To have the best chance of ranking high on Google, you need to use SEO tools.

They can help uncover opportunities, save time, and ensure you get the best return on investment.

In this article, I run through 11 tools to help you when doing search engine optimisations.

This list of B2B SEO tools doesn’t include many free options. If you’re a business and want more organic traffic, you will need to sign up for paid tools.

Let’s begin with the only SEO tool you need…

Best all-in-one SEO tool: Ahrefs

If I could only pick one tool, it would be Ahrefs. Why?

A business can do everything needed to rank a site highly within this tool. You can:

• Find keyword ideas
• Do competitor research
• Find backlink opportunities
• Run weekly SEO health checks
• Track your keyword ranking positions

I’d go for the “Standard” option for £159 (as of Dec’ 2022) because this gives you 6 months of historical rankings data you can compare back to. And you can view the latest search results for each keyword, rather than an older cached version.

The only (teeny tiny) downside of using this as your only tool, is it doesn’t give you as much data as the other tools for specific tasks.

For example, although Ahrefs can track your keyword positions, it will only update you weekly (unless you pay more). And the per keyword cost to track them is more expensive than a tool we feature later on – NightWatch.

Here’s me running through my favourite features in Ahrefs:

Keyword and content ideas: SEMrush

Very similar to Ahrefs, SEMrush is pitched as an all-in-one SEO tool. You can essentially do everything Ahrefs can.

But why isn’t this my number one?

The main reason is their link database. It doesn’t come close to Ahrefs – I’ve never used SEMrush to find or build links. And this is such an essential step for B2B companies when ranking higher on Google.

However, I feel that SEMrush gives better keyword ideas and has more, lower-volume keywords than Ahrefs (which is great for content research). We pay for both to give us a wider keyword data set, but 9/10 businesses don’t have to.

Bonus keyword research tool: Keywords Everywhere

One SEO tool I would recommend all B2B companies get is Keywords Everywhere. This will help you uncover keywords as you browse the internet.

When you search on Google, you will see the search volume for that keyword. And the tool will suggest to you other Related keywords, Long-tail keywords, and People also search for keywords.

It’s great for uncovering new keywords that you may have missed in SEMrush or Ahrefs.

There’s a tiny cost associated with the tool. $10 for 100,000 credits. A team of one person can expect to use around 5,000 to 10,000 credits a month – so $10 can last you roughly a year depending on usage.

Here’s a short overview of the tool:

Competitor research: Ahrefs and SEMrush

Two tools we’ve spoken about already, but I’ll mention them again for competitor research.

Both are great for stealing *learning about your competitors’ keywords, content ideas, and backlinks.

Here’s a video overview of three amazing ways you can use the tool…

(1) Link intersect:

(2) Content gap:

(3) Site explorer:

Create the perfect content brief: Our free template

A content brief is an essential step when producing a search engine optimised page for your website. It provides copywriters, designers, and developers with a framework and guidance to create a page.

The template is broken down into 5 stages:

1. Understand search intent and page type
2. Understand your target audience
3. Find the best keywords
4. On-page optimisations
5. Content structure

Follow the link to learn how to create the perfect content brief and to access our free template.

Write SEO-focussed content: SurferSEO

If you have the budget to spend, SurferSEO is a great tool to help B2B companies produce better content to rank high on Google.

One word of warning, don’t just blindly follow the suggestions it gives you. Look at them, interpret them, and then act accordingly.

Two of its best features are the Content Editor and the Site Audit.

Content Editor:

Think Google Docs on SEO steroids.

This gives you a list of relevant keywords to include in your article along with some FAQs. You’ll get a list of AI-generated headings and titles for your page (take with a pinch of salt) which can help you think of different ideas.

And you even get a handy optimisation score to show you how well-written your content is:

Site Audit:

Put your page URL into the tool and you’ll get back some quick wins and missed opportunities. Again, don’t blindly follow all recommendations. But interpret them and see if they make sense, then optimise your site.

Build links every month: HARO

As mentioned before, building links is essential for B2B companies. Google wants to see that you and your business have Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

One of the best ways to do this is through link building. Getting other websites to link back to your website and we have a full guide on B2B link building here.

One SEO tool companies can use to build links is HARO – Help A Reporter Out.

This free service connects you with reports who are looking for a subject matter expert. You provide the reporter with a quote on a certain topic, they link back to you in return.

Other options include Qwoted, Source Bottle, and searching on Twitter using #JournoRequest

Track your keywords: Nightwatch

A full caveat, we use this tool to track all of our clients’ keywords. Why do we love NightWatch so much?

With a reasonable cost per keyword tracked, it’s great value for money. And you can track across multiple search engines (e.g. Duck, Duck, Go and Bing), in addition to desktop and mobile devices.

Plus, it allows us to track keywords from over 100,000 locations worldwide, so we can see how we rank across the world from Mumbai to Manchester. As well as getting more granular than this, going down to the postcode (zip code) level.

Finally, we can track any changes in SERP features. NightWatch takes a snapshot of the search results every day for the keyword you’re tracking. So, if you drop ranking positions, you can review the SERPs and see what changed.

Record user sessions: Microsoft Clarity

Not your traditional SEO tool, but Microsoft Clarity can provide great insights to help you optimise your website and increase the number of leads being generated.

It allows you to take screen recordings of actual users browsing your website. You can watch these back and understand how Google Search traffic is behaving when it lands on a certain page.

Once you identify any issues (e.g. all of the users leave halfway through the contact form at the same question), you can then adjust the page.

The aim is to increase conversion rates, get more leads, and win more customers.

Crawl your site like Google: Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog is a website crawler, that crawls your website and extracts data which can help you with optimisations.

Some great features…

You can take snapshots of your pages (how Google sees them), you can see how all of your pages are linked together, and you can see all of your meta descriptions, page titles, and word counts. Plus, much, much more.

The only downside of Screaming Frog is it’s like Excel. There’s a steep learning curve, the interface is cold and uninviting. If you crawl your site, it does give you some data and areas to fix. But for the majority of issues, you need to know what you’re looking for.

However, once you know how to use it, it’s one of the most powerful SEO tools there is.

Here are some of my favourite features…

Track your traffic: Google Analytics and Google Search Console

I’m including these here, because even though they may seem obvious, a lot of sites don’t have these setup. Or, they’ve lost the login details.

Both are free, and even if you don’t use them right away, you can have them running in the background.

Google Analytics is a free tool that allows you to see all of the traffic visiting your website. Allowing you to measure ROI and see the fruits of your SEO labour.

Google Search Console is a free tool that allows you to measure your site’s traffic and performance on Google Search specifically. As well as highlighting any issues or fixes that need to be made on your site.

Summary

There we go, 11 B2B SEO tools to help you rank higher on Google.

I can’t stress enough how essential tools are.

They can help uncover opportunities, save time, and ensure you get the best return on investment.

And if you’re starting out on your SEO journey, you can get good initial results with only Ahrefs. The best all-in-one SEO tool there is.

Any questions, please reach out to me on LinkedIn (link below). Or send me a message directly using the form below.