Lists of free SEO tools: the web is overflowing with them. The problem has never been finding one, it is doing something with it. Fifty logos in a row do not answer the only question that matters, namely what am I trying to understand about my site.
So here is ours, with an openly assumed bias. The 50 tools that follow are sorted by the question they solve, not by popularity. We use almost all of them, some every week, others twice a year for one specific need. And when a free version is too limited to be genuinely useful, we say so.
One piece of advice before diving into the list. If you are starting from scratch, do not install fifty tools, start with the six that are enough for a first audit. You will come back here when a specific question calls for it. That, incidentally, is how this list came about: from answering the same questions in meetings, we ended up noting which tools we actually opened, and in what order.
What is happening on my site? Free SEO measurement tools
Everything starts with measurement, because without it we argue about impressions rather than facts.
1. Google Search Console
The ultimate dashboard, and the only one that shows real data rather than calculated estimates. Queries, clicks, positions, indexing problems: if you had to keep only one, this would be it.
2. Google Analytics (GA4)
On the behaviour side, it is the cornerstone for everything close to acquisition and engagement. Getting to grips with it is rough, it has to be said. But the basic reports already answer most of the questions a company leader might have.
3. Looker Studio
The former Data Studio merges your sources into shareable dashboards, and it is very useful for showing clear figures to a management team that will never open Analytics itself.
4. Bing Webmaster Tools
Everyone overlooks it, and yet its audit reports are good. With the rise of AI answers that draw on the Bing index, ignoring it is gradually becoming a mistake.
5. MozCast
A sort of SERP weather report. When your traffic moves, it helps tell a normal fluctuation apart from a genuine algorithm update.
6. Panguin Tool
Overlay your traffic curves on the dates of known Google updates. A drop that coincides with an update, and you have your lead.
7. Keyword Hero
Fills in the famous “not provided” gaps in your keyword reports using machine learning. The free version is limited by sessions, which is enough for a small site.
Does Google see my site correctly? Crawling and indexing
The second family of questions, the most technical ones. This is where the problems invisible to the naked eye hide.
8. Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Quite simply the reference for years now. Its free version crawls 500 URLs and lists your broken links, missing tags and indexing problems, which is enough for most SME sites. With us, it runs before and after every redesign, without exception.
9. Screaming Frog Log File Analyzer
The natural companion to the previous one, since it reads your log files to show how bots actually crawl your site. The free version is limited, but it already says a great deal.
10. SEOlyzer
Real-time log analysis, page categorisation, crawler behaviour. A welcome French alternative to the previous one.
11. Redirect Path
A Chrome extension that displays HTTP codes as you browse, the 301s, the 404s and the rest. During a migration, you cannot do without it.
12. Link Redirect Trace
Traces redirect chains in depth, where link equity is lost without anyone noticing.
13. Check My Links
It checks every link on a page and highlights the broken ones in red, which makes it the quick reflex of content editors.
14. Where Goes?
A small minimalist tool that unrolls the full path of a shortened or redirected URL. A single function, but this one is well done.
15. Xenu’s Link Sleuth
The old-timer. An interface from another century, but still effective for hunting broken links on a small site.
16. HEADMaster SEO
It checks lists of URLs in bulk, including status codes, redirects and response times. Light, and fast too.
17. Robots.txt Generator
Generates or checks your robots.txt. A ten-line file that can sink an entire site when badly written, so it is worth checking.
18. XML Sitemaps
Creates a sitemap of up to 500 pages. For larger sites, your CMS generally does better, but for a small brochure site it does the job.
19. Hreflang Tags Generator
Generates hreflang tags with no syntax errors. In Switzerland, with our three-language sites, that is far from a gimmick.
20. BROWSEO
It shows your site as a robot sees it, with no styling, structure and text laid bare. For many highly visual sites, the shock is actually healthy.
21. SEOWL Title Rewrite Checker
Google rewrites some of the titles in its results, which is easy to forget. This tool checks whether yours survive, a piece of information almost nobody bothers to verify.
22. Quick Click Website Audit
A bookmarklet that sends the active URL to several audit tools in one click. Time saved every day.
What are my customers looking for? Keywords and intent
Third question, and the most strategic. Content that answers no real search is invisible content, however well written it may be.
23. Google Keyword Planner
Built for Google Ads, but its search volumes remain the basis of any keyword research. You need an active account for precise ranges.
24. Google Trends
Seasonality and emerging trends, free of charge. Before betting six months of effort on a subject, at least check whether it is rising or falling.
25. AnswerThePublic
Visualises the questions asked around a term: who, what, why, how. The free version is limited, but for preparing an article it is more than enough.
26. AlsoAsked
It maps out Google’s “People Also Ask” questions with all their branches, which is perfect for structuring an FAQ or a topic cluster.
27. Keyword Surfer
A Chrome extension that displays volumes and keyword ideas directly in the results page. Zero friction: you search as usual and the figures are there.
28. Ubersuggest
Neil Patel’s tool: volumes, difficulty, content ideas. A few free searches per day, enough to check a hunch before writing.
29. Keyword Explorer (Moz)
Good analysis of difficulty and expected click-through rate. Only a few free queries per month, to be kept for important decisions.
30. Keywords Everywhere
No longer entirely free (an inexpensive credit system), but so handy for seeing volumes everywhere, including on YouTube and Amazon, that it stays on the list.
31. Exploding Topics
It spots topics starting to stir before they explode, now under Semrush’s wing. For anyone producing content regularly, it is a useful radar to keep to hand.
Who is talking about me? Backlinks and authority
Fourth question, and the one we always put off. Inbound links nevertheless remain one of the pillars of ranking, and three free tools are already enough to get a reasonably honest picture.
32. Ahrefs Backlink Checker
A free preview of the top 100 backlinks of a domain, with its DR rating. That is enough to compare your profile with a direct competitor’s, and often instructive.
33. Moz Link Explorer
Domain authority (DA) and link profile, in a limited free version. Useful as a second opinion.
34. Google Disavow Tool
The toxic link disavow tool. To be handled with real care: used badly, it does more damage than the links it disavows.
35. Hunter
Finds the professional email addresses on a domain. It is not strictly an SEO tool, but without it there is no serious link-building campaign.
Am I visible near me? Local SEO
For a French-speaking Swiss company serving its own region, this family often weighs more than everything else put together. A joiner in the Broye does not need to be visible in Zurich, he needs Maps to show him within a twenty-kilometre radius.
36. Google Business Profile
Your business listing, the one that appears on Maps and to the right of the results when someone searches your name. It is free, it is decisive, and it is generally left completely neglected.
37. Whitespark Local Citation Finder
Finds where your company and your competitors are mentioned online. The consistency of those citations feeds your local credibility.
38. Review Handout Generator
Generates a short guide to hand to your clients so they can leave a Google review without getting lost along the way. Simple and surprisingly effective.
Is my site fast? Speed and Core Web Vitals
Since Core Web Vitals started counting towards ranking, speed is no longer a comfort. It is an official criterion, and one of the easiest to measure at that.
39. PageSpeed Insights
Google’s reference tool, and the only one that mixes lab testing with real user data. Your five key pages should go through it every quarter, not just the home page.
40. Lighthouse
Built into Chrome DevTools: performance, accessibility, best practices and SEO in a single report. The natural companion to the previous one.
41. GTmetrix
The loading waterfall in detail, to put your finger on the exact resource dragging a page down. It is more technical, and therefore more precise.
42. Cloudflare
Not an analytics tool but an accelerator: the free plan includes a CDN that brings your content closer to your visitors. Often the best effort-to-result ratio on this list.
Are my pages well built? On-page and structured data
The last family, the one that connects your content to what machines understand of it. With the rise of AI-generated answers, these tools take on a new importance.
43. Rich Results Test
It checks whether a page is eligible for rich results, stars, FAQs, events. And the verdict comes straight from the source.
44. Schema Markup Validator
The official Schema.org validator, for checking the syntax of your structured data. One misplaced comma and the whole markup goes in the bin.
45. Merkle Schema Markup Generator
Generates the JSON-LD for your structured data (FAQ, Article, How-to) without writing a line of code.
46. Google Tag Manager
Manages your tracking tags without touching the site’s code. Not SEO strictly speaking, but measurement hygiene depends on it.
47. SEO Minion
A do-it-all Chrome extension: on-page analysis, broken links, SERP preview. The Swiss army knife of quick checks.
48. SEOquake
An instant SEO diagnosis of any page you visit. It is dense, sometimes even messy, but very fast.
49. Semrush (free account)
Restricted access to keyword research and site auditing. Limited, but enough to get a taste of what the paid version does before committing.
50. Copyscape
Checks whether your content has been copied elsewhere. Plagiarism of your pages can dilute your visibility, so it is worth knowing.
What none of these 50 tools will do
Let us finish with the limitation, because this one is structural. These tools measure, alert and count. None of them decides for you, and none of them knows what wins mandates in your particular line of work.
Knowing that your page sits at position 28 for a query does not tell you whether that query deserves six months of effort. Reading the numbers is what makes the difference, and that is exactly the work of an SEO strategy that has been properly built: choosing your battles, in the right order, and with a budget that is not infinite.
Start small. Three tools you read properly are worth more than fifty installed. And if you want to know why your site does not appear on Google despite all these thermometers, the answer nearly always lies in the first three families on this list.
