How to Build Your SEO Software Stack in 2025 (with Examples)

The SEO landscape in 2025 is more competitive—and more technical—than ever. AI-assisted content, answer engine optimisation (AEO), and deeper integration with analytics platforms are now essential if you want to succeed, remain visible and not get left behind. But with hundreds of SEO tools on the market, how do you build a software stack that actually delivers results?

Today, our SEO expert Ben breaks down the core SEO functions, which tools lead each category, their pros and cons, and how to combine them into a stack that fits your workflow and budget. There’s even a handy freebie at the end, so read on to find out more!

The Core Pillars of an SEO Software Stack

Modern SEO is a very different animal compared to what it used to be. Gone are the days where we’d research keywords, map them to pages, optimise the content and then outreach for links. In 2025, SEO goes far beyond traditional search channels like Google and Bing and must also consider the ever growing rise of AI as well as numerous other factors such as technical performance, site health and user experience. As such, your SEO software stack should cover these key areas:

 

1. Keyword & Competitor Research

 

2. On-page Content Optimisation

 

3. Technical SEO & Site Health

 

4. Off-page & Link Building

 

5. Local SEO (if applicable)

 

6. Rank Tracking & Reporting

For each of these areas, we’ll provide a couple of the biggest names in the industry as well as any honourable mentions to consider, break down their pros and cons, discuss pricing and comment on each.

Keyword and Competitor Research

Despite the rise of AI and the increasing importance of a semantic and topic based approach to content, keyword research is still very much a bread and butter element of modern SEO. After all, keywords are what users are actually searching for! Google remains far and away the most popular search engine and online method of obtaining information, so for now keyword research remains a staple of SEO strategy in 2025.

Knowing what your audience is searching for is vital, but so too is knowing who your competitors are and the tactics and strategies they’re employing to capture their own market share. As such, selecting a piece of SEO software that serves both these purposes is crucial, and will arguably be the most important part of your stack, upon which all other choices are based.

Our top picks here are:

Semrush

Semrush is an all in one marketing platform with use cases for PPC, social media and several other marketing disciplines aside from SEO.

Pros: This is an all in one platform so may be able to fill the need for other tools. Among its many features, Semrush offers trend analytics, keyword clustering and industry leading rank tracking. The Semrush API is extremely powerful, especially when integrated with AI, but it is expensive.

Cons: Semrush is noticeably more expensive than other options in this list and has a steeper learning curve.

Pricing: Starts from $139.95/month for the Pro plan, with API access available from the Business plan upwards at $499.95/month.

View Semrush and its available plans here.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is another all in one marketing platform that offers a multitude of features as opposed to doing one thing well. It has more of a pure SEO focus than Semrush, and the 2 are often seen as the industry standard for core SEO tools.

Pros: For backlink analysis, Ahrefs is unrivalled. Its UI is intuitive, easy to learn and simple to navigate once you’re familiar with it.

Cons: Rank tracking isn’t as reliable as competitors and integration with external tools is limited. For users with a need for API access, Semrush is a far superior choice to Ahrefs in all but backlink analysis.

Price: Starts from £99/month for the lite plan. For API access, you’ll need an enterprise plan which starts from a whopping £11,990/year if you want their most up to date version. Legacy users can still access the old API (v2) but this was discontinued in March 2024 so if you’re a new member, you’re out of luck!

Find Ahrefs here.

While most professional SEOs will opt for one of the above options, here’s a couple of honourable mentions:

SE Ranker

SE Ranker is again an all in one SEO software, slightly less feature rich than Ahrefs and Semrush but still very useful. It is more affordable than either of the other 2, so may be worth considering if your budget is tight.

Pros: Combines rank tracking, auditing and keyword research in a more affordable package than many competitors.

Cons: In terms of feature depth, SE Ranker just can’t compete with Ahrefs or Semrush.

Pricing: From £55/month for the essential plan to £209/month for the business plan. Discounts are available for paying annually.

For more information, check out SE Ranking here.

Wordstream

For those on a shoestring budget, Wordstream might be worth a look. It’s nowhere near as feature rich as the other platforms here, but it is free!

Pros: It’s free! And easy to use. Simply enter a website or keyword and Wordstream will provide you with a list of ideas using search volume and data from Google’s Keyword Planner.

Cons: The data you get is very basic and there’s no competitor tracking capability. Wordstream is also harder to use efficiently at scale.

Pricing: Free

Use Wordstream here.

On-page Content Optimisation

One thing the rise of AI has confirmed is that content is still very much king, and likely always will be. As such, ensuring the content you serve to your users is in depth, engaging and useful should be one of your highest priorities as an SEO. With content requirements increasing all the time, the need to produce high quality content quickly at scale is greater than ever. To that end, consider the following:

Surfer SEO

Surfer SEO is one of the most well known content optimisation software options available. It comes packed with a huge range of features, including AI content detection and humanisation, automated internal linking and a proclaimed single workflow for visibility across Google, ChatGPT and other AI chatbots all in one place.

Pros: Surfer’s AI powered editor saves you real time and scores your content as you write it so you can be confident your finished product will perform. It’s also great at suggesting where to insert keywords for best performance whilst still sounding natural and engaging.

Cons: Like most AI powered tools, the quality of your input is vital. You need a solid brief, otherwise the tool falls down very quickly. It’s also not the cheapest and plans only get more expensive as you scale.

Price: Starts from $89/month (paid annually) with enterprise level access requiring a custom quote.

Get SurferSEO here.

Clearscope

Designed to combine keyword research with AI powered, data-driven content production, Clearscope is an innovative, albeit expensive, content production platform.

 Pros: Clearscope has a great range of features, includes keyword search volume and scores your content’s semantics, which are an important consideration when it comes to ranking for AI search. There’s also a handy Google Docs extension available.

Cons: High pricing makes this an enterprise only option.

 Price: Starts from $189/month

Get Clearscope here.

Honourable mention:

ChatGPT

There’s no denying that AI is taking over the world. As SEOs, we’ve been battling for over a year now to understand what this means for the industry, but it’s clear we all need to embrace it sooner or later. There are numerous chatbots available and the ‘best’ one is partly subjective and partly dependent on use case. For content, our preferred platform is ChatGPT.

Pros: It’s free to use, though the number of chats you can submit in a given time period is limited. Custom GPTs mean you can make the model work for you and tailor it to specific use cases.

Cons: In depth prompts are needed, otherwise the content it outputs is likely to be of low quality. In some cases, the model can struggle with creativity and technical accuracy. Core knowledge base data is outdated – at the time of writing the latest model is GPT-4o, which is trained on data up to June 2024.

Pricing: Free version available, paid subscriptions start from £20/month

Do we really need to link it? I guess for completion’s sake… You can find ChatGPT here.

Technical SEO

While on page SEO affects what your users will actually see onsite, technical SEO affects its performance and discoverability. Your site might have the most incredible content ever written, but if it’s not discoverable then it’s useless. Investing in a tool to assist with your technical SEO and quickly identify any issues should be a priority for anyone serious about SEO. Our top picks are:

Screaming Frog

No surprises here. Screaming Frog has been an industry standard for years. Its powerful, simple to use and budget friendly.

Pros: Powerful crawler, easy to use and essential for auditing. Pricing is excellent for what you get.

Cons: Interface is dated, cloud collaboration is limited and there are other tools on the market which provide greater insights. No pay monthly option available; Screaming Frog is annual only.

Pricing: £199 per license per year. Bulk discounts available on 5 or more licenses.

Try Screaming Frog here.

Sitebulb

At Talking Stick Digital, we were huge advocates of Screaming Frog until we met the guys at Sitebulb on a sunny afternoon at BrightonSEO. There’s definitely justification for using the 2 together and they are different, but Sitebulb offers a much more user friendly application and many of the same insights, plus more besides!

Pros: Clean, modern interface, excellent data visualisation and useful hints which not only identify technical issues, they advise on how to fix them. Audits can also be automated or run in the cloud, but this does cost more. Desktop licenses are excellent value.

Cons: Sitebulb doesn’t have the reputation of Screaming Frog and isn’t as well known. There’s also less support content (but read the release notes from Patrick… They’re hilarious!). If you want to leverage the power of their cloud software, this makes the tool considerably more expensive.

Pricing: Starts from $18/month for a lite plan, but we recommend a pro license for $42/month. Cloud starts from $245/month.

Get Sitebulb here. They also offer a free trial of the pro plan!

Honourable mention:

PageSpeed Insights

In case you didn’t know, PageSpeed Insights is a free tool offered by Google that allows you to test the performance of a URL. It will then provide you with data on core web vitals, other performance metrics (which may be crawler based if site traffic is low) and tips on where to improve.

Pros: Easy to use, provides diagnostic information and offers both lab and field (real user) data, provided the site has sufficient traffic. Free to use.

Cons: Reliability issues, especially with lab data. The figures given by PSI may not always reflect real world performance. Testing in bulk is time consuming without API access.

Pricing: Free to use.

Use PageSpeed Insights here.

Link Building & Outreach

It’s been theorised that backlinks were recently down weighted in terms of their importance in Google’s ranking algorithm. While the truth of this remains to be seen, it’s clear that they are still extremely important. The difference is that the focus for ranking has shifted from simply having a large number of backlinks to the quality of those links. High-quality, relevant links to your content are still a sure-fire way of getting a website to rank better, and having a link building and outreach tool can help with this.

Buzzstream

Buzzstream labels itself as ‘the world’s best outreach CRM’ and contains tools to build prospect lists, outreach to them and gather website metrics with ease.

Pros: Streamlines outreach and follow-up, saving time and improving productivity.

Cons: Prospect database management can be clunky/outdated at times.

Pricing: Starts from $24/month

Try Buzzstream here.

PressWhizz

PressWhizz is an online link marketplace which allows you to search for linking and guest post opportunities worldwide all from a single dashboard.

Pros: Very easy to navigate, wide range of link and post opportunities available to suit any budget, niche or market. There is also a managed service available.

Cons: Can be tough to know where to start. Sorting through potential links can be time consuming.

Pricing: The platform is free to sign up to. You only pay for what you order.

Get a free PressWhizz account here.

Local SEO

Not all businesses are nationally or globally focussed; for some local targeting is crucial. This is also true of larger businesses with multiple local locations. Good local SEO requires very specific techniques that, done correctly, can really skyrocket your rankings in local SERPs.

BrightLocal

BrightLocal is an all in one platform to help you audit, improve and track rankings in local SERPs.

Pros: Easy to use, makes auditing local rankings, NAP citations and reviews simple.

Cons: Less effective for multi-location businesses.

Pricing: Starts from $29/month

Try BrightLocal here.

Whitespark

Whitespark aims to solve local search issues for businesses and agencies of all sizes.

Pros: Great for citation building and tracking local SERP rankings

Cons: User interface isn’t the best, pricing can get confusing.

Pricing: Depends on the services used.

Find Whitespark here.

Rank Tracking and Reporting

Most SEOs will use Ahrefs or Semrush for their rank tracking, but there are other options available with varied feature sets. Reporting is, of course, very important too. After all, if we don’t review what we’re doing then we have no idea what’s working and what we need to improve.

Dragon Metrics

Once an obscure name in a crowded all in one SEO software market, Dragon Metrics is now a serious player with an offering rivalling the very best and most popular tools out there. It focuses on taking a holistic view of SEO, with advanced reporting functionality.

Pros: Dragon Metrics has the best reporting available on the market. Built as an intended replacement for Looker Studio, the reporting section has a slick interface and presents its data in an easily understood, visual way that clients are sure to love. You can even automate sending reports to clients’ phones! Rank tracking is also strong, with advanced features and fast updates backed up by powerful keyword research data.

Cons: The link data base of Dragon Metrics is not nearly as large as Ahrefs, meaning backlink data isn’t as accurate. API not quite as capable as Semrush but is available from less than half the monthly cost.

Give Dragon Metrics a try here.

STAT by Moz

For businesses and agencies handling data at scale, STAT Search Analytics is worth serious consideration. The platform offers high processing power and excellent tracking capabilities, priced by the number of keywords being tracked.

Pros: Fast keyword ranking updates daily, excellent competitor intelligence and huge scalability.

Cons: The platform’s cost is not practical for many and so it is only really viable for larger businesses.

Price: Analytics and tracking starts at $720/month for 6000 keywords.

Find STAT here.

Honourable mention:

Looker Studio

Okay sure, it’s really just a reporting tool (so no rank tracking without connecting to external software) but it’s free, it’s a Google product and it’s a great way to present data from multiple sources in a visual, easily understood way.

Pros: Free to use, simple drag and drop interface that’s easy to customise once your data sources are connected.

Cons: Limited data integrations as standard. Can be buggy at times.

Price: Free to use

Use Looker Studio here.

Example SEO Software Stacks for 2025

Now you’ve seen just a few of the many options available, how do you go about choosing a software stack that works for you? While only you can decide what your needs are, we’ve provided a few examples below:

Freelancers, Startups and Small Teams

For smaller marketing teams with clients on lower retainers, budget is likely to be a major concern. The below stack will handle much of the heavy lifting when it comes to auditing, rank tracking and reporting and you’ll get it all for less than £300/month.

• Semrush Pro – Keyword research and rank tracking
• Screaming Frog (free) and PageSpeed Insights – Technical audits for smaller sites
• Surfer SEO and ChatGPT (free) – content optimisations and research
• Looker Studio – reporting
• BrightLocal – If local SEO is a factor for your clients

Mid-Sized Teams and Agencies

When more manpower is available and budget is less constricted, your options for a 2025 SEO software stack expand considerably. This set of tools will give you all the functionality of the above stack, with greater processing power and more capabilities. All in, this still comes in at less then £1000/month.

• Semrush Guru – Keyword research and rank tracking with greater limits and more insights
• Ahrefs Standard – Stronger backlink tracking, projects to track clients and automated site auditing for an alternate view
• Sitebulb Pro and Screaming Frog (free) – Detailed site auditing with hints for technical fixes
• Surfer SEO (scale tier) and ChatGPT (plus tier) – Content production and optimisation at scale with deep research functionality
• BuzzStream and PressWhizz – Outreach and backlink prospecting
• Looker Studio with Custom Integrations (BigQuery, Supermetrics or Similar) – Advanced reporting with additional integrations so data can be presented from Google, CMS and more all in one place

Enterprise or Large Agency

For larger marketing operations and bigger client retainers, in depth insights, complex data and greater processing power may be required. When this is the case, and budget is unrestricted, you can access the highest tiers of the best tools on the market. The below is just an example, but we can’t cost this as the enterprise tiers of some of these tools often involve a bespoke quote which takes into account your needs and usage requirements.

• Semrush and Ahrefs Enterprise with API access – Advanced keyword and market research, API functionality to incorporate these tools into your own internal systems and marketing infrastructure.
• STAT analytics – Advanced rank tracking for thousands of keywords with fast updates and in depth analytics
• Sitebulb Cloud and Screaming Frog (paid) – in depth auditing in the cloud, allowing audits to run automatically and multiple users to access and work on them.
• Clearscope, ChatGPT (pro tier) and Grok API – Content production and optimisation across industries and search platforms with state of the art deep research and software integration
• Pitchbox – Link building with infinitely scalable outreach
• Yext and BrightLocal – for hybrid local and global visibility optimisation
• AgencyAnalytics and Looker Studio with Custom Integrations – More powerful reporting with additional customisation and real time updates.

Talking Stick Digital’s Marketing Stack

We use a variety of cutting-edge tools to help get our clients results, but at their core are:

• Ahrefs – keyword tracking and research, backlink analysis and competitor research
• Sitebulb and Screaming Frog – technical auditing
• AlsoAsked – To help create more engaging and useful content that answers real user questions
• Voxel – Market analysis
• ChatGPT and Perplexity – Content planning and deep research
• PageSpeed Insights with Google API integration and GTMetrix – Technical diagnostics and monitoring

Plus a few other nifty tools that help the work we do to sit among the best in the industry. We’re always testing new software and refining/improving our processes and advise that you do too!

Key Takeaways

Building an SEO software stack in 2025 is a far more complex task than it was even a couple of years ago. Digital marketing as a whole, but organic search especially, is evolving fast than ever. In such challenging times, remember the following:

• Your SEO software stack in 2025 needs to be scalable, adaptable and modular. Embrace AI as the future and use it to enhance your processes.
• No single tool does everything. Be smart about your stack design to blend strengths, take advantage of software synergies and cover and blind spots.
• Start with what’s most important and build from there. We recommend an all in one platform like Semrush or Ahrefs as this will do most essential things. See these as the core of your operation, get the basics right and then add tools as they become necessary. Once ready, scale into AI enhancement and automation.
• When adding new tools, prioritse those that add the most and synergise well with what you already have. Choose software that integrates well with your workflow and analytics platform. Bonus points if they work with your CMS too!

Bonus: Your Stack Building Checklist

• Map your SEO needs to stack functions
• Choose 1 tool per function (max 2 for large teams)
• Avoid tool overlap unless you need depth
• Validate with real data before long-term commitments
• Check integration paths (CMS, GA4, GSC, APIs)

Are you looking for help with your SEO? If so and you’d like to chat further, then please do reach out to us and we’ll be happy to arrange a no obligation call and audit of your website. We look forward to hearing from you!