Do You Really Need Paid SEO Tools?

If you’ve looked into SEO for your business, you’ve probably seen ads for tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Moz. They promise deep insights into your website traffic and keywords — and for larger companies or agencies, they can be worth the hefty cost.

But for most small businesses, you don’t need to pay for expensive subscriptions to make smart SEO decisions. By learning to use Google Search Console and Google Analytics, you can access accurate data directly from Google — for free.

Why This Matters for Small Businesses

Every business owner wants to spend wisely. Paid SEO tools are powerful, but they’re built for users managing multiple sites, national campaigns, or competitive industries. For small and medium-sized businesses focused on local visibility, they’re often more than you need.

By learning to read Search Console, you’ll see:

• What people type into Google before they find your website.
• How often your business shows up in search results.
• Which pages on your website get the most clicks.

That’s the foundation of SEO — and Google gives it to you at no cost.

SEO vs. SEO + CRO — Know What You’re Paying For

Sometimes people use “SEO” to mean two different things:

• Pure SEO: improving visibility in search results.
• SEO + CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization): also adjusting your site so visitors take action, like filling out a form or making a purchase.

Many paid tools blur those lines. They might say they’re selling SEO insights, but much of the reporting is geared toward conversions, ads, or testing — things many small business owners may not need right away, especially if their main goal is simply to improve SEO.
If you’re not clear on which part of your marketing a tool is suggesting you improve, you could end up spending hours on tasks that don’t actually affect your SEO. If your goal is to show up in search and get more clicks, Google Search Console is where you should start.

The Power of Google Search Console

Google Search Console is made by Google to help you understand how your site appears in search results.

With a few clicks you can see:

• The keywords that bring people to your site (“birthday cakes Kelowna” for a bakery, or “emergency plumber Kamloops” for a trades business).
• How often your website appears in search even if people don’t click yet.
• Your average position in Google results for each keyword.
• Technical issues like pages that aren’t being indexed.

It’s the most accurate information you’ll find about how your website appears in Google, because it comes straight from Google. And it’s simple enough for any business owner to check.

What Paid Tools Do

Paid SEO tools do a lot of good work. They combine Google’s data with their own models to estimate things like search volumes, competitor rankings, and backlink quality. This can be valuable for big companies trying to track hundreds of keywords or large-scale campaigns.
For small businesses early in their SEO and marketing journey, though, that level of data may be more than necessary — and more expensive than helpful. If you’re mainly trying to understand how people find you in Google, the free tools already show you what matters most.

Automated Suggestions and Why They Don’t Always Fit Small Businesses

Most paid SEO tools automate parts of their reporting. They take data, build forecasts, and suggest next steps. That automation saves time, but it isn’t personalized to your business.

Sometimes those suggestions are useful. Other times, they may not match your goals. For example, a tool might recommend going after a national keyword that fits a big corporation’s strategy, while your small business needs to focus on local searches.

We often see discussions in places like Reddit where small business owners ask why the tool’s recommendations aren’t helping. It’s hard to know the exact cause — since people wisely don’t share every detail of their business online — but it’s often because the automated advice doesn’t align with their real-world situation.

Automation is powerful, but it still requires human understanding. If you don’t have time to evaluate which suggestions fit your goals, you could end up following advice that doesn’t make a difference.

The Cost Question

Here’s a practical comparison:

• Paid SEO tools cost $100–$200+ per month.
• To make those tools worthwhile, you still need to spend your own time or pay someone to create enough content to build authority. That may cost up to hundreds more per month.
• Altogether, the subscription plus the writing costs the same as, or more than, hiring an SEO professional who specializes in small business SEO — like SilverServers.

Learning to use Google Search Console and other free Google tools won’t remove the need for writing, but it will save you the cost and risk of paying for software that may be more than you need — and that may offer suggestions that don’t actually help. Google’s tools give you accurate, first-hand data to guide your SEO decisions without relying on automated estimates or unnecessary expenses.

If you’re comfortable investing in professional help, an experienced SEO specialist can offer strategy, context, and the right amount of content creation — not just automated guesses on a dashboard.

Practical Steps for Business Owners

If you’re not ready to hire someone yet, here’s what you can do yourself this week:

1. Set up Search Console (it’s free). Click here to get started.
2. Open the Performance report and look at the top queries — those are the words people typed into Google before they found you. Keep in mind that if you set up Search Console today, you may need to give it at least a couple of days to begin gathering data.
3. Write the queries down and ask yourself: does my website have pages or blog posts that clearly talk about these topics? Does the text on my website show potential customers that I’m an expert, an authority, and a trustworthy business?
4. Check Google Analytics to see how many people are visiting your site overall.

These two free tools will give you the clearest picture of your online visibility.

Conclusion — Start With Search Console

SEO tools are powerful and helpful in the right context. For agencies, large companies, or competitive industries, they provide deep insight across wide markets. But for most small business owners, the essential information is already available — for free — in Google’s own tools.

Learn to read Search Console and Analytics first. Once you understand how people find your website and what they search for, you’ll be able to make confident, data-driven improvements without the cost or complexity of paid tools.

If you’re ready to get more out of your website without overspending on tools, contact SilverServers. We’ll help you use Google’s free data to build an SEO strategy that actually works for your business.

For related content, visit the Marketing and SEO section of our blog

Find real-world SEO tips in our SEO Showdown series