SEO Automation Guide

SEO
SEO Automation Guide
Article by Ivana Ivanova
Last Updated: August 02, 2024

Automated SEO refers to the process of using different tools and software to conduct all SEO tasks, from monitoring your page to finding backlinks. It helps identify issues in real time so you can constantly improve and maintain your site’s ranking.

To help you understand better, our experts created this SEO automation guide. We’ll cover everything you need to know about SEO automation, starting from what it is to which tasks can be automated, and share the eight best search engine optimization automation tools.

Key Takeaways

  • SEO automation involves automating manual SEO tasks using tools.
  • Site monitoring, rank tracking, backlink analysis, and competitor monitoring are the best SEO tasks to be automated.
  • Surfer, Screaming Frog, and Ahrefs are the three best SEO automation tools.
  • Outsourcing SEO tasks can help you improve your site’s ranking while you focus on other strategies.

What Is SEO Automation?

As we mentioned, SEO automation is the process of automating simple, repetitive tasks related to your SEO strategy that you typically perform manually.

The use of automated SEO software:

  • Reduces the amount of manual work and helps you speed up tedious tasks
  • Frees time for working on various broader SEO tactics
  • Gives you insights on how to fix your SEO
  • Helps you analyze your competitors’ performance and search for ways to outrank them
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Manual vs. Automated SEO

With manual SEO, one or several SEO experts manually implement your on-site and off-site SEO strategies. Although manual SEO gives you total control over your SEO strategy, the process can be costly and time-consuming.

On the contrary, with automated SEO, you use software or a platform that does the work for you. You can use SEO automation tools to analyze your ranking, backlinks, and competitors.

So, which option is right for you? That depends on the size of your company, your optimization needs, and your budget. Sometimes using a mix of both solutions can bring the best results.

Which Tasks Can You Use SEO Automation For?

SEO automation can be used for the following tasks:

  1. Site monitoring
  2. Rank tracking
  3. Backlink analysis
  4. Competitor monitoring

1. Site Monitoring

Site monitoring allows you to check your website for page load time, broken links, unsafe security protocols, and problematic pages that can affect your ranking on search engines. Once these tools detect a problem, they send you a notification so you can work on a solution.

2. Rank Tracking

With dozens of pages and hundreds of keywords you might be trying to rank for, automation solutions allow you to see the ranking of each page. This enables you to come up with a strategy to improve the pages that aren’t performing well.

3. Backlink Analysis

“Backlink building should never be automated,” says Kosta Hristov, Founder and CEO of QGP.

However, SEO automation software can help with analyzing your backlinks quickly and easily so you can see which websites are linking to your website. The more backlinks you have, the higher your site’s reliability, authority, and potential ranking.

“At QGP, we use a proprietary system of nearly 40 signals that we use to automatically gauge the quality of our list of sites,” Hristov explains. “The truth is that it’s usually best to leave the heavy lifting on link building to reputable companies.”

That said, some backlinks should be avoided — you can learn that by following the best backlinking strategies. Automation ensures that you have a clear overview, allowing you to retain only valuable ones.

4. Competitor Monitoring

In addition to using SEO automation on your website, you can use it to monitor your competitors' performance. This can give you insights into how to gain a competitive edge and improve your search engine positioning.

Top 8 SEO Automation Tools

1. Surfer

Surfer
[Source: Surfer]

The best SEO automation tool is Surfer. It has some of the best SEO automation features available that can streamline the whole SEO process.

Starting with keyword research, Surfer only requires you to add the main keyword. The tool then generates a list of related phrases and words. It clusters the keywords into subtopics automatically so you can address different parts of the main topic with relevant keywords.

Additionally, Surfer also provides data on keyword search volume, traffic, and search intent so you know how to use the keywords correctly.

Other automation tasks in Surfer include:

  • Surfer Content Editor: Generate and create content perfectly optimized to current search intents based on keyword and image usage, article length, topic relevance, and more.
  • Surfer AI: Use AI to write content and help you implement the keywords in the correct sections.
  • Surfer Audit: Assess your site’s speed, keyword density, metadata, content, etc., and see what needs to be improved to rank better among your competitors.

Additionally, Surfer offers three free tools:

  • Keyword Surfer Extension: Shows keyword data and search volume
  • AI Outline Generator: Generates an outline using AI
  • AI Detector and Content Humanizer: Checks whether your content is AI

Surfer’s automation features can be accessed by purchasing one of the four plans:

  • Essential: $89/month
  • Scale: $129/month
  • Scale AI: $219/month

For companies, you can choose the Enterprise plan, which has a custom price based on the features you include in the package. Surfer also offers a seven-day free trial.

2. Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog
[Source: Screaming Frog]

Screaming Frog definitely takes a spot on our list of the best SEO automation tools. Many SEO experts use this tool to automate everyday SEO tasks. Screaming Frog is mostly known for its SEO Spider, which allows you to automatically crawl websites, find issues such as broken links, repetitive content, and slow page loading, analyze metadata, audit redirects, etc.

With this feature, you can crawl up to 500 URLs for free. Alternatively, you can purchase a license to gain access to unlimited URLs together and several advanced features, including:

  • Crawl comparison
  • Structured data and validation
  • Spelling and grammar checks
  • Free technical support

Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider generates automated reports containing essential SEO metrics to help pinpoint any issues. You can compare these reports after some time (a process you can also automate) to see your improvements.

Finally, with Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider, you can export your data directly to Google Sheets. This way, you save time and effort on continuously creating reports for others to view.

Screaming From charges per license per feature. Namely, SEO Spider is $259 per year for one license. It also offers discounts when purchasing more licenses.

3. Ahrefs

Ahrefs
[Source: Ahrefs]

Ahrefs is another one of the best SEO automation tools today. Its software can help you monitor the competition and find potential linking opportunities and relevant keywords for your content.

The Site Audit feature automatically scans your site for any potential issues like broken links or duplicate content.

With Content Explorer, users can automatically generate ideas and find link opportunities, as well as ways to buy backlinks for SEO. By entering a keyword, you get a list of all sites ranking for it, their traffic, and other valuable insights. This lets you tailor and improve your marketing campaign, so you rank better on SERPs.

You can use Ahrefs’ free SEO checker or sign up for one of the proposed packages:

  • Lite (for small businesses): $129/month.
  • Standard (for freelancers and marketing consultants): $249/month
  • Advanced (for in-house teams): $449/month
  • Enterprise (for agencies and companies): $14,990/year

You can change your plan per your needs and goals or cancel your subscription anytime.

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4. SE Ranking

SE Ranking
[Source: SE Ranking]

SE Ranking’s SEO software allows you to optimize and promote your website regardless of your level of expertise. This level of user-friendliness makes SE Ranking a great SEO automation tool.

Features include:

  • Keyword rank tracking
  • SEO/PPC competitive research
  • Website audit
  • Backlink checking and monitoring
  • Competitor analysis

SE Ranking particularly excels in automating the competitor tracking process. It targets a specific keyword and monitors how competitors rank for them, along with their backlinks. This allows you to focus more on improving your SEO and marketing campaigns instead of data analysis.

There are three pricing packages available:

  • Essential: $55/month
  • Pro: $109/month
  • Business: $239/month

You can choose to pay annually and save up around 20% or ask for a custom plan. SE ranking also offers a free 14-day trial.

5. Lumar

Lumar
[Source: Lumar]

Previously known as DeepCrawl, Lumar is a top SEO automation tool best used for automating technical SEO. It allows you to crawl the website and analyze it, track its health, and pinpoint issues that may influence your ranking.

Being among the automated SEO tools, its standout feature is the ability to predict how your site may rank on SERPs. This predictive feature helps you understand mistakes, fix them, and improve other areas of your website.

Lumar currently doesn’t have a pricing plan. As all plans are custom, you need to contact Lumar directly and request a package.

6. Plerdy

Plerdy
[Source: Plerdy]

A top automated SEO tool deserving a spot on our list is Plerdy — a UX and SEO tool that helps users “track, analyze, and convert your visitors into buyers.” It offers an SEO Checker and a SERP Checker, but it does more than that. As an SEO automation tool, Plerdy can also collect valuable data on website users via its pop-up software.

Moreover, you can use heatmaps to automate the process of visitor tracking. These heatmaps provide insights into customer behavior, such as where they spend the most time, what they frequently click on, etc. In the end, you get a comprehensive user engagement report that highlights your areas for improvement.

As for pricing, Plerdy has a free plan with certain limitations on the heatmaps, pop-ups, tracking, etc. You can also unlock better features by purchasing the three packages:

  • Startup: $32/month
  • Scale: $64/month
  • Thrive: $108/month

There is also an option to save up to 35% by paying annually.

7. Sistrix

Sistrix
[Source: Sistrix]

Sistrix is another great search engine optimization automation tool. This unique SEO automation tool tailors your ranking strategies based on the platform you're targeting — be it Google, Amazon Marketplace, or social media channels like Instagram and TikTok. With Sistrix, you can:

  • Analyze your competitors
  • Discover relevant keywords
  • Determine the most effective types and formats of content
  • Pinpoint search intent and include it in your content
  • Analyze customer reviews and feedback
  • Increase organic traffic
  • Resolve on-page issues
  • Check loading speed
  • Automatically generate reports specific to the platform used

Besides the features above, Sistrix also has several free tools that help you discover Instagram hashtags, optimize Google snippets, conduct on-page analysis, and more.

Sistrix’s monthly packages include:

  • Start (for freelancers, beginners, and start-ups): €99/month
  • Plus (for small businesses): €199/month
  • Professional (for agencies and expanding businesses): €249/month
  • Premium (for enterprises and experts): €599/month

There is also a seven-day trial period.

8. Little Warden

Little Warden
[Source: Little Warden]

Finally, Little Warden is definitely a great SEO automation tool for companies today. It helps monitor your website without the need for manual input. Plus, it conducts:

  • Expiration checks, including domain name expiration and SSL certificate expiration
  • Status checks, including GEO redirect check, URL response check, and 404-page redirect check
  • Indexability, including X-robots indexability checks and meta-robots indexability checks
  • Malware detection checks
  • Sitemap checks, including sitemap validation and XML sitemap change monitoring

Once a scan is complete, Little Warden generates reports that point out your site’s health. These reports highlight key issues and positives, so you know what to improve and maintain, thus eliminating the need for continuous manual checkups.

Little Warden’s plans all offer a generous 40-day free trial, while annual payments let you enjoy two months for free. Here are their monthly packages:

  • Freelancer: $34.99/month
  • Small Team: $54.99/month
  • Agency: $89.99/month
  • Large Agency: $169.99/month

Hiring an SEO Agency: An Alternative to SEO Automation

While SEO automation tools focus on automating different aspects of your performance, few, if any, can automate all the aspects you need to monitor.

Hiring an SEO agency allows you to leave optimization and strategizing to the experts. These pros have extensive experience with SEO automation platforms, campaigns, and metrics. They know exactly which metrics to look at and how to interpret them to create a strategy for improved optimization across your site.

Search Engine Optimization Automation Takeaways

Search engine optimization automation allows you to delegate tedious repetitive tasks to SEO software, thereby reducing time and costs.

Tasks that can be automated include:

  • Site monitoring
  • Rank tracking
  • Competitor monitoring
  • Backlink analysis

You can utilize both SEO automation tools and an SEO agency to cover every aspect of your SEO strategy and achieve the results you want — a fully optimized website that ranks in search engine results.

Outsourcing the services of some of the best SEO agencies and specialized digital marketing companies can help you with this. You might also want to learn about the 10 ways to fix your SEO while you’re at it.

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