10 Best SEO Tools Every Marketer Should Use in 2025

Over here at Nightwatch, we create a lot of content. And as any content marketer knows, keeping up with SEO while managing all that can be overwhelming. There’s keyword research, rank tracking, AI content optimization, and on top of that, there’s always something new to learn, test, and improve.

That’s why we rely on a solid toolkit of the best SEO tools to keep everything running smoothly. These tools help us discover new opportunities, streamline our content creation process, and make decisions that boost visibility and performance.

And because we know how challenging SEO can be, we wanted to share that toolkit with you.

So, in this guide, we’re giving you a sneak peek into the 10 best SEO tools of 2025, the same ones that help us (and many other marketers) plan smarter, create better, and rank higher.

What Are SEO Tools and Why Are They Important?

SEO tools are software platforms that help you understand, measure, and improve how your website performs in search results. As a marketer, you need some tools to reveal what people are searching for, others to see how your pages rank, and one or two to dig into technical issues that might be hurting visibility. Together, they turn SEO from guesswork into a data-driven process.

Here are a few more reasons why SEO tools are essential for anyone serious about visibility, growth, and content performance:

• They save time and effort: Instead of manually tracking rankings or analyzing pages one by one, SEO tools automate those processes, giving you instant insights. That means you can focus more on strategy and content, not repetitive tasks.
• They help you make smarter decisions: SEO is full of moving parts — algorithms, keywords, backlinks, and user intent. Tools give you the data to see what’s actually working, so you can spend your time (and budget) on strategies that drive results.
• They uncover opportunities you’d otherwise miss: SEO tools help you find hidden keyword gaps, trending topics, and untapped audiences.
• They track performance and ROI: You can’t improve what you don’t measure. SEO tools show whether your efforts are paying off by monitoring organic traffic growth, keyword positions and lead generation.
• They help you stay ahead of the competition: Search changes constantly. SEO tools keep you informed about what competitors are doing, so you can adjust quickly and maintain your edge.

What are the Common Types of SEO Tools?

Now that you know what SEO tools are and why they matter, let’s look at the different types you’ll typically find in an SEO toolkit. Each one focuses on a specific aspect of optimization, like finding the right keywords or ensuring your site runs smoothly.

Here are the most common types and what they help you achieve:

1. Keyword Research Tools: These help you uncover the exact search terms your target audience uses, along with data like search volume, difficulty, and intent. They guide your content creation process, ensuring you target phrases that can drive relevant traffic and potential leads.
2. Rank Tracking Tools: With rank tracking tools, you can monitor how your keywords perform across search engines, devices, and locations over time. They show you whether your SEO strategies are paying off, and when it’s time to tweak your content or backlinks.
3. Technical SEO Tools: Technical SEO tools focus on the behind-the-scenes elements of your website. They help identify crawl issues, broken links, duplicate content, page speed problems, and other technical errors that can prevent search engines from properly indexing your site.
4. On-Page Optimization Tools: These tools analyze individual pages to ensure they follow SEO best practices. They make sure your pages are optimized for both search engines and human readers.
5. Competitive Analysis Tools: Competitive analysis tools let you peek into your competitors’ strategies, showing you the keywords they rank for, their backlink profiles, and the type of content that drives their traffic. With these insights, you can uncover opportunities to outperform them.
6. Content Optimization and Measurement Tools: These help you ideate, create, and refine content that performs. They help you optimize headlines, track engagement metrics, and give you data-backed insights to keep your content strategy consistent and effective.

In essence, each SEO tool serves a unique purpose, but when combined, they give you a full-picture view of how to plan, optimize, and grow your search visibility.

What Are the 10 Best SEO Tools Marketers Should Be Using in 2025?

Here’s a quick snapshot of the tools we’ll be exploring:

• Nightwatch: An AI and traditional SEO rank tracker that helps you monitor rankings, audit sites, and automate reporting with pinpoint accuracy.
• NightOwl: An AI SEO assistant that streamlines keyword research, technical audits, and content optimization in one place.
• Google Search Console: A free, essential analytics tool for monitoring site performance, search visibility, and indexing issues.
• Yoast SEO: A content optimization plugin that helps you fine-tune your on-page SEO directly within WordPress.
• Exploding Topics: A trend discovery tool that surfaces emerging topics and keywords before they hit mainstream awareness.
• AnswerThePublic: A keyword and content idea generator that visualizes real user queries and search questions.
• ChatGPT: An AI writing and ideation assistant that supports content creation, keyword clustering, and meta description drafting.
• Google Keyword Planner: A go-to keyword research tool for discovering high-performing search terms and estimating ad potential.
• Keysearch: A budget-friendly SEO suite offering keyword research, competition analysis, and rank tracking.
• Perplexity: An AI search assistant that helps you analyze SERPs and gather research-backed insights faster.

Now, let’s get into these tools one after the other:

Nightwatch

If you’ve ever juggled multiple SEO tools just to monitor rankings, track backlinks, and report on performance, you’ll know how exhausting it can get. Nightwatch is a powerful all-in-one SEO platform designed to help marketers and SEO professionals simplify this stressful workflow and monitor their search performance.

It combines advanced rank tracking, site auditing, and reporting into a single, clean interface. Whether you’re managing client campaigns or growing your own brand, it helps you discover keyword opportunities, monitor ranking trends across regions and devices, and automate reports so you can spend less time on tedious tasks and more time optimizing.

Key Features

• Accurate rank tracking across locations, devices, and traditional and AI search engines.
• In-depth site audits to detect and fix technical SEO issues.
• Customizable SEO reports for clients or teams.
• Keyword segmentation to group and analyze performance by topic or intent.
• Integration with Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
• Intuitive dashboards that make data easy to understand and act on.

Pros

• Highly accurate rank tracking with daily updates.
• Clean, visual interface that simplifies SEO reporting.
• Excellent for agencies managing multiple websites.
• Robust automation for reports and keyword grouping.

Cons

• Slight learning curve for beginners.
• Limited backlink analysis compared to specialized link tools.

Pricing

• Plans start at $32 per month, with higher tiers offering more tracked keywords and advanced reporting features.

NightOwl

NightOwl is an AI-powered SEO agent that helps marketers and content teams automate repetitive tasks and uncover insights faster. It’s designed to simplify SEO workflows such as keyword research and on-page optimization, so you can focus more on strategy and creativity, not spreadsheets.

It is an all-in-one SEO assistant that can handle keyword research, technical audits, and content optimization, while acting like an extra team member that never sleeps (hence the name). You can feed it a topic, and it’ll suggest keywords, content outlines, optimization ideas, and even technical recommendations based on your site’s data.

Key Features

• AI-driven keyword research and topic clustering
• Automated content optimization suggestions
• Technical SEO audit and recommendations
• Performance tracking and growth analytics
• Integration with Google Search Console and other SEO tools

Pros

• Combines several SEO functions in one interface
• Saves time through automation and smart insights
• Easy to use, even for beginners

Cons

• Limited content writing abilities

Pricing
Available to Nightwatch subscribers

Google Search Console

Google Search Console (GSC) is a free platform that tells you exactly how your website performs in search and what’s holding it back.

With GSC, you can see which keywords drive clicks, which pages rank the highest, and where your site might be struggling with visibility or indexing issues.

For marketers, it’s invaluable for tracking keyword impressions, monitoring page experience, or checking mobile usability. And that’s the kind of data you need to make smarter, data-driven decisions.

Key Features

• Monitors keyword rankings, clicks, and impressions
• Detects indexing and crawl errors
• Provides mobile usability insights
• Analyzes backlinks and internal links
• Offers detailed performance and page experience reports

Pros

• 100% free and beginner-friendly
• Offers direct insights from Google’s search data
• Helps identify and fix technical SEO issues fast

Cons

• Limited keyword and content research capabilities
• Doesn’t include competitor analysis
• Data can be delayed by up to 2–3 days, so it’s not ideal for real-time monitoring.
• Limited historical data (usually capped at 16 months).
• Lacks advanced reporting and visualization options.
• Requires some technical know-how to fully understand metrics like crawl stats or indexing issues.

Pricing
Completely free — no hidden costs or upgrades required.

Yoast SEO

If you use WordPress, chances are you’ve already heard of Yoast SEO. It’s the go-to plugin for making on-page optimization simple and stress-free. Yoast helps you fine-tune everything from meta titles and descriptions to readability and keyword placement. When you’re optimizing a blog post or a landing page, it gives real-time suggestions to make sure your content meets both user and search engine standards.

It’s especially great for beginners or busy marketers who want to get SEO right without diving deep into complex analytics.

Key Features

• Real-time SEO and readability analysis
• Title and meta description optimization
• XML sitemap generation
• Schema and structured data integration
• Automatic canonical URL setup

Pros

• Easy to use and perfect for beginners
• Integrated directly with WordPress
• Great for quick on-page SEO improvements

Cons

• Most advanced features are locked behind the premium plan
• It can slightly slow down large websites if not optimized

Pricing

• Free version available with essential SEO tools
• Premium plan: starts at around $118.80/year per site

Exploding Topics

Exploding Topics is like your early-warning system for what’s about to trend. Instead of chasing keywords that everyone’s already targeting, it helps you discover rising topics before they blow up. It scans billions of searches, conversations, and mentions across the web and spots patterns that signal growth long before they show up in traditional keyword tools.

For marketers and SEO professionals, that’s gold. It means you can create content ahead of the curve, position your brand as a thought leader, and capture search traffic while competition is still low.

Key Features

• Identifies emerging keywords and topics before they peak.
• Uses AI to detect long-term trends across industries.
• Offers a searchable database of “exploding” topics by category.
• Sends weekly trend reports so you never miss what’s gaining traction.

Pros

• Helps you find new keywords and content opportunities early.
• Saves time on manual trend research.
• Great for content planning and thought leadership.

Cons

• Doesn’t provide deep keyword metrics like search volume or difficulty.
• Works best when combined with other SEO tools for validation.

Pricing
Exploding Topics offers a free version with limited trend access. Paid plans start at $39/month, unlocking full trend data, email alerts, and custom categories.

AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic turns real search data into visual maps that show exactly what people are asking online. It includes “how,” “why,” and “what” questions, keyword variations, and comparisons. For SEO professionals and content creators, it’s one of the easiest ways to uncover fresh content ideas that match real user intent.

It’s especially useful when you’re planning blog posts, FAQs, or long-form guides because it tells you what people search for and helps you understand how they think.

Key Features

• Visual keyword maps built from real Google and Bing searches.
• Organizes queries by questions, prepositions, and comparisons.
• Lets you export search data for deeper keyword analysis.
• Tracks changes in search behavior over time with Pro accounts.

Pros

• Super easy to use. No steep learning curve.
• Excellent for finding content ideas based on real user questions.
• Great for optimizing long-tail and conversational keywords.

Con

• Limited free searches per day.
• Doesn’t include keyword metrics like difficulty or competition.

Pricing
AnswerThePublic offers free, limited daily searches. Paid plans start at $50/month for individual creators and go up to $990/month for teams with advanced tracking and unlimited searches.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT has quickly become a go-to AI SEO companion for marketers and writers who want to save time brainstorming, drafting, and optimizing content. Beyond just chatting, it can help with keyword research, content ideation, meta description creation, schema markup generation, and even technical SEO explanations, all through simple prompts.

For SEO professionals, ChatGPT is like having a super-fast assistant who can help you outline blog posts, analyze keywords, or rephrase content for clarity and engagement. When combined with accurate data from tools like Nightwatch or Google Search Console, it becomes a creative powerhouse for scaling SEO content without losing quality.

Key Features

• Generates SEO-friendly content outlines and keyword suggestions.
• Helps craft titles, headings, meta tags, and schema markups.
• Explains technical SEO concepts in plain language.
• Can simulate search intent and content tone variations.
• Integrates with third-party tools and plugins for advanced SEO workflows.

Pros

• Speeds up brainstorming and content creation.
• Great for non-technical users who need SEO help on demand.
• Extremely versatile. It works for research, writing, and optimization.

Cons

• Responses depend on prompt quality and require guidance for accuracy.
• Doesn’t pull live ranking or keyword volume data.
• Can occasionally generate outdated, generic, or false information.

Pricing
ChatGPT offers a free version with basic features and a Plus plan at $20/month for access to GPT-4, which provides faster, more accurate, and more creative results.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is one of the most reliable (and free!) keyword research tools out there. It’s built directly into Google Ads, which means the data you get, like keyword search volumes, competition, and cost-per-click (CPC), comes straight from Google itself.

While originally meant for advertisers, SEOs use it to discover new keyword opportunities, analyze search demand, and plan content around high-performing topics. It’s especially handy when you want to find realistic, data-backed keywords for blog posts, landing pages, or campaigns.

Key Features

• Discover new keyword ideas based on your site or niche.
• View average monthly search volumes, competition level, and CPC.
• Filter results by location, language, or device type.
• Compare keyword trends over time to spot seasonal opportunities.

Pros

• 100% free seo tool and accurate (since it’s powered by Google’s data).
• Great for discovering high-volume and related keyword clusters.
• Useful for both SEO and paid search planning.

Cons

• Keyword data ranges (e.g., 1K–10K searches) can be vague without running ads.
• Doesn’t show keyword difficulty or SERP analysis.
• Interface is built for advertisers, not content marketers, so it takes a little getting used to.

Pricing
Completely free. All you need is a Google Ads account to access it.

Keysearch

What makes Keysearch great is how intuitive it feels. It is a beginner-friendly SEO tool designed to make keyword research and content planning simple, without the steep learning curve or high price tag of enterprise tools. It’s a favorite among freelancers, bloggers, and small teams who want data-driven insights for finding low-competition keywords and building effective SEO strategies.

You can plug in a keyword and instantly get a list of related terms, search volumes, competition scores, and content suggestions. It’s perfect for discovering realistic ranking opportunities and building SEO-friendly content calendars.

Key Features

• In-depth keyword research with competition analysis.
• Content assistant for on-page optimization suggestions.
• Keyword clustering to group related topics.
• Competitor keyword and content analysis.
• Backlink checker for evaluating link quality and opportunities.

Pros

• Affordable and easy to navigate. Great for beginners.
• Offers a solid mix of keyword and content optimization features.
• Generates clear, actionable insights without overwhelming you.

Cons

• Interface feels a bit dated compared to newer tools.
• Limited data depth for large-scale SEO campaigns.
• Some keyword data may lag behind premium tools like Ahrefs or Semrush.

Pricing
Keysearch offers a Starter plan at $24/month and a Pro plan at $48/month, both with access to keyword research, content tools, and backlink analysis.

Perplexity

Perplexity is one of the newest and most exciting additions to the SEO toolkit. It’s an AI-powered search engine that combines conversational search with real-time web results. Think of it as a mix between ChatGPT and Google, but with live data and source citations.

Beyond general research, Perplexity is great for quick keyword discovery, content ideation, and strategy planning. You can use it to analyze AI search visibility, explore topic clusters, or build content calendars based on trending queries. It also helps you understand how AI search tools display and cite sources, giving you valuable insight into how your content might perform in AI search.

Key Features

• AI-powered conversational search with cited sources.
• Real-time web results for up-to-date topic research.
• “Copilot” mode for deeper, guided search exploration.
• Lets you analyze how AI engines surface and summarize content.
• Great for competitive and topical content research.

Pros

• Provides fast, current insights with reliable citations.
• Excellent for AI-driven SEO and content strategy research.
• Free to use with an intuitive, modern interface.

Cons

• Not a traditional SEO tool, so it provides limited keyword and analytics data.
• Still evolving; accuracy can vary for niche topics.
• Lacks integrations with other SEO software.

Pricing
Perplexity offers a free plan, plus a Pro plan for $20/month that unlocks advanced Copilot features, faster responses, and better data depth.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which SEO tool is best for small businesses?

For small businesses, the best SEO tool is one that’s affordable, easy to use, and covers essentials like keyword research, site audits, and reporting. Tools like Nightwatch or Keysearch are great options. They combine simplicity with powerful insights to help small teams track performance, discover keyword opportunities, and improve visibility without needing a full marketing department.

Can ChatGPT do SEO?

Yes, but with limits. ChatGPT can help with brainstorming content ideas, drafting SEO-friendly outlines, writing meta descriptions, and even simplifying keyword research. However, it doesn’t track rankings, audit sites, or analyze backlinks in real time. That’s why it’s best to use ChatGPT alongside SEO tools like Nightwatch or Google Search Console for data-backed optimization.

What is the most effective tool for SEO?

There’s no one-size-fits-all “most effective” SEO tool. It all depends on your goals. For rank tracking, Nightwatch stands out. For technical audits, Google Search Console and NightOwl are unmatched. The most effective strategy usually combines multiple tools that work together to cover every part of your SEO workflow.

Now That You Know the Best SEO Tools—Put Them to Work

You’ve just seen some of the best SEO tools shaping how marketers and brands win online in 2025. From keyword research to content optimization, these tools take the stress out of SEO, saving you time, revealing new opportunities, and keeping you ahead of the competition.

And if you’re serious about stepping up your SEO game, Nightwatch helps you track rankings, analyze performance, and uncover trends across search and AI, all in one place. Pair it with NightOwl’s smart automation, and you’ve got the perfect combo to work smarter, move faster, and grow bigger this year and beyond.