7 Best SEO Automation Software Tools 2024 (Automatic SEO)

by Chris Von Wilpert, BBusMan • Last updated November 23, 2023

Expert Verified by Leandro Langeani, BBA

First-Person Perspective: We buy, test and review software products based on a 3-step rating methodology and first-hand experienceIf you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Read our rating methodology and how we make money.

Today there are 835 different SEO automation tools to automate time consuming, complex SEO processes with. We spent 126 hours comparing the top 50 to find the seven best you can use to streamline your SEO processes for efficiency and speed.

What is the Best SEO Automation Software?

  1. Pathfinder SEO — best of the best
  2. Semrush — best for data analysis
  3. Ahrefs — best for keyword research
  4. HubSpot Marketing Hub — best for lead nurturing
  5. SE Ranking — best for SEO reporting
  6. Sitechecker — best for website analysis
  7. Raven Tools — best for SEO agencies

Our Verdict — Best Of The Best

Price: Starts at $99/month

Pathfinder SEO is an SEO automation software designed for anyone who has to do SEO. Whether you are a business owner with no idea of how SEO works, a new SEO freelancer, or an SEO agency owner, Pathfinder SEO makes the SEO aspect of your business easier using “guided SEO”.

Pathfinder SEO is #1 on our list of the best SEO automation software because of its innovative approach to making SEO easy with its SEO tool + SEO coaching hybrid model.

The Best Part:

  • You get a personal SEO coach or an SEO Partner (if you run an agency) when you purchase any of their packages.

The Worst Part:

  • You have to trust that they are up-to-date with industry trends as you will rely on their roadmap and expertise to make decisions.

Get Pathfinder SEO if you want to carry out the best SEO practices but are at a loss on where to start.

If you intend to outsource search engine optimization to an in-house SEO in the future, get Pathfinder. The course-like structure will serve as an easy onboarding tool. This feature is a big plus for agency owners.

If you already know how SEO works and want SEO automation software for the primary purpose of analyzing data, use Semrush.

I recommend you get on board with Pathfinder SEO if you find SEO overwhelming and cumbersome. Don’t give up on SEO until you try Pathfinder SEO.

(personal SEO coach included)

Best For

Pathfinder SEO is best for anyone from new business owners to pro marketers who find SEO challenging and hard to keep up with.

Top Features

  • Automate your keyword search process. Finding high value keywords, their variations, the search volume of each, and their search intent is easy with Pathfinder’s keyword research tool + personal SEO coach.
  • Set up an SEO optimized website using the SEO checklist. Pathfinder’s SEO checklist is designed like a course to take you through understanding the basics of SEO. Each aspect has a detailed dropdown menu with concise explanations and instructions to follow in real-time.
  • Monitor the rankings of every web page and keyword. Use the Keyword Ranking toolkit to monitor the progress on each page and the keywords you want to rank higher for.
  • Get SEO reports and SEO tasks sent to your email monthly. You can also track your SEO progress using the “completion calculator” which shows you what SEO tasks you have done and not done from your checklist. 
  • View key performance metrics on a single dashboard. Key metrics like your site’s bounce rate, average page sessions, number of visitors, traffic sources, performance per location, and average time spent on site are accessible at a glance.

Pricing

Pathfinder SEO offers three pricing plans:

  • Standard: $99/month for individuals and freelancers using SEO to get more business. You can only do SEO automation for one website on this plan and get a 45 minute SEO coaching call every month. 
  • Pro: $249/month for new freelancers and small teams. You can work on as many as ten websites on this plan, get a 90 minute SEO coaching call every month, and white-label reporting.
  • Pro Plus: $399/month for teams and agencies that need to scale content. You can work on up to 50 website on this plan, get a 135 minute SEO coaching call, and white-label reporting
  • Accelerator: This is a collection of done-for-you services Pathfinder SEO offers. 
    • SEO assessment and roadmap: $500
    • Local SEO: $1500 (this covers keyword research, local search, and setting up Google Analytics for local businesses).
    • Quickstart SEO: $3000 (this covers keyword research, content strategy, and backlink analysis for online businesses).

Crunch down your SEO activities to 15 minutes a day.

Try Pathfinder SEO with a personal SEO coach on any plan.

Our Verdict — Best For Data Analysis

Price: Starts at $119.95/month

Semrush is an industry leader in the SEO software industry. It has a suite of 50+ SEO automation tools that cater to the intensive work that results-driven SEO requires.

Semrush offers a wide range of SEO automation services like keyword research, but goes further to provide data analysis insights like keyword intent, from this data. Keyword intents are a key factor in identifying the keywords to disregard or incorporate into your SEO.

The Best Part:

  • Semrush’s keyword research tool shows you the search intent of every keyword. The search intent indicator saves you time and money from having to check every search engine results page for the intent (informational, transactional, commercial or navigational).

The Worst Part:

  • Mastering Semrush is a steep learning curve. Fortunately, there are educational resources available on the platform to guide you.

Semrush is perfect for sentiment analysis in the market. It offers an easy-to-understand interpretation of data points like search volume, search intents, keyword difficulty, competition level, SERP features, and variations.

Forbes, Quora, Samsung, Amazon, Tesla, and Walmart use Semrush.

(14-day free trial)

Best For

Semrush is best for marketers and in-house marketing teams managing content budgets of $1,000/month or more.

Top Features

  • Diagnose, fix and maintain the health of your website using the On-page SEO toolkit. After a website audit, you will get a checklist with SEO instructions to follow. You will also receive tips on industry changes you should work on routinely.
  • Build backlinks that won’t sabotage you in the future. Analyze your current backlink profile, make adjustments, and create a data-driven strategy for a more authoritative backlink profile using Semrush’s Link Building toolkit.
  • Spy on your competitors' SEO strategy from the last 10+ years. Backtrack and monitor your competitor’s SEO, social media and advertising strategies using Semrush’s Competitor Analysis toolkit.
  • Close industry content gaps and build authority with your content. Generate valuable keywords for your pillar posts and content outlines using Semrush’s Keyword Research toolkit + Google Analytics integration.
  • Discover the brands competing with you for each keyword. Track your positions in every Google SERPs with the Rank Tracking toolkit.

Pricing

Semrush has three pricing plans:

  • Pro: $119.95/month for newbies and small teams. You can work on up to 5 websites on this plan.
  • Guru: $229.95/month for agencies and mid-size businesses. You can work on up to 15 websites on this plan.
  • Business: $449.95/month for large agencies and enterprises. You can work on up to 40 websites on this plan.

Save 17% on annual billing

Try Semrush with a 14-day free trial.

Our Verdict — Best For Keyword Research

Price: Starts at $99/month

Ahrefs is an SEO automation tool that lets you perform the main SEO processes that are automatable: keyword research, backlink analysis, competitor monitoring, rank tracking, and site monitoring.

The keyword research and backlink feature, competitor monitoring, and site monitoring are available on all plans. Sadly, the best of its rank tracking features are not available on the Lite plan.

The Best Part:

  • Ahrefs is the #1 internet crawler in the SEO tools category. This feature makes it the largest repository of keyword data and trends worldwide.

The Worst Part:

  • The SEO reporting feature is currently unavailable on Ahrefs Lite plan. When launched, reporting will not be available on the Lite plan.

Keyword research is limited to 500 searches per month on the Lite plan, with extra charges if you go over the 500 search limit.

Facebook, eBay, Netflix, Shopify, LinkedIn, and Uber use Ahrefs.

(free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools account)

Best For

Ahrefs is best for companies who want to keep their fingers on the pulse of the latest search trends and competitor insights.

Top Features

  • There is no limit to the number of SEO projects you can work on. You also get alerts on the progress of each project/site so you don't have to keep track of them manually.
  • Do keyword research using Ahrefs’ award-winning Keyword Explorer tool. Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer is constantly crawling the world wide web every second; tracking real-time searches and search volume. 
  • Track your rankings on mobile and desktop search. Use Ahrefs Rank Tracker tool to receive emails of changes in keyword ranking positions, new backlinks, toxic links, and lost backlinks.
  • Monitor your site health daily. Use the Site Audit tool to track your site’s load time, uptime, broken links, and lost backlinks… and get notified automatically.
  • Track the SEO activities and backlink profiles of your competitors. Outsource competitor monitoring to the machine to get notified when your competitor lands a high authority backlink.

Pricing

Ahrefs offers four pricing plans:

  • Lite: $99/month for small business owners and bloggers. On this plan, you have access to all of Ahrefs SEO automation tools except for competitor backlinks, keyword rankings, and historical data.
  • Standard: $199/month for SEO professionals and in-house marketers. On this plan, you have access to all of Ahrefs SEO automation tools.
  • Advanced: $399/month for bigger data allowances. On Advanced, you get access to a customizable dashboard and Google Data Studio integration.
  • Enterprise: $999/month for big agencies and enterprises. With Enterprise, you can list on Ahrefs’ Exclusive directory to attract more SEO jobs. You can also manage teams, track work hours, and send invoices on this plan.

Get two months free on annual billing.

Try Ahrefs free Webmaster Tools account.

Our Top Three Picks

Here’s a quick summary of our top three picks:

  1. Pathfinder SEO — best of the best seo automation software
  2. Semrush — best for data analysis
  3. Ahrefs — best for keyword research

Here’s a quick comparison of our top seven picks:

Tool

Entry Offer

Pricing

Pathfinder SEO

None

Starts at $99/mo

Semrush

14-day free trial

Starts at $119.95/mo

Ahrefs

None

Starts at $99/mo

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Free forever tools

Starts at $50/mo

SE Ranking

14-day free trial

Starts at $39/mo

Sitechecker

7-day free trial

Starts at $29/mo

Raven Tools

7-day free trial

Starts at $49/mo

Here are the top 50 seo automation tools we considered in this review:

  1. PathfinderSEO
  2. Semrush
  3. Ahrefs
  4. HubSpot Marketing Hub
  5. SE Ranking
  6. Sitechecker
  7. Raven Tools 
  8. Sistrix
  9. SpyFu
  10. Screaming Frog
  11. SentiOne
  12. BrightLocal 
  13. Ranktracker
  14. Web CEO
  15. Serpstats
  16. Mangoöls
  17. Seobility
  18. Moz
  19. Seobase
  20. SeoPoz
  21. BrightEdge
  22. Sitechecker.pro
  23. SEO Powersuite
  24. Google Trends
  25. Google Analytics
  26. UberSuggest
  27. Marketing 360
  28. AccuRanker
  29. Squirrly SEO
  30. Yoast SEO
  31. SEO Tester Online
  32. Unamo SEO
  33. Raven Tools
  34. Similarweb
  35. Conductor
  36. RankIQ
  37. SEOptimer
  38. SiteGuru
  39. Ryte
  40. Seobility
  41. Plerdy
  42. Netpeak Spider
  43. seoClarity
  44. Marketing Miner
  45. Seodity
  46. Nightwatch
  47. Majestic
  48. Searchmetrics
  49. Morningscore
  50. CognitiveSEO

Is It Possible To Automate SEO?

It is possible to automate the repetitive processes SEO requires you to do. Data scraping and data analysis are repetitive SEO processes that are automatable. It is not possible to automate all parts of SEO. This is because SEO is constantly evolving to adapt to changes in the marketing climate.

In the past, activities like keyword stuffing and link spam would get you to rank higher on search engines. Now, SEO hinges on content marketing, with high-quality content, a user-friendly interface, reviews, and healthy backlinks calling the shots. 

Reviews and healthy backlinks rely heavily on human factors like great customer support and relationship building. Moreover, in recent times, brands winning in SEO are incorporating influencer marketing and storytelling; heavily reliant on empathy and creativity.

SEO cannot be automated, but established systems in your SEO structure can be automated. However, these processes must be updated regularly to match changes in the market.

What Are The 4 Types Of SEO?

The four types of SEO are on-page SEO, off-page SEO, technical SEO, and local SEO.

  1. On-page SEO: On-page SEO refers to optimization activities carried out on parts of your web page to improve its ranking. Some examples of such critical parts of a web page are the meta titles, meta description, images, internal links, keywords, and headers.
  2. Off-page SEO: Off-page SEO refers to the search engine optimization activities carried out outside your website that contribute to the credibility of your website. These activities include social media, email marketing, public relations, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), guest blogging, and directory listings. Off-page SEO also involves competitor research.
  3. Technical SEO: Technical SEO is optimizing a website for a better user experience. Technical SEO covers areas like load time, fixing broken links, page design, mobile responsiveness, and fixing duplicate content. Beyond user experience, another aim of technical SEO is to aid better crawling by search engines.
  4. Local SEO: Local SEO is the group word for SEO activities organized and executed to rank for target keywords in a particular town, city, state, or country. Local SEO includes on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.

What Is The Most Powerful SEO Tool?

The most powerful SEO tool is Ahrefs. Ahrefs is the most powerful SEO tool because it has the world's largest and most current keyword repository.

Fundamentally, keyword research is the most important aspect of SEO. It is the rudder of any business’ website. You don’t need much content to generate a lot of business. But, if you miss keywords, you have failed before even starting.

SEO will fail if keyword research is poor. But, you can build a strong brand over time if you get keyword research right.

How Can SEO Use AI?

Like normal computer software, artificial intelligence (AI) is a technology designed to carry out assigned tasks. Unlike general software, AI can train itself to be more efficient using data from each task. On the other hand, you have to reprogram the normal computer software to accommodate improvements.

SEO companies like Apple, BrightEdge, HubSpot, and Frase already use AI in tasks like:

  • Getting more accurate search results via voice search. (Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant)
  • Identifying keywords with low-hanging fruit for attracting profitable organic traffic. (BrightEdge)
  • Designing pillar content and content clusters for your website. (HubSpot)
  • Optimizing your content to rank higher on Google. (Frase)

What’s Inside An SEO Checklist?

An SEO checklist covers:

  • The basics of linking your website to Google Analytics.
  • Integrating Google Search Console.
  • Carrying out keyword research. 
  • Technical SEO (broken links, toxic links, etc).
  • Content strategy for organic traffic.
  • On-site SEO best practices (e.g. internal linking, h1/h2/h3 headers, etc).
  • Off-site SEO (e.g. link building, paid ads, and social media).
  • SEO analysis.
  • Ongoing SEO (repetitive maintenance tasks).

Will SEO Exist In 5 years?

SEO will exist for the next five years and longer for the following reasons:

  1. SEO (the marketing strategy) evolved to maximize the attention and demand on search engines. There is no reason why people will stop running search queries any time soon.
  2. Many SEOs (marketing professionals) are only recently getting buy-ins from decision-makers to implement SEO.
  3. SEO writing is now predominantly content marketing. Content marketing is a marketing strategy that is over 125 years old. The internet is 33 years old.
  4. Technical SEO prioritizes great customer support and seamless user experience. These are qualities of long-lasting brands.

If you are fighting for the first position on Google using black-hat SEO tactics, consider that type of SEO dead. Black-hat SEO gets penalized.

The Bottom Line

Here are our top picks for the best SEO automation software to try this year:

  1. Pathfinder SEO — best of the best
  2. Semrush — best for data analysis
  3. Ahrefs — best for keyword research
  4. HubSpot Marketing Hub — best for leads nurturing
  5. SE Ranking — best for rank tracking and reporting
  6. Sitechecker — best for website analysis
  7. Raven Tools — best for SEO agencies

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