BizFancy

While I usually tell SEO clients that link building must be done manually, I am always checking out the latest software that can streamline, speed up or complete automate some link building tasks. Here’s my opinions on the ones I’ve used:

DIRECTORY SUBMISSIONS

Autofill Directory Submission Software

SubmitEaze – This is a nice program, it does streamline the directory submission process quite a bit. The problem with it is that some directories in the list have broken captcha’s which makes them useless. Even with this program directory submissions can take a while to do.

Directory Submitter Gold – This one isn’t quite as slick as SubmitEaze but it seems to have more directories that work.

Semi-Automated Directory Submission Software

DigiXmas Submitter – This tool does a good job of automating the process as much as it can be done. You still have to enter the captcha’s for any directories that use one, but you do not have to visit each site, which obviously saves a lot of time. The problem with this program is they charge for each URL you want to submit. At $15, this can add up fast and not only that, you pay the $15 and still have to spend the time submitting yourself. Not exactly the deal of the century when you consider you can outsource directory submissions to someone for around the same price, leaving you to do NONE of the work instead. If they lowered their price or had some subscription plan, it would be worth considering if you do a lot of directory submissions. I should note that they do allow you to submit to 150 PR 0 directories for free.

Website Based Directory Submitters

GTSee – This is actually a service/script that you pay to use. It is $6.95 and it submits to 1000+ directories. It would be great if it actually worked. I tried it and found that I only got a few approvals from these submissions and tons of submission declined notices.

EasySubmits – This is a nice service, it’s free and best of all, it actually works. Now, this will cost you some time, as you have to enter the captcha’s for each site and you have to go through page after page of directories, but submitting with this tool was easy and I got loads of confirmations to my email and tons of approvals! You know a submitter is working well if you get actual APPROVALS to your email address.

Other Link Building Tools

SENuke – SENuke generally does what it says, it makes it much easier to do social bookmarking, create WordPress MU blogs and links on those blogs, creating social networking account and links, submit videos, submit your RSS feeds etc. I found the software buggy at times, especially the social bookmarking part. Plus, it’s an expensive investment at $127 a month.

Bookmarking Demon – This one is for social bookmarking only. It does what it says it will do and it even creates social bookmarking accounts. That said, I found it buggy as well and slow at times. This could be because I was using the older version, and they did recently come out with a new version. Worth a look if you need social bookmarking done.

Social Bookmarking Sites

Some alternatives to the above social bookmarking software are these sites that allow you to post to your accounts for free:

OnlyWire – This is not free anymore, but you can use the service by just providing them a reciprocal link, which I think is worth it. Supports quite a few sites, basically all the biggest and most important ones, even sites like Twitter. The only drawback is that you must create the accounts yourself. Which will take you a bit of time. Also, it doesn’t support multiple accounts or anything like that, you must log in and change the account information yourself if you want to do that. Still, I do believe this is the best service of its kind right now.

SocialMarker – This one is a good alternative to OnlyWire. You have to create the accounts yourself but it supports more sites. Not as automated though as you have to visit each site to submit the bookmarks.

Traffic Travis was a bust… buggy and sometimes didn’t give results for certain engines. I’ve switched to Rank Tracker, which is very accurate. The only thing I don’t like is uploading the reports. The reports have too many unneeded files, images and directories. I have to delete certain files before trying to upload, otherwise my server times out or the upload is corrupted. The reports seriously need to be streamlined. I wish their reports were more like Traffic Travis, very simple and clean with no images.

I do quite a lot of search engine optimization for selected clients on the side. Pretty much every client wants a progress report of their rankings. While sales and/or traffic is a much more effective and important indicator of the success of a search engine optimization campaign, most clients simply don’t want to hear that. They want to see themselves #1 for whatever oddball phrase that they think is important. Nevermind what you tell them. Hence, the important of giving your clients a weekly or monthly report of their search engine positions for their targeted keyword phrases. So, what to do, what to do…

I’ve tried, bought and used many different pieces of software over my 10 years of doing SEO. It’s much more difficult to find a reliable program that generates easy to read and understand reports, that you can send to clients than you might think. Here are my experiences:

WebPosition – I used this program way back last century and dropped it around 2000 or so. You know it’s bad when Google talks about it in their webmaster guidelines. The reports were ok, but it’s expensive for what it does and you have to keep paying for updates. Haven’t used it in a while, so perhaps it has gotten better. Still wouldn’t use it again though.

AgentWebRanking – This used to be a freeware program that generated reports that were ok. It stopped getting results from each search engine after a while. Then the company introduced very expensive paid versions. While the new program and reports are excellent, I can’t justify spending so much for the relatively small amount of reports I need to generate each month. Not only that, but you have to factor in the updates you have to keep buying. (the cost is in Euros as well, so for US customers, the price is quite high)

Search Engine Commando – This one I liked a lot. The reports were nice and customizable and you have lots of search engines available to check. However, I ran into problems using this software after about a year or so. I found that the reports weren’t very accurate. So, back to searching for another program!

Ranking Manager – This is a nice program as well. I love that it’s dedicated to ranking reports ONLY. No “submission” tools or analysis or anything else. Just good, solid reports with lots of options! I purchased this one in early 2007, and it came with 1 year of updates. Unfortunately, it stopped getting results from Yahoo after about 6 months. I used the support contact form again and again, with no response. Is there an update? Is it a bug? What’s the problem? No answer! Ever! So, I’m stuck generating reports and then having to check Yahoo manually, which added a couple hours of extra work each month. The update period has passed and I haven’t bought an update… and won’t… not without support.

So, my search begins again…

Then I found this thing called Traffic Travis:

Now, I usually don’t go for the kind of software that seems to be everything in one, but this one seems different. I’ve only tried the free version but the ranking check is very fast, faster than the other programs I have tried, not sure why. If you upgrade to the professional version, which is not exorbitantly priced at $99, you can generate reports for clients. I’m really liking the program so far, and I haven’t even tried the other tools included like the keyword research tool (which I can certainly make use of) and PPC tools. One thing I don’t like so far is that every time I open up the program they have a new update to download. I opened the program earlier today and then this afternoon and they are already prompting me for another update. Perhaps that’s a good sign though, but it’s annoying to me. I’m going to sign up for the professional version and will update this post with any additional thoughts on the product. Hopefully I’ve found the solution!