Technical SEO

Technical SEO tools are the most settled category in the stack. The same two products dominate, the prices are reasonable, and there’s no premium tier that justifies its cost for small agencies.

What to buy

• Screaming Frog SEO Spider (£199/year ≈ $20/mo) — non-optional. Runs locally, crawls millions of URLs, integrates with Search Console, GA4, and PageSpeed. Most technical work happens here.
• Sitebulb ($30+/mo) — a credible alternative with a more polished UI and better client-facing reports. Many agencies own both eventually.

For specialized work:

• Screaming Frog Log Analyzer (£99/year) — log file analysis when you need it, usually only on enterprise sites. Skip until a client demands it.
• Schema validators — use Google’s free Rich Results Test and Schema.org’s validator. Don’t pay for this.
• Core Web Vitals — PageSpeed Insights + Search Console. Don’t pay for this either.

Where this fits in the stack

Technical SEO is one of the core four. It overlaps with:

• Keyword research — Ahrefs and Semrush both have site audit modules. They’re fine for small sites; Screaming Frog is better for serious technical work.
• Client reporting — Sitebulb’s reports flow into AgencyAnalytics nicely; Screaming Frog’s exports need more massaging.

For the full stack context, see SEO tool stack for small agencies.

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