Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of creating, analyzing, and optimizing your website’s content to increase its visibility on search engines. Today, there are a wide variety of AI SEO software tools to help with every step of this process, but it’s important to use them mindfully. The right application of these tools can boost your search engine rankings, but the wrong application of AI can put your website at risk.
Here are the best AI SEO tools and what you need to know about them.
Table of contents
What are AI SEO tools used for?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a broad set of technologies that includes machine learning (ML), natural language processing, and large language models (LLMs). These technologies are combined and configured in a wide variety of ways to support the following SEO tasks:
Creating content
The rise of generative AI, with tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini, has unlocked new possibilities in content creation. These tools help marketers rapidly create first drafts of copy, images, code, and even video by using simple text prompts—but the key phrase here is “first drafts.”
The outputs AI tools provide are based on an aggregate of available information on the internet, so they risk being wrong and out of date or just spitting out repetitive versions of things already said. This is called a hallucination. The best marketing content is new and unique, informed by the brand itself. Additionally, while Google does allow AI-supported content, its guidelines require that content is “original, high-quality, and people-first,” precluding the use of entirely AI-generated content.
Analyzing content
AI SEO tools can quickly process vast amounts of data and spot recurring trends in top-ranking websites and articles, reviewing search engine results pages (SERPs), keyword research, technical performance, task prioritization, and internal linking opportunities to provide recommendations.
Optimizing content
AI can now go further than just analysis. Whereas AI SEO tools previously could provide only generalized recommendations such as, “Here are four possible target keywords for your page,” it can now say, “Here are five specific edits to your code and content to better optimize this page to rank for your ideal target keyword.” This can be a substantial timesaver.
Top AI SEO tools
No two SEO strategies are alike, so the best AI SEO tool for you might differ from your competitor. These AI SEO tools have differentiated themselves in the market today and earned positive reviews in the process:
ChatGPT
ChatGPT is the leading product of OpenAI, a leader in the AI space. It has a simple text entry interface but can generate blog articles, title tags, meta descriptions, images, code, charts, and soon video to help you create content that brings in organic traffic. Its AI model underpins many of the other AI tools in the market.
- Pricing: Free with the GPT3.5 model and text outputs. Access image and voice features for $20 per month. Team plans available for enterprise.
- Best for: Generalist marketers looking for support in a wide range of marketing tasks.
Google Gemini
Gemini is Microsoft’s latest iteration of its general-purpose AI assistant, originally branded Bard. It has similar functionality to ChatGPT, with the benefit of integrating directly into Google tools like Google Docs and Google Sheets.
- Pricing: Free to use the standard version, with Gemini Advanced level available for $20/month, and business pricing also available.
- Best for: Generalist marketers on a Google-first stack such as Gmail, Google Docs, or Google Sheets.
Shopify Magic
Shopify Magic is the AI assistant for Shopify stores. It is integrated directly into the Shopify interface, making it easy to use. Shopify regularly rolls out new features for it, and right now its core features are product image background editing, product description drafting, FAQ generation, email planning, and live chat.
- Pricing: Free with all Shopify plans, which start at $1/month.
- Best for: Shopify merchants who want to quickly optimize their product pages and customer experience.
Shogun
Shogun is a page builder for Shopify stores. In recent years, it has added a suite of AI tools, including AI text generation, an AI section builder, and instant SEO meta tags.
- Pricing: AI SEO features included with all plans, which start at $31/month.
- Best for: Shopify merchants who need a page builder and want similar features to Shopify Magic.
Bloomreach
Bloomreach offers a set of ecommerce tools focusing on personalization powered by AI. The most SEO-relevant tool is its web personalization, allowing for custom experiences based on a variety of factors. For example, you could use its AI to show different messaging to first-time visitors from Google and returning visitors from email.
- Pricing: Enterprise pricing depends on the modules you require. Minimum $449 per month.
- Best for: Ecommerce business teams that want AI and personalization at the heart of their experience.
Jasper
Jasper offers a variety of marketing-specific AI generation tools, including blog writing, headline copy, SEO strategy, and more. It launched in 2021 with a small business focus, but today it focuses on large enterprise businesses with important security and scale considerations for AI.
- Pricing: Starts at $39 per month per user.
- Best for: Enterprise marketing teams looking to deploy AI content at scale.
Ink
Ink is an AI-based content marketing tool. It offers AI-generated content with a focus on SEO optimization and guardrails against having content perceived as violating Google’s spam rules. No platform can guarantee to abide by Google’s spam rules, which are subject to interpretation and change, but Ink places a focus on this.
- Pricing: $39 per-month Professional plan (including unlimited writing), $99 per-month Enterprise plan.
- Best for: Technically savvy SEO professionals who just need writing support.
Surfer
Surfer SEO uses natural language processing (NLP) to make content optimization recommendations. It launched in 2017, making it one of the longest-running companies in the market. The company uses a proprietary Surfer Score to evaluate your content and provide a roadmap to optimize content. Recently, it has expanded its offering to include AI-supported writing and keyword ideas.
- Pricing: Ranges from $89 per month (including up to 30 articles) to $399 per month (more than 100 articles). Add-ons for additional modules also available.
- Best for: Content teams that want to make SEO-informed decisions quickly while writing their own content.
Alli AI
Alli AI offers a suite of AI-based SEO features with a focus on bulk on-page optimization. It can write content and deploy technical edits, such as automatically implementing canonical tags across multiple pages on your site.
- Pricing: $299 per month for a single business, $599 per month for agencies, and $1,199 per month for enterprise features.
- Best for: SEO teams that want to make lots of changes but have limited access to web development resources.
Zapier
Zapier is not inherently an AI SEO tool. However, as a general integration/automation tool for marketers, it has important AI SEO benefits. You can connect Zapier to ChatGPT, Shopify, and other tools on this list to create powerful workflows. For example, if you send a post-purchase survey to your customers, you could use Zapier to send a weekly summary to ChatGPT and have ChatGPT summarize the top reasons people buy, informing your keyword strategy.
- Pricing: Free plans available, paid plans start at $29.99 per month.
- Best for: Marketing teams with limited time and development resources.
AI SEO tools FAQ
How can AI be used for SEO?
AI can be used to analyze, optimize, and create first drafts of website content for SEO purposes, helping speed up the content creation process. It works best as an assistant to a marketer, doing time-consuming tasks like keyword research that help the marketer produce high-quality content and decisions.
Is AI content SEO friendly?
Creating content with AI is not against Google’s spam policy. However, AI alone does not create SEO-friendly content, as search engines expect content to offer unique subject matter expertise, not just summaries of available information.
What should you look for when choosing an AI SEO tool?
The right AI SEO tool depends on your goals. If you need to complete a specific task, such as copywriting, find an AI tool specializing in that task. If you have a variety of SEO efforts in mind, choose a more generalized AI tool, such as ChatGPT.