Best SEO Software in Australia

There are plenty of options to choose from on the Australian SEO tools market, but there aren’t that many solutions that are able to effectively analyse local online businesses in Australia. Still, when you’re faced with a number of seemingly great options, it can be very difficult to understand which tool is the best SEO software that can help you boost your search engine performance, drive traffic, and ultimately, take command of your niche.

In order to make that tough yet very important decision, digital marketers and SEOs have to put several options side by side to see which one is best. Besides taking up a huge chunk of your valuable time, this process is very tedious when you actually consider how many options are on the market.

The mission of Top10 SEO Software is to do all the heavy lifting for you. We have identified the top three SEO platforms in Australia in terms of popularity and toolset—Ahrefs, Semrush, and SE Ranking—and have compared them to each other against four crucial aspects of SEO:

• Keyword rank tracking
• Competitive research
• Backlink analysis
• Website audit

Of course, each of the analysed tools has its own distinctive features and benefits, however, here we will focus only on the aspects that are related to SEO. Before we start, it must be pointed out that each of the analysed solutions is great for search engine optimisation and excels at different aspects.

Below, you will find a list of features offered by each solution in the four areas of SEO we will focus on. Then, we analysed the pros and cons and offered our conclusions with regard to each platform. Note that we pay a lot of attention to the price/quality ratio so that you can have a better grasp of the value you will be able to get for your investment.

Without further ado, let’s jump in to find out what the best SEO software for Australia is, as in which one can provide the best results for the Australian market.

SE Ranking: Can an SEO Specialist Dream Big?

SE Ranking’s SEO solution offers affordable powerful tools that were designed to be accessible to experienced pros as well as first-steppers.

Regardless of your level of expertise, the tool can help you set up marketing campaigns, boost SEO standings, and overtake the niche. On top of that, you won’t be forced to spend hours figuring things out and findinding your way around this intuitive platform.

SE Ranking positions itself as an all-in-one SEO platform, meaning it covers the full range of marketing and SEO activities, including keyword rank tracking, competitive, keyword, and backlink analysis, website audit, as well as SEO reporting. However, it excels in rank tracking across major search engines and countries. With this tool, you can manage your keywords, traffic and backlinks from one central hub.

Let’s dive in and see just what professionals can achieve with SE Ranking’s tools.

Read full review

SE Ranking keyword position tracker

Any powerful SEO tool has a keyword rank tracking tool. SE Ranking is considered to be one of such tools as it allows marketers to closely analyse their site’s keyword ranking positions, put that data next to competitors to see their progress, and as a result, obtain plenty of actionable information. At the moment, this SEO solution is one of the top options for Australia with regard to cost and the number of SEO opportunities.

Let’s go through a list of things you can get done with the help of SE Ranking’s keyword rank tracker:

1. See accurate keyword rankings data across every big search engine, including Bing, Yahoo, and YouTube.
2. Get rankings data for any location down to the country, city, or postcode level.
3. Desktop and mobile keyword search results.
4. Keep track of the SERP features your site’s targeting.
5. Check rankings among the top 200 search results.
6. Monitor your and your competitors’ Google Ads rankings.
7. Keep track of your rankings in comparison with up to 5 rival sites.
8. Analyse the dynamics of any keyword SERP to monitor competitors.
9. Leave comments, make notes, add tags and filters to manage keywords.

SE Ranking competitive research

With SE Ranking’s competitor intelligence tool, you have the liberty to analyse competitor campaigns on a big scale, plus study a vast pool of data to make changes to your own SEO strategy.

So, let’s take a look at how this tool can help professionals sail through their tasks?

1. Discover pages and subdomains that are ranking at the top in Australia or another country, find out how much traffic there is organic and paid search as well as their cost, plus understand where your digitals rivals are driving traffic from.
2. Enter any keyword and see a list of every website targeting and ranking for it in search, plus the ranking dynamics of the top 100 search results.
3. Learn who is targeting the same keywords in organic and paid search.
4. Identify competitor websites and track their keyword rankings.
5. Get a detailed analysis of competitor pay-per-click advertising strategies.

SE Ranking backlink analytics

As you can probably tell from the tool’s name, SE Ranking was initially developed to be a keyword rank tracking tool. However, it didn’t take long for the team to build up on it and create an all-in-one SEO platform that has all the tools marketers and SEOs need in their line of work.

SE Ranking’s backlink analytics tool is one of the tools that was developed later on, meaning the team had the opportunity to learn from others and roll out a tool that would include all the best points. SE Ranking delivered allowing you to handle all of your link-building activities from one central location. Here’s what you can do with the tool:

1. Enter any domain and get a list of all of its backlinks and referring domains.
2. Get an in-depth analysis of a rival’s backlink profile: Domain Trust and Page Trust metrics, backlink quality, ratio of follow/nofollow links, etc.
3. Analyse each site’s backlinks in terms of new/lost link dynamics, top-performing pages, regions, distribution of anchor texts, etc.
4. Closely study real-time metrics: found/not found status, Google index status, etc.
5. Filter data as needed and export results for further analysis.
6. Get an approximate understanding of a link-building campaign’s price.
7. Add backlinks to the Backlink Monitor tool to know if they are still active or have been lost.

SE Ranking website audit

In order to live up to the name and actually be an all-in-one SEO solution, SE Ranking has to have a website audit tool that allows SEOs and digital marketers to scan every single page of a website with the goal of finding any issues that may be holding it back from top organic SERP positions.

Let’s take a look at some of the capabilities of this powerful tool:

1. Scan any site in its entirety, including test and subdomains.
2. Pin-point and identify every technical issue ranging from meta data setup to pages blocked by the robots.txt file.
3. Check the site’s Core Web Vitals, including LCP, CLS, FSP, TBT, TTI, Speed Index.
4. Identify issues that are causing sites to load up slowly.
5. Make sure every header and meta tag is optimised.
6. Verify that images and internal links aren’t broken and are optimised.
7. Keep track of progress by comparing crawl reports.
8. Get a list of issues that are yet to be addressed.
9. Set up a schedule and get reports sent right to your inbox.
10. Get notified as soon as anything changes on any important page, including that of a competitor.

What’s the verdict on SE Ranking?

Pros:

• budget-friendly price
• powerful keyword rank tracking tools
• comprehensive, customisable reports
• extensive data for local SEO
• tools for full-circle SEO
• new features and constant updates

Cons:

• backlink database needs improvement
• access to additional features costs extra

SE Ranking is definitely a top solution in terms of the amount of data it provides and the accuracy of that data. But when you add its affordable price to the mix, you get an excellent solution that won’t eat away your monthly budget. Plus, its integration with Google and other services helps you keep your ear to the ground on all of your activities without having to switch between multiple apps and browser tabs.

Despite the fact that SE Ranking hasn’t been on the market for as long as Ahrefs or Semrush, it has proven that it can deliver results that are just as good for a portion of the price, and it pays a lot of attention to providing quality services and helping users move forward. SE Ranking has got your back when it comes to backlinks, competitor intelligence, keyword rankings and website audit. And don’t let its low price fool you into thinking that you won’t find the data you need

Ahrefs: Are backlinks its only strength?

Ahrefs has been around for quite a while, and even SEO first-steppers have heard the name before. Being a dinosaur of the industry, it is widely considered to be the go-to platform for most SEO experts.

But what exactly makes it so popular? Well, Ahrefs offers a variety of tools for analysing backlinks, plus it has a powerful domain database. On top of that, its keyword research tools bring a lot to the table for English-speaking countries.

But since the same goes for the two other SEO solutions, let’s see what makes Ahrefs unique by analysing its key tools.

Read full review

Ahrefs keyword position tracker

Ahrefs was developed to help its users achieve three big goals: get more traffic, obtain competitive intelligence, and dominate the niche. When tracking keyword rankings, here’s what Ahrefs can help you do:

1. Keep track of mobile/desktop search engine rankings.
2. Analyse search results across 150+ countries.
3. Stay up-to-date and monitor your progress with regard to the site’s visibility and rankings history.
4. Keep an eye on SERP features.
5. Bucket keywords into groups using filters and tags.
6. Compare your site’s rankings to that of competitors.
7. Get comprehensive SEO reports.

Ahrefs competitive research

Ahrefs offers plenty of options that can help optimise websites, and as a result, get more traffic and sales. Having said that, it, unfortunately, doesn’t have a competitor research tool per se.

However, Ahrefs has an effective algorithm that can be used to spy on other niche players. With the help of Ahrefs, here’s the type of information you can obtain:

1. Data on organic search queries. Ahrefs’ vast database keeps tabs on millions of keywords across the globe, including Australia.
2. Successful traffic-driving competitor pages via Site Explorer.
3. Keyword rankings on major search engines.
4. Backlink profile of any site to know the referring domain quality and understand the link-building strategy.
5. Top guest-blogging platforms.
6. Low-competition keyword topics via Content Explorer.
7. Overlooked opportunities for targeted search queries.
8. Broken pages with links that could have a positive impact.
9. Broken links from competitors. You can use them to reach out to the referring sites and ask them to link out to you instead.

Ahrefs backlink analytics

Ahrefs’ backlink analytics tool is their crown jewel for one simple reason: it has been the go-to tool for SEOs for researching and building up backlink profiles.

Like Semrush and SE Ranking, Ahrefs gives its users the freedom to get a detailed analysis of any site’s backlink profile. Below, you’ll find Ahrefs features that you can benefit from when doing backlink research:

1. Get laser-accurate results on any site’s backlink profile through a huge index.
2. Compare any two sites’ backlinks.
3. Analyze any site’s backlink dynamics.
4. Identify link spikes.
5. Pin-point referring domains of low and high quality.

Ahrefs website audit

Like any other top comprehensive SEO tool, Ahrefs gives its users the possibility to run a technical website audit, identify errors, and make use of suggestions to fix them for better SEO results.

Let’s go into a bit more detail on what this tool can do for you:

1. Get an extensive website analysis that is broken down into textual components, tables as well as charts. Even if you have a large site, you can see the big as well as the detail-oriented picture on what must be optimised.
2. Analysis against 100+ SEO issues all split down into categories like performance, meta data, poor content, hreflang, link issues, and so on.
3. Find custom, not ‘pre-defined’ tech issues. If you’re a seasoned SEO guru and the usual checks aren’t enough, you can customize the audit to get more detailed information.
4. Track all of your progress in the cloud, meaning that there’s no need to store data on your end.
5. Get suggestions on how to improve your site’s mobile version.

What’s the verdict on Ahrefs?

Pros:

• top backlink database
• great search query suggestions
• excellent competitor intel tools
• content planning

Cons:

1. inaccurate keyword rankings data
2. outdated website audit solution
3. lack of referring domain filters
4. limited options for checking internal links

The fact that Ahrefs is a huge name in the industry won’t come as a surprise to most. Anyone who is looking for a great backlink analysis tool that is capable of identifying and analysing referring domains will be completely satisfied with Ahrefs. But take note that we don’t recommend this tool because despite its huge name, its feature set and functionality are rather outdated, plus the user interface doesn’t give us much to talk about. To boot, the interface could be more intuitive, and you will have to fork over a fortune to get your hands on all the necessary data.

Having said that, Ahrefs is still a solid solution for doing keyword research, competitive analysis, website audit, and backlink research. On top of that, one of the reasons why Ahrefs remains popular is that it gives you an opportunity to develop a marketing as well as a content plan.

Semrush: Does it deliver on the hype?

At first glance, software for SEO Semrush doesn’t seem to be that much different from SE Ranking. Both solutions offer all the tools SEO pros and marketing specialists need to streamline their work with regard to creating a quality site with quality content, boost advertising campaigns in search and on social media. Basically, everything you need to handle all of your digital marketing activities.

Semrush is useful for full-circle SEO—from doing research on keywords, backlinks, and competitors to auditing websites. Among its main advantages are the opportunities for SEO research, especially when collecting competitive intelligence.

Naturally, the two tools aren’t identical, and each one has its own strengths and weaknesses. Let’s take a closer look at the tool in terms of its keyword rank tracking, competitive research, backlink analysis and website audit capabilities.

Read full review

Semrush keyword position tracker

As for keeping track of keyword rankings, Semrush realises that in order to understand how well an SEO strategy works, not only do you need to know the end results, but all the littles steps along the way too.

The rank tracking tool developed by Semrush aims to help marketers understand how specific actions can impact a site’s performance in search. In other words, how all the minor page optimisation steps affect its SERP standing.

Let’s go through Semrush’s main rank tracking features to get an understanding of the value you’ll get for your money, if you choose this SEO platform:

1. Mobile and desktop keyword search results.
2. Keep track of competitor rankings, including any URL, domain, or subdomain.
3. Local and national keyword rankings.
4. Get a niche volatility/dynamics analysis.
5. Track rankings in different languages and locations.
6. Make use of over 15 filters to analyse data.
7. Identify the top and direct competition in your niche.
8. Get reports sent to your email address.
9. Receive a notification if a keyword suddenly jumps or drops.

Semrush competitive research

If you need to get a detailed breakdown of your site’s performance or that of a competitor, you can find the data you need using Semrush. Let’s jump straight to the key features of this tool’s competitive research module.

1. Get a competitive traffic analysis that points out traffic sources, paid campaign data, as well as the site’s overall performance level in Australia or other countries.
2. Find out what works for most websites via global marketing trends.
3. Discover new, untapped opportunities for your sites.
4. Learn what organic ranking strategies bring results to competitors.
5. See what keywords your site’s not ranking for but your top competitors are.
6. Get a detailed breakdown of competitor websites.

Semrush backlink analytics

No marketing SEO campaign is truly complete without a well-thought-out link-building strategy. Semrush users are welcome to take a deep dive into any website to learn all there is to know about what makes it tick from the standpoint of backlinks.

Here are some of the things you can get from Semrush’s backlink analytics tools:

1. Discover and keep track of links pointing out to any website, find out how backlink profiles grow over time, get alerts on new and removed backlinks.
2. Learn referring domain quality to assess if it’d be a good partner for your site.
3. Find out what backlinks your competitors have that you don’t and expand your own profile.
4. Put your backlink profile next to any competitor and analyse the differences.

Semrush website audit

For anyone looking to get a comprehensive technical analysis of a website, Semrush has a great website audit tool. With its help, users can make sure their sites work as intended for human visitors and search engines alike, find and resolve any issues that may be holding them back from top ranking positions.

Here’s how Semrush users can benefit from the tool’s website audit module:

1. Identify all tech issues ranging from page load speed to meta tag optimization.
2. Discover what issues you may have with your site’s content.
3. View all errors in in-depth technical reports.
4. Get notified which issues must be fixed first.
5. Keep track of changes to understand your progress.

What’s the verdict on Semrush?

Pros:

• quality search query database
• insightful backlink analysis
• new features and updates
• useful PPC campaign data

Cons:

• confusing position tracking setup
• keyword rankings could be more accurate
• not very pocket friendly
• the interface is hard to navigate

Semrush is very straightforward, plus it allows digital marketing professionals to take care of all their tasks from a single interface and not have to switch between different browser tabs to get things done. By the way, all three compared solutions have this in common.

As for its standout features, we can definitely mention the database, although it doesn’t always provide precise data. Having said that, the team is always working to make the tool better and to provide its users with expanded functionality. Taking its expensive price into account, we can conclude that it’s ideal for professionals who have a lot of projects with a lot of search queries.

Ahrefs, Semrush & SE Ranking: Which is best for Australia?

Right out of the gate, we want to stress that it’s almost impossible to determine which of the three tools is the best option for the Australian market. Each of the three analysed SEO tools is solid in its own right, but all of them have their shortcomings.

Having said that, the best way to determine the top choice for Australia is to do a little SEO software comparison to see which tools provide more accurate data in terms of competitors and backlinks. Let’s dive into the comparison, starting with keyword rank tracking.

Best keyword rank tracker

One of the first things to look at in terms of the best keyword tool for Australia is how many search engines each tool allows you to work with.

Ahrefs provides desktop and mobile search results across 10 search engines, namely Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Amazon, YouTube, Yandex, Baidu, Daum, Seznam, and Naver, but in reality, most of them don’t apply to the Australian market. Semrush, unfortunately, doesn’t offer anything beyond Google and Baidu. As for SE Ranking, it supports 5 search engines, Google, Bing, Yahoo!, YouTube, and Yandex, and provides mobile rankings too.

If you are targeting many different search engines in your work, Ahrefs is the way to go, but since SE Ranking covers every major search engine, it’s definitely another option to seriously consider. Of course, everything depends on your specific search engine needs.

Once we get to the tool prices, you’ll see that we compared plans that enable users to track 500 search queries per month. In brief, SE Ranking’s rank tracking tool offers more than its competitors and at an affordable price. Let’s take a closer look to give you an idea of what we mean.

While all of the analysed tools claim that they allow you to track 500 keywords, if you track a single keyword in several locations using Ahrefs or Semrush, they will count each check as a separate keyword. In other words, if you want to track your keywords in, say, 5 search engines or countries, you will only be able to track 100 keywords in total a month.

But if you do the same thing in SE Ranking, you’ll actually be able to track 500 keywords in 5 different search engines and locations. This adds up to around 900,000 keyword checks each month under the 500-keyword pricing plan. On top of that, you can do the same with keyword checks in any other subscription plan in SE Ranking.

Now, taking into account the fact that all of these tools are roughly the same when it comes to keyword rank tracking and accuracy of data, the team over at Top10 SEO Software has concluded that the ease of experience offered by SE Ranking doesn’t do it at the expense of data, and as was mentioned, you can track plenty more keywords at a much lower price. Furthermore, you can get overviews on a number of SEO aspects as well as comprehensive reports that provide all the necessary insights to take care of any SEO task.

In second place for rank tracking, we have Ahrefs. Its huge amounts of data are definitely a plus, but due to its pricing points and the limited keyword tracking capabilities offered by its cheapest subscription plan, we simply cannot give it top marks. If you really want to make use of Ahrefs in your daily work, you will have to fork over around AU$274 each month. The basic plan’s limits are, unfortunately, useless to the vast majority of businesses.

This leaves us with Semrush. We ranked it third because of its limited number of offered search engines that doesn’t give Australian-based users much to work with besides Google. Don’t get us wrong: Semrush is a great, easy-to-use tool. But if we look at what is offered in its basic subscription plan and compare that to Ahrefs or even SE Ranking, we can see that it doesn’t deliver the same results for your investment.

Again, we don’t want to say that any of the three tools has poor functions, but you can easily see which one offers more value by analysing the account limits. TLDR; SE Ranking comes up on top.

Best competitive research tool

When researching competitors, it’s important to get as much data as possible before analysing it. So, let’s see how capable each tool is for Australia in terms of data.

Based on Ahrefs stats, its keyword database for Australia consists of 115M keywords and the domain database has 178M results. While Semrush has around 514M keywords in its keyword database for Australia, its competitive intelligence tool has only 24M keywords and 27M domains in its database. SE Ranking’s competitive research tool database includes 42M keywords and almost 18M domains for Australia and around 25M search queries for keyword research.

Although each platform says it has a vast database, the reality is that you should see for yourself how much data is available for your business. We took 2 random Australian-based websites and analysed them using the competitive research and backlink analytics tools from Ahrefs, Semrush and SE Ranking to see which one has more data for the Australian market. Of course, keep each tool’s cost in mind when looking at the data.

Jaycar.com.au

The first site that was analysed in each of the three tools was a popular electronics retail company in Australia and New Zealand called Jaycar. Let’s see what results we got in each tool’s competitive research module.

Ahrefs

Semrush

SE Ranking

As is evident from the above screenshots, Ahrefs found a little under 165 thousand organic search queries for Australia, Semrush found a bit over 113 thousand organic keywords, and SE Ranking found more than 356 thousand organic keywords the website Jaycar.com.au is ranking for.

As you can see, although both Ahrefs and Semrush say they have huge competitive intelligence databases, neither one was able to show more results than SE Ranking. Sure, you can’t really make a quality conclusion at this point, so let’s take a look at another Australian-based website that was analysed in each of the three platforms.

Brosa.com.au

Next, we took a website that sells furniture and homewares across all of Australia, Brosa, and used each of the analysed tools to see how much data we get in return. Again, let’s first dig through the results.

SE Ranking

Ahrefs

Semrush

Ahrefs database returned almost 30 thousand organic search queries for Australia, Semrush found just over 21 thousand organic results, and SE Ranking almost doubled their results with 388 thousand keywords.

We want to reassure you that the websites used in the analysis were selected randomly from a pool of more or less popular websites in Australia. Judging from this, we can confidently say that SE Ranking was able to provide more results on two separate occasions than giants like Ahrefs and Semrush.

To further add to this point, SE Ranking’s keyword and competitor research tools have a neat feature that enables users to expand databases with their own keywords. So, even if you come across a site or a niche that SE Ranking doesn’t provide enough data on, you can submit a list of keywords and they will be added to the database along with all the necessary data.

For a number of years, Ahrefs was one of the industry leaders with regard to keyword and competitive research tools. However, we at Top10 SEO Software are confident that SE Ranking has done enough over the past few years to claim leadership. Semrush, unfortunately, isn’t quite there yet, which is why we have ranked it third in terms of competitive research tools.

Best backlink analytics tool

Another important aspect of SEO is off-page optimization, so let’s talk backlinks. According to official data, Ahrefs is in solid second place with 24.91 trillion results in its backlink database, Semrush is the leader with 35.26 trillion backlinks, and SE Ranking is last with only 2.7 trillion backlinks.

But, again, the real question is are these numbers just for show or do they mean anything? So, we did another research where we took 2 other random Australian-based domains and ran their search using each analysed tool’s backlink analytics tools.

tripadvisor.com.au

The first website whose backlink profile we analysed in each of the three tools is Australian Tripadvisor. Below, you can find the results.

SE Ranking

Ahrefs

Semrush

As we can see, while SE Ranking and Semrush found the same number of referring domains, Ahrefs was able to discover a lot less. And as we all know, referring domains are vitally important to your SEO efforts if you’re serious about driving more traffic to your website and impacting your SERP rankings.

In terms of backlinks, Ahrefs found almost 3.7M results for the analysed website in Australia, Semrush was able to find more than 8.5M results, and SE Ranking got a bit ahead of the rest and discovered around 9.5M backlinks. Surprisingly, SE Ranking was able to find more backlinks than its database-rich competitors.

woolworths.com.au

The last Australian-based website we did an analysis for in each tool was Woolworths. Here are the results we got in each of the analysed tools.

SE Ranking

Ahrefs

Semrush

Ahrefs was only able to discover 443 thousand backlinks, Semrush was able to find 2.1M backlinks for Woolworths, and SE Ranking found 457 thousand backlinks in its database. So, in terms of found backlinks, Semrush beat the competition, but Ahrefs and SE Ranking are tied for second place.

In backlink research, you have to pay a lot of attention to the website and niche at hand because it can have a significant effect on the quality of obtained data. Simply judging from the above screenshots and each tool’s cost—which we’ll get to soon—it’s clear which of the three platforms has the best value/cost offer.

As for the account backlink limits offered by each tool, Semrush lets its users perform as many backlink checks each month as they need, even if they are on the basic plan. SE Ranking’s offer isn’t as generous with 10,000 monthly backlink checks. And under Ahrefs’ basic plan, you can only check up to 25 backlinks a day, which isn’t at all convenient. Your only option with Ahrefs if you need to do backlink research is upgrading your plan.

The number of backlink parameters analysed by each tool doesn’t really determine a winner, with Semrush analysing 7, SE Ranking—8, and Ahrefs checking backlinks against 9 parameters.

Our verdict on Ahrefs’ backlink capabilities is that it sets the global standard for backlink research and number of tracked parameters. Unfortunately, 25 daily checks will force you to go for a more costly option from the very beginning. On top of that, its databases aren’t as big and accurate for the Australian market.

Semrush and SE Ranking also have plenty of data to offer to Australian marketing and SEO pros, plus SE Ranking does it at a lower price.

Summing up backlink research for the Australian market, we at Top10 SEO Software suggest that the best price/quality ratio for Australia is offered by SE Ranking. Semrush is also a good yet more expensive option. And Ahrefs can dig up all the data you need if you pay enough money, making it the perfect choice for huge corporations and agencies. But the truth is that you won’t know which tool is best for you until you analyse your website in each one.

Best website audit tool

Without a website audit tool, it’s practically impossible to keep track of all website issues and know how search engines see your site. Let us consider each of the analysed SEO platform’s website audit limits included in the basic subscription plan:

• Pages crawled/month: Ahrefs — 10,000, Semrush — 100,000, SE Ranking — 100,000
• Pages for a project: Ahrefs — 1 crawl per project, Semrush — 20,000, SE Ranking — 15,000

Once we compare the limits offered by each platform on their website audit tools, we can see that while Semrush allows for more checks in comparison with SE Ranking, SE Ranking is more affordable. Ahrefs’ account limits will force you to upgrade your subscription plan, as the limits offered under the basic plan won’t be enough. As for reporting, we want to point out that SE Ranking and Semrush produce stunning, comprehensive reports that you can freely share with teammates, customers, or top management.

Pricing

All three analysed SEO platforms have several points in common in their subscription plans besides the four modules we compare here. They all also offer an analysis of organic and paid traffic, competitor rank tracking capabilities, and an overview of ad campaigns.

But when we look at each tool’s price, we can see that the annual prices are poles apart:

• Basic plan (500-750 keywords): SE Ranking — 55 (AU$82.36)/mo, Semrush — $99.95 (AU$129)/mo, Ahrefs — $82 (AU$105.8)/mo
• Mid-range plan (1 500-2 000 keywords): SE Ranking — $109 (AU$163.22)/mo, Semrush — $191.62 (AU$247)/mo, Ahrefs — $149 (AU$192)/mo
• Most expensive plan (5 000 keywords): SE Ranking — $239 (AU$357.89)/mo, Semrush — $374.95 (AU$484)/mo, Ahrefs — $332 (AU$428)/mo

Since all of these tools are all-in-one SEO platforms, it’s no surprise that they all offer similar feature sets. Sure, they slightly differ here and there, and have their own strengths and weaknesses, as we have seen in this review. However, at the end of the day, they help you optimise your website and its assets for search engines and human visitors. From the financial perspective, SE Ranking offers a lot more for a fraction of the cost of Ahrefs or Semrush.

What users are saying

A lot of people tend to trust what other people have to say online about different products and offers. We are referring to reviews as social proof that can help hesitant buyers make a decision.

Peer-to-peer review site G2 provides detailed profiles on many businesses, including the three SEO tools for Australia we compared in this review. According to G2, Ahrefs got a score of 4.6 out of a possible 5, Semrush scored 4.5 out of 5, and SE Ranking came in first with a score of 4.8 out of 5.

G2 also gives us the liberty to compare all three tools side by side in closer detail. Here we can see that SE Ranking is considered to be easy to use and set up, plus it offers quality customer support. In terms of tool ratings, SE Ranking’s website audit and page change tracker were acknowledged, the keyword suggestions tool offered by Semrush was recognised by G2 reviewers, and Ahrefs’ search volume and long-tail keywords capabilities got top ratings.

As for keeping track of keyword rankings, SE Ranking was rated top of class. As expected, Ahrefs’ link-building tools were rated best, but what’s interesting is that SE Ranking’s backlink monitoring tool was able to steal some of the spotlight. Ahrefs was voted to have the best competitive research tool, although SE Ranking and Semrush didn’t fall too far behind.

All of this can be seen as a positive sign of quality from each platform. Since the tools don’t exist in a vacuum, they have to take each other into account and always push themselves to become better. This is great for the end users because there’s a good chance that all three tools will keep evolving into marketing machines that will have your back in every regard. Just be sure to find out which one offers more for your specific website and niche before your trial period expires.

Additional features

Such all-in-one SEO platforms often have many different specialists from a single team working on different aspects of a website in a single account. This leads us to wonder how well each tool is ready for teamwork and communication with clients.

Ahrefs, Semrush and SE Ranking have report branding capabilities, however, once we boil it down to sub users and white labelling, SE Ranking lets you create as many additional users as needed without any additional costs. For comparison, each additional user in Ahrefs costs $30 (AU$40), and in Semrush the cost is $148 (AU$192).

The white label feature in SE Ranking provides companies with everything they require to use the all-in-one SEO platform as if it’s their own tool, meaning that it is branded and hosted under your own domain. White labels help you boost user trust in your business as it creates the idea that your brand developed the solution on their own.

Final thoughts

At first glance, it may seem that Ahrefs, Semrush and SE Ranking are practically identical. But, in reality, they have a greater focus on different aspects of marketing and SEO.

Every platform has its strong and weak points, but if we look at the cost and the offered value that goes along with it, we can conclude that SE Ranking is the top SEO software for the Australian market. Powerful keyword rank tracking tools, detailed competitive intelligence reports, backlink analysis and monitoring capabilities, as well as tech audits allow you to do full-circle SEO on any website.

But if you’ve got a huge budget, Ahrefs and Semrush are top-quality solutions that are used by professionals from all over the world. The bottom line is that it’s up to you to try out each tool and see which one is the best SEO tool for you that meets your specific demands. So, carefully go through each tool’s trial before purchasing a subscription.