Quick answers
What is a good free alternative to Semrush?
The best free Semrush alternatives are Google Search Console (for index data and real ranking positions), Bloom (for weekly site audits and ranked task lists - free for one site), and Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (for backlink analysis of your own site). Together they cover the core use cases most small businesses need from Semrush without the £99–£399/month price tag.
Is there a completely free SEO tool like Semrush?
No single free tool matches Semrush's full feature set - Semrush is a large platform built for agencies and enterprises. But for small businesses, the combination of Google Search Console + Bloom covers the most valuable Semrush features: site audits, keyword tracking, and actionable recommendations. You only need Semrush's full depth when managing dozens of sites or doing large-scale competitor research.
Why is Semrush so expensive?
Semrush is priced for marketing agencies and enterprise teams who use it to manage many client sites simultaneously. The Pro plan (£99/month) gives 5 projects and 500 keyword tracking positions - far more than a single small business needs. Its data infrastructure - crawling billions of URLs and tracking millions of keywords - is genuinely expensive to run, and the price reflects an agency-scale tool, not a single-site solution.
Can I do SEO without paying for tools?
Yes. The fundamentals of SEO - fixing technical issues, optimising page titles, improving content, building local citations, and earning backlinks - can all be done with free tools. Google Search Console and Bloom's free plan give you enough data to make meaningful improvements to a single site's rankings without spending anything on software.
Semrush is a powerful tool. It's also £99 a month at minimum - and that's the entry-level plan with significant limitations. For a small business owner doing their own SEO, that's a budget that should be going towards expert execution, not a software subscription.
The good news: most of what Semrush does for small businesses can be done with free tools. Here's the honest breakdown.
What Semrush actually does (and what you actually need)
Semrush is a suite of tools covering: site audits, keyword research, rank tracking, backlink analysis, competitor research, content optimisation, and local SEO. That's a lot - but for a single small business website, you only use a fraction of it.
The features small businesses actually use in Semrush:
- Site audit - finding broken links, missing titles, crawl errors
- Keyword rank tracking - seeing where you rank for target terms
- Keyword research - finding new terms to target
- Backlink overview - seeing who links to you
Everything else - competitor gap analysis, PLA research, brand monitoring, content templates - adds value at scale but is rarely used by small businesses even when they're paying for it.
Feature-by-feature: Semrush vs free alternatives
| Feature | Semrush Pro (£99/mo) | Free alternative | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Site audit | Full crawl, 100k pages/mo | Bloom (free) + Screaming Frog (500 URLs free) | Minimal for most sites |
| Rank tracking | 500 keywords, daily updates | Bloom (free, weekly) + Search Console | Weekly is fine for SMBs |
| Keyword research | Full database, all metrics | Google Trends + Search Console queries | Real gap - limited depth |
| Backlink analysis (own site) | Full backlink database | Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (free) | AWT data is comparable |
| Competitor backlinks | Any domain, full data | Not available free at scale | Genuine paid-only feature |
| Page speed / CWV | Included in audit | Google PageSpeed Insights (free) | PSI data is more accurate |
| Actionable task list | Limited - raw data, no prioritisation | Bloom (free) - ranked by traffic impact | Bloom actually better here |
| Readable reports | Custom PDF reports (complex) | Bloom (free) - shareable reports | Comparable for most uses |
The honest conclusion: the only feature where Semrush has a clear advantage over free tools is keyword research depth and competitor intelligence. If you're trying to find what keywords your competitors rank for or building a large content strategy from scratch, you'll feel the gap.
For everything else - fixing your own site, tracking your own rankings, understanding your own backlinks - free tools are genuinely sufficient.
The free Semrush alternative stack
For site audits: Bloom
Bloom runs a weekly scan of your site and surfaces every issue as a plain-English task ranked by likely traffic impact. Unlike Semrush's audit (which gives you a long list of warnings), Bloom tells you which fix to do first and why. Free for one site - add yours here.
For rank tracking: Google Search Console + Bloom
Search Console shows actual impressions and average positions for every query your site appears for - with 16 months of history, updated daily. Bloom tracks positions for your target keywords weekly and shows progress over time. Together they replace Semrush's Position Tracking feature for a single site.
For keyword ideas: Google Search Console (Queries report)
The Queries tab in Search Console shows every search term that's already surfacing your site, plus terms where you rank on pages 2–3 and could move to page 1 with targeted improvements. For a small business, this is often more actionable than broad keyword research tools because the terms are already relevant to your site.
For backlink analysis: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT) gives you complete backlink data for your own verified site at no cost. The interface is more technical than Bloom or Search Console, but the backlink data is comparable to the full paid Ahrefs product for your own domain.
For competitor research: limited but workable
This is where free tools genuinely fall short. You can manually check a competitor's page titles (Ctrl+U, search for <title>), see their top content by searching site:competitor.com in Google, and check their approximate domain authority using free browser extensions. But deep competitor keyword gap analysis requires a paid tool.
When should you actually pay for Semrush?
Consider a paid SEO tool when:
- You're managing 3+ websites and need consolidated reporting
- You're building a content strategy at scale (20+ articles planned)
- You're in a competitive niche where ranking requires understanding exactly what top competitors are doing
- You're an agency billing clients for SEO work and need the tool to justify its cost across multiple projects
For one small business site trying to rank locally or in a specific niche, the free stack above - Bloom + Search Console + Ahrefs Webmaster Tools - will get you where you need to go. Save the Semrush budget for execution: a well-written service page, a backlink campaign, or a done-for-you SEO task from £29.
→ Want the full ranked list? Read our guide: Best Free SEO Software for Small Business (2026). → New to SEO terms? Our plain-English glossary explains backlinks, Core Web Vitals, crawl errors, and more.
Start with Bloom. Add specialists when you're ready.
Weekly site audits, ranked tasks, keyword tracking. Free for one site. No credit card. No Semrush needed.
60-second setup · No credit card · Cancel any time