Want to improve your organic search rankings? You’re going to need the right tools to help you.
In this post, we’re sharing all of the content writing tools you need to support your SEO efforts.
From AI writers and content research tools to keyword research tools, we’ve got a diverse mix of solutions to choose from.
Let’s get started.
The best content writing tools for SEO – summary
The best content writing tools for SEO will depend on your needs. And some tools can be used in conjunction with others to great effect. Here’s our recommended tech stack:
Use Frase to research competing content, create briefs, and optimize new & existing content. You can also use its Google Search Console integration to find ‘quick wins’ within your content.
BuzzSumo makes it easy to analyze the content strategy of competing websites, generate content ideas, and research influencers. Including influencers in your content will increase your reach and domain authority.
Scalenut is an AI content writer that can be especially useful to speed up the writing process and overcome writer’s block. While it is capable of writing entire blog posts, we don’t recommend using it that way.
Use SE Ranking to research high-traffic keywords and gain insights into your competitors’ SEO strategies. You can also use it for rank tracking and backlink research.
Semrush is another great option with a deeper feature-set but SE Ranking is priced fairly cheaper and still has a huge amount of data and functionality.
1 – Frase
Frase is a complete toolkit for SEO writers to research, plan, brief, and optimize content, hence covering your entire content workflow.
You can not only generate content briefs after analyzing competing content but also optimize newly-generated and existing content for search engine optimization.
Frase’s AI templates can generate outlines, intros, and headings from the target keyword of your choice. While its content editor is as feature-rich as top word processors, the cherry on the cake is its content scoring feature that lets you craft the perfect article.
Writing for search engines needs a tricky mix of technical finesse and creative flair. Frase does the heavy lifting for you by paraphrasing your content and autocompleting your sentences.
With the SEO add-on, you can get unlimited access to the Frase AI Writer, along with data analytics on search engine results pages (SERP) and additional monthly search volume.
And that’s not all. You can even integrate Google Search Console with Frase to grab the low-hanging fruit and optimize your site-wide content.
Frase offers a single solution catering to every stage of your content writing workflow. It’s a great option for writers who want to avoid the costs and complexity of multiple tools.
Pricing
Frase offers a 5-day trial for $1. Plans start from $14.99 per month. Access to the SEO add-on costs an extra $35 a month but their core functionality will be enough for most users.
2 – Surfer
Surfer helps you plan, create, and write your content with the sole aim of ranking on the first page of Google search results. It also helps you optimize your content so you keep ranking.
When it comes to content writing tools for SEO, few do it as well as Surfer. It takes charge of your content strategy by providing topic suggestions based on related keywords.
You can use the suggested topics to generate article outlines complete with headings, intros, and content that you can tweak to suit your style.
Surfer’s content editor clearly shows you the keywords to be included, the word count, and the number of headings and images – all in real-time. You always have your content score flashing at the top to gauge how well your content is shaping up.
Once your content goes live, Surfer even helps you with SEO audits to optimize all your existing content to ensure you outrank competitors. This helps your articles not just rank on Google’s first page but also stay there.
Surfer is a comprehensive content writing offering with a few advantages over many other solutions—a clean interface, uncomplicated content scoring, and a feature-rich content editor.
Pricing
Surfer’s plans start at $59 a month with a 7-day money-back guarantee on every plan.
3 – Semrush
Semrush, despite being an all-in-one marketing platform, doesn’t compromise on its SEO research and content optimization capabilities.
With its keyword research, SERP analysis, and technical SEO audits, Semrush goes toe-to-toe with the best content writing tools for SEO.
You can optimize existing content on your website simply by providing the target URL and the target keyword you want to optimize for. Semrush then scans the pages above you in SERPs and generates pointers to optimize your content.
What Semrush does best is analyze search engine results pages for your target keyword and offer SEO recommendations to improve not just your content but also your content strategy.
It even integrates with Google Search Console and Google Analytics and combines the data with its native SEO tools to offer data-backed content recommendations.
Then there’s the backlink database which is one of the largest of any backlink analysis tool on the market. This is incredibly useful for link prospecting and monitoring your site’s link profile.
Semrush can be a great option for SEO content writers who want a solution that doubles up as a marketing tool covering social media, PPC, and more.
Pricing
Semrush offers a 7-day free trial, with its paid plans starting from $119.95 a month. Semrush premises a 7-day money-back guarantee also on each of its plans.
4 – PageOptimizer Pro
PageOptimizer Pro (POP) is an excellent content optimization tool for writers who want to create exceptionally high-ranking SEO content. It’s one of the most exhaustive SEO tools in the market.
It’s powered by a patented on-page SEO scoring system based on over 400 tests on Google’s SEO algorithm. It provides SEO-focused content briefs that guide your writing with the best SEO recommendations.
Moreover, its content editor scores your content in real-time, helping you visualize how each change affects your SEO score. Its SEO scoring system works in overdrive in the background to ensure no technical SEO factor is overlooked.
Whether it’s keyword research, LSI terms, header tags, or schema, POP’s SEO writing assistant lets you easily produce content loved by search engines.
PageOptimizer Pro targets content writers who prioritize technical SEO over other aspects and want their SEO tool to be as exhaustive as possible.
Pricing
You can start using POP with a 7-day free trial of their Basic plan costing $22 a month. You can upgrade to more premium plans to unlock unlimited reports.
5 – Scalenut
Scalenut is a powerful AI writing assistant that uses human-centric writing principles to help you get rid of writer’s block and speed up the content creation process.
Scalenut excels at producing creative content for blog posts, ads, and more that’s optimized for search engines as well.
Scalenut lets you create SEO content with a powerful, automated algorithm that simply needs a topic and a tone of voice to generate original content.
It has a large selection of built-in templates that cover everything from blogs and articles to Facebook and Google ads to product descriptions.
Scalenut supports over 25 languages and includes natural keyword integration to take care of all your SEO writing needs.
If you’re in the market for an AI writer that’s industry-leading, time-tested, and approved by thousands of writers, Scalenut should definitely make your shortlist.
It’s worth noting that AI content writing tools work best as a way to speed up your content writing workflow. While Scalenut can write long-form content, we don’t recommend using it (or any other AI content writing software) to write entire articles.
Pricing
Scalenut’s plans start from $12/month (billed annually), monthly plans are also avilable. There is a 7 day free trial.
6 – BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is an extremely powerful content research and analysis toolkit that helps you reveal promising content ideas. It also helps you collaborate with influencers that are likely to spread the word about your brand and content.
BuzzSumo is a content planning, competitor research, and influencer partnership tool that’s laser-focused on one goal – helping you create social-media-worthy content.
It uses its extensive and up-to-date data to show you content ideas that are guaranteed to go viral and rank in the top Google search results. Then, it also shows you what content formats to use and where to share your content for the most engagement.
With keyword research, competitor analysis, and social engagement data combined, BuzzSumo becomes your single source of truth for social media dominance.
What’s more, you can use its database of influencers to know which social media stars and journalists are sharing content related to your niche every day. You can then pursue content collaborations, crowdsourced campaigns, or influencer marketing with them.
BuzzSumo represents a data-driven content strategy solution that will appeal to all social media marketers and even creators who want to have a pulse on the latest engagement trends.
Pricing
You can start using BuzzSumo with a free plan or buy one of their paid plans starting from $99 a month. You also get a 30-day free trial for each of their paid plans.
7 – SE Ranking
SE Ranking brings a ton of SEO analysis and marketing tools together on a single platform to address everything from keyword research and tracking to competitor analysis and on-page SEO optimization.
Some SEO content writing tools try to do a bit of everything. SE Ranking, on the other hand, tries to excel at a few select capabilities, all centered around SEO optimization.
SE Ranking’s SEO tools not only enable you to keep track of your website’s keyword rankings but also allow you to research your competitors’ SEO strategies and alert you of any changes on their sites.
Moreover, your backlink monitoring and on-page SEO optimization tasks are made easy with dedicated tools.
You also have access to white-label SEO reporting tools for sharing in-depth reports with your clients.
SE Ranking works best for users who are looking for an all-in-one tool for everything SEO, with a stronger focus on content optimization than content writing.
Pricing
SE Ranking’s plans start from $39 a month, with a 14-day free trial also available.
8 – MarketMuse
MarketMuse is an AI-powered content research, intelligence, and writing tool. It focuses on prioritizing content ideas based on potential ROI.
MarketMuse is one of the more unique content writing tools as it uses AI to not just help you plan content strategy but do it based on the dollar value attached to every potential content piece.
Its automated content inventory and planning solution selects the best content opportunities for you and also measures your domain authority and the quality of existing content.
It then uses its AI-generated content briefs to help you write faster, providing outlines and headings around related keywords, and a real-time content score with additional recommendations for internal and external linking.
Plus, you can also optimize your existing content based on MarketMuse’s industry-leading topic models that analyze the top competitors for your search topic.
MarketMuse takes a novel approach to content strategy and writing by bringing ROI into the mix, something that would be appreciated by both marketers and CXO stakeholders.
Pricing
MarketMuse offers a free plan to start with and paid plans starting from $600 a month.
9 – WordHero
WordHero is a relatively new AI content writing tool that uses a machine learning language model to generate original and human-like content using 60+ writing tools and some target keywords.
WordHero uses intelligent templates to allow you to create fresh and natural-sounding content for more than 60 use cases ranging from blog posts & articles to ad copies and product descriptions to social media posts and LinkedIn Bios.
Its language model claims to be powered by 175 billion machine learning parameters. What this delivers is a time-efficient content creation process that uses helpful prompts and always-evolving writing tools.
With its long-form editor and keyword assistant, any content you create will be SEO-friendly. You can tweak its generated content to suit your content and requirement. And you can write content in 108 languages.
WordHero competes strongly with other AI writers. While it’s a new entrant in this space, it’s trying to combine a robust solution with attractive early-bird pricing to entice users.
Like other AI content writing tools, WordHero is capable of long-form content creation. But we recommend using it as an assistant to save time and speed up your writing process, rather than handling all of your content writing needs.
Pricing
WordHero offers a single plan for $49 a month or $348/year.
10 – Grammarly
Grammarly is helps you to create error-free content. Think of it like having a second set of eyes looking at your content.
Grammarly can be installed as a browser extension or accessed online for checking long-form content, just simply copy and paste from Google Docs or Microsoft Word.
It does more than just correct your spelling and grammar by offering in-depth writing recommendations around clarity, conciseness, and tone.
You get insights about the reading time and readability score of your blog or article, along with word count and vocabulary ideas. It can also suggest ideas on the tone of your emails, making it useful for email marketing.
And all of this is available for free. With its premium plan, you gain access to a plagiarism checker and deeper recommendations around word choice and style.
Grammarly provides a great way to proofread your work yourself and integrate a language enhancement tool on every platform you use, from MS Word and email clients to social media platforms.
It’s important to note that Grammarly isn’t perfect – no grammar & spell checking software is. It may occasionally make mistakes. But it’s still incredibly important because it will help you spot errors that you’d otherwise miss.
Pricing
Grammarly has a free version, paid plans start from $12/month.
11 – Hemingway App
Hemingway App is a content writing tool that focuses on making your writing more readable by identifying complex words and structures.
Hemingway App points out common instances of complexity in your writing that affect its readability. For example – passive voice, unnecessary adverbs, and overly complex sentences.
The tool uses a simple interface that uses color-coding to identify different ‘errors’ it identifies. It’s an easy-to-use software that takes no time to learn and offers a distraction-free environment to focus on one thing—making your writing reader-friendly.
Often in copywriting, writers tend to rely on fancy words and obtuse writing in an attempt to create better copy but it tends to achieve the opposite result. Hemingway App helps you improve your writing readability so that it’s impactful without being cryptic.
After all, one of the most important functions of content writing is to communicate to your audience effectively.
Pricing
Hemingway App has a free version while the paid version, Hemingway Editor costs $19.99 as a one-time fee.
Content writing tools for SEO – FAQs
How do I write SEO-friendly content?
Writing content that ranks high in search engine results pages requires excellence in various areas – using proper keywords and headings, focusing on word count, images, and alt text, optimizing your content for on-page and off-page SEO factors, and much more.
While you can pick up many of these skills with regular writing, leveraging SEO writing tools can go a long way to take the guesswork out of the entire process.
What is the best tool for content writing?
There are a variety of content writing tools available in the market that can help you automate your writing process and make it more research-backed.
For example, if you’re looking to accelerate the time to create your first drafts, AI writers like Scalenut and WordHero can be a good fit for you.
They are both capable of writing long-form content but I recommend them only as writing assistants. Tools to speed up your writing process. Not a tool to replace you or your content writer.
Or if you’re in the market for a tool to help you perfect your SEO, then Semrush and SE Ranking can be your best bet. If you want an all-in-one content planning and writing platform, consider Surfer and Frase for the best results.
If you’re on a tight budget and are looking for the best free SEO writing tools, BuzzSumo and Grammarly’s free plans are a great combo.
Choosing the best SEO content writing tools
Choosing the right content writing tool for you should involve a careful assessment of your needs and budget. It should also take into account the degree of complexity you can be comfortable with at the current stage of your business’ lifecycle.
If you’re just starting out, you might not need a full-fledged content writing suite and might be better off with a free content optimization tool.
On the other hand, if you’re an agency, you can start looking to onboard paid tools that can help you automate your content writing workflow.
Finally, if you’d like to learn more about SEO in general, be sure to check out our beginner’s guide to SEO or our post on SEO statistics and trends.
Related comparisons of SEO Tools:
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. This means we may make a small commission if you make a purchase.
