SEMRush is my favorite SEO tool that I use for keyword research and competitor analysis. I also recommend this tool as I know how powerful this tool is. This tool is not free and the basic plan starts at $99 per month. You get 10 searches a day for free but that is not enough. I personally recommend you to get the premium SEMrush plan if you can for the best results.
SEMrush is not the only tool, there are lots of others. So, here I am listing the best alternatives to SEMrush. I will be listing both paid and free alternatives to SEMrush. Depending on your budget and choice, you can select any from the list given.
Paid tools are powerful and offer deep insight and more valuable data that you can use to take hard decisions and make on-page SEO plans.
If you cannot afford SEMrush and are searching for free alternatives, you are in the right place. I have tested several SEO tools and made this list. Here, you get the best free alternatives to SEMrush. Even if these tools are not as good as SEMrush, still you can get enough data for free for on-page SEO strategies.
Also see: Best SEO tools
Best Free Alternatives to SEMrush
As I said free alternatives of SEMrush are not as good as SEMrush, you cannot get complete data in one place. For example, SEMrush allows you to have an eye on the keywords of your website along with the keywords of your competitors’ websites. These tools cannot work well in competitor research. You can just use it for keyword research.
Here is the list of the best free alternatives to SEMrush.
1. Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is also a free tool for keyword research. You can use this tool for finding keywords with high search volume and less competition. Like Ubersuggest, this is also just for keyword research but you cannot get more data like ranking links for a keyword and efforts you need to put on for beating those competitors.
This tool was actually created for AdWords users to search for keywords that can bid to drive more traffic. But this tool is helpful enough for all users for getting search volume data and CPC of keywords.
As the tool is for advertisers, it doesn’t offer much helpful data for publishers. You may not find unique keywords that are no one targeting.
Best Paid Alternatives to SEMrush
Here are the paid alternatives that are similar to or more powerful than SEMrush. Pricing will play an important factor here.
1. Moz Pro
Moz is a premium tool but one of the best SEO tools I recommend after SEMrush. This tool helps you in understanding your visitors and finding keyword volume and difficulty metrics. You can set your website to get automatic track your rankings and audit your website for further optimization of your pages. This tool also helps you in finding linking opportunities.
This is not a free tool but offers 30 day free trial if you agree to enter your card details. Paid plans start at $99 per month. It also offers 30 day money-back guarantee if you don’t like the tool. In the basic paid plans, you cannot get enough data. This is the reason I keep this tool below the SEMrush in my recommendation list
2. Ahrefs Keywords Explorer
This is also a premium tool that holds data of over 5 billion keywords. It also offers data similar to what you get on SEMrush. You can use this tool to get keywords that are driving traffic to your website, add filters to narrow search results, and find new profitable keywords. Not just keywords, you can also use this tool to analyze keywords, linking domains, anchor text, and more.
Like SEMrush, this tool also helps you in exploring the competitors’ keyword strategies. So, you can easily find what keywords your competitors rank for. Then you can make your plans.
There is no free trial and paid plans start at $99 per month with just a 10,000 crawl limit and 1 project.
3. Serpstat
Serpstat is also a similar tool offering features you get in SEMrush. This tool helps in keyword research to find profitable keywords to target and understands your existing keywords. You can discover international data at no additional cost.
Like Semrush, this tool is helpful in competitor research and rank tracking. So, you can easily get an idea of what keywords your competitor is working to get the traffic. It also helps in improving the on-page SEO and performs an audit to find the issues.
It also gives you a full analysis of backlinks. So, you can make a proper backlink strategy to boost your ranking.
This is also a paid tool and pricing starts at $19 per month. But the useful plan costs $69 per month and it is still cheaper than SEMrush or other similar tools. I also use this tool alongside SEMrush.
4. Kwfinder
Kwfinder is a keyword research tool to get keyword ideas for blog posts. The tool is paid and pricing starts at $29.9. The tool gives you an idea of long-tail and generic keywords with search volume, Avg CPC, and the metadata of the website Rankin on that keyword. You can also export the keyword link. The best thing about the tool is that it gives you exact search volumes for close variant keywords.
It also brings important tools like SERP checker, SERPWatcher, LinkMiner, and SiteProfiler. All these tools make a good SEO suite.
5. SEO PowerSuite
SEO PowerSuite is a collection of tools that include Rank Tracker, WebSite Auditor, SEO SpyGlass, and Link Assistant. This suite offers everything you get from SEMrush. As the name suggests, these tools offer rank tracking of keywords, website auditing options, backlink building, and competitors’ research.
SEO Spyglass is for spying on competitors to understand their backlink strategy, and keywords driving traffic on their websites. WebSite Auditor tool is great for finding issues in your on-page SEO.
If I summarise the feature, you get Keyword research, Competitor analysis, Link analysis, Rank Tracking, and Website audits. Everything in one suite but using different tools to avoid any confusion. The professional version costs $299.
6. SpyFu
SpyFu is also a powerful SEO tool for keyword research. You can use this tool for finding profitable keywords for your SEO strategy. This tool lets you perform competitor analysis, so you can easily find what keywords your competitors are ranking. It also lets you perform backlink analysis. You can also track keyword ranks on a daily basis and also compare different domains to check why a certain domain is performing better.
The tool comes with lots of tools including Keyword research tool, Backlink checker, keyword checker, SERP checker, and more. It also generates SEO reports.
It is not expensive and offers Unlimited search results, Unlimited data exports, and an Unlimited domain overview. So, it is worth trying.
This tool is also cheaper than SEMrush to be one of the best SEMrush alternatives available in the market.
The only drawback I could find was the limited database. It only offers the US and UK databases. If You are targeting any other country, you will be disappointed.
7. Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is a keyword research tool by popular SEO expert Neil Patel. Ubersuggest helps you in finding profitable keywords for your blog posts. The tool was free without any limitations, but it is now a paid tool that shows some results for free. To use the tool properly, you need to purchase a subscription. You can search for a keyword and it will Gove you an idea of similar keywords with search volume, CPC, keyword difficulty, and probability to rank. So, you can easily find the keyword you can start with.
The tool also gives you a list of Google results to show you the links already ranking for that keyword along with important data like domain authority. S, you can easily guess how much effort you need to put into ranking better than competitors.
8. Searchmetrics
Searchmetrics is a good search and content performance tool. This is an analytics tool that analyzes your website, shows popular keywords, ranks on these keywords, helps you identify competitors, and shows detailed data of backlinks. The tool has a keyword database for several countries including India, the USA, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Germany. It also includes SERP feature data in the reports.
This tool is not as powerful as Semrush, but it is still good enough. Searchmetrics also asks to upgrade for more detailed data and pricing starts at €89.
Final words
SEMrush is really a good tool but there could be lots of reasons to find SEMrush alternatives. So, I have added more than 5 alternatives including Moz Pro and Ahref. You can check all the tools, compare their features and see what is good for you. If you are looking for free tools, you can try Ubersuggest or Google Keyword Planner. Ubersuggest is really a good tool for free.
Did you find the list of SEMrush alternatives useful? If I missed any good tool, let me know about that. Share your thoughts about SEMrush and the list of its alternatives in the comments.