SEO: AI tools compared (13)

What sEO tools are for

AI-assisted SEO tools help you inspect a website, prepare content, and monitor visibility in search engines or generated answers. Depending on the service, they research keywords, flag technical issues, examine links, or track the presence of a brand. They support website owners, writers, and teams organizing search-related work. Their practical contribution is to collect observations and help you prepare actions that still need assessment. For example, you might previously have inspected pages individually to build a list of technical fixes. An audit with Ahrefs or Semrush can surface issues that you then prioritize for your website. LLM Optimizer also addresses visibility in AI responses. These are different tasks with different evidence requirements. You use the findings to guide investigation and decisions, while checking the underlying pages and data. A tool does not guarantee a ranking or a citation.

Example uses:

• You research terms related to your business so you can plan pages around a recognizable search intent.
• You inspect technical issues reported on your website before assigning specific fixes to the people maintaining it.
• You examine incoming links to understand which pages receive references from other websites and in what context.
• You monitor mentions of your brand in AI responses to observe changes within the queries being tested.
• You prepare personalized outreach messages for relevant pages that might have a reason to link to your website.

Our picks by need

These picks follow simple rules applied to the verified data, with no partnership or affiliate link:

• Best scored : Ahrefs. 70/100 on our access and transparency grid.
• Cheapest paid option : RankingRider. First plan at $9.99 per month.
• Open source : LLM Optimizer. Public code, self-hosting possible depending on the project.

The main tools at a glance

Ahrefs 70/100

Ahrefs helps people examine website search visibility. It researches keywords and search intent, reviews backlinks, detects technical SEO issues, and tracks brand visibility in AI responses. Features: Research keywords and their search intent; Examine a site’s backlinks; Detect technical SEO issues. Entry price: $29 per month, with a free tier. Runs on: web browser and API.

AuditZap 68/100

AuditZap helps people managing websites analyze technical issues, loading performance and content accessibility for AI search engines. It suggests CMS-specific fixes, monitors weekly changes and exports audit reports. Features: Analyze a website’s technical issues; Check loading performance; Check content accessibility for AI search engines. Entry price: $9 one-off payment, with a free tier. Runs on: web browser and API. Data hosting: Several regions.

BacklinkGPT 68/100

BacklinkGPT helps people working on SEO find pages that might link to their website. It identifies contacts, writes personalized outreach messages, tracks conversations through a connected account and monitors acquired links. Features: Find pages that might link to a website; Identify people to contact; Write personalized outreach messages. Entry price: $149 per month, with a free tier. Runs on: web browser and API. Data hosting: Several regions.

LLM Optimizer 68/100

LLM Optimizer helps people working on SEO measure brand visibility in AI responses. It analyzes website content, evaluates presence on YouTube and Reddit, compares providers' responses, and reports priority improvements. Features: Measure a brand's visibility in AI responses; Analyze website content to improve how it is cited; Evaluate a brand's presence on YouTube and Reddit. Free tier available. Runs on: web browser and API. Data hosting: United States.

Writesonic 66/100

Writesonic supports people tracking brand visibility in AI answers and working on SEO. It allows competitor comparisons, article writing, page audits, and automation of actions to improve visibility. Features: Track a brand’s presence in AI answers; Compare your visibility with competitors’ visibility; Write articles for search engine optimization. Entry price: $79 per month. Runs on: web browser and API. Data hosting: Several regions.

Semrush 65/100

Semrush lets marketing teams research keywords, analyze competing websites, and detect technical website issues. It tracks search engine rankings and brand visibility in AI answers, and produces marketing reports. Features: Research keywords; Analyze competing websites; Detect technical issues on a website. Entry price: $117.33 per month, with a free tier. Runs on: web browser and API.

AirOps 58/100

AirOps lets content and SEO teams track brand visibility in AI engine responses. It connects research and writing steps, uses reference documents and brand guidelines, and supports content approval before publication. Features: Track a brand's visibility in AI engine responses; Identify topics and pages to improve; Chain research and writing steps. Free tier available. Runs on: web browser and API.

Frase 50/100

Frase helps people write content for search engines by preparing outlines and evaluating optimization. It also tracks visibility in AI responses, publishes to a CMS and identifies pages with declining performance. Features: Prepare article outlines; Write content; Evaluate its optimization for search engines. Entry price: $39 per month. Runs on: web browser and API.

RankingRider 48/100

RankingRider writes product titles, generates descriptions and SEO metadata and suggests keywords. It serves users who want to assess product listing optimization or process a catalog through a CSV file. Features: Write product titles; Generate descriptions and SEO metadata; Suggest keywords. Entry price: $9.99 per month, with a free tier. Runs on: web browser.

GEOScore 48/100

GEOScore lets website managers check AI crawler access and assess readiness for AI search. It identifies structured data issues, generates tag and llms.txt fixes, and compares scores for two domains. Features: Check AI crawlers' access to a website; Calculate an AI search readiness score; Identify structured data issues. Entry price: $29 one-off payment, with a free tier. Runs on: web browser and API.

The category in figures

Of the 13 tools in the category, 9 (69%) offer a free tier, 85% have a public API and 2 have a French interface. The median entry price, per month, is $44 (across 8 tools with a published price). 4 disclose where data is hosted, 0 of them in Europe or on device.

Also useful

These tools belong to another category but also cover this need:

• CopyMonkey CopyMonkey lets people selling on Amazon write product descriptions and listing bullet points. It incorporates
• Originality.ai Originality.ai helps people reviewing texts estimate the presence of AI-generated writing and search for plagi
• Adzooma Adzooma is a web tool for people managing advertising campaigns. It audits Google, Microsoft, and Meta account
• RapidTextAI RapidTextAI writes articles from topics and lets users plan publishing campaigns. It serves people who want to
• Publish7 Publish7 suggests link ideas for SEO, content topics and community engagement ideas. It serves marketing users
• Waldium Waldium serves businesses publishing articles and responding to social media posts. It writes from company kno

Choosing well and avoiding pitfalls

Define your main task: topic research, technical auditing, incoming links, writing, or visibility in AI answers. Test the tool on your website and French queries. Check whether suggested intent makes sense, observations can be traced, and data is dated. For visibility monitoring, examine the tested queries, response contexts, and consistency of measurement. Review exports and connections that support your workflow. Consider the access requested to website data. Finally, compare crawling, tracking, and generation restrictions with the size of your projects and how often you need analysis, including the associated billing arrangements.

An audit may report a genuine technical issue that deserves little priority in your situation. Inspect affected pages before applying changes across the site. Generated articles can contain false information or repeat phrases without helping readers. Review them against reliable source material. A brand’s presence in an AI response depends on context and does not establish that visits followed. Be cautious about ranking promises and review outreach recipients before sending messages based on automatically assembled suggestions.

To compare with the cost of using an AI model directly, see the API price calculator.

Free or paid?

Free access often provides occasional searches, audit previews, or restricted monitoring. It can help you investigate a specific question and assess the information supplied. Paying becomes useful when you need regular website crawls, a usable historical record, ongoing topic tracking, or exports that let your team turn findings into assigned work and documented decisions.

Tools in the category with a free tier: Ahrefs, AuditZap, BacklinkGPT, LLM Optimizer, Semrush, AirOps, RankingRider, and GEOScore.

For which jobs?

The profiles that use these tools most, based on the use cases documented by publishers: marketers, content writers, online retailers, freelancers, small business owners, and developers.