SEO Tool Evaluation Checklist (10 Questions You Must Answer)

SEOs everywhere are constantly looking for tools to scale their programs and improve organic search traffic to their Website(s). But with thousands of SEO tools on the market, how does one find the right set of tools to fit their business needs? Where does one even begin the SEO tool evaluation process?

In this post, I will outline 10 questions you should answer as you begin evaluating the purchase of a new SEO tool. Whether you are a freelancer, work for an agency or in-house, if you answer these 10 questions you will ensure your next SEO purchase is not a waste of time and money.

1. What problem(s) am I trying to solve?

One thing I’ve learned from my years of working in search marketing is that unless you are willing to drop some serious cash for an Enterprise tool like BrightEdge, Conductor or SearchMetrics, no tool is going to solve all your SEO needs.

Most tools have one or two capabilities it does really well, but otherwise miss the mark on many others. For example, MozPro is great for monitoring back links, unlinked mentions and social signals, but their keyword ranking, technical auditing and content suggestions are rather weak. MajesticSEO is a great back link tool, but really doesn’t provide SEOs much past that. ScreamingFrog provides great technical auditing, but that’s about it. I could list a hundred SEO tools and it would be the same story.

That is why the first question you need to ask yourself before you begin your SEO tool evaluation process is what are the specific problems I need to be able to solve? Followed by: Is there one tool in my price range than can solve all my pain points or will I need to patch work several tools to meet my needs?

2. What critical capabilities do I need?

Most SEO problems that can be answered with software require very specific critical capabilities. You must identify those critical capabilities so you can cross-reference which tool on the market gets as close as possible to meeting all of them.

Also, if you build a side-by-side comparison checklist using these critical capabilities, you can better compare your top software choices. Believe me when I say this will help mitigate the risk of purchasing a dud. Do not skip this step!

3. What tools out on the market meet my system requirements?

This is sometimes the hardest question to answer. Software vendor Websites purposefully make it difficult to decipher what exactly their tool can do and how much it will cost.

Visit software comparison sites to help narrow down your list and identify the most recommended tools on the market. This will turn the software evaluation process from something that can be overwhelming to a much more manageable task.

You should also consult SEO communities on Quora, Search Engine Land, Moz and/or Slack to figure out what your peers are using. Their advice, opinions, and reviews will be invaluable.

4. What budget do I have available to solve my identified problems?

SEO tools can cost up to $100,000 USD a year. Figuring out your budget is critical so you know exactly what tools are within your price range and which are just simply out of your reach. For example, I would love to have a license to DeepCrawl but since my budget is pretty low I might need to settle for a freemium tool like ScreamingFrog. We all want a fancy Lamborghini but often times we need to settle for a reliable Honda.

5. How many user seats do I need?

Many SEO software companies make it difficult to understand how many user seats come with your license. Make sure to always ask how many seats come with your purchase and if they offer concurrent user licenses. It is equally important to know how much it would cost to add user seats after the initial purchase. If you are part of a growing business, you will likely need to add user seats down the road.

6. How will the tool actually increase organic search traffic to my Website(s)?

This is one of the most important questions you need to be able to answer. Oftentimes, SEOs get drawn in by fancy dashboards, charts and tracking capabilities. But what you really need to ask yourself is whether or not these insights are actually going to help me grow my organic traffic? Is it going to help me identify problems/areas of improvement that I otherwise wouldn’t be aware of?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, you should think twice about making the investment.

7. If I need to scale, does this tool allow me to do so?

If you are in a growth environment (which I hope you are), you need to be considering how this tool will help you scale. Does it allow me to support more than one Website? Subdomains? Can I have multiple people log-in into the tool at the same time? Does it allow me to track/monitor international pages? Multiple languages? Think through how growth will impact your current SEO programs and if the software you’re evaluating maps to that growth path.

8. Does the tool provide me data I cannot already retrieve from Google Webmaster Tools or Analytics?

Google Search Console (Web Master Tools) and Analytics provide a lot of SEO insights so you really need to think through how this investment will be complimentary to the data that you could already retrieve for free from these Google apps. If it isn’t, do you really need it?

9. Can I demo the tool for free before I purchase it?

One thing I’ve learned over the years, is that you can never trust product descriptions when making a software purchase. Oftentimes, the functionalities never work the way you anticipated and/or the data they provide you is not even accurate.

The most risky thing you can do is pull the trigger on an SEO tool without seeing it in action. Always ask for a trial before pulling out your credit card. This will help make sure the tool is something you would actually use and find helpful. There will be plenty of tools that will look extremely promising, but once you dig into what they actually deliver, you will quickly realize it just doesn’t provide what you need. While many trials can be time consuming, doing your homework can save you a lot of heartache down the road.

10. Does the company provide customer support?

Many SEO tools out there are downloads and do not provide much, if any, customer support. This is dangerous because oftentimes tools go down, are not easy to learn or need to be customized to work specifically for you. If the tool you are evaluating does not provide support during the implementation process, you might consider purchasing a tool that does. A tool you don’t know how to use is a tool you’ll probably never use.

As SEO becomes more competitive, complex and data-driven, purchasing software to grow your organic search traffic is going to become essential. So whether you are looking for an on-page optimization, technical auditing, back link tracking and/or a competitive intelligence tool, you need to make sure you do your homework. There are new tools popping up everyday, each of which have their own pluses and negatives. Make sure to take your time in finding the one that best matches your business needs and be thorough during the SEO tool evaluation process. It could be the difference between traffic growth and stagnation.

Happy searching!