We’re back to our SEO tools reviews with a new addition: Spyfu.
This is an honest SpyFu review, based on my personal experience with the tool (which was pretty good).
Table Of Contents
What Is SpyFu?
As they call themselves, SpyFu is “the all‑in-one keyword research alternative to Semrush”.
SpyFu, as the name implies, will assist you in "spying" on the competition.
It excels at domain and keyword analysis, but it also works well as a backlink analysis tool.
Its primary features will assist you in understanding your direct competitors’ SEO tactics, which will directly feed into your own strategy.
Review Summary
SpyFu is an SEO and PPC competitive intelligence tool. It’s a great alternative for SEOs who are investing a minimum amount for their SEO strategy or are just looking for a free and overall good SEO tool they can rely on.
Pros
- Easy to use
- Great support
- Reasonable prices free and reliable competitive analysis tool
- Satisfactory organic keywords analysis tool
- Great PPC Analysis tool
- Ability to export reports as PDF files
Cons
- Absence of technical SEO tools
- Absence of data in languages like Arabic, Chinese, Russian, …
- Considerably different keyword analysis metrics compared to other tools
- Inaccurate data on small niche keywords
- Significantly limited free version
- Limited local SEO features
- Limited backlinks tool
But don’t just take my word for it, let’s see the tool in action:
Domain Overview (Monthly Data)
To start your domain, go directly to the overview section.
In this example, I’m analyzing one of the websites I used to write for in the IT niche (Devbrains).
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In the overview, you can see data on:
- The number of organic/paid keywords (data retrieved from the top 100 results on search engines)
- Estimated monthly SEO/PPC clicks (calculated using the average position of each organic keyword)
- Estimated monthly SEO/PPC click changes (by comparing the current month’s data to the previous one)
- Number of keyword Gainers and Losers
- Google Ad Recommendations (if PPC data is available)
Competitors
Next, a list of your top organic competitors (with the free version, you can see up to 8 direct organic competitors):
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And a list of shared keywords with your competitors.
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How can you use this data?
Spying on your competitors can play a major role in boosting your SEO strategy. With this data, you can:
- Work on the low-difficulty keywords they’re targeting by analyzing their domains separately
- Optimize your content on shared keywords with them after having a look at their pages
- Link building or collaborating with them
- And the list of opportunities goes on
- Related: The Only SEO Keyword Research Template You'll Need | Free (SpreadSheet)
Top Organic Keywords
The top keywords section shows you a list of your top-ranking organic keywords (up to 9 using the free version)
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For each keyword, you can see the:
- Page ranking for each keyword
- Monthly search volume
- Rank on SERPs and its change
- Number of SEO clicks and its change
- KD (SpyFu’s metric)
- CPC
- Percentage of desktop searches
Newly Ranked Keywords
If you head to SEO research, in the top keywords section, you will see a list of your newly ranked keywords:
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You can use this to optimize the pages for each new keyword even more to accelerate the ranking and positionning process.
First Page Keywords
SpyFu also gives you a report on your keywords that have recently reached the first page (great news).
And the ones that fell and lost rankings.
You can use this data the optimize the pages that lost ranking to get them back to the first page.
Top Pages
The top pages list (up to 9 with the free version) ranks pages according to the organic they receive monthly.
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By clicking on “View X keywords” you can see the keywords each top page is ranking for, and thus optimize more for keywords you may have not thought of while crafting your content:
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Keyword Research
SpyFu’s keyword research tool, although not as cool as SEMRush’s, is fine in my opinion.
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| Keyword Research for "Technical SEO" |
It gives a good amount of data on your seed keyword, like similar keywords, and questions, and even gives you a list of the best Google Ads recommendations by analyzing the competition.
However, these tools fail when it comes to accuracy, especially if you’re using them along the side with other keyword research and analysis tools like SEMRush or SEMScoop.
Backlinks
One of the cool features that I like about SpyFu is its Backlinks tool.
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By entering a seed keyword like “web design” for example, you get a list of websites and blogs that you can add to your link-building strategy.
SpyFu Pricing
SpyFu offers three different plans:
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Final Thoughts
It is hard to find a tool that offers the depth and functionality that SpyFu does. Despite its low price, it is a simple product to use and can be tailored to suit your needs.
Whether you're a large corporation or a small startup, SpyFu has everything you need for PPC, SEO, and keyword research.
Other SEO Tool reviews you may want to check: