I have been dabbling with a couple of programs this week. Web CEO and IBP. First of all does anybody use them or recommend others? and secondly are they any good? Web CEO has a pretty good free edition but IBP requires you to purchase before any of the really useful info is unlocked. I am reluctant to shell out in the region of $250 just to discover I would have been better off continuing to scour these forums and acting on advice from others. The problem is my marketing budget for new site has now doubled from trying various techniques and it's time to take control. Essentially, do you go for the software and take a one off hit but have it for future sites or pay someone else to do the work?
I don't use any software when it comes to performing SEO, everything is done manually and I'm usually happy with my results. There is no magic to SEO and its usually very straight forward so there is no reason why anyone needs to rely on software.
I use ibp 9 and have got some really good results from from it. it is well worth buying. Much better then web ceo and seo elite. however a lot seo is manual work which the software cannot do. If you combine both methods you will be better off in the long run.
Hmmm ... Mixed opinion. Emarketerpro, what do you think is the best function of IBP, do you use it for analysing competitors sites keywords or do you find it most useful for anything else? Cormac, alhtough I would be inclined to agree with you that it can all be done manually do you not think some of this software is time saving?
I don't think any software can do the typical SEO steps that I usually do as in on-page and hunting down some high quality backlinks. Personally I dont waste much time looking at what my competitors are doing. I just keep working on my own stuff and try and stay current with how Search Engines look at sites.
I use a few ones when I'm dealing with large number of metrics like for instance monitoring the number of back links, tracking the anchor text etc. I use mostly the free tools available online. I don't think there is a need to pay for a SEO software.
i agree with cormac.. it's better if you do the SEO manually, there's no limitation on what you are doing. you can explore more about link building.
Some good points that have made up my mind. I'll keep my money and put it towards buying some good PR backlinks, thanks for your comments guys
how does using a tool to help do research, make your SEO automatic? Makes no sense to me, you people saying you do "manual seo" and it is better. The SEO tools are just for research, there is no "automated SEO option". OP - I have SEO Elite, Keyword Elite, Good Keywords (*free), Expired Domain Sleuth, a bunch more but I have programs for a vast more things besides just SEO research. What are you looking for in your product? My personal fav. is SEO Elite for SEO research. They have features such as find authority sites. -- What this will do is you provide a search term, say "Pudding Pops", they it goes and retrieves the top 10 , 20 or 30 sites for "pudding pops" (you specify). Then it goes to yahoo and evaluates the links to each of those sites, and then it cross references all the links, and looks for sites that link to 2 or more of the top 10/20/30. So lets say puddingpops.com and puddingpops.net have a link from www.nbv.com, it would tell you nbv.com links to 2 out of the top 10,and is a possible authority site for that niche. Anyway if 2 out of the top 10 for your wanted keyword have a link from that site, you know a link from that site to your site will help you to say the least. See, its not automated SEO, it just provides research, faster then you could do by hand. If you wanted to do this by hand, and each site lets say had 1000 links, and you wanted to do the top 30, thats 30,000 links you gotta go through and cross reference by hand, SEO Elite does it in moments.
Well no, but a tool helps you see what your concurrence has done, what keywords has used, how has he used those keywords, from which sites is linking, what C class IP has the site, how much outbound links has the site from it is linked etc etc.. which will help you understand better "how to" compete or even beat the concurrence. As far as the insite seo, thats all hard work...no software can really replace that. And of course, as described above for the seo tools (software) it will help you gain information for your concurrence, but it is your creativity that will need to be placed in game in order to beat up the concurrence.
i dont use any seo software. i'm making seo without programs and i'm using web tools to check the seo results
I make all changes manualy, but from the tools I have used I mainly use http://www.backlinkwatch.com http://www.iwebtool.com and WebCEO's free version. They all definitely have their flaws, but they can help out
I mean there are SEO tools that easily help out. hunting down link partners, submitting automated back-links and what not. So, why do it manually when you can have some help?
I prefer to use IBP/Arelis for emailing potential link partners, automatically filling out add url forms, etc. I find it works better to add the potential link websites manually into Arelis though. Also you can keep track of the status of each of your potential and current link partners. I use SEO Elite to track my SERPS, as I can load dozens of keywords in and check them all at one time fairly easily. It is best to use a combination of manual entry and seo software in my opinion.
I use IBP and feel it's very good, esp. the reporting. The reports are very deep and give you a great overview before and after you optimize. So far, my sites that rank in the top 10 serps, were based on the analysis and recommendation of IBP.
I use IBP, it's pretty good for what it does, you can purchase a report from my site, just pm me and I'll do you a deal. However, you should not rely on any specific tool, use several but learn how to optimize a site from scratch, it saves no end of time. Basic principles, learn where your keywords should be. Avoid excessive non viewable code. Put your javascript into an external file. Use CSS for site construction and design as much as possible. Hope this all helps, it is a slog as many say but it is worth it in the end. Also, visit this forum regularly and read between the lines, you can learn a lot. It is definitely the best forum on the web!