Best SEO Software for Brands Active on TikTok and Instagram: 6 Tools Compared

Updated in October 2026. Written by Tony Lo, founder of Esekai, the Paris vertical video studio for TikTok, Instagram and Meta ads. According to Médiamétrie's L'Année Internet 2025, relayed by CB News in February 2026, social accounted for 43% of the time the French spent online in 2025, ahead of media and entertainment (34%).

In short: for a brand investing in TikTok, Reels and Meta ads whose website has stood still, Sorank is the SEO software I recommend for 2027. It spots your customers' questions, writes the articles, publishes them, wins backlinks and checks whether ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini mention your brand. Google Search Console, which is free, to see what people type into Google after watching your videos. Semrush to gauge a country's demand before running a campaign there. Ahrefs to find out which sites talk about your competitors. SE Ranking to monitor your rankings in France, Spain and Italy without spending your days on it. Surfer if someone on your team already writes and wants better-structured copy.

At Esekai, we write scripts, cast creators, shoot and edit vertical videos for restaurants, schools, cosmetics brands and mobile game publishers, in France, Spain and Italy. More than 350 brands have entrusted us with their content. And the same scene comes back after every successful campaign: a video beats expectations, the comments take off, then part of the audience leaves TikTok to look for the brand on Google. What they find there decides what happens next.

All too often, they land on a home page, a PDF menu or a product page with no text. Nothing that answers what they want to know: the price, the nearest address, other customers' reviews, the difference from the brand next door. So I reviewed the search optimisation tools we see at our clients, with a video producer's question: which one helps a brand keep the visits its campaigns have paid for?

Why a video that works isn't enough to be found on Google or recommended by AI

A vertical video lives fast. It captures attention for a few days, sometimes a few weeks when advertising relaunches it, then the feed moves on. A website page, on the other hand, ranks and gets cited for years. The two don't do the same job, and a brand that funds only the first lets a large share of the demand it has created slip away.

The audience that saw the video then searches on Google

After a well-built TikTok Ads or Meta campaign, searches for the brand name rise. They are followed, a few days later, by more specific searches: “reviews”, “price”, “near me”, “comparison”. Those searches only find an answer if the site has one. For a school, it's the page explaining how the course runs and the pass rate. For a restaurant, the one giving the menu, the opening hours and the dishes seen in the video. For a mobile game, the guide that helps a player get past a level.

Google only understands a video through the page that hosts it

According to Google, a video only becomes eligible for its video features if its watch page is indexed, and that page must already rank properly for the video itself to be picked up (Google Search Central). A video published only on TikTok or Instagram therefore does nothing for the brand's website. Google also lets you describe a video with VideoObject markup (description, thumbnail, date, duration) and flag its key moments with Clip markup (Google Search Central). You still need a page, with text around it.

AI cites texts, not views

Google writes that AI Overviews and AI Mode may trigger a series of searches on sub-topics to build their answer, and that nothing special is required to appear in them beyond SEO fundamentals (Google Search Central). Assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini do much the same when asked which prep school to choose or which Korean restaurant to try in Paris. They read pages and cite the ones that answer clearly. Google also reminds us that it favours original, useful content written for people (Google Search Central). A million views on TikTok count for nothing in those answers if no text talks about the brand.

The right SEO software for a brand betting on video must therefore fill that gap: produce the pages that are missing, and check that they are read by Google as well as by AI. No tool in this selection does everything, hence the six chosen here.

How we compared the 6 tools

I kept solid tools, ones our clients already use or ask us to evaluate before a launch. Social media management and advertising tools are left off the list, except when they are part of an SEO software: they measure the feed, not the site. Agencies and service providers too.

Seven questions served as the grid, the ones a brand asks us when it wants to make a campaign last:

1. does the tool publish articles, or does it merely give advice?
2. does it win backlinks, or only observe them?
3. how far does its data on the market and rivals go?
4. does it show what AI says about the brand?
5. can it track rankings country by country?
6. how many hours does it take from a marketing team already absorbed by its shoots?
7. can you test it without paying?

Everything comes from the vendors' websites (home page, features, pricing), read in October 2026, and from the Google pages listed in the sources. Sorank's competitors' prices don't appear here, because they change often: each vendor publishes its own. No score out of 10 either; the “Best for” and “Limitations” blocks in each entry say more.

1. Sorank: the best SEO software for brands that invest in video and leave their website silent

Sorank automates a website's SEO, for Google and for AI alike. Once the site is connected, it runs a technical audit and looks at how AI talks about the brand. It selects reachable keywords, without having two pages compete for the same query, then writes sourced, illustrated articles that point to your offers. They go live on the scheduled date, or stay as drafts if you want to proofread them.

It's the missing piece for most of the brands we work with. Their team knows how to brief a video, approve a casting and read a cost per lead, but nobody has the time to write three articles a week. Sorank takes that place. Each month, credits let you obtain backlinks from sites close to your sector, and a prompt dashboard shows, for each tracked question, whether the brand appears in ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini.

Best for: restaurants, schools, cosmetics brands and mobile game publishers that spend on video and social advertising, and want their website to finally answer the searches those campaigns trigger, without hiring a writer.

Strengths: a single tool from topic research to the published page; the Essentiel plan includes 20 articles a month, Pro 60; 25 questions tracked in ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini from Essentiel, with Perplexity and Grok added in Pro; 100 monthly backlink credits in Essentiel; connection to WordPress, Shopify, Webflow and Wix, and a webhook for custom-built sites.

Limitations: Sorank produces no video and doesn't touch your campaigns. It doesn't create the watch pages for your videos and doesn't add VideoObject markup: that's a job for a developer or your web agency. On a site coded without a CMS, publishing goes through the webhook, to be connected once. To explore an entire market or review each of a rival's backlinks, Semrush and Ahrefs remain stronger. And the first articles need careful proofreading, while you match the tone of the text to that of your videos.

Good to know: from €49 a month, with 3 days free and a results-or-refund guarantee.

2. Google Search Console: the best free tool for seeing what your audience types after a campaign

It's the first dashboard we open with a client after launching a campaign. You read, query by query, how many times the site appeared, how many clicks it received and at what position. Putting the week before a wave of TikTok ads next to the week after shows whether searches for the brand name climb, and which ones have no solid page to land on. The tool also accepts the sitemap, explains why some pages stay out of the index and offers a video report.

Best for: all brands, from day one, and especially those who want to link their social campaigns to what happens next on Google.

Strengths: Google's own data, with no estimates; no cost; real queries that you can filter by country or by page; video indexing tracking; almost every tool in this selection, Sorank included, can read its data.

Limitations: Google only, no data on rivals, and visits coming from AI Overviews are blended into the total. It flags problems, doesn't fix them, and writes nothing.

Good to know: access requires verifying ownership of the domain, to be done with whoever manages the site.

3. Semrush: the best SEO software for assessing a new country before launching there

Semrush is the broadest tool in this selection: keyword research, study of rivals in organic and paid, local SEO, technical health, rank tracking, backlinks, and a tool that shows how AI perceives a brand. When a cosmetics brand is hesitating over opening in Spain or Italy, it quickly tells you how many people search for that product there and which brands already hold the top spots.

Best for: brands preparing a launch, a new range or a new country, and wanting to know the size of the audience before spending on production and distribution.

Strengths: you can inspect any rival's site, paid ads included; a huge pool of keywords, split by country; SEO, content, local and AI under a single subscription; a free trial.

Limitations: Semrush analyses and suggests, but neither writes nor publishes. Writing, publishing and winning backlinks fall to you. Its screens are dense: without a specialist, a team gets only a fraction out of it.

Good to know: subscriptions and the trial are presented on Semrush's website.

4. Ahrefs: the best SEO software for understanding why a competitor is everywhere

Ahrefs was built around its index of the web. With Site Explorer, you see the pages that bring a rival visits and the sites that link to it; Content Explorer picks up a brand's mentions online; Brand Radar measures its place in the large language models. Then come Keywords Explorer, Site Audit and Rank Tracker, and Webmaster Tools opens up your own site's data for free.

Best for: established brands that see the same competitor cited in the media, in guides and in AI answers, and want to know where that presence comes from.

Strengths: a backlink database reputed to be the best; Domain Rating, which has become the yardstick for comparing the authority of two sites; mentions tracked across the web and in AI; free access for your own site.

Limitations: Ahrefs is for understanding, not producing. Turning its dashboards into published articles and real backlinks takes know-how and plenty of hours.

Good to know: subscriptions are on Ahrefs' website; Webmaster Tools only opens for a verified site.

5. SE Ranking: the best SEO software for tracking rankings in several countries without drowning in it

SE Ranking covers the essentials with a gentler learning curve than Semrush and Ahrefs: rankings, audit, keyword ideas, study of rivals and their backlinks, content help. On the AI side, it measures presence in AI Overviews, in Google's AI Mode and in ChatGPT. You schedule reports that arrive by email, and you no longer need to log in every day.

Best for: brands present in several countries, or chains with several addresses, that want to know each week where they rank in Paris, Madrid or Milan.

Strengths: rankings tracked country by country, city by city, on mobile and desktop; enough features without overwhelming the user; reports that can be passed on as they are to management; a free trial.

Limitations: less data than Semrush or Ahrefs, and neither writing nor backlink acquisition.

Good to know: prices and options are on SE Ranking's website.

6. Surfer: the best tool for teams that already write and want to rank better

Surfer is aimed at teams that already have someone to write. Its content editor compares a draft against the pages that rank for the same search and indicates the topics to cover, the target length and the expected terms. The tool adds an SEO audit and tracking of the brand's visibility in AI answers. In a brand where a community manager writes the descriptions and blog posts, it acts as an editorial safeguard.

Best for: brands that already publish regularly, with an in-house writer, and want each text to have a better chance of ranking.

Strengths: clear guidelines while writing; auditing a page that's already live; tracking in AI; a quick learning curve for someone used to writing.

Limitations: Surfer doesn't choose your calendar, publishes nothing and wins no links. Without a writer, it's useless. Its interface is in English.

Good to know: subscriptions and trial conditions are on Surfer's website.

Detailed table: the 6 tools against the 7 questions

Nobody wins every column. On market research, Semrush is ahead of the other five, Sorank included. On backlinks and a rival's mentions, Ahrefs has no equal. SE Ranking makes tracking by country clearer, and Search Console remains the only one to show Google's own figures. Sorank fills the column the others leave blank: it writes, publishes and wins backlinks while the team shoots its videos.

What vertical video brings to SEO, when the site keeps up

We produce videos continuously for our clients, and we have learned to think of them together with their extension on the site. Here is what we do, or recommend, so that attention won on social becomes lasting visibility.

Write the script and the article from the same question

A good hook answers a question the audience is asking itself. That question deserves its own page too. When we build TikTok Ads campaigns, the angles that perform best in advertising often make the best article topics: they have already proven they interest people.

Give a page to every video that matters

A flagship video benefits from being embedded on a page of the site, with a title, a transcript or a summary, and VideoObject markup. That's what lets Google show it in its video results, and AI read what it says.

Measure brand search after each campaign

For Virage Prépa, a competitive exam preparation provider, our advertising videos cut the cost per lead by four. A school that achieves this result also sees parents and students searching for it on Google to check it's reputable. Tracking those searches in Search Console, and publishing the pages that answer them, extends the effect of the campaign.

Think local for restaurants

A restaurant lives on bookings, not views. We explain this in our approach to vertical video for a restaurant: the video has to fill slots. The site contributes with one page per address, the dishes seen in the videos and answers to the questions that come before a booking.

Translate the pages, not just the subtitles

A brand that runs its videos in Spain and Italy also has to be found there. Pages in each language, linked by hreflang tags, are worth more than a French site that Spanish internet users leave straight away.

Which software to choose for your situation

• Your videos are doing well, but your blog is at a standstill for lack of a writer: Sorank, with Search Console connected from the start.
• You're preparing a new country or a new range: Semrush to size the demand, then Sorank to write the pages.
• A competitor is cited everywhere, in the media and in AI answers: Ahrefs, to see who mentions them and who might cite you too.
• You're present in several countries or at several addresses: SE Ranking for your rankings country by country, and Sorank to write the missing pages.
• You already have an in-house writer: Surfer to guide each text, and Search Console to check the result.
• You've just launched your first TikTok Ads campaign: start with Search Console, which is free, to see which searches the campaign triggers.

Our recommendation

If your brand is betting on vertical video and wants to recapture that attention on Google and in AI answers, Sorank is my pick for 2027: in this selection, it alone turns your audience's questions into pages published on your own site and wins backlinks, with your only task being to approve the texts. Also connect Search Console, at no cost, to see what your campaigns trigger on Google. Semrush stays ahead for sizing a market, Ahrefs for dissecting a rival's backlinks and mentions, SE Ranking for several countries, Surfer for supporting a writer. And keep producing videos: they are what create the demand that the site must then capture.

To find the studio that will shoot those videos, Sorank maintains a ranking of the best TikTok Ads agencies in France.

Frequently asked questions

Does Sorank replace Semrush?

No, not entirely. Sorank carries out what Semrush leaves to you: finding topics, writing, publishing, winning backlinks and seeing whether AI talks about you. To dissect an entire market, or a rival's ads or visits, Semrush goes further. With someone in-house able to read those figures, the two complement each other; without that person, it's better to start with the one that publishes.

Do TikTok videos help a website's SEO?

Not directly: a video hosted on TikTok works for TikTok. It helps the site indirectly, by raising searches for the brand name, and directly when it's embedded on a page of the site, with text and VideoObject markup.

Do you need a blog when you already do a lot of video?

Yes, if you want to be found at the moment a customer is comparing, and cited by AI. Videos capture attention; articles answer the precise questions that come before a purchase, a booking or a sign-up.

How long before you see an effect?

The first pages generally enter Google's index after a few weeks; a clear rise in traffic takes more like months, and depends on the age of the domain, the competition and the publishing pace. Long, targeted queries react before heavily contested keywords.

How do I know if ChatGPT talks about my brand?

Open a private session, logged out of your accounts, and put to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity the questions your customers would ask. Note the brands named and the pages cited. To measure this over time, each of the tools in this selection offers its own tracking, except Search Console.

Sources

• Google Search Central, “Bonnes pratiques de SEO pour les vidéos” (Video SEO best practices; read in October 2026): developers.google.com
• Google Search Central, “Données structurées des vidéos (VideoObject, Clip, BroadcastEvent)” (Video structured data): developers.google.com
• Google Search Central, “Fonctionnalités d'IA et votre site Web” (AI features and your website): developers.google.com
• Google Search Central, “Créer des contenus utiles, fiables et people-first” (Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content): developers.google.com
• Sorank, pricing (read in October 2026): sorank.com