Jul

SEO Software Reviews: Setting the Stage

By Sid

This week I promised that I’d review SEO Software tools.

If you’re bored by the idea already, don’t you worry your pretty little head. I’ll have some treats for you as well. Let’s face it…

SEO (search engine optimization) for most people is about as much fun as eating sand. And, a series of articles reviewing SEO software isn’t going to win any literary awards for that matter, either.

But hey… one never knows. Someone may pick up on the idea and create a great horror flick featuring the Googlebot and his minions. I’ll try to make this at least marginally entertaining.

And with that, let’s talk strategy…

If you’re going to review anything, it’s best to have a checklist. If you’ve ever gone into a grocery store hungry, you know what happens. It’s the same with reviewing software, web sites, or someone else’s copy… without a checklist, our emotional brain takes over the whole evaluation process, and we end up missing the whole point.

It’s why pilots have a checklist, and surgeons are beginning to catch on to the concept.

For SEO Software, as with any software tool, the tool is only as good as your knowledge and use of the tool. SO, going into your review, it’s good to know that SEO software is designed to do one or more of the following:

1. Some provide your current optimization status…

Most tools do a decent job of telling you where you’re at SEO-wise. They’ll give you a long list of things you can or should do to improve your SEO. That’s good, but these tools often don’t help you to actually improve your ranking. They might offer suggestions, like “get more quality links back to your site”, but unless you have some idea how that works, you’ll be left hanging high and dry.

2. Some help improve your ranking…

These tools, as you’ll see, will help you to gain back links, build your “SEO backbone” and improve your search engine ranking. They are labor intensive, even for tools, but they can save a tremendous amount of time.

3. Others provide competitive and historical information.

Competitive information can be useful because you’ll discover ways to beat your competition at the SEO game, find back doors to more web traffic, and find ways to improve. They help you to get more traffic from long tail keywords and put less attention on the more competitive keywords.

As far as I know, no tool does all three. Some do #1 and #2, others #1 and #3, and a few just focus on helping you to improve your search engine ranking. (Those are the most complicated tools and require an advanced degree in Geekness).

I like to keep things simple, so here are the three areas in which I’ll be ranking the various tools:

1. Ease of Use. I’ll rank each tool in terms of ease of use. How much do you have to know to use the tool? How hard is it to use? How much time does it take to get what you need, whether it’s information, status, keyword research, or an update on your progress. In the case of the tools that automate the process of ranking improvement (usually link-building tools), I’ll pay particular attention to the ease-of-use factor. I want to know if this is something that a novice can handle, or if it’s got to be performed by an SEO-literate, certified nerd.

2. Bottom line performance. I don’t care if it has a zillion features. Will it help me to get ranked higher for my selected keyword phrases?

3. Cost-Value ratio. Some of these tools have a hefty monthly subscription fee. Others are the “buy once, get updates forever” type of software. I’ll look at the annual cost versus the value in terms of how well the product can help you increase your search engine ranking.

A tool that is easy to use, helps drive more traffic to the web site by giving me higher search engine ranking for a number of keywords, won’t cost me a fortune over time, and can be handed over to a subcontractor to run for me would be the ideal SEO software tool.

Does such a beast exist?

We shall see…

Share on Facebook