Struggling to boost your website’s rankings but not sure where to start? Free SEO audit tools are a game-changer for identifying what’s holding your site back. Whether it’s broken links, sluggish page speed, or poorly optimized keywords, these tools can uncover hidden issues and help you optimize your site for better visibility. 🔍
With search engines constantly evolving, staying ahead in the SEO game is more critical than ever—and these tools make it accessible without breaking the bank.
In this blog, we’ll walk you through some of the best free SEO audit tools available, comparing their most popular features, identifying their limitations, and even diving into pricing upgrades where relevant.
Stick around to discover how to make data-driven decisions that deliver results! 📈
What to Look for in a Free SEO Audit Tool
Free SEO audit tools can be valuable, but they often leave gaps that premium versions aim to fill. That’s why using a mix of tools can help cover all aspects of optimization. When choosing an SEO audit tool, focus on features that align with your website’s goals and address its unique needs. Look for:
- Comprehensive analysis for on-page, off-page, and technical SEO
- User-friendly interfaces that make complex data easier to interpret
- Customizable reports tailored to your goals
- Competitor benchmarking to gauge performance
- Real-time updates to track progress effectively
- Scalability to meet future growth needs
Using a combination of tools ensures you get well-rounded insights and resolve hidden issues. While free tools are a great start, premium features can drive deeper analysis, helping you refine strategies for maximum results.
9 Essential Free SEO Website Audit Tools
Instead of paying for tools on a monthly basis, people sometimes need a short-term solution to review a website for free, especially if it’s a hobby website. We’ve compiled a list of tools that are either free or offer (genuinely) useful free trial options that can help you analyze and improve your website.
1. Search Atlas
If you’re short on time and want a detailed analysis of your website, Search Atlas offers a free trial of its products that can help you resolve many issues within just a few days. It’s the first tool of its kind, whose OTTO SEO AI assistant replaces hours of your time and audits your website automatically.
Along with its Content Genius toolkit and OTTO, Search Atlas has a keyword research tool, a site explorer feature, on-page SEO audit tools, and the Scholar tool that analyzes your content in detail.
The On-Page Audit Tool lets you assess each page for all four pillars of SEO: Authority, Content, Technicals, and Page Experience. It looks at your page structure, compares your page to your main competitors’ pages, reviews your backlink profile, and your mobile and desktop PSI.
Similarly, its Site Auditor tool analyzes the SEO health of your website, including Core Web Vitals, technical SEO errors, site indexability, and page-by-page health overview. You can find all Issues in one tab and create exhaustive reports about them with just one click.
Search Atlas has another auditing tool called the Scholar. It can help you audit your content for readability, freshness, factuality, uniqueness, human effort and informational gain. A tool like this is not available elsewhere, and it’s perfect for creating a content improvement plan.
Popular Features
- Site Auditor: Monitor site health 24/7, create reports, and find guides on fixing technical issues.
- Advanced AI: OTTO keeps your content optimized in real-time, automatically adjusting as SEO best practices change.
- Keyword Tools: This tool offers gap analysis, trend tracking, and ranking insights to fine-tune your keyword strategy.
- On-Page Audit: Improve every part of your content, from subheadings and internal links to keyword usage, for better results.
- Technical SEO Tools: Run thorough audits to fix technical SEO issues like broken links, slow site speed, and on-page structure problems. You can even fix the issues directly.
- Custom Report Builder: Create detailed reports, including competitor and backlink analyses, to support your SEO decisions.
- Scholar: Review your content using SA semantic grader, and evaluate relevance, structure, and depth around a targeted keyword.
- Free trial: Get everything you need for a audit with the free trial. You’ll get helpful tips over seven days to make the most of it. No commitments, no charges, cancel anytime.
Limitation
- While SearchAtlas offers a wide range of features, some users have reported a slight learning curve when navigating advanced tools. To overcome this, onboarding calls are easily available.
- Customizing OTTO settings for large websites takes some effort, so it achieves better results if you use it long-term.
Pricing
| Starter plan | Growth plan | Pro plan | |
| Price | $99/month | $199/month | $399/month |
| Free OTTO activation | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| User seats | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| GSC Site Projects | 5 | 15 | Unlimited |
| Onpage In-Depth Audits | 40 | 100 | 200 |
| Total Pages Crawled per Month | 50,000 | 100,000 | 1,000,000 |
Search Atlas reviews
- G2: 4.8/5 (91)
- Capterra: 4.9/5 (63)
2. Google Search Console
Google Search Console (GSC) is a must-have free tool for marketers and website owners who want to improve their site’s visibility and performance in Google Search results. While your site can appear in search results without it, GSC provides valuable insights and tools to help you understand how Google views your website and make improvements.
With GSC, you can confirm that Google is crawling your site, fix indexing issues, and even request re-indexing for updated or new content. It also offers detailed reports on how often your site appears in search results, which queries lead users to your site, and how many clicks those queries generate. Additionally, GSC alerts you to issues like indexing errors, spam, or other problems, so you can address them promptly.
One standout feature is its ability to show which websites are linking to yours, giving you a clear view of your backlink profile. For anyone serious about improving their site’s performance, GSC is an invaluable tool.
Popular Features
- Crawl Monitoring: Ensure Google can find and crawl your site effectively to maintain visibility in search results.
- Core Web Vitals: This essential SEO report shows you your page’s speed, interactivity, and visual stability.
- Indexing Fixes: Identify and resolve indexing issues, and request re-indexing for new or updated content.
- Search Performance Reports: Analyze how often your site appears in search results, which queries drive traffic, and click-through rates.
- Alerts and Notifications: Get notified about indexing errors, spam, or other critical issues affecting your site.
- Traffic Loss Audit: By comparing your pages in different date ranges, you can see if any of them are outdated and need an update.
Limitations
- Some users may have issues interpreting the data on their own, as the GSC doesn’t always provide actionable steps to resolve issues.
- A portion of marketers may find its restricted data retention period limiting, especially if they want to analyze trends over longer periods.
- Sometimes, users wish they would have these features for other search engines like Bing. However, as this is a Google product, it only makes sense that it doesn’t cover its competitors.
Pricing
- Google Search Console is free.
Google Search Console reviews
- G2: 4.7/5 (411)
- Capterra: 4.8/5 (202)
3. Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT)
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT) is a helpful free resource for all website owners. It lets you scan your site for over 140 common SEO issues and gives clear advice on how to fix them, making it easier to keep your site running smoothly over time.
One of the most useful features is its backlink data, powered by a reliable third-party crawler. You can dive into detailed reports to see who’s linking to your site, what your outbound links look like, and how these links impact your SEO.
AWT also gives you insights into the keywords your site ranks for and shows how you compare to competitors in search results. With metrics like Search Volume and Keyword Difficulty, you get a better sense of your site’s potential. Plus, automated alerts keep you updated on key changes like lost backlinks or shifts in rankings.
Popular Features
- Keyword Explorer: Identify the most relevant keywords to target based on search volume, competition, and intent data.
- Site Audit: Analyze your site’s technical SEO issues like broken links, slow pages, and mobile optimization.
- Backlink Analysis: Assess your backlink profile to identify toxic links and discover opportunities for quality backlinks.
- Rank Tracking: Monitor and track your keyword rankings over time to assess SEO performance and competitors’ strategies.
- Spam Score: Evaluate the spam risk of a domain by analyzing the quality and trustworthiness of its backlinks.
- Link Intersect: Find websites that link to competitors but not to your site, uncovering backlink opportunities.
- On-Page Optimization: Review on-page SEO factors like title tags, meta descriptions, and content structure for ranking improvement.
- Custom Reports: Create detailed, customizable SEO reports to track performance, share insights, and make data-driven decisions.
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools limitations
- Some users remark that the reporting limits on the entry-level plan feel restrictive.
- Sometimes it may be frustrating that there’s no mobile app for quick, on-the-go SEO work.
- Occasionally, reviewers will mention the lack of phone support as a downside.
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools pricing
- Free (AWT): $0 – 5000 crawl credits
- Starter: $29/month – 5,000 crawl credits and access to Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, and Site Audit
- Lite: $129/month – 5 projects, 6 months of historical data, 750 tracked keywords, 100,000 crawl credits
- Standard: $249/month – 20 projects, 2 years of historical data, 2,000 tracked keywords, 500,000 crawl credits
- Advanced: $449/month – 50 projects, 5 years of historical data, 5,000 tracked keywords, 1,500,000 crawl credits
Ahrefs reviews
- G2: 4.5/5 (548)
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (572)
4. Semrush Free Tools
The SEMrush Free Site Audit Tool helps you quickly identify and fix SEO issues on your website. It scans for errors related to crawlability, page speed, internal linking, HTTPS security, and more.
With a user-friendly dashboard, it prioritizes issues and offers actionable recommendations to improve site health. The free version allows a limited number of pages per audit, making it ideal for small sites or quick diagnostics.
Whether you’re fixing technical SEO problems or optimizing for better rankings, SEMrush’s site audit tool provides valuable insights to enhance your website’s performance and visibility in search results.
Popular Features
- Site Audit Tool: Helps identify SEO issues, providing insights to improve site health, performance, and search visibility.
- Website Authority Checker: This tool evaluates domain quality and provides data from over 808 million domains, including Authority Scores and backlink profiles.
- Keyword Rank Checker: It shows the keywords a website ranks for in Google’s organic results and offers insights into competitor rankings.
- SERP Checker: This feature reviews Google search results for specific keywords in chosen locations, highlighting competitors and SERP features.
- Keyword Search Volume Checker: It reveals the average monthly search volume for a keyword, along with search trends and additional data for SEO or PPC strategies.
Limitations of SEMrush Free SEO Tools
- Some reviews say the free tools offer limited data compared to the full paid version.
- A few highlight that search volume and ranking insights are not always as detailed as expected.
- Certain reviews say the tools can feel restrictive for large-scale competitor analysis and advanced SEO strategies.
SEMrush pricing
- Free: $0, unlimited time – 10 keyword searches per day, analyze up to 10 domains per day, track 10 keywords, crawl up to 100 URLs, monitor local listings
- Pro: $139.95/month – 5 projects, 500 tracked keywords, 10,000 results per report
- Guru: $249.95/month – 15 projects, 1,500 tracked keywords, 30,000 results per report, access to historical data, content marketing platform, Looker Studio Integration
- Business: $449.95/month – 40 projects, 5,000 tracked keywords, 50,000 results per report, access to API and extended limits.
SEMrush reviews
- G2: 4.5/5 (2,375)
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (2,272)
5. GTmetrix
GTmetrix is a performance analysis tool that helps website owners understand and optimize their site’s speed and usability. It’s known for its accessible features, including the ability to test pages from seven global locations like London, Mumbai, and Vancouver.
Iit provides detailed performance insights, tracking metrics like Web Vitals, GTmetrix Grades, and total page size, with helpful graphs to monitor progress over time.
The dashboard, filters, and tags make it easy to organize reports, while Real User Metrics offer insights into real-world performance trends. Some users have noted its value for identifying bottlenecks and improving site efficiency.
Popular Features
- Global Testing: Analyze website performance from seven different locations, including Vancouver, London, and Mumbai for global insights.
- Detailed Metrics: Track important web performance metrics, including Web Vitals, GTmetrix Grades, and Performance/Structure Scores for deeper insights.
- Historical Data: Monitor historical trends with graphs showing HTML size, requests, and CrUX data to identify performance shifts.
- Organized Reports: Manage reports with customizable dashboards, filters, and tags for better organization and tracking.
- Real User Metrics: Gain insights from real user data, including a one-month CrUX performance history for accurate, real-world data.
- Free Tests: Run up to five free performance tests every month to gauge and optimize your website’s speed.
GTmetrix limitations
- Some reviews say the free account’s weekly limit of 30 tests is too restrictive.
- A few mention light inconsistencies in performance results between different users’ tests.
- Certain reviewers complain about the location limits.
GTmetrix pricing
- Free: $0/month – up to 5 tests per month
- Individual Plans: $5 to $55/month – Over 100 tests, longer data retention, and more options
- Business Plans: $85+/month – Over 2000 tests, one to two years of data retention
- Custom Plans: Created with the sales team
GTmetrix reviews
- G2: 4.6/5 (39)
- Capterra: 4.9/5 (33)
6. RankMath
RankMath is an SEO plugin built to make optimizing your website simple and effective. Its free version comes with handy, but limited features for auditing your website. You get an SEO score, clear warnings, and a list of things to fix—straightforward and to the point.
What makes it so popular is how it breaks up SEO into more manageable steps, so you don’t have to be a pro to use it.
Popular Features
- Advanced SEO Analysis Tool: Get a comprehensive evaluation of your website’s SEO performance with over 30 detailed tests.
- SEO Analysis Score: Access an easy-to-understand score, summarizing the overall health and optimization of your website’s SEO.
- SEO Warnings: Identify areas that need immediate attention to help improve your website’s search engine rankings.
- SEO Failed Tests: Pinpoint the critical SEO issues and errors that need fixing to improve website performance.
- 404 Monitor: Keep track of 404 errors, allowing you to fix broken links and improve site health.
- Redirection Manager: Manage and implement redirects and improve SEO by ensuring correct URL routing.
RankMath limitations
- Advanced users may find the free version limiting, as it only keeps Google data for 90 days.
- The free version may not be enough for some website owners as many of its automation features are available in premium only.
- Reviews mention its schema markup editor is not as customizable as some users would like.
RankMath pricing
- Free: $0/month – Basic analysis tools
- PRO: $6.99/month – Unlimited personal websites, 500 tracked keywords, schema generator, 5k Content AI credits.
- Business: $20.99/month – 100 client websites, 10,000 tracked keywords, schema generator, 12k Content AI credits
- Agency: $49.99/month – 500 client websites, 50,000 tracked keywords, schema generator, 30k Content AI credits.
RankMath reviews
- G2: 4.8/5 (109)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (48)
7. AIOSEO Chrome Extension
AIOSEO has free tools that let you review any URL quickly and scan it for potential issues. You can do it on the company’s website or by using its free Chrome extension.
Popular Features
- SEO Analyzer Tool: This is a quick, one-time review tool created to attract new users.
- Technical SEO Checks: The free Chrome extension lets you check your robot.txt files, schema markup, and other factors.
- Content Review Tool: The extension also gives you a quick overview of your page’s content.
AIOSEO limitations
- A few users think that the extension needs additional features.
- Several reviews mention that the premium version is expensive.
AIOSEO Chrome Extension pricing
- Free
AIOSEO (Premium) reviews
- G2: 4.8/5 (132)
- Capterra: 4.3/5 (42)
8. Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Screaming Frog is a digital PR agency with a well-known crawling tool that can help advanced SEOs identify technical issues, audit website structures, and optimize on-page elements for better search engine performance.
Popular Features
- Website Crawling: Crawl websites of any size to detect broken links, duplicate content, crawl errors, and more.
- Technical SEO Audits: Identify SEO issues like missing meta tags, improper redirects, and inaccurate canonicalization settings.
- Custom Extraction: Scrape specific data from webpages using custom XPath expressions or regular expressions for precise information gathering.
- Visualization: Generate interactive site structure diagrams to better understand your website’s layout and URL hierarchy.
- Integration: Seamlessly connect with Google Analytics, Search Console, and PageSpeed Insights for comprehensive data analysis.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider limitations
- Some reviews say the interface can feel overwhelming for beginners unfamiliar with technical SEO.
- Certain reviews say the free version’s crawl limit of 500 URLs isn’t sufficient for larger websites.
- Observations show that advanced features like custom extractions require a steep learning curve for new users.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider pricing
- Free: $0/month – 500 URLs limit
- Premium: $259/year – unlimited crawl and advanced features
Screaming Frog SEO Spider reviews
- G2: 4.7/5 (81)
- Capterra: 4.9/5 (131)
9. SEObility
Seobility’s free SEO checker helps identify technical errors and on-page issues affecting rankings. You get three free checks a day.
Popular Features
- SEO Checker: Check any URL for technical and on-page issues.
- Keyword Checker: Check how pages are optimized for one or more keywords.
- Ranking Checker: You can check how a page ranks in specific regions, on mobile, and on desktop.
- TF*IDF Tool: While it’s not as frequently used by SEOs now, this tool lets you analyze topical relevance compared to your competitors.
SEObility limitations
- You get three checks per day on the free version, which some users may find insufficient.
SEObility pricing
- Basic: $0/month – 3 checks per day, 1 website project
- Premium: $50/month – 3 projects and additional features
- Agency: $200/month – 15 projects, more features
SEObility reviews
- G2: 4.6/5 (320)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (62)
Check Your Website’s Health With Free SEO Audit Tools
Free SEO audit tools provide an accessible way for website owners, marketers, and businesses to identify areas for improvement and optimize their sites for better search engine performance. From analyzing technical issues to tracking keywords and backlinks, these tools offer essential insights without breaking the bank.
However, if you want to make the best use of your time without spending any money, try out Search Atlas.
With our complete set of tools and AI assistant OTTO, you can check your website’s health, optimization, and content and fix issues directly — without leaving your dashboard. This means you get more time to focus on other tasks.
With Search Atlas and save hundreds of hours. Sign up for a free trial and start saving! No commitments, no charges—cancel anytime.
