Best Free AI SEO Tools to Boost Your Rankings in 2026
In 2026, harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer optional; it’s essential for staying ahead in search engine optimisation (SEO). From advanced keyword research and smarter content optimisation to effective rank tracking, free AI SEO tools are fundamentally transforming how digital marketers boost website rankings.
This comprehensive guide highlights the absolute best no-cost, AI-powered SEO tools that can supercharge your strategy, drive significant organic growth, and deliver an edge over the competition—all without breaking your budget.
New AI SEO Imperative: The rise of voice-enabled conversational AI assistants means SEO is now equally about Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO). Your goal is not just to get a click but to be the single, concise answer read aloud by AI systems. This requires structuring your content around natural, spoken questions.
In this article:
Top FREE AI-Powered Keyword Research & Competitive Analysis Tools
AI-driven keyword research tools have evolved beyond simple search volume and competition metrics. These advanced platforms leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning to deliver highly accurate, context-aware keyword suggestions that align perfectly with user intent.
1. ChatGPT (Free version)
First up is ChatGPT. This AI chatbot, based on the advanced GPT models, remains invaluable for brainstorming and generating foundational SEO assets. It has been fine-tuned using sophisticated learning techniques, making it a powerful tool for initial keyword research and content ideation.
How to use ChatGPT for Keyword Research:
- Ideation: Give ChatGPT a general topic (e.g., “female personal injury attorney“) and ask it to provide 20 relevant long-tail keywords or a list of user questions related to the topic.
- Clustering: Input a list of keywords and ask it to group them into topic clusters, suggesting primary and secondary keywords for each cluster.
- Content Outlines: Request a detailed, SEO-optimised content outline for a target keyword, including suggested H2 and H3 headings.
- Voice Search Optimisation: Use ChatGPT’s Voice Mode (on mobile/desktop) to simulate a user asking a voice query. Listen to how ChatGPT responds and then refine your content to provide a clearer, more conversational, and more concise answer for a better chance of being selected as the spoken result.
ChatGPT’s strength lies in its ability to generate vast amounts of structured, creative text based on complex prompts, acting as a foundational brainstorming partner for your entire SEO strategy.
2. Google Gemini
Google Gemini is Google’s next-generation conversational AI, deeply integrated with Google Search. This makes it ideal for real-time keyword research and spotting emerging trends that might not yet be fully reflected in traditional tools.
How to use Google Gemini for SEO:
- Real-time Insights: Ask Gemini about current trends or news in your niche, and its access to up-to-date web data can reveal high-relevance, low-competition keywords quickly.
- User Intent Modelling: Ask it to simulate a user search journey to understand the intent behind a query and generate relevant sub-topics.
- Conversational Content Generation: Since Gemini powers Google’s AI Overviews, ask it to generate an FAQ list for your topic, but instruct it to use natural, spoken language (“Why is X important?”) instead of traditional keyword phrases. This models content for both AI Overviews and Voice Search.
3. Ahrefs Free Keyword Generator
Ahrefs is widely regarded as an industry leader, and its suite of free SEO tools is immensely valuable for marketers on a budget. The Free Keyword Generator provides thousands of relevant keyword ideas from its extensive database, often without requiring an account.
How to use Ahrefs for Keyword Research:
- Massive Idea Generation: Enter a seed keyword and the tool provides up to 150 related keywords and question-based queries from its database, along with search volume estimates and a Keyword Difficulty (KD) score for the first few results.
- Multi-Platform Research: The tool extends beyond Google, offering ideas for search engines like YouTube and Amazon, allowing you to diversify your content strategy.
Key Feature: The ability to see both search volume and the highly respected Keyword Difficulty (KD) score for free makes this an exceptional tool for initial keyword filtering.
4. SE Ranking (freemium)
SE Ranking is a complete toolkit that can help you handle any SEO task. It relies on its very own crawlers that scan large volumes of search results, and then uses data processing algorithms alongside AI technologies to spot unique SEO patterns.
In particular, SE Ranking’s Keyword Research Tool provides similar, related, question-based, and low search volume suggestions for your target keywords. Each search term is evaluated based on metrics like search volume, keyword difficulty, CPC, user intent, SERP features, and more.
Using this tool, you can filter out keywords that trigger AI Overviews and then refine your content to better align with AI-generated responses in SERPs.
The tool also provides actionable insights on:
- The top-ranking pages for your keywords (along with key SEO metrics and organic traffic estimations calculated using an advanced AI formula).
- The ranking fluctuations of URLs ranking for your keywords over time.
- The historical performance of ads related to your targeted keyword.
Another great benefit is that the Keyword Research Tool provides you with 3 free keyword reports daily. These reports offer categorised keyword suggestions, the list of pages ranking within the top 10 search results for these keywords as well as the most popular ads for analysed keywords.
To use the tool at max capacity, you can sign up for a free 14-day trial.
Top FREE AI-Powered Tools for Content Optimisation & Writing
These tools enhance content relevance, engagement, and conversion rates by assisting in Content Analysis, Keyword Optimisation, and Scaling Content Creation.
For further insights into emerging marketing strategies, you may find our article ‘Emerging Trends and Future Directions in Cognitive Bias Marketing’ particularly valuable, as it explores innovative approaches to understanding consumer behaviour.
Read also: What does Google say about AI Generated Content?
5. Frase.io Free GEO Score Checker
Frase.io is a powerful AI content platform focused on generating content that ranks well on Google and gets cited by conversational AI. Its free tool is uniquely suited for the evolving search landscape.
How to use Frase.io for Content Optimisation:
- Free GEO Score Checker: Use this tool (no sign-up required) to instantly analyse any URL and get scores for Authority, Readability, and Structure. This indicates how well-optimised your content is for being pulled into answers by AI tools like Gemini and ChatGPT.
- AI Search Visibility: By focusing on improving your GEO score, you are proactively optimising your content for the new era of Generative AI Overviews (GAO) and AI chat citation, a key differentiator from traditional SEO.
Why it’s a must-have free tool: It gives you a crucial, new metric for measuring your content’s success in AI search environments, which is essential for 2026.
6. Surfer AI & AI Tracker (via Surfer SEO)
Surfer SEO is a market leader in on-page content optimisation. Their AI features focus on real-time content scoring and analysis based on top-ranking competitor data.
How to use Surfer AI/Tracker (Where applicable):
- Content Score: Accessing any free content analyser feature gives you a score based on an AI-driven content-optimisation model, allowing you to quickly spot glaring on-page errors.
- Data-Driven Outlines: Limited access features can offer a brief look at the content structure and length required to compete with top-ranking pages.
7. Harpa AI
Harpa AI is a customisable, FREE Chrome Extension that acts as an AI Automation Agent, integrating advanced AI features directly into your browsing experience.
How to use Harpa AI for SEO Content:
- Content Rewriting: Use its integrated AI to quickly summarise or rephrase content on a webpage to generate unique snippets for social promotion or meta descriptions.
- On-Page Extraction: Visit a competitor’s article and use Harpa to instantly extract its key SEO keywords, headings, and structure.
8. QuillBot AI (free version)
QuillBot AI is an AI-powered writing assistant that includes a summariser, paraphraser, and grammar checker to refine content and improve readability and originality.
How to use QuillBot for SEO:
- Summariser: Input lengthy sections of text and use the concise output for creating sharp, effective meta descriptions or compelling social media copy.
- Paraphrasing: Use it to quickly reword sentences and paragraphs to improve flow and diversify sentence structure.
9. Headline AI
Headline Studio by CoSchedule enables content creators and marketers to craft compelling headlines effortlessly. With its intuitive interface and AI-driven suggestions, Headline Studio removes the guesswork from headline optimisation.
Why it’s useful for SEO:
- A/B Testing Ideas: Provides multiple, data-backed headline variations, making it easier to select the highest-performing title.
- Optimised Titles: It generates title tag ideas that are designed for click-through rate (CTR), a crucial factor for SEO.
They also provide a FREE WordPress plugin that can help you quickly optimise your headlines without leaving your WordPress site.
10. HubSpot AI Search Grader
HubSpot’s free AI Search Grader is rather different from the other tools in this list. The platform tracks AI-generated responses from Chat GPT and Perplexity to highlight what kind of information users see whenever they use AI search engines to look up your brand.
So why’s that useful for content optimisation? HubSpot AI Search Grader highlights the exact details AI search engines display about your brand along with their sentiment. This helps you understand what AI chatbots think about your company and pinpoint where there’s room for improvement to make your content and site more AI friendly.
Acting on these insights allows you to optimise your content so AI search engine display more positive information about your business and gain more presence in AI search results.
Plus, HubSpot’s AI Search Grader also measures your competitors’ presence on generative AI platforms, which is perfect for analysing their own strengths and weaknesses.
11. Grammarly
Grammarly is a leading writing assistant that leverages advanced AI to enhance your writing experience, ensuring your content is clear, correct, and professional.
Free Plan Capabilities:
- Tone Detection: Provides insights into the mood of your writing, which is crucial for effective communication.
- Basic Grammar & Spelling Checks: Catches fundamental errors that detract from content quality.
Top FREE AI-powered Link Building & Auditing Tools
AI tools automate and refine the process of building a high-authority backlink profile by analysing prospects and identifying high-quality link opportunities.
Some popular free AI tools for link building include:
12. Link Whisper
The Link Whisper plugin for WordPress is an intelligent internal linking tool powered by artificial intelligence. It suggests relevant internal links while you write your article within the WordPress editor.
Free Plugin Benefits:
- Orphan Content Identification: The tool helps you quickly find pages that have no internal links pointing to them.
- Contextual Suggestions: Receive AI-driven suggestions for relevant internal links as you write.
13. Perplexity AI
Perplexity AI is a conversational AI search engine that offers a critical feature for link building: citations. This instantly reveals authoritative sources used to generate its answers.
How to use Perplexity AI for Link Prospecting:
- Targeted Outreach: Proactively engage with the authors or webmasters of these pages, pitching your high-quality content as a valuable resource for them to link to.
- Find Authoritative Sources: Search for a topic relevant to your article.
- Analyse Citations: Review the sources Perplexity uses to generate its answer. These are highly relevant and authoritative pages currently discussing your topic.
You can also use their Chrome Extension to use Perplexity AI while you are browsing the web
14. Can I Rank
Can I Rank is an SEO software that uses artificial intelligence to provide specific action recommendations to optimise website rankings. Its free plan offers valuable access to link prospecting data.
Free Plan Link Building Features:
- 20 Link Opportunities: The free plan allows you to find 20 relevant link opportunities to promote your content, scored by authority, relevancy, and the ease of obtaining a link.
15. SEO.AI’s Free Backlink & Internal Link Tools
SEO.AI offers a collection of focused, no-login tools that address specific link-building and auditing tasks using their AI architecture.
Free Tools for Link Audits & Building:
- Backlink Checker / Audit: Quickly get a list of websites linking to a specific domain or URL, along with an analysis of the linking sites’ authority.
- Internal Linking Tool: This AI-powered tool can help map out and suggest highly relevant internal links to boost your topical authority and distribute PageRank effectively across your site.
16. Glasp
Glasp, a social web highlighter, offers an innovative approach to link building that can significantly boost your website’s SEO.
Here’s how you can leverage Glasp to improve your link-building strategy:
Automatic Backlinks
When you highlight your own articles using Glasp, you automatically receive a backlink to your content. This effortless method of acquiring backlinks can be particularly valuable for new websites or those struggling to build their link profile.
Top FREE AI-Enabled Tracking & Technical SEO Tools
These tools provide the foundational data and technical analysis required to track performance and fix site issues, including new AI-driven features that address the changing search environment.
17. Google Search Console (GSC)
Google Search Console is the most essential, direct-from-Google SEO tool. It now integrates AI-related metrics that are vital for the 2026 search landscape.
AI-Enhanced Features for SEO:
- AI Overview Performance: GSC is the primary tool for tracking and analysing how your pages perform in Google’s AI Overviews (AI Mode), showing impressions and clicks from this new SERP feature.
- AI-Powered Query Groups: Offers intelligent grouping of search queries, allowing you to spot hidden search patterns and opportunities faster.
- Core Vitals: Provides the official data on Core Web Vitals, a key ranking factor monitored by Google’s own machine learning systems.
18. Screaming Frog SEO Spider (AI Integration)
The Screaming Frog SEO Spider is the gold standard for technical SEO auditing. While primarily a crawler, its recent updates have integrated powerful AI capabilities in its free version.
AI-Powered Features:
- Semantic Similarity Analysis: Uses LLM embeddings (AI) to analyse the meaning of your pages, helping you detect content cannibalisation and hidden duplicate content based on topic, not just keywords.
- Custom AI Prompts: The tool allows integration with external LLMs (like Gemini) via API, enabling you to run AI-powered tasks during a crawl (e.g., generating meta descriptions or classifying content).
19. Ahrefs Free SEO Toolbar
The Ahrefs Free SEO Toolbar is invaluable for quickly analysing any page you visit, providing essential SEO data directly in your browser.
Free Toolbar Features:
- On-Page SEO Audit: Instantly check critical on-page factors like page title, meta description, word count, headers, and social tags for any URL.
- Broken Link Checking: Quickly check for dead internal and external links on a page, useful for both your own site and identifying broken link building opportunities on others.
Top FREE AI-powered Creative & Visual Tools
Engaging visuals are vital for user engagement, which indirectly boosts time-on-page and reduces bounce rate—strong SEO signals. AI-powered creative tools allow quick, high-quality asset generation.
20. Canva (Free Plan AI Features)
Canva is the world’s leading free design platform, and its free plan includes several powerful AI-powered tools within its Magic Studio suite.
Free AI Tools in Canva for SEO:
- Magic Eraser & Background Remover: Essential for cleaning up images and creating professional-looking graphics without photo editing expertise.
- Magic Media (Text-to-Image): Generate unique images from a text prompt (limited free usage) to ensure your visuals are original and relevant.
21. Bing Image Creator AI
This tool, now often accessed directly within Microsoft Designer or Copilot, is powered by OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 and is the gold standard for free, high-quality text-to-image generation. It’s perfect for generating unique, non-stock images for blog posts and article headers.
Free AI Features for SEO:
- Integration with Copilot: You can prompt image creation directly within the Copilot chat interface, making the workflow seamless when drafting content.
- DALL-E 3 Generation: Quickly generate four unique, high-resolution images based on a text prompt (e.g., “A whimsical, watercolour illustration of a robot learning SEO”).
- Prompt-to-Image for Blog: Use it to create unique, original images for every article, helping your content stand out and avoiding expensive stock image licenses.
22. Microsoft Designer
Microsoft Designer is an AI-powered graphic design application that rivals Canva, offering professional design capabilities via generative AI. It is excellent for creating structured marketing assets like social media posts and banners.
Free AI Features for SEO:
- Design from Prompt: Describe the type of graphic you need (e.g., “An Instagram post promoting a 50% summer sale in a clean, modern style”), and Designer’s AI will generate multiple, fully-designed layout proposals.
- Background Removal & Editing: Use AI tools to instantly remove or blur the background of any image, ideal for creating clean product shots or compelling graphics.
- Layout Suggestions: The AI provides dynamic design tips and layout recommendations to ensure your finished graphic looks professional, even without design experience.
Conclusion: Your Free AI SEO Toolkit for 2026
For professional service businesses and growing websites aiming to enhance their online presence without straining their budget, free AI-powered SEO tools are invaluable. They provide access to data-driven insights into target audiences, enabling you to improve website performance, attract more organic traffic, and boost revenue. All at no financial cost.
By incorporating this updated list of 22 free AI tools into your SEO workflow, you can compete effectively in digital spaces and refine your SEO strategy to maximise visibility and client engagement in 2026 and beyond.
How Agile can help
Agile helps make your website a powerful tool for success. By focusing on user experience and digital marketing, we enable professional services to boost engagement and generate quality leads through valuable content.
Our commitment to excellence is underscored by our recognition as a Top SEO Company in the United Kingdom for Business Services.
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