What tools does an SEO company typically use?

An SEO company works with a handful of tool categories: Google’s own tools, which report what actually happened on Google and on your site; rank trackers, which check positions on a schedule; commercial suites, which estimate what no outside tool can see directly; crawlers, which read your site the way a search engine would; tracking tools, which record what visitors do; and reporting tools, which put it all in one place. The brand names change from company to company. What matters to you is which numbers in a report are measured and which are estimated, and which of the data stays with you if the engagement ends.

Google’s own tools: measured data

Search Console is “a free service offered by Google that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google Search results.” Its numbers come from real searches. That is also why they can surprise people. Google notes in its Performance report documentation that “even if a query appears in your list, you might not see your site in results if you run the same query in Google Search. This is because Search results are specific to the time, place, device, and recent history of the person searching.”

Google Analytics records what visitors do once they arrive, from the pages they land on to the actions that matter to your business. Both of these should be set up in accounts you own.

For speed, Google’s PageSpeed Insights reports two kinds of data. According to Google’s explanation of PageSpeed Insights, “PSI provides both lab and field data about a page.” Lab data comes from a test run in a controlled environment, which is “useful for debugging issues”, but “it may not capture real-world bottlenecks.” Field data reflects real visitors. When the two disagree, the company should be able to tell you which one it is acting on and why.

Rank trackers: a scheduled check

A rank tracker searches for a fixed list of keywords from a set location and device, at set times, and records where your pages appear. It answers a narrower question than Search Console: where did the page show up in this particular check. That is useful for following specific terms day by day and comparing yourself with named competitors. It also explains why a tracker and Search Console can show different positions for the same keyword. One is a controlled check. The other averages what real searchers saw.

Commercial suites: estimates

For keyword research, competitor analysis, and backlink data, companies use paid platforms. Examples include Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz, and Majestic for backlink data. These tools build their own data sets. They cannot see Google’s internal data or your competitors’ analytics accounts, so search volumes, competitor traffic figures, and authority scores are each vendor’s estimates. They are useful for comparing options and spotting opportunities. They should not be reported to you as if they were measurements of your own site.

Crawlers: a simulation of how search engines read your site

A crawler moves through your site link by link and lists technical problems: broken links, redirect chains, missing or duplicated titles, pages blocked from indexing, and similar issues. Examples include the Screaming Frog SEO Spider, which lets you “crawl 500 URLs for free” before a paid license is needed, and Sitebulb. If a company audits your site with a crawler, ask for the crawl export along with the audit report. It is the evidence behind the findings, and it lets you or a future provider check them.

Tracking tools: recording what visitors do

Measuring inquiries and sales from search depends on tracking being set up correctly. One way to manage tracking code is Google Tag Manager, which Google describes as “a tag management system that allows you to set up and manage tags on your site without changing your website’s code.” Calls can be tracked with call-tracking services, and form submissions and purchases are recorded in Analytics as key events.

Tracking is worth testing before the first report is built on it. Ask the company to confirm that each tracked action actually fires, that your own staff’s visits are excluded, and that the numbers match what you see in your own records for the same period.

Reporting tools: one place for the numbers

Companies present results either in their own reporting platforms or in dashboards built with Google’s free reporting tool. That tool is called Data Studio again. In Google’s announcement of the Data Studio name, dated April 11, 2026, it said it was “reintroducing a beloved and familiar name, Data Studio (formerly Looker Studio).” A dashboard built there can be owned by you and shared with the company, which keeps it in your hands if the engagement ends.

Checking whose accounts and data they are

Ask the company which numbers in its reports are measured by Google’s tools and which are estimates from a third-party suite. Ask which accounts are in your name: Search Console, Analytics, Tag Manager, and the dashboards. And ask what you will receive if you stop working together, such as crawl exports, the list of tracked keywords, and access to the reports. The tools themselves matter less than whether the data they produce is labeled honestly and remains available to you.