The 7 Best Free SEO Tools That Aren’t Called Ahrefs
Meta tag generators, SERP previewers, keyword density checkers, JSON-LD generators, sitemap builders, and robots.txt writers — seven free SEO tools that cover the on-page work Ahrefs and SEMrush charge $99/month for. No signup, no upload, no account.
The seven best free SEO tools that cover the on-page work the paid tools charge for: <a href="/meta-tag-generator">Meta Tag Generator</a> (full head tags from one form), <a href="/serp-preview">SERP Preview</a> (see how your page looks in Google), <a href="/keyword-density-checker">Keyword Density Checker</a> (analyse your text for over- and under-use of target terms), <a href="/json-ld-generator">JSON-LD Generator</a> (structured data for rich results), <a href="/sitemap-generator">Sitemap Generator</a> (XML sitemap from a list of URLs), <a href="/robots-txt-generator">Robots.txt Generator</a> (crawler policy from a form), and <a href="/meta-description-checker">Meta Description Checker</a> (the meta description length with the right pixel truncation). All run in your browser with no signup.
Every paid SEO suite has a free version, and every free version is missing the one feature you actually need. Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, and the rest are great at what they do (competitive analysis, backlink tracking, rank tracking), but most of the day-to-day SEO work — writing good meta tags, previewing how a page looks in Google, checking keyword density, generating structured data, building a sitemap — can be done with free tools, in your browser, with no signup.
This post is the short list of the on-page SEO tools that are actually worth using in 2026. The Meta Tag Generator, SERP Preview, and Keyword Density Checker are the three that get used daily; the other four fill in the rest.
1. Meta Tag Generator
The Meta Tag Generator takes the basics (title, description, image, URL) and produces a full set of HTML head tags: title, meta description, Open Graph tags (for Facebook and LinkedIn), Twitter Card tags, canonical URL, and basic SEO meta tags. You copy the output into your <head> and you are done.
When to use it: the first time you set up a page, the first time you set up a site, and any time you want to standardise the head tags across a multi-page site. The output is consistent and complete; it covers the bases most hand-rolled head tags miss (Twitter card meta, Open Graph image dimensions, theme color).
Why it is on this list: writing head tags by hand is fiddly (the right meta tag for Open Graph image is og:image:width, not og:image-width), and the wrong tag silently does nothing. The generator gets it right and includes everything.
2. SERP Preview
The SERP Preview shows what your page will look like in the Google search results: the title (in blue, with the truncation), the URL (in green), and the meta description (in black, with the truncation). You give it the title, URL, and description, and it shows you the result.
When to use it: every time you write a new page title or meta description, before you commit. The difference between a title that fits and a title that gets truncated is the difference between a click and a scroll-past. The preview is a 5-second check that prevents a lot of mediocre titles.
The Google pixel truncation rules are specific: titles are truncated around 580-600 pixels, descriptions around 920-960 pixels. A character count alone does not tell you whether the title will fit. The Title Length Checker and Meta Description Checker measure in pixels, which is the right unit for this.
3. Keyword Density Checker
The Keyword Density Checker takes a piece of text and a target keyword, and tells you how often the keyword appears, as a percentage of total words and as a count. It also shows the most common single words and bigrams, which is useful for finding keywords you are not targeting but probably should be.
When to use it: after you have written a piece of content and before you publish it. The target density is roughly 1-3% for the primary keyword (1-3 mentions per 100 words). Higher than 3% looks like keyword stuffing; lower than 1% looks like the page is not really about the keyword.
The checker is also useful for finding the right secondary keywords. A page about "CSS box shadow" should also mention "drop shadow," "shadow color," "blur radius," and the names of the CSS properties. The single-word and bigram analysis surfaces these for you.
4. JSON-LD Generator
The JSON-LD Generator takes structured data about a page (an Article, a Product, a Recipe, an Organization, a LocalBusiness, etc.) and produces the JSON-LD script tag that goes in the head. The output is valid against the schema.org spec, which is what Google, Bing, and other search engines read for rich results.
When to use it: any page that has a clear "thing" the search engine should know about. Articles should have Article JSON-LD. Products should have Product JSON-LD (with price, availability, reviews). Recipes should have Recipe JSON-LD. Local businesses should have LocalBusiness JSON-LD. The richer the structured data, the better the chance of a rich result (the enhanced listings with images, ratings, prices, and other visual elements).
The generator is the right starting point even if you end up hand-editing the output, because the schema.org spec is large and the right property names are not obvious. The generator gets them right; you can tweak from there.
5. Sitemap Generator
The Sitemap Generator takes a list of URLs and produces a valid XML sitemap. You paste in the URLs (one per line), set the lastmod dates and changefreq hints, and the tool produces the XML. The output is the format Google, Bing, and other search engines expect.
When to use it: any time you have a small site (under a few hundred pages) where the sitemap is hand-curated. Larger sites usually have a sitemap that is generated automatically by the framework or CMS, but for a small site the hand-curated version is more accurate. The generator handles the XML format correctly, including the namespace declarations and the optional lastmod/changefreq/priority fields.
The output of the generator is a file you upload to your server and reference in robots.txt with a Sitemap: line. The Robots.txt Generator is the right tool for the second part of that setup.
6. Robots.txt Generator
The Robots.txt Generator takes a list of paths to allow and a list of paths to disallow, and produces a valid robots.txt file. The output is the format Googlebot, Bingbot, and every other well-behaved crawler expects.
When to use it: the first time you set up a site, and any time you want to change which parts of the site are crawlable. The robots.txt file is the first thing a crawler reads, and a bad one can keep your pages out of the index.
The generator also handles the Sitemap: directive (which tells the crawler where to find your sitemap) and the modern Content-Signal directive (which tells AI crawlers what they can do with the content). For a full setup, the generator plus the Sitemap Generator covers the discovery side of SEO.
7. Meta Description Checker
The Meta Description Checker measures the length of a meta description in pixels, which is what Google uses to determine truncation. The standard length limits (around 155-160 characters) are approximations; the pixel-based measurement is more accurate.
When to use it: every time you write a meta description, before you commit. The cost of a truncated description is small (Google will rewrite it from the page content) but real, and the cost of a too-short description is also real (you are not using the space you have). The checker is a 5-second sanity check.
The Title Length Checker does the same thing for page titles. The two together cover the length optimisation for the two pieces of metadata that actually appear in the search results.
What these tools are bad at
The seven tools above cover the on-page work. The off-page work (backlink analysis, rank tracking, competitive research, keyword research) is still better done with a paid tool, because the data is the value. None of the free tools above will tell you what your competitor is ranking for, where their backlinks come from, or how your page has moved in the SERPs over time. For that, Ahrefs, SEMrush, and the rest are still the right answer.
The two categories are different. On-page SEO is mostly a craft (write good titles, write good meta descriptions, structure the data well); the tools help you do the craft faster and more accurately. Off-page SEO is mostly data (who links to you, who ranks for what, how the SERP is shifting); the tools are the data. Use the free tools for the craft; pay for the data.