6 Essential AI SEO Tools In 2024 (I Used Them All!)
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AI keeps making our lives easier, and ChatGPT is only the tip of the iceberg. The same powerful technology fuels a new wave of SEO tools that do the heavy lifting for us.
From uncovering hidden keyword opportunities and getting data-driven competitor insights to drafting full SEO-friendly articles, AI turns tedious research into actionable strategies and really cuts down the time it takes to create content.
As a productivity-obsessed SEO veteran, I’m testing new AI tools almost every day, and I’m excited to share my best picks with you in this article!
These software tools aren’t magic bullets: you still need to use common sense and your own judgment on every step but man, they do speed up the process.
Now, let’s look at the top AI tools for SEO available in 2024 and see what they are capable of!
Quick links for the best AI SEO tools:
- Keyword Insights for smart keyword clustering
- NeuronWriter for easy on-page optimization
- Koala for writing good-quality SEO articles
- Exploding Topics for identifying trends early
- MarketMuse for an all-in-one SEO solution
- ChatGPT for EEAT audits and more
What is an AI SEO tool?
AI SEO tools help you use the power of AI for tasks that are crucial to ranking well in search results. They can uncover the best keywords to target, analyze your competitors’ websites, and even draft content that’s optimized for search engines.
In one way or another, they speed up your SEO process, replacing hours of manual work and identifying ranking opportunities based on reviewing big amounts of data.
What are the best AI SEO tools?
After testing lots of different software tools that leverage artificial intelligence in one way or another, these six have proven to be the most useful for an SEO-focused content creation process.
1. Keyword Insights
Best AI tool for keyword clustering
Keyword Insights is an incredible time-saver I only discovered recently. Designed for SEO-oriented keyword research and clustering, this AI tool fully replaces manual research and helps you create data-supported content strategies.
By analyzing SERP rankings and search intent, this software identifies keywords that have similar pages at the top and groups them together into clusters. Then it gives you a combined search volume and a list of keyword variations to naturally include in the article so you can rank for all those different terms with one article.
If that’s not the smartest way to build topical authority for your website, I don’t know what is.
With Keyword Insights, you can do keyword research from scratch or bring a list of keywords over from another tool you use and just leverage the clustering. Conveniently, it lets you do both at the same time, so you can combine several keyword lists and cover all the topical bases of your niche.
Best Features of Keyword Insights
Pricing
Keyword Insights offers three pricing plans ranging from $58 to $299 per month, depending on your content needs.
You get 20% off with annual plans.
They also offer a pay-as-you-go model if you only need the keyword clustering feature. Clustering 1 keyword takes 1 credit, and 1000 credits will cost you $7.99.
Some of the tools are available with a free account, and there is a 4-day trial to get a taste of what clustering looks like. (They charge $1 for it, which is a smart way to eliminate spammy accounts and people who never intend to use the software.)
The trial might seem limited, but if you make the most of it, you can get 300+ solid clusters that will keep you busy for a while.
I heard enough good things about Keyword Insights so I finally went to try it myself. Needless to say, I was impressed enough to later put it at the top of this roundup.
Keyword research with AI filtering is really powerful, and I haven’t seen anything remotely close to this keyword clustering model in any other tool.
If you can only add one tool to your SEO toolkit, make it this one. (I also appreciate that they don’t charge your card after the trial until you explicitly choose to upgrade.)
2. NeuronWriter
Best AI tool for search engine optimization
NeuronWriter takes the guesswork out of how well your content aligns with search engine preferences.
While Google continues to be volatile and changing their algorithm, this AI tool looks at what ranks today and identifies exactly what all the winners have in common.
Analyzing both your draft and your top competitors, Neuron then provides detailed recommendations to boost your relevance and visibility.
With NeuronWriter, SEO doesn’t have to feel like a shot in the dark. The platform shows you exactly what keywords to add or remove and even offers convenient AI features to quickly incorporate missing terms.
Best Features of NeuronWriter
Pricing
NeuronWriter offers a wide range of plans so it can serve everyone from solo creators to big agencies.
If you are a solopreneur or just starting out, the Bronze Plan may be more than enough for you. It lets you work on 2 projects and optimize 25 articles.
I manage several websites and I used to be on a Silver Plan but eventually upgraded to a Gold Plan because it offers a bunch of additional features.
Everything above Gold has pretty much the same features, only the monthly limits for each feature are different.
Similar to Keyword Insights, NeuronWriter gives you 20% off any plan if you pay annually.
The best part most people don’t know about is that NeuronWriter offers lifetime deals that let you use the tool indefinitely on a chosen plan with a single ridiculously-affordable payment.
NeuronWriter has been a staple in my blogging toolkit for more than a year now. It is my go-to software for optimizing my content for search engines.
I’ve trialed many other similar tools but haven’t found anything as intuitive and effective for my personal process.
For competitive keywords, I try to get a better score than all ranking pages before I publish my article. For less competitive topics, I often put an article through Neuron when it consistently ranks in position 4-20 and needs a little push to get to the top.
3. Koala
Best AI article writer for SEO
What makes Koala such an awesome AI writer for SEO is that it was created by the person in the trenches. Its founder, Connor Smith, is running a media company with a portfolio of content sites, which means he knows exactly what content creators need from a tool like that.
This is why every new feature they add gets everyone excited (me included!).
In essence, Koala Writer is a powerful AI tool that takes the tedium out of writing long articles.
While I never recommend publishing AI content without editing it and adding your unique insights, this tool is the best in 2024 for saving hours of initial research. It generates a solid, SEO-friendly first draft in seconds and even adds internal links where it makes sense.
Best Features of Koala
Pricing
Koala lets you fully test its capabilities by offering the first 5,000 words for free without even asking for your credit card.
It has the biggest range of pricing plans I’ve ever seen in an AI tool, starting from $9/month Essential Plan with 15,000 words and up to a $2,000 Scale III Plan with no less than 10,000,000 monthly words.
And if that’s not enough options, there are also credit packs that don’t expire for the whole year! (I fully took advantage of that on Black Friday and still haven’t exhausted my credits as I’m writing this in March.)
I found Koala Writer intuitive to use and was surprised at the quality of the content it generates. Currently, this is the only long-form AI content tool I’m paying for.
If you give it a good starting point (preferred tone, custom prompts, etc), it will produce a solid first draft that you can then refine and polish. I also like that it has WordPress integration and other useful features.
4. Exploding Topics
Best AI tool for trend discovery
While Exploding Topics is not an SEO tool per se, it gives you a competitive advantage and helps you quickly build your brand as an authority in your niche.
The AI algorithm inside Exploding Topics identifies new trends and keyword opportunities long before everyone starts talking about them. It’s a great resource for finding timely content ideas and being the first website on the web to cover them instead of wasting time writing about topics that are already oversaturated.
If you have used Google Trends in the past, these two tools complement each other and put you ahead of your competitors.
The platform analyzes tons of data from across the internet to equip you with insider knowledge on what people will soon be searching for.
Exploding Topics gives you in-depth data so you can decide whether a trend is actually worth capitalizing on. See the search volume history and future forecasting for each keyword, identify related keywords and products people are interested in, and find out which social platform is the hottest for it.
Best Features of Exploding Topics
Pricing
You can browse the Exploding Topics database of trends for free, with some limitations.
If you want access to all the 770K+ topics, monitoring trends, and getting timely insights, their Pro plans start at $39 per month. The only downside is the exclusively annual billing.
There is a $1 trial that lets you use full functionality for 14 days, which is incredibly generous, especially if you leverage a bigger plan.
Even though I’m subscribed to a ton of newsletters and consume relevant content daily, I continuously discover new tools, products, and topics I’ve never heard of.
By being the first to rank for a new keyword, you are signaling Google that you are an expert in this niche, and it’s more inclined to keep you at the top of SERPs even when big authority sites start covering that same keyword later.
There aren’t many ways to get a competitive advantage as a smaller publisher. So, I highly recommend you make the most of this tool and involve it in your content strategy.
5. MarketMuse
Best AI-powered SEO suite
If you seriously want to step up your SEO game and are just looking for an all-in-one solution, MarketMuse is probably your best bet.
This AI software gives you a full picture of what you need to cover to rank for a particular topic based on comprehensive competitor insights.
This level of actionable guidance lets you create data-driven content that’s actually likely to get seen by your target audience and provide valuable information they are looking for.
Unlike simple keyword research tools, MarketMuse helps you understand the full potential of each keyword. This translates to better rankings and makes it much easier to demonstrate your website’s expertise to Google. Think of it as a supercharged competitive analysis and content planner rolled into one.
MarketMuse is ideal for anyone who’s serious about SEO and invests a lot in content. It gives you both the big-picture strategy and the detailed execution steps that smaller tools often miss.
Best Features of MarketMuse
Pricing
MarketMuse offers a completely free plan with limited access to content analysis and competitive insights.
If you want access to full functionality, it will cost you $149 per month on a Standard Plan.
And if you want to bring a couple of team members on board and have unlimited research capabilities, you can consider a Team Plan ($399 per month).
There’s definitely a learning curve with MarketMuse since it has a lot of unique features, but it’s worth it. Once you get the hang of it, it actually makes SEO more fun with all the actionable features and colorful data visualizations.
It’s pricier than other tools, but it can also replace several tools you may be using, which may be a good deal depending on your process and scale.
6. ChatGPT
Best AI assistant for daily SEO tasks
ChatGPT hardly needs any introduction: it made waves in the tech world, and while it is not a dedicated AI SEO tool, it has an unlimited number of relevant applications!
I’m literally calling ChatGPT my assistant because I’m using it every single day for all kinds of things.
If you think I mean using ChatGPT to generate content for your website, that’s not what I mean at all.
While it can indeed write content, it’s not the best tool for this (see #3 above for my AI writer choice). Instead, I recommend using it for more nuanced tasks that require either creative brainstorming or time-consuming work.
Note: Even though ChatGPT adds a creative edge to your toolkit, remember to always verify its output and use it as inspiration rather than the final product.
Example ChatGPT use cases for SEO
Here are some ways you can utilize ChatGPT for SEO purposes:
- Brainstorm content topics and article titles
- Analyze your target audience and how you can serve them better
- Generate meta descriptions
- Outline new articles
- Check your articles for EEAT (if you have ChatGPT Plus, you can use this GPT for EEAT audits)
- Rephrase text for clarity or change the tone
- Make link building easier (filter HARO queries, suggest guest post topics, evaluate content toward editorial guidelines)
I’ve been using ChatGPT daily for over a year now and I keep finding new use cases and ways to prompt it better. It’s fun!
Pricing
ChatGPT is available for free, and there is also a paid version called ChatGPT Plus. For $20/month, you get access to a noticeably smarter language model, image generation, internet access, and hundreds of useful GPTs created by other people.
Other AI tools for SEO worth mentioning
While the tools above are my go-to picks, there is no lack of AI tools for search engine optimization in 2024.
Here are a few I’ve tested that, while not my top choices, could still be helpful depending on your specific workflow:
Scalenut
Scalenut is a solid all-rounder for SEO and content creation. It offers intuitive keyword research and clustering features, making it easier to figure out which terms to target. It also has some AI-powered writing tools so you can generate basic content drafts quickly if it fits your quality standards.
If you’re looking for a streamlined workflow that is much more affordable than MarketMuse, it’s worth checking out – plans start at only $17 per month.
Jasper
Jasper is best known as an AI writing assistant. If you often struggle with writer’s block, it might be your new best friend.
This tool can write surprisingly human-like content and adapt to match your brand voice better than any other tool I’ve tried. While it won’t write exactly like you, it’s close enough to help you produce content faster with minimal editing.
Frase
Frase is all about ranking your website better in search results. It helps you create outlines based on the competitor articles, and it guides you through optimizing your content so you can potentially rank higher.
While I’m not super impressed by Frase myself (I have super high standards and find NeuronWriter much more intuitive), I know quite a few content creators who swear by it and wouldn’t trade it for anything because it’s affordable, and it gets the job done.
Final thoughts
I think AI will never replace SEO professionals – to the contrary, it can help you every step of the way so you achieve good rankings faster than usual.
If you need a short version, here is a step-by-step approach to AI-powered SEO in 2024:
- Identify trends in your industry early with Exploding Topics
- Use Keyword Insights to find reasonable-difficulty keywords and cluster them
- Draft an article with Koala (or Jasper if you prefer a more hands-on process)
- Optimize your article with NeuronWriter to beat currently ranking competitors
- Use ChatGPT for nuanced improvements, such as EEAT audits
![Honest NeuronWriter Review After Using It For A Year [2024 Guide]](https://juliety.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/neuronwriter-review-768x512.jpg)
![Hands-On Keyword Insights Review 2024 [Full Content Workflow]](https://juliety.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/keyword-insights-review-768x512.png)