Hike SEO

The pitch here is aimed squarely at the plumber, hairdresser and carpenter who can neither afford an agency retainer nor spare the evenings to learn keyword research. Hike’s answer is Kit, an AI SEO expert that onboards by learning about your business, builds a strategy, audits the site to find what’s worth changing, and then makes the changes on your say-so rather than handing you a task list.

AI assistant plus a human account manager

Kit explains each change and why it matters, pulling live ranking and traffic data from Hike’s own tools so you can see what moved. Alongside it, customers are assigned an in-house account manager and can book monthly calls — an unusual combination for a self-serve SEO product at this end of the market.

Coverage stretches past classic Google rankings to roughly 40 places people search, including Maps, voice and AI assistants like ChatGPT. Hike has been running since 2017, claims more than 12,000 small business users, and rates 4.9 from 390+ reviews. There’s a 14-day money-back guarantee, no long-term contract, and a half-price first month promotion.

Hike SEO is one of 15 tools in our AI SEO tools comparison, compared on price, free plans, trials and integrations.