mandatory for SEOs and super helpful for analyzing how Google sees your website. It’s easy to set up and integrate with other Google tools. I use it daily.”
-Ivan A.
“Google Search Console integrates well with any website, including WordPress (which I use), and Google Analytics. It lets me see the biggest the thing that GA is missing – how people find me. Figuring out where people are coming from is great, but seeing what exactly they searched for or clicked on is even better.”
-Kyle S.
Google Search Console is one of the best seo reporting tools and seo analytics tools out there. It’s a free service for monitoring your blog’s performance in Google’s search results. Search Console will show you data on the total number of clicks, total impressions, average click-through rate, and your average ranking position for your content.
You can also use it to figure out specific search terms people are using to find your site and which articles they’re clicking on. This data can help you make decisions about new keywords to target and which posts you should spend time updating.
If your blog is brand new, you can submit your sitemap and new articles to Google Search Console for faster indexing. The faster your content is crawled and indexed, the faster you can potentially start ranking in the SERPs.
Semrush – 4.5/5 stars
Pricing: $129.95 – $499.95 per month
What It’s For: Comprehensive keyword research and competitor analysis for SEO, PPC, and social media marketing
G2 Rating: 4.5/5 (2012 reviews)
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What customers are saying:
“Semrush gives you a 360-degree overview of either the keyword or the domain. I typically set up a free version of Semrush tracking for almost every domain I work. It takes less than 5 minutes and you get a repository where you can easily see what happened, why and when. No matter how much I understand Semrush is worth each penny, I cannot afford the subscription I want. When necessary, a monthly subscription does wonders.”
-Nikolina M.
“Semrush is an all-around excellent tool. I use the keyword research tools and competitor research tools on a daily basis. While I’m writing content, I have the Semrush Writing Assistant running along with Grammarly. That way, I know my content will be as “tight” as possible. I love their seo audit tools. After publishing, I run a Site Audit and an On-Page SEO check as final checks for any problems or improvements. Semrush is definitely my main tool for creating quality content and following the best SEO techniques.”
-Robert S.
Semrush is a pretty advanced tool and maybe even a bit overpowered if you’re a new blogger. But once your blog starts to grow, Semrush is an ideal investment if you want to scale your efforts.
Semrush is an all-in-one SEO tool with keyword research, competitor analysis tools, site audits, backlink analysis tools, and more. Its competitor research tool is particularly useful as it shows you what what keywords your competitors are ranking for and gaps in their content that you may be able to capitalize on.
It also has a position tracking feature so you can monitor how your articles are ranking and how your competitors are ranking.
Final Thoughts
Being a blogger means wearing many hats.
Investing in the right off-page SEO tools and on-page SEO tools can help you save time while making it easier to rank and scale your blog.
Here’s a quick recap of our favorite SEO tools for bloggers:
- TopicRanker
- JustReachOut
- Exploding Topics
- Link Whisper
- Rank Math
- Google Search Console
- Semrush
It probably goes without saying that we think TopicRanker is one of the best — if not the best — SEO tools bloggers can invest in. This is because it makes keyword research and SERP analysis a breeze. No more manually analyzing the SERPs trying to find golden keyword opportunities.
TopicRanker does the work for you. It surfaces easy keyword opportunities for you with no manual labor on your end.
The keyword suggestions TopicRanker gives are based on weaknesses in the SERPs. If you can capitalize on these in your own content, you stand a very good chance of ranking.
In fact, this is how I was able to rank the TopicRanker blog in just a week when the domain was brand new. Here’s that post: Which Keywords Are Best To Target: How To & Why Guide
Want to see for yourself how it works? Here’s a quick video showing TopicRanker in action:
Dmitry is the founder of TopicRanker – a software tool to find problems & weaknesses on Google search results and discover keywords you can easily rank for with your website. Over the last 10 years, Dmitry has helped 300+ brands rank #1 on Google through PR and SEO. Dmitry used PR & SEO to grow a startup from 0 to 40 million views per month, and got acquired by Google in 2014. He translated his know-how into JustReachOut.io, a SaaS tool to get covered in press and build authority backlinks without PR firms; it’s been used by 5000+ content marketers to date and was acquired in 2020.