SpyFu vs SEMRUSH vs Moz Pro: What’s the Best SEO tool for your business?

If you’re running a business in 2019, it’s essential that you have an online presence to stay one step ahead of your competition.

There are a number of ways to market your business online, whether it be through social media, paid advertising or even on platforms like YouTube.

What is becoming apparent, however, is that content marketing through blog posts and articles is more important now than it has ever been.

To be able to build a relationship with your audience through content marketing, they need to be able to find your content ahead of your competitors.

Now you could achieve that through paid advertising on Google or Facebook and drive people to your content that way.

Or, you could create content that’s optimized for search engines using an SEO tool. Not only is this method the most cost-effective, but it’s also the best way to keep people coming back to your website for free.

What is an SEO tool?

An SEO tool’s core purpose is to help businesses and individuals research how popular a particular keyword is i.e. how many times it’s being searched each month.

Along with search volumes, an SEO tool can help you understand how much competition there is for that particular keyword.

Using this information, you can decide whether you should use this keyword in your content, or find a keyword that’s equally popular, but with less competition.

Depending on which tool you choose, you’ll usually find other features on offer, including, backlink analysis, advertising research, position tracking and so on.

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Why should I use an SEO tool?

Choosing the right SEO tool for your blog or business could save you thousands of dollars and countless hours of time.

Why? Content that’s optimized for search engines (organic traffic) is free traffic. And if you create great content with well-researched keywords by using an SEO tool like SEMrush or Moz Pro, you’ll get free organic traffic to your blog posts.

However, if you create equally great content but don’t do your research to find keywords that have low search volumes and high demand, you’ll find yourself in a position where the amazing content you took hours to create, is impossible for your users to find.

Choosing the right SEO tool for your business or blog

One search for “best SEO tools” on Google will give you millions of results and show you just how big the SEO industry really is.

With literally hundreds of SEO tools on the market, it can be confusing when it comes to choosing the best SEO tool for your business or blog.

In this article, I’m going to be comparing three of the most well-known SEO tools: SpyFu vs SEMrush vs Moz Pro.

Before I get into the comparisons, here’s a quick overview of what each of the featured SEO tools’ has to offer with their basic plans:

Read on to find out what’s the best SEO tool for bloggers and business owners.

SpyFu Overview

SpyFu, in my opinion, is a great SEO tool. I’ve used it in the past and like it because it does exactly what it says on the tin.

It doesn’t come with all the bells and whistles that some of the other SEO tools have, but what it does do, it does well. This is also reflected in the price which makes it a great entry-level option for small businesses or bloggers.

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SEMrush Overview

SEMrush has been in the business of providing search insights for over 10 years. They have over 4 million users, and their SEO tool comes recommended by SEO gurus, including Neil Patel.

I’ve been using SEMrush for the last couple of years to not only research keywords for blog posts, but also for Shopify e-commerce stores and listings for Amazon FBA.

There are also a stack of nifty features that SEMrush has, which I’ll touch on later in the article.

Moz Pro Overview

Moz Pro was founded by one of the all-time SEO greats; Rand Fishkin back in 2004 and to this day, it’s one of the most well-known SEO tools.

Whilst Moz Pro is a paid SEO tool, Moz does also offer a bunch of free tools, including MozBar.

I love MozBar because you can instantly spy on your competition and find some great insights including how many words are in a particular article and even what alt tags and meta descriptions are being used.

Of course, the paid version of Moz (Moz Pro) will give you many more insights and I’ll be covering those off a little later in this post.

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What’s the best SEO tool for your business? SpyFu vs SEMRUSH vs Moz Pro

To understand what’s the best SEO tool for your business, I’m going to be looking at what some of the most common features of an SEO tool are and seeing how our three contenders weigh in.

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Keyword Research: SpyFu

Using the keyword “online passive income”, I was able to find the following with SpyFu’s keyword research tool:

When you’re researching a keyword, the two most important things to look out for are the number of monthly searches and the keyword ranking difficulty.

These two things are prominently displayed and I’m pleasantly surprised with how much information is available on the keyword overview.

Given that SpyFu offers unlimited monthly keyword searches, it would be easy to search for multiple variations of the same keyword and find a keyword with a lower ranking difficulty and a decent amount of monthly searches.

I also really like that there are other tools available to dig deeper into the keywords you’re researching.

The SERP (search engine results page) tool is pure gold because you’re able to go through each of the top 50 results in Google for that keyword to understand what other competitors are doing.

The only downside I found when using SpyFu’s keyword research tool was that it wasn’t able to able to offer up any search data on the long-tail keywords I searched for.

My score: 7.5/10

Keyword research: SEMrush

I used the keyword “passive income online” in SEMrush’s keyword overview tool and found the following results:

Right off the bat, when we compare the keyword overview from SpyFu vs SEMrush, SEMrush provides a much more comprehensive report.

SEMrush’s keyword overview is also much more visual, which can make a big difference when you’re researching hundreds of different keywords at a time.

To check the difficulty of the keyword, you’ll need to click into keyword difficulty on the side navigation. This feels like it could be simplified, but once you get used to using SEMrush, it’s not that bad.

Similar to SpyFu, SEMrush has SERP analysis, which you’ll find at the bottom of the report. And the level of detail that SEMrush provides when you click on one of these results is awesome.

Another big plus for SEMrush is that it’s pretty good for long tail keyword research. This means that you can target users who are searching for very specific results.

My score: 8/10

Keyword research: Moz Pro

The third and final SEO tool I’m going to be looking at for its keyword research tool is Moz Pro. Again, I used the search term “online passive income” and had the following results:

Moz Pro’s dashboard displays the keyword difficulty, it’s monthly volume, click through rate and priority score. It doesn’t, however, specify whether they’re global or regional search volumes.

The priority score is calculated based on the other scores combined, and the higher the score, the more priority Moz places on that keyword.

Similar to SpyFu and SEMrush, Moz Pro offers keyword suggestions and SERP analysis.

I was a little disappointed, however, to see that Moz Pro only offered SERP analysis for the first page of Google rankings.

To get a high level overview of who your competition are and what they’re doing, you would want to see more than the ten results from the first page.

My score: 6.5/10

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Keyword Research: SpyFu vs SEMrush vs Moz Pro

Of the three SEO tools reviewed, SEMrush scored highest for its keyword research tool.

Remember, when you’re comparing SEO tools, having a tool that gives you as much information as possible on your competition and the keywords they’re ranking for is so important.

SEMrush came out on top because it offered the most granularity out of the three, and gave a lot more insights into the keywords I was searching for.

SpyFu wasn’t too far behind with a basic but rich set of tools, whilst Moz Pro was a little lacking in it’s offering.

My winner: SEMrush

Domain Overview: SpyFu

So far I’ve been quite impressed with SpyFu’s SEO tool and their domain overview tool doesn’t disappoint.

You can choose to search for a specific web page or enter in the domain as I did with my search for YouTube.com.

SpyFu will provide you with a domain overview and if you scroll down the page you can click through to find more detail on the following:

• Competition
• Shared keywords
• Top keywords
• Adwords advisor
• Adwords history
• Ranking history
• Inbound links

Being able to understand where your competitors are getting their backlinks from, as an example, is super valuable when you’re creating content that’s in direct competition with theirs.

My score: 8/10

Domain Overview: SEMrush

As we’ve come to expect, SEMrush offers a very feature rich dashboard and their domain overview is no different.

On this page, we can clearly see traffic that a domain drives from organic and paid search as well as the backlinks it’s generated.

The difference with SpyFu vs SEMrush in this example is that SEMrush also offers insights into display advertising.

Much the same way that you can with SpyFu, SEMrush allows you to analyze a domain name or an individual page.

I really like how SEMrush guarantees real-time results for organic keywords, organic competitors, paid keywords, paid competitors and sample ads. This means that you can count on these results being actionable.

Beyond that, SEMrush’s domain overview will give you the following information for each domain you search:

• Organic & paid position distribution
• Organic & paid competitive positioning map
• Branded search breakdown
• Backlinks
• Top anchors
• Referring domains
• Indexed pages
• Landing pages
• Latest publishers
• Sample text ads
• Sample image ads

There’s a lot more depth in SEMRush’s offering vs SpyFu, and also a focus on advertising, which could be useful to your blog or business in the future.

My score: 9/10

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Domain Overview: Moz Pro

Moz Pro offers a simple yet reasonably effective domain overview. You’ll certainly find a fairly decent overview of your competition using Moz Pro’s domain overview tool.

On the dashboard, you’ll find similar to what we’ve seen with SEMrush and SpyFu, including domain authority, ranking keywords and so on.

As you start to dig a little deeper you’ll also find the following information:

• Inbound links
• Linking domains
• Anchor text
• Top pages
• Discovered and lost links
• Compare link profiles
• Spam score

In saying that, when we compare MOZ Pro’s dashboard to the similarly priced SEMrush, it does feel like it could offer more.

My score: 7/10

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Domain Overview: SpyFu vs SEMrush vs Moz Pro

Of the three SEO tools reviewed, SEMrush comes out on top, with SpyFu a close second.

I found that the analysis offered from both SEMrush and SpyFu was detailed and provided a great deal of value.

SEMrush came out ahead simply because it took things to the next level and offered some insights that SpyFu didn’t.

I expected a little more from MOZ Pro for the premium price point and its reputation in the SEO world. Sadly, its domain overview tool didn’t deliver when compared to SEMrush and SpyFu.

My winner: SEMrush

Backlink Analysis: SpyFu

SpyFu’s SEO tool has the ability to assist you with building your backlink profile and spying on your competition’s backlinks.

On the basic plan, there’s a limit of five viewable search results for each domain you search, however, you can filter the backlink type to show more relevant results.

You can also enter a keyword that you want to rank for and SpyFu will serve up a list of articles focused on this keyword which you can add to your hit list of websites to reach out to for backlinks.

SpyFu also has a feature called backlinks outreach which will populate a list of contacts that you can reach out to, to help with your backlink building strategy.

My score: 7/10

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Backlink Analysis: SEMrush

SEMrush’s backlink analysis offers up a super feature rich dashboard with the ability to go deep into the results.

The tabs at the top of the dashboard will also allow you to uncover the following details for the domain you’re searching:

• Backlinks
• Anchors
• Referring domains
• Referring IP’s
• Indexed pages
• Competitors

Unlike SpyFu, SEMrush doesn’t limit the number of results for any of the insights it offers.

SEMrush also offers a bulk analysis tool that will allow you to compare backlinks from multiple competitors. This is a great time-saving tool when you’re trying to get a lay of the land.

SEMRush’s backlink auditor tool will call out any “toxic” referral links to your website which could be affecting your search rankings.

And our personal favorite, the link building tool.

Enter the keywords you’re focusing and a list of your competitors and SEMrush will provide you with a list of domain prospects to reach out to and build your backlinks.

My score: 9/10

Backlink Analysis: Moz Pro

At the time of writing this article, Moz Pro wasn’t offering a backlink analysis tool

My score: 0/10

Backlink Analysis: SpyFu vs SEMrush vs Moz Pro

Taking the number one spot for the third time in a row is SEMrush. The depth of information it offers is unrivaled when we compare SpyFu vs SEMrush.

SpyFu’s backlink analysis tool isn’t too far behind with a score of 7/10. It’s definitely a good starting point for building out your backlink strategy, but SEMrush wins this one by far.

My winner: SEMrush

Usability: SpyFu

SpyFu has a very simple interface and all of the features were easy to find. If you’ve never used an SEO tool before, you’ll have no problem with SpyFu.

My score: 9/10

Usability: SEMrush

A recurring theme in this post is the level of detail that SEMrush has with its reports. The downside to that is that it for some it might be a little overwhelming.

When I first started using SEMrush it took a bit of time to get used to where to find things. But after a couple of hours using it, you’ll be up to speed.

My score: 8/10

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Usability: Moz Pro

I hate to bash on Moz Pro because I wanted to like it so badly, especially given that I’m a big fan of Rand Fishkin.

However, I found it a little difficult to navigate around Moz Pro’s tools since there isn’t a side-navigation, so you have to go back to the home page each time.

Overall, not a great experience, but definitely usable.

My score: 7/10

Usability: SpyFu vs SEMrush vs Moz Pro

So many blog posts reviewing SEO tools miss out on this key detail when they’re comparing features.

For me, the user experience with any piece of software is super important. That’s why I was disappointed with Moz Pro because these guys really don’t make it easy to use their tool.

SpyFu, on the other hand, makes it really easy to use each and every feature they offer.

SEMrush fell slightly behind SpyFu because of the sheer amount of features they have on offer and the abundance of data they deliver.

This isn’t a bad thing, but as far as using the product out of the box, it’s a bit more of a learning curve when compared to SpyFu.

My winner: SpyFu

Pricing: SpyFu

SpyFu offers three different plans, with the basic plan starting at $39 per month, the professional plan at $58 per month and the team plan (with 5 user logins) at $299 per month.

There is a pretty significant discount under each plan if you choose to purchase 12 months up front under the annual plan.

This is definitely an option to look into if you see yourself creating content for at least the next few months.

Taking into account the features that SpyFu offer and the fact that it also has unlimited search results, data exports, and domain overviews, SpyFu is definitely a great entry-level option for small businesses and bloggers.

Best of all, SpyFu has a 30-day money back guarantee if you’re not happy with their product.

<<Click here to try SpyFu and if you’re not happy, get your money back>>

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Pricing: SEMrush

Similar to SpyFu, SEMrush offer three different plans. Their Pro plan, which we looked at in this article starts at $99.95 per month. Whilst their Guru plan starts at $199.95 per month and the business plan at $399.95 per month.

Choosing to pay annually for SEMrush’s plans will save you almost 20% which is pretty great value.

If you’re creating at least one blog post per week, the return on investment will be priceless given the wealth of data SEMrush provides.

My recommendation is to give SEMrush a go on their free trial and you won’t be disappointed.

Yes, almost $100 per month (or $83 on the annual plan) isn’t pocket money, but if you’re serious about getting your business or blog noticed, you have to invest money and time into it.

<<Click here to try SEMrush today free for 7 days>>

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Pricing: Moz Pro

Our final contender, Moz has four plans for the paid version of their SEO tool, Moz Pro.

Moz Pro’s standard plan starts at $99 per month and goes up to $599 per month with its premium plan.

You can also save 20% if you pay yearly which makes sense if you decide to invest in this SEO tool.

I have to say, as much as I wanted to like Moz Pro, it didn’t meet my expectations and I wouldn’t recommend it over SEMrush or SpyFu.

Moz Pro does offer a 30-day free trial, so if you do want to try it out, you won’t be charged if you sign up and cancel within the first 30 days.

<<Click here to try Moz Pro free for 30 days>>

Conclusion: What is the best SEO tool for your business?

Here’s a quick recap of how each feature stacked up:

After comparing all of the features on each SEO tool’s basic plan, coming out on top with a score of 34/40 is SEMrush. It’s followed in second place by SpyFu with 31.5/40 and Moz Pro with a score of 20.5/40.

There’s a reason that SEMrush is rated highest and that’s because it gives you the ability to go so much deeper than SpyFu and Moz Pro.

When you’re creating content that you want to rank above your competition on Google, you need to know as much as possible about your competitors and the keywords you’re researching.

And that’s why, if you were to ask me whether SEMrush justified the price tag of $99 month, I would say 100% yes.

<<Click here to try SEMrush today free for 7 days>>

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The Best SEO Tools

The Best SEO Tools? There are a number of ways to market your business online, What is becoming apparent, however, is that content marketing through blog posts and articles are more important now...Recommended Features

• ONLINE PASSIVE INCONE
• ONLINE BUSINESS IDEAS SEO
• SpyFu vs SEMrush vs Moz:
• The Serious Affiliate Marketers- Do Serious Affiliate Marketing
• Using this information, you can decide whether you should use this keyword in your content, or find a keyword thats equally popular

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