SEO is just competitor research at scale — and most tools are charging you for data that doesn't move the needle.
Here's what actually matters:
SERP Data — You want to rank your page for a keyword? First check who's already ranking. That's SERP data. You can do it manually for one page, but you have tens of pages with different keywords targeted. Manual is not an option at scale.
Backlinks Data — Once you know who's ranking, the next question is why. You've fixed your on-page SEO, sorted your technical issues — yet you're still not in the top results. The answer is almost always backlinks. Your competitors have built links to those exact pages.
AI Citation Data — This one most tools are getting completely wrong. Telling me "you were mentioned 40 times in ChatGPT" is useless. I need to know which pages are getting cited for the queries I'm actually targeting. That's the data that matters.
What you can skip — keyword volume from Semrush or Ahrefs is estimation. Your GSC tells a different story every single time. DR and DA are scores these tools made up themselves. Google doesn't use them.
Stop paying for noise.
Top comments (0)