A small website does not need an SEO subscription to get the basics right. It needs to know how Google sees it, what people search for, how fast its pages are, and which technical errors are holding it back, and every one of those questions has a free tool. Several come straight from Google and Microsoft, which means the data is the search engine’s own rather than an estimate. This list covers ten of them: what each one does, what the free version includes, and when, if ever, paying makes sense. One of the ten is our own, and it is marked as such.
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Free SEO tools: 10 that actually help a small site
Most of what a small site needs for SEO is free, and much of it comes from the search engines themselves. Ten tools, what each one is for, and exactly where the free version stops.
10 free SEO tools at a glance (October 2026)
| Tool | What it is for | Free version | Paid version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | How Google sees your site: searches, indexing, errors | Free for any site you verify | None |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | The same for Bing, plus instant URL submission | Free; imports your sites from Search Console | None |
| PageSpeed Insights | Speed and Core Web Vitals, in the lab and from real visitors | Free | None |
| Google Keyword Planner | Search volumes straight from Google | Free inside a Google Ads account; ranges without ad spend | None; ads are optional |
| Google Trends | Whether interest in a topic is rising, falling or seasonal | Free | None |
| Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Crawling your own site the way a search engine does | Up to 500 URLs per crawl | £199 a year |
| Ahrefs Webmaster Tools | A site audit, backlinks and keywords for your own site | 5,000 crawl credits per site a month | Paid Ahrefs plans add competitor data |
| Rich Results Test | Whether your structured data qualifies for rich results | Free | None |
| Semrush, free account | A first look at keywords and competitors | 100 audited pages a month, 10 tracked keywords | Paid plans |
| Level UI SEO checker (ours) | A full single-page audit, explained in plain words | Free | None |
Free limits and prices from each vendor’s own pages, checked on 28 October 2026. Free tiers change often; the vendor’s page is the final word.
What a small site actually needs
SEO tools do four jobs: they show you how the search engine sees your site, what people search for, how fast your pages load, and which technical errors get in the way. Paid suites bundle all four with a fifth, estimates of your competitors’ traffic and links, and that fifth job is most of what the subscription pays for. For a site with a few dozen pages, the first four are enough, and the most reliable versions of them are free.
1. Google Search Console
If you install only one SEO tool, make it Search Console: it is the only place Google itself tells you how it sees your site. The Performance report lists the searches your pages appeared for, with clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position, going back up to 16 months. The Page indexing report shows which pages Google has indexed and why it skipped the rest, URL Inspection checks any single page, and you can submit your sitemap there.
It is free for any site you can prove you own, through a DNS record or a file on the server. If indexing problems are the reason you are looking, our page on Google Search Console setup and indexing covers what we fix there.
2. Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing’s equivalent of Search Console is free, and if you already use Search Console it takes a minute to set up: Bing can import your verified sites directly, up to 100 at a time, without a second verification. It shows the searches you appear for on Bing, crawl errors and backlinks. It also supports IndexNow, a protocol that lets your site tell participating search engines the moment a page is added or changed, instead of waiting to be recrawled.
3. PageSpeed Insights
PageSpeed Insights measures a page in two ways. The lab result runs Lighthouse on a simulated phone and network, which is reproducible and good for finding causes. The field result shows what real Chrome users experienced over the last 28 days, from the Chrome User Experience Report, and it is what Google’s Core Web Vitals assessment is based on. Small sites often have no field data because they have too few visitors; the lab result still applies. Our guides to Core Web Vitals and getting a 100 PageSpeed score explain how to read both.
4. Google Keyword Planner
Keyword Planner is the free source of search volumes that comes directly from Google. It sits inside Google Ads and needs an account with billing details entered, but no running ads. It returns average monthly searches for any term by country and language, plus related suggestions. Accounts with little or no ad spend may see ranges, such as 100 to 1,000, instead of exact averages, which is still enough to compare terms. How to use it to choose what to write is the subject of our guide to keyword research for small sites.
5. Google Trends
Trends does not show search volumes. It shows interest in a term as its share of all searches, scaled from 0 to 100, which makes it the right tool for questions volumes cannot answer: is this topic growing or fading, does it peak in a particular month, and which of two phrasings is more popular in a given country. For anything seasonal, such as preparing a shop for Black Friday, it tells you when to start.
6. Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Screaming Frog is a desktop program that crawls your site the way a search engine does, following every link and listing what it finds: broken links, redirects, missing or duplicate titles and descriptions, missing headings, oversized images and pages blocked from indexing. The free version crawls up to 500 URLs, which covers most small business sites completely. The paid licence, £199 a year, removes the limit and unlocks the advanced features.
7. Ahrefs Webmaster Tools
Ahrefs offers a free version of its tools for sites you verify. It includes Site Audit, which checks for more than 170 technical and on-page issues, with 5,000 crawl credits per site each month, and Site Explorer, which shows the keywords your pages rank for and the sites that link to you. It is the most useful free view of your own backlinks. What it does not show is anyone else’s site; competitor data is what the paid plans sell.
8. Rich Results Test and Schema Markup Validator
Structured data tells search engines what a page contains: a product with a price, an article with an author, a business with an address. Google’s Rich Results Test checks whether a page’s markup qualifies for the enhanced results Google shows, and the Schema Markup Validator, run by schema.org, checks the markup against the full vocabulary. Both are free and need nothing but a URL. Our guide to schema markup explains which types are worth adding.
9. Semrush, free account
A free Semrush account gives a limited daily allowance of keyword and domain reports, a Site Audit of up to 100 pages a month on one project, and position tracking for 10 keywords. That is too little to work in every day, but enough for a first look at what a competitor ranks for, or a second opinion on a technical audit. Paid tools like Semrush and Ahrefs earn their price at scale, for agencies and for sites with thousands of pages.
For a small site, a paid SEO suite is usually a subscription to data about other people’s websites. Everything about your own site, Google and Bing already give you for free.
10. Our free SEO checker
Our own free SEO checker is the last on the list, and we built it. Enter an address and in about a minute it runs over 40 technical checks, including Google’s own test on mobile and desktop, the robots.txt file and the sitemap, and an AI writes up the findings in plain words with what to fix first. It is meant as the first look, the one that tells you whether the tools above will find much, and it is free without an account.
Which ones to start with
Start with three: Search Console to see what Google sees, PageSpeed Insights to measure speed, and Keyword Planner to decide what to write. Add Bing Webmaster Tools the same afternoon, since it imports everything from Search Console. Run Screaming Frog or Ahrefs Webmaster Tools once a quarter, or after any redesign, to catch broken links and missing titles. Keep Trends and the Rich Results Test for when a question comes up.
Free tools report problems; they do not fix them, and they cannot tell you which of fifty warnings actually matter. That judgement is what our paid SEO Audit is for: a person reads your site, ranks the issues by what they cost you, and tells you what to do in what order.
Sources
Features, free limits and prices from each vendor’s own pages, checked on 28 October 2026.
- Google Search Console Help — Performance report ↗
Queries, clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position.
- Bing Webmaster Blog — Import sites from Search Console ↗
Verified sites imported directly from Google Search Console, up to 100 at once.
- IndexNow ↗
The protocol for telling participating search engines that a URL was added or changed.
- Google for Developers — About PageSpeed Insights ↗
Lab data from Lighthouse; field data from the Chrome User Experience Report over the previous 28 days.
- Google Ads Help — Use Keyword Planner ↗
Keyword Planner needs an Ads account with billing details entered.
- Google Trends Help — FAQ about Google Trends data ↗
Search interest is a topic’s share of all searches, scaled from 0 to 100.
- Screaming Frog — SEO Spider pricing ↗
Free version: 500 URLs per crawl. Licence: £199 a year.
- Ahrefs — Webmaster Tools ↗
Free for verified sites: Site Audit (170+ issues, 5,000 crawl credits per project a month) and Site Explorer.
- Google — Rich Results Test ↗
Checks whether a page’s structured data qualifies for rich results.
- Semrush Knowledge Base — How many pages can I crawl in a Site Audit ↗
Free accounts: 100 pages per month.
— FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Fifty warnings and no idea which matter?
Start with our free SEO checker, or have us read the site and rank what to fix by what it costs you.