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SEO tools

We cannot tell whether our SEO is working

Traffic moves, and nobody can say why. Rankings are checked by hand, the last technical audit was a spreadsheet, and the agency invoice arrives regardless.

Free · 3 minutes · Emailed to you

Recognise this?

What it looks like from the inside

If three of these are true, the tool has stopped fitting the team. If one is, it is probably worth waiting.

  • 01

    Rankings are checked by typing queries into an incognito window

  • 02

    Nobody noticed the traffic drop until it showed up in a revenue meeting

  • 03

    The last technical audit was a spreadsheet somebody made once

  • 04

    You are paying for a tool whose data nobody has opened this month

What separates the options

The questions that actually decide a SEO platform

Everyone asks about price and seat count. These are the ones specific to this category — and the ones our questionnaire asks you.

  1. 01

    What do you mainly need it for?

    Finding what to write about · Tracking where we rank · Finding technical problems on the site · Backlink research and outreach · Local and map-pack visibility

  2. 02

    Who is going to use it?

    An in-house SEO specialist · A generalist marketer · An agency reporting to clients · A developer, alongside other work

  3. 03

    How big is the site?

    Under 500 pages · 500 to 50,000 pages · More than 50,000 pages

Questions

Before you move

Is switching SEO platform actually the fix?

Sometimes, and sometimes not. If the symptoms are about a capability the tool does not have — retention controls it cannot enforce, a price that scales the wrong way, an integration that does not exist — then switching solves it. If they are about how your team uses the tool, a new one will reproduce the same mess in a fresh interface within six months. The questionnaire asks what is driving the change precisely to separate those two cases.

Which SEO platform should we move to?

The credible options are Ahrefs, Moz Pro, Screaming Frog, Semrush, Ubersuggest. Which is right depends on your team size, budget and non-negotiables — a 12-person team with no compliance requirement and a 400-person team that needs EU data residency should not end up with the same answer. The questionnaire ranks all 5 against your specific situation.

What does it cost to fix?

Two numbers matter: the licence difference and the cost of the move itself. This category is priced on usage or a flat fee rather than seats, so the licence difference depends on volume rather than headcount. The migration is the bigger number, and it scales with history, integrations and headcount rather than with the tool you pick. The questionnaire estimates both.

How long does a switch like this take?

For a team under 50 with a handful of integrations, a few weeks of elapsed time and one to two weeks of actual work. Above 200 people, or with compliance in scope, plan a quarter. The single biggest variable is not the tool — it is how much history has to come with you, and how many other systems are wired into the one you are leaving.

Get the 5 options ranked for your team

About a dozen questions — team size, budget, timeline, what is non-negotiable — and you get a shortlist with the reasoning shown, plus what the move would cost.

Get my shortlist