Hey guys, I've create a guide with my top list of free / affordable SEO tool alternatives. The landscape is changing, and we have new tools / APIs coming out every week, which allows us to leverage AI with these tools. Despite that, I love seeing open source tools that I can self-host, OR tools that are extremely affordable, like DataForSEO. You can check out the full list here: https://www.skool.com/the-vibe-marketing-lab/classroom/d887a3a0?md=a22ebf10b0c54428b01c1eb635594a00 --- Key - ⭐ Recommended - 🆓 Free software or an ongoing free tier - 💵 Affordable paid access - 🤖 CLI, API or MCP available — supported options are listed beside the tool name My favourite tools as of right now are: - 🤖 ⭐ 💵 OpenSEO (MCP): An open source Ahrefs / Semrush alternative for keywords, competitors, backlinks, rank tracking and audits, with hosted plans from $10/month plus usage. - 🤖 ⭐ 💵 DataForSEO API (API / MCP): Pay-as-you-go keyword, competitor, backlink and SERP data for AI skills and automated reports, starting with a $50 prepaid top-up. - 🤖 ⭐ 🆓 Scrapling (CLI / MCP): A free, open source Python scraping framework with adaptive extraction and stealth browser features that can bypass some bot-detection systems, including Cloudflare Turnstile. - 🤖 ⭐ 🆓 💵 SEOGets (MCP — paid plan): A Search Console analytics dashboard with a free plan and a $59/month Core plan adding GA4, opportunity reports, SEO testing and MCP access.

One of the things I loved reading up on when I was learning about marketing were case studies or threads of people "building in public", where they detailed everything about how they planned to grow their business. In this case, it was building up "affiliate" sites through SEO. I would frequent two main forums: 👉 r/juststart (now dead / AI slop) 👉 buildersociety(.)com (not as active as before, still some gems though) Both were forums that would be give me a ton of motivation, as we would see people post weekly/monthly updates on their projects. You could literally see the growth month-over-month. Wasn't anyone posting "thought leadership" or other slop. It was mainly pure value; "I did X, and it resulted in Y". Didn't matter if you failed. Everyone could learn from the lessons, including the OP. And if you succeeded, everyone could learn from that too. That became a potential tactic to play. I never participated. Was always a little too introverted (and probably scared) to put myself out there. I was young, super introverted, and didn't know what I was doing. Now that I'm much older (and hopefully wiser), I realise that all of this was just in my head. One of the biggest lessons I learned this year was "test in the market, not in your head." And they are absolutely right. Most of you have probably come from Meta Ads, SEO or the Skool network. If I didn't just start posting stuff and building this community, none of this would've ever happened. So now, I want to take this to the next level! Here's how it's going to work: 👇 1️⃣ Public accountability: Post up what you're planning on doing, and what you're working on for the world to see. This is public accountability. 2️⃣ Set your targets: SMART goals, KPIs, OKRs, whatever you want to do. You need a destination before you take the journey. 3️⃣ Cadence: Set the cadence for your updates. Daily, weekly, or monthly. No longer than that. 4️⃣ Data: To see if you're on track, you NEED to get specific with your data. Track the data that will actually move the needle. Reverse engineer it from your goal.

The single, best way to utilise this community is to connect with others who are on the same journey with you. All of the people here have two things in common: 1️⃣ They're interesting in marketing 2️⃣ They want to use AI to power their marketing The best way to find your people is to introduce yourself by answering the following questions: 1. Who are you? 2. What do you run? 3. What's your #1 goal over the next 90 days (Be specific: "I want X by Y", "I want to earn $10k /mo over the next 90 days", "I want to be #1 in my industry") 4. What's your biggest bottleneck? COPY + PASTE TEMPLATE: - Who I am: - What I'm working on: - My current goal: - Biggest bottleneck: I guarantee you, you will find people who are in the same boat as you. Connect with them, share your ideas, that's how we will grow as a community. And not only that, this will be awesome data to shape the course of this community. You guys are what power this community, and every single goal, every single bottleneck will be accounted for every classroom. My goal here is to provide the richest resource possible when it comes to marketing with AI, so every vote counts! I'll start below (follow along with me 👇)