Looking to get started with SEO for free? You can cover most of the essentials (such as checking AI SEO visibility, doing keyword research, and auditing a site) without spending a cent.
1. AI Search Visibility Checker
Best for: Assessing a domain’s AI SEO performance
The AI Search Visibility Checker helps you evaluate a website’s presence across AI-driven search platforms like ChatGPT and AI Overviews.
Simply enter a domain, and the tool provides:
- A high-level overview of the site’s AI visibility
- Brand mentions across various AI platforms
- Performance comparisons against top competitors
You’ll also see which prompts return AI-generated answers mentioning your brand and which mention competitors instead.
Limit: Three checks per day.
What We Like:
The AI Visibility Score gives an objective measure of your performance versus competitors, while platform-specific insights show where you can improve your positioning.
2. Site Audit
Best for: Quickly identifying and fixing technical SEO issues
Site Audit, Semrush’s free SEO checker, scans your website for AI visibility and SEO problems, offering actionable recommendations.
In our test, it completed an audit in under 5 minutes, uncovering over 350 issues, categorized as high, medium, or low severity.
Limit: Free plan allows audits of 100 webpages.
What We Like:
Site Audit is fast and intuitive. Enter your domain, select crawl settings, and start the audit—entire process takes less than two minutes.
3. Keyword Magic Tool
Best for: Generating thousands of keyword ideas in seconds
Keyword Magic Tool helps you discover SEO keyword ideas quickly.
In our testing, it generated over 30,000 keyword ideas from a single keyword in under a minute. Filters for search volume and difficulty allow you to identify the most viable keywords efficiently.
The Questions tab highlights question-based keywords, perfect for FAQs or AI-optimized content.
Limit: 10 searches per day on the free plan.
What We Like:
The Personal Difficulty Score shows how challenging it would be for your domain to rank for a specific keyword, offering more accurate guidance than generic difficulty scores.
4. Keyword Overview
Best for: Analyzing keyword difficulty and SERP competition
Keyword Overview provides search volume, difficulty metrics, and competitive insights for individual keywords.
Its SERP Analysis feature shows top-ranking pages at a glance, saving time by combining keyword research, backlink analysis, and authority checks.
Limit: 10 searches per day on the free plan.
What We Like:
The Bulk Analysis feature (paid plan) allows analysis of up to 100 keywords at once, delivering results in under a minute.
5. Backlinks
Best for: Evaluating a site’s backlink profile
Backlinks performs a detailed backlink analysis, including a Toxicity Score to assess backlink health quickly.
Limit: 10 analyses per day on the free plan.
What We Like:
The Anchors report shows the most common anchor texts for your backlinks, helping refine your link-building strategy.
6. Website Authority Checker
Best for: Checking a domain’s overall SEO strength
This tool provides an Authority Score for any domain, based on backlinks, referring domains, organic traffic, and spam factors.
Limit: Three checks per day.
What We Like:
The Authority Score Trend graph visually tracks whether a site’s SEO strength is improving or declining.
7. Position Tracking
Best for: Monitoring keyword rankings and performance trends
Position Tracking tracks your site’s keyword rankings and AI mentions in ChatGPT and AI Mode.
The Overview report highlights gains, drops, or opportunities to regain visibility, letting you focus on high-impact keywords.
Limit: Track 10 keywords on the free plan.
What We Like:
Identify “easy wins” for keywords ranking in positions 11–20, where minor improvements can boost visibility.
8. Google Search Console (GSC)
Best for: Understanding how Google views your site
GSC provides insights into search performance, indexing issues, and traffic changes.
Limitations: Interface can be unintuitive at first, and data lags by 24–48 hours.
What We Like:
GSC clearly shows which pages aren’t indexed and why, making it essential for troubleshooting SEO issues.
9. Google PageSpeed Insights
Best for: Measuring site speed and performance metrics
PageSpeed Insights analyzes page performance, including metrics like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), and highlights issues slowing your site down.
What We Like:
Each issue is linked to a measurable impact, helping you prioritize fixes effectively, even if detailed implementation guidance is limited.
10. Ubersuggest
Best for: Keyword research and first-page potential analysis
Ubersuggest generates thousands of keyword ideas from a single seed keyword. Filters for volume, intent, and SEO difficulty help narrow down results efficiently.
Limitations: Free plan restricts the number of daily searches.
What We Like:
The First Page Potential metric estimates which keywords your site can realistically rank for, helping prioritize efforts for faster SEO results.
