The Top Search Engine Optimization Software for the Expense
I put a lot of my thought into developing strategies for search engine optimization (SEO) for my business’s many traditional websites and blogs. An online business has two options for tackling the necessary, continuing task of improving SEO. One of those is to handle your optimization efforts in-house, while the other is to hire a consulting firm to assist you in the project. I have three primary concerns about such companies. Some of them are not nearly as well informed as they ought to be about the details of optimizing for the various major search engines. Some of them seem to prefer to respond to the latest rumor rather than relying upon solid empirical data; perhaps they just lack the necessary analytical skills. Some of them are nothing more than linking farms that disguise themselves as SEO consultants. These ill-purchased links occasionally allow your site to show short term gains, but those advances disappear about the time your check to the consultants clears the bank. My third concern about these companies is that they are usually very expensive for the limited value that you actually might achieve.
You should already know what my recommended solution is from reading between the lines of my first paragraph: Take the time to educate your company team unless you want to hire the few very expensive geniuses in the field, such as Leslie Rhode, Brad Fallon or Dan Thies–if you can get them to work for you at any price.
But to take the do it yourself approach, you will need to take the time to educate your in-house staff on the fundamentals of search engines and optimization for them, and you must also be willing to spend some money for well designed software to assist in the gathering and analysis of the immense amount of data that will be required. I wrote a comparison of the most important seo software on one of my websites.
I am an avid enthusiast of seo Elite (see sales page). This Callen designed program has been a leader in SEO software for years. I generally recommend it without any reservations. I recently learned that they are getting ready to release a new version, SEO Elite 2.0, so I recommend it now only on the basis of two conditions: 1) That you can get assurance that you will be able to get a special upgrade price for the new version when it is released in the future, or 2) that you decide to buy the same company’s highly recommended Keyword Elite, because they extend a substantial discount for buying both simultaneously (it comes as an upsell). The combined price is a steal!
The other top level SEO software is Leslie Rohde’s Optilink (you’ll land on the sales page). Leslie Rohde is the patron saint of optimization, a genuine genius. Much of what I have learned about search engine optimization I learned from Rohde. Pardon the intrusion of my ego, but I know a heck of a lot about the subject.
To those companies that can afford the expense, I strongly recommend buying both products (as well as the amazing Keyword Elite). But if you are in a financial pinch and want to begin with just one of the two, for the time being I am going to deviate from my usual recommendation and endorse Optilink.
Both SEO Elite and Optilink are comparably priced at just under $200 each, which is a bargain. Only if you are really pinched for cash, Rohde’s company also offers a less sophisticated aid, Optispider, that is only half as costly as the robust Optilink. If you really must scale back to that level, you might also consider the similarly priced ($100) Traffic Travis, by Mark Ling. If you follow the link in the first paragraph of this article, you can get to my comparison of all of these alternatives, and there are direct links there to each of the software products.
I use both SEO Elite and Optilink regularly. They are tremendous time savers in both gathering the data and in helping make sense of it all.
