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Prices checked 23 September 2026

SEO Tools for Small Business: Which One for Which Job (Free Ones First)

By Sam Butcher, founder of RnkRocket · Updated 23 September 2026

The short answer: start with the free tools from Google and Microsoft: Search Console to see how you're found, Business Profile to show up on Maps, PageSpeed Insights to check speed and Bing Webmaster Tools for Bing. Add one cheap paid tool only when you want weekly rank tracking and a prioritised fix list in one place.

This guide is for UK small business owners who do their own SEO in the gaps between running the business: a tradesperson with a ten-page site, a salon, a shop, a practice. It is sorted by the job you need doing, with the free tools first, because most small businesses should be using all of them before they pay for anything.

If price is your first filter, we compare the cheapest options plan by plan on our cheap SEO tools price comparison.

DisclosureRnkRocket is our product. It is on this list in the place we think it belongs, with what you give up by choosing it. We don't earn commission from any other tool on this page.

The short list: one tool per job

Seven of the eleven are free. Work down the list and stop when the job you need is covered.

Prices checked 23 September 2026 on each vendor's own pricing page, shown as the vendor publishes them.
The jobToolCost
See which searches find youGoogle Search ConsoleFree
Show up on Maps and in the local resultsGoogle Business ProfileFree
Check page speed on a phonePageSpeed InsightsFree
Get indexed on BingBing Webmaster ToolsFree
Free site audit and your own backlinksAhrefs FreeFree
Crawl the whole site for technical faultsScreaming Frog SEO SpiderFree up to 500 URLs
On-page SEO on WordPressRank MathFree
Weekly rankings and a prioritised fix list in one placeRnkRocket£9.95/mo
Keyword ideas and difficulty scoresMangools (KWFinder)US$37.70/mo billed yearly
Search volumes while you browseKeywords EverywhereUS$84/yr
Backlinks, PPC and deep competitor dataSemrush or AhrefsFrom £99/mo

The free SEO tools every small business should use

None of these cost anything, and between them they cover how Google sees your site, how you appear locally, how fast you load and what's broken. Set them up in this order.

1. Google Search Console

Free

See which searches find you, and what stops Google indexing your pages

Use it for

  • The exact searches your site appeared for, with impressions, clicks and average position.
  • Which pages are indexed, which are not, and why.
  • Core Web Vitals from real visitors, and alerts when Google finds a problem.

What it won't do

  • Tell you what to fix first, or how.
  • Show you competitors, or keywords you do not appear for yet.

Visit Google Search Console

2. Google Business Profile

Free

Show up on Google Maps and in the local results

Use it for

  • Your listing on Maps and in the local results: hours, services, photos, posts and reviews.
  • Seeing how people found your listing and what they did next (calls, directions, website visits).

What it won't do

  • Anything for your website itself.
  • Tell you how complete your profile is compared with the businesses above you.

If you serve customers in an area, this is as important as your website. Fill in every section.

Visit Google Business Profile

3. PageSpeed Insights

Free

Check how fast a page loads on a phone

Use it for

  • A speed test of any page, on mobile and desktop, with the problems slowing it down.
  • Real-visitor Core Web Vitals, where Google has enough data for your site.

What it won't do

  • Check more than one page at a time.
  • Look at anything other than speed and a few technical basics.

Visit PageSpeed Insights

4. Bing Webmaster Tools

Free

Do for Bing what Search Console does for Google

Use it for

  • Search performance and indexing on Bing.
  • A free site scan, and you can import sites you have already verified in Search Console.

What it won't do

  • Replace Search Console; most UK searches still happen on Google.

Visit Bing Webmaster Tools

5. Ahrefs Free (formerly Ahrefs Webmaster Tools)

Free (verified sites only)

A free site audit and a look at who links to you

Use it for

  • A site audit that scans for 170+ technical and on-page issues.
  • The pages and keywords that bring you organic traffic, and the sites linking to you.

What it won't do

  • Work on a site you cannot verify as yours, so no looking at competitors.
  • Explain the fixes in plain English; it assumes you know what the issues mean.

Visit Ahrefs Free (formerly Ahrefs Webmaster Tools)

6. Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Free up to 500 URLs · £199 per year for the paid licence

Crawl your whole site for technical problems

Use it for

  • Broken links, redirects, missing or duplicate titles and descriptions, and blocked pages, across the whole site.
  • Most small business sites are well under the free 500-URL limit.

What it won't do

  • Tell you whether a problem matters, or what to do about it.
  • Track rankings or keywords. It is a desktop app for people comfortable with raw data.

Visit Screaming Frog SEO Spider

7. Rank Math (WordPress)

Free · PRO from €6.99/mo billed yearly

Get titles, descriptions and schema right on a WordPress site

Use it for

  • Editing titles, meta descriptions and schema page by page as you write.
  • XML sitemaps and redirects without extra plugins.

What it won't do

  • Anything if your site is on Wix, Squarespace or Shopify.
  • Rank tracking on the free plugin (PRO adds a rank tracker).

Yoast SEO does a similar job and also has a free version.

Visit Rank Math (WordPress)

When the free tools aren't enough: one cheap paid tool

The free tools show you data. What they don't do is join it up: track where you rank each week, compare you with a competitor, and turn a hundred findings into the three fixes to do this month. That's the job to pay for, and it shouldn't cost agency money.

8. RnkRocket (our product)

£9.95/mo or £99.50/yr · 14-day free trial, no card

Weekly rankings and a prioritised, plain-English fix list in one place

Use it for

  • A full site audit with the fixes listed in priority order, in plain English. You can download the audit as a PDF, CSV or Excel file.
  • Weekly rank tracking for your keywords across the UK (25 keywords on Basic).
  • Google Business Profile checks, competitor comparison and keyword research.
  • Content tools that draft titles, descriptions and page copy from what the audit found.

What you give up

  • No backlink index: it won't show you who links to your competitors.
  • No PPC data: keyword research shows a cost-per-click estimate and nothing more.
  • No API for your own integrations.
  • Rankings are UK-wide positions checked weekly, not by postcode or town.
  • Trial users get a limited number of AI fixes; the full fix list needs a paid plan.

Most sites are set up, with a first audit, in under ten minutes. Look after several client sites? See SEO tools for agencies.

Start free trial — no card required

You only need these if the job is yours to do. Keyword research tools help if you write a lot of new pages. The big suites earn their price in competitive national markets or when SEO is someone's full-time job; for the detail, see our Semrush alternative and Ahrefs alternative pages.

9. Mangools (KWFinder)

US$61/mo, or US$37.70/mo billed yearly (Basic)

Keyword research that a beginner can follow

Use it for

  • Finding the words people actually search for, with difficulty scores that are easy to read.
  • Seeing who ranks for a search before you decide to target it.

What it won't do

  • Crawl your site for technical problems.
  • Come cheap: it costs several times RnkRocket Basic.

Visit Mangools (KWFinder)

10. Keywords Everywhere

US$84 billed yearly (Bronze, 100,000 credits)

Search volumes shown inside Google as you search

Use it for

  • Quick checks on whether anyone searches for a phrase, without opening another tool.

What it won't do

  • Audit your site, track rankings or tell you what to do next.

Visit Keywords Everywhere

11. Semrush or Ahrefs

Semrush SEO plan £113/mo (£95.07/mo billed yearly) · Ahrefs Lite £99/mo

Backlink research, PPC research and deep competitor data

Use it for

  • Big backlink and keyword databases, PPC research and detailed competitor analysis.
  • Sites in competitive national markets, or anyone doing SEO as a job.

What it won't do

  • Suit most one-site small businesses: you pay for depth you will rarely use.

We compare both in detail on our Semrush alternative and Ahrefs alternative pages.

Visit Semrush or Ahrefs

Which SEO tools does your kind of business need?

A local trade or service business with a small site

Google Business Profile first, then Search Console and PageSpeed Insights. Most of your calls will come from Maps and the local results, so a complete profile does more than anything else. Add a paid tool when you want to see your rankings move week to week.

A WordPress site you edit yourself

Search Console, plus Rank Math or Yoast for titles, descriptions and schema as you write. Run Screaming Frog's free crawl once a quarter to catch broken links.

A shop on Shopify, Wix or Squarespace

Search Console and PageSpeed Insights (check mobile speed: large images and add-on apps slow these sites down), plus Bing Webmaster Tools. Your platform handles much of the on-page basics; a site audit tool finds what it misses.

You write a lot of new pages or blog posts

Add a keyword research tool. Keywords Everywhere is the cheapest way in; Mangools is easier to plan with.

You compete nationally or SEO is your job

This is where Semrush or Ahrefs earn their price: backlinks, PPC research and competitor depth at scale.

Questions small business owners ask

Which SEO tools are best for small business?

Start with the free ones: Google Search Console (how Google sees your site and which searches find you), Google Business Profile (how you appear on Maps and in the local results), PageSpeed Insights (page speed) and Bing Webmaster Tools (the same for Bing). Add one cheap paid tool when you want weekly rank tracking, a competitor comparison and a prioritised list of fixes in one place. Most small businesses never need a £100-a-month professional suite.

Which is the best free SEO tool?

Google Search Console. It is free, it comes from Google, and it shows real data no other tool has: the searches your site appeared for, how often people clicked, which pages are indexed and what is stopping the rest. If you only set up one SEO tool, set up this one. Pair it with Google Business Profile if you serve customers locally.

Can ChatGPT do SEO?

It can help with parts of it. ChatGPT is good at drafting page titles, meta descriptions and first drafts of content, and at explaining what an SEO term means. It cannot see your Search Console data, check where you rank this week, or reliably crawl your whole site, so on its own it is guessing about your site. Use it alongside a tool that measures, and check what it writes before you publish it.

Is SEO still worth it in 2026?

For a small business that customers find through Google, yes. People still search for local services, and the pages Google shows and quotes are still web pages. What has changed is the top of the results: when we checked 12 small-business SEO searches in the UK on 23 September 2026, 10 had an AI Overview above the normal results. That makes clear, well-structured pages that answer the question more important, not less.

Is SEO dead now with AI?

No. AI answers sit on top of many Google results now, but they are built from web pages, and Google Maps and the local results still decide which nearby business gets the call. The basics a small business controls (a fast site, clear pages about what you do and where, a complete Business Profile, and fixing what stops Google reading your site) matter as much as they did before.

Set up the free tools today. Try RnkRocket when you want them joined up.

A full site audit, weekly rank tracking and a prioritised fix list for £9.95 a month. Try it free for 14 days with no card; trial users get a limited number of AI fixes.

Start free trial — no card required

Updated 23 September 2026. Prices checked 23 September 2026 on each vendor's pricing page — check each tool's website for the latest pricing.

Related reading

Small business SEO guideWhat SEO means for a small business and the five things that matter most.
Small business SEO in the UKWhat a £9.95 tool does next to what a £300-a-month agency does.
Local SEO guideGetting found on Maps and in the local results, step by step.
RnkRocket pricingEvery plan from £9.95 a month, with the 14-day free trial.