Is Ubersuggest by Neil Patel a Good Freemium SEO Tool?

Originally published in June 2018; updated in 2020.

Ubersuggest by Neil Patel is one of the most-talked-about SEO tools right now.

And why not!

We’re getting a lot of premium features for completely FREE at a cheap price. It is something that might be a cause of a headache for many companies who charge big $$$ for the same features.

Ubersuggest has come a long way. It was once a keyword research tool, often billed as a perfect replacement for the Google AdWords keyword tool.

Today, it self-describes as an “ultimate” or “all-in-one” freemium SEO tool that also has enough to help you with your content marketing strategies.

But the biggest question now is…

Is it any good?

Can Ubersuggest tool be a good alternative for other popular options like SEMrush, Moz, Ahref, and Woorank?

After using it for a few months now, I have some opinions on it.

(Now note, I can’t directly compare Ubersuggest with other premium SEO tools. I only use SEMrush, and have used Raven Tools and Ahref just for a trial period. I don’t have much of a clue about other paid SEO tools. So, I am talking solely per my experience of using this tool. No direct comparison.)

Recommended Read: SEMrush Review: Do You Really Need This Premium Tool?

But before jumping to the walkthrough and review part, it only makes sense to take a quick look at the backstory.

A Quick Backstory

In February 2017, Neil Patel acquired Ubersuggest.io.

And part of the marketing community wasn’t exactly thrilled with this takeover.

Many believed what was one of the best free keyword research tools would eventually turn paid, becoming Neil’s money-making machine.

Three years later, Ubersuggest is alive and breathing on ‘neilpatel(dot)com’ domain.

It’s now more than just for keyword research, packing many other rich features.

It is, however, now made Premium. So, you’ll have to pay to access it in full. That said, a large part of Ubersuggest is completely free.

Moreover, Ubersuggest Pro is priced very affordably as compared to other top SEO tools. More on this later though.

The Good Things About Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest has many good things going on. And as a blogger, I certainly can’t ask for a lot more. (Okay, I can. But I won’t!)

On the left side navigation, there are 8 primary features and a dashboard…

More on the ‘dashboard’ later. Onto the features first.

Ubersuggest

This is the first part that’s all about keyword research.

It helps you find the right keywords and content ideas that are more likely to rank higher on Google.

It has three sub-heads.

★ ‘Overview’, which gives you a fair idea of the keyword you’re targeting (or want to), including the monthly search volume and SEO difficulty to rank for that phrase.

★ Keyword Ideas is the most interesting part. It offers many suggestions.

It also shows you different types of keyword phrases under individual sections: Related, Question, Preposition, and Comparison.

Using different variations of your seed keywords helps avoid your content feel like spam or keyword-stuffed.

It allows you the opportunity to rank higher for a wide range of keywords; hence, enjoy more organic traffic.

Moreover, Ubersuggest Keyword Ideas shows a list of results that already ranks at the top of Google SERP for individual keywords.

You also see estimate visits and social shares of each of these results.

★ Content Ideas section is like Buzzsumo.

It shows a list of results for your seed keywords that has the most number of shares on Facebook and Pinterest.

Alongside this, you also see the number of backlinks each result has. And tapping on the “Link” button, you can even see which sites have linked to this result.

About Estimated Visits, it doesn’t look too accurate. And rightly so; it’s not easy to calculate. So, you’re better off not blindly trusting that metric.

Traffic Analyzer

This is the second head, which really makes Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest more than just another keyword research tool.

It makes it a robust SEO tool that’s ideal even for competitive analysis.

We get a lot of data here to sneak on our top competitors and copy their strategies.

★ The ‘Overview’ sub-head will give you a fair idea of how a site is performing: the monthly organic traffic, the kinds and the number of keywords it ranks for on Google.

For instance, ‘NYTimes(dot)com’ ranks for 1.18 million keywords. And it enjoys nearly 1 million organic traffic.

Between February and March, the website saw a significant increase in traffic.

In addition, we also get to see what positions is the website ranking and for how many keywords.

In our example of the NYTimes…

…the website, in the month of March, ranked between 1 and 3 positions for 5,022 keywords. It ranked between 51 and 100 for 652,363 keywords.

The interactive graph makes consuming such data easier.

★ Under the ‘Top Pages’ sub-head, we get a list of URLs on this website that gets the most traffic.

It also accompanies the number of shares these high-ranking URLs got on Facebook and Pinterest.

The backlinks column shows the number of websites that have linked to this URL. And if you click on that ‘View All’ arrow, it would show you the names of these backlinking pages.

Similarly, the estimated visits show the number of visits this particular page gets. And when you click on that ‘View All’ button, it will show you the list of keywords that leads users to this page…

This list includes keywords, their monthly search volume, what position is this page ranking for the respective keywords, and how many visits it is getting from every search query.

When optimizing or repurposing old content, this can be of great help.

Since we would know the keywords that are bringing the most traffic to our page, we can focus more on them vs. the under-performing ones.

★ And then there’s the ‘Keywords’ sub-head.

It’s a list of keywords, with their monthly search volume, that’s bringing the most traffic to this website.

You get to see at what position your site ranks for different search queries, what is the search volume of the individual queries, and how many users are coming to your site through that query.

You also get to see who are your competitors for individual keywords; who else are ranking on Google along with your URL.

SEO Analyzer

Under this, there’s ‘Site Audit’ and ‘Backlinks’.

Both of these are also standalone tools on ‘neilpatel(dot)com’ domain with respective URLs…

AND

…but they are also integrated into the Ubersuggest ecosystem, which makes for a seamless experience.

★ Site Audit, as the name suggests, audits a site on several SEO parameters.

The tool is decently powerful and sufficient for beginners to better optimize their websites.

Aside from basic data like on-page SEO score, organic traffic, organic keywords, and backlinks…

…it also provides information on the site’s health…

…and its performance.

You learn about SEO issues on your site, along with recommendations; like the number of broken links, pages with critical issues, redirects, and more.

All-in-all, Ubersuggest Site Audit offers you sufficient data to put your website in the right position in the SEO department.

★ Backlinks is a link analysis tool. Input a URL and it will return with all the backlinks that this URL has got from different domains.

The result is quite in-depth.

Not only do we see ‘how many backlinks’, but we also see how many of them are doFollow and noFollow, what kind of backlink is this (text or link), as well as the anchor text and the domain authority of the referring domain.

In addition, there’s also ‘First Seen’ and ‘Last Seen’ data. While the first one shows the first time the bots identified this backlink, the latter shows the last time the bots confirmed the existence of this backlink.

Dashboard

This section is relatively a newer addition to Ubersuggest. And to access it, you would need to sign up for the tool using your Google account.

Once you have signed in, it would also ask you to connect your Google Search Console with it. You can deny this.

The benefit of connecting your GSC to Ubersuggest is that the data you will see about your website would be much more accurate.

There’s also a dedicated signup page, which lists plenty of benefits of creating an Ubersuggest account:

(Note: To get full access to different features of Ubersuggest, like ‘Content Ideas’, you will have to create an account.)

Once you’re logged in, you can access the dashboard.

On the dashboard, you can create up to 5 projects if you have Ubersuggest Pro account; you can create only 1 project if you’re using the free version. Here, you can track your (and your competitors’) website rankings, on a daily basis, based on your opted keywords and locations.

In addition, you will also find the recommended steps to improve your site’s ranking. And all the improvements will get tracked so that you can measure your progress over a period.

The dashboard is far from powerful, with only simple features as of yet.

Neil Patel has said he’s going to introduce new features in the coming months, including competitive analysis features.

On the long-term plan, he said…

“My long-term goal is to make it so you don’t even have to code or make any changes manually. Ubersuggest will eventually be able to go into your website and make these fixes for you.”

Ubersuggest Chrome Extension

Recently, Neil’s team introduced Ubersuggest Chrome Extension. It’s like any typical SEO extension, only with slightly more free data.

Install it on your Chrome and perform a search on Google, YouTube, and Amazon – it will return with a wide range of SEO metrics.

You will see the monthly searches and CPC of the query you searched for. As well as the SEO difficulty and paid difficulty, along with the number of clicks and the searcher’s age range.

Each result will show you some more data – domain score, domain traffic, number of shares on Facebook and Pinterest, and the number of backlinks this page has got.

Clicking on that little arrow will reveal where these backlinks are coming from…

Scroll down and related searches will show you keyword insights.

In the sidebar, you will find keywords suggestions along with their search volume.

At the bottom of the sidebar, there’s also a basic graph that concisely puts how much traffic and backlinks the domains ranking on the page gets/has.

Of course, you won’t find all the data here. For more insights, the extension will take you to the Ubersuggest tool. If you don’t already have an account, you would be prompted to create the account.

Thereon, you would be asked to sign up for the Ubersuggest premium to access complete data.

The usual funnel.

Ubersuggest Chrome Extension is fairly good with very little to complain about.

You can find the basic SEO data right on SERP (Google, YouTube, and Amazon) instead of launching any tool.

The only thing I can do without on my search result page is Neil’s face.

Too much personal branding, IMO, which can lead to brand fatigue.

The Little Details

There are also some small features that add more value to the Ubersuggest keyword research-cum-SEO tool — something that serious professionals are bound to appreciate.

• It’s easy to export all the data to CSV.

• We can view data country-wise.

• “SEO difficulty” rating is nice to know which are the least competitive variants of keywords that we should optimize content around.
• With Cost Per Click (CPC) and paid difficulty, there is decent information to help with even PPC campaigns.

Also Read: How To Do Keywords Research For Free in 11 Minutes

Ubersuggest Premium

I heard the chatter of LinkedIn.

Is Ubersuggest no longer free?

Yes, Ubersuggest is paid now!

A few people were complaining, of course.

The making of Ubersuggest Pro didn’t really come as a surprise to me.

Running such a tool – that aims to compete with the giants SEMrush, Buzzsumo, and HubSpot – it ought to be costly. Moreover, that cost will only rise as the tools get more popular. And there’s only so much Neil would spare from his pockets. The burden of the cost will inevitably fall on the users.

And that’s exactly what happened!

As Neil explains in one of his blog posts, he was spending $247,218 a month running this tool. That amounts to nearly $3 million a year.

So, in short…

We now have Ubersuggest Premium… or Freemium to be more precise.

A significant part of Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest is still free. So, if you’re a casual user, you don’t really be affected by the price.

Neil explains, “only 14.3 percent of people used to register for a free account to unlock the data.”

So, if you’re remaining 85.7 percent of the users who didn’t care to unlock more data, Ubersuggest is still free for you. You wouldn’t need to pay for anything. You’ll continue having the same experience.

But if you’re one of the 14.3 percent of users who would log in and unlock data, it’s a good idea to check out Ubersuggest price now.

Ubersuggest Pro: How Much Does It Cost?

The Ubersuggest price model is fairly simple.

There are three paid plans: Individual, Business, and Enterprise/Agency.

Compared to the other popular SEO tools, these Ubersuggest pro plans are cheaper.

The individual plan starts at $12 a month. Business plan costs $20 a month. And the Enterprise/Agency plan comes at $40/month.

If you choose the annual plan, you’ll be charged for 10 months for 12-month access. You get 2 months free.

You can sign up for a 7-day free trial before committing your money to the Ubersuggest premium.

Coming to what’s the difference between the free plan and the three Ubersuggest Pro plans – what extra are you getting for your money?

Well, the free plan is very limited.

For the paid version, you’ll get greater bandwidth, which will increase as you move from the low-cost plan to the high-end one.

Here’s how the 3 Ubersuggest pro plans trade…

This…

You can check the full Ubersuggest price and paid features here.

Interestingly, Neil Patel has said that once he breaks even, he might shift more features to the free version or consider lowering the price. I might be wrong here but that’s unlikely to happen.

In addition, in case if you’re wondering, there’s no Ubersuggest affiliate program. Even though Neil’s Hello Bar does call for affiliates, this one doesn’t.

And there’s a very good chance that there will never be any Ubersuggest affiliate program.

The price of the tool is already quite low. Having affiliates would mean either increasing the price to accommodate commission or settling for lower profit – both of which won’t happen.

The Bad Things About Ubersuggest

With all the good things, also then come the bad ones. There are a few things that spoil the experience of using this freemium SEO tool.

This is highly opinionated but the interface is an upset. The color scheme doesn’t fit well. There’s just too much of orange everywhere.

Another thing is Neil’s (smiling) face, which is everywhere with quipped comments and suggestions. You can clearly see, he’s investing big in personal branding.

It’s a bit distracting and incessant exposure to his brand.

The results can feel overwhelming with too much information crunched in a small space.

The designer/developer could do a better job of incorporating sufficient whitespace and sorting the data in a much cleaner way.

Then, much like any digital marketing tool that takes ‘estimates’, the Ubersuggest data doesn’t seem to be accurate. You would notice a significant difference when comparing this data against that of the likes of Ahref, SEMrush, and Moz. So, you can’t take the numbers here at face value.

Another problem is that the tool doesn’t work at times. After hitting Enter, the loading icon just circles with no result.

Maybe it’s just me. Or maybe it’s unable to load data due to its server limitations.

Lastly, there are a few minor bugs here and there, which are easy to ignore

So, Ubersuggest isn’t perfect. It’s functional but it won’t necessarily deliver you the best user experience.

The good thing about this, at least in my opinion, is that the team at Neil Patel isn’t letting the idea of being perfect hinder the growth.

They are continuously adding new features to Ubersuggest, and are then improving things on the way as they go. And that’s a very desirable approach to maintain the right speed in growth.

Also Read: Complete SEO Checklist for 2020 (With PDF Download)

Final Words

Ubersuggest Neil Patel’s tool is one of the good options out there for keyword research and SEO analysis.

It has many features and options. It’s incredibly easy to use.

For beginners, in particular, it is certainly a great free SEO tool.

But is it better than other premium SEO tools in the market? Only those who have used the other tools can tell.

Personally, I find Ubersuggest decently sufficient for my personal needs.

All said though, my only question at present is how long Ubersuggest will remain ‘completely’ free?

We got the answer lol. Not very long! But again, a large part of Ubersuggest is still free. The premium plan is quite cheap. So, it’s quite unjust to complain.

Recommended Read:

• 17 Free On-Page SEO Tools To Increase Your Website Traffic

• 17 Free Content Marketing Tools

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