NickRM
"Copy this person" followed by a few common sense approaches does not a Great Article make. :p
Save money by specifying tasks to be automated, and then outsourcing the applications to automate them. Be professional and do not rely upon canned SEO tools.
Story: Manly Man’s SEO in a Box
But you’re advertising your product in a community designed to give away those tools and information for free. I don’t see how it’s "profound."You can get free hosting, free website templates, free content, free links, free seo advice ... and free help on Yahoo groups. Why pay then?Competitive edge. None of which this software offers.
@HamletBatistaEDIT: I feel so dumb! Wish I had noticed that. Given the situation, my opinions still stand, however. What’s your relationship with his website? First of all, you have such a dramatic name that I’d like to move to Vermont and marry you and then if possible take your first name, too, as a sign of devotion. Moving on: It appears you think that EVERY website owner can afford to hire a reliable SEO consultant or that EVERY website owner is interested in becoming an SEO expert by reading SEO blogs or that they have the knowledge to ask for what they want to be automated. I don’t think I suggested that at all. Quite the contrary, in fact. I proposed that a webmaster interested in search engine optimization (amongst other things) would be far better off spending a little bit of time researching their options prior to investing any money. That’s how I got into SEO. I had a website, I had no money, but I wanted to get more traffic. I started reading. After I felt as though I had accumulated enough knowledge to make a stab at it, I developed a strategy and implemented it. I tested things. Guess what?It worked.1) Get more quality links and visibility2)Target keywords with more demand and commercial intention3)Create more content and make sure it gets indexedOk, I was actually more supportive of your software before I read this. I don’t automate any of what you suggested. What you’re suggesting is deceptive:RankSense doesn’t build links for you. Spending 5 minutes per keyword with free tools will get you better results than automation for determining potential link targets.You will do a better job choosing keywords with this than that. Suggestions are lovely, but why pay for them?Erase the rest of this comment -- apparently RankSense generates content for you. And "making sure it gets indexed" is as simple as keeping an eye on your internal linking structure.
@Gyutae (I’m dumb with letters - sorry!)I will try it out- absolutely. Tomorow. If it makes my job the least bit easier in comparison to my investment, I will be singing your praises.The idea of "seeing the process" from the lens of an SEO software suite leaves me uncomfortable. I’d rather be able to analyze the information directly. That said, if RankSense can potentially improve my clients’ results, I’d be obligated to use it.Ranksense isn’t my software btw. I’m just discussing SEO software like it and its implications.Can’t bullshit a bullshitter, bud. You’re hosting the software, the service, and your face is on the frontpage of its domain. RankSense’s developer is irrelevant, as you stand to gain significantly by its success.In your article entitled "What SEO Software Means For the SEO Community" you pimp RankSense - you link to other services, but always explain why paying for RankSense is a better alternative.If you’re trying to be sneaky, you’re focusing on the wrong community.
@QyutaeHowever, a lot of times it’s not economically viable for these webmasters to invest in new tools, nor do they have the expertise and know-how to create them.One word: India. I may sound like a dick for that, but at the same time, I can drop $500 on a custom web application that I’ll use almost indefinitely, and if you develop a good relationship with a talented outsourcing firm then updating the code will be inexpensive, painless and infrequent.I disagree with you VERY strongly about starting places for "newbies." Canned software is how people get ripped off, disenfranchised, and eventually come to the conclusion that all SEOs are selling snake-oil. In my honest and very uneducated (still haven’t tried the 90-day RankSense trial) opinion, your software is doing more harm than good. I find that actually doing something on your own, even if it’s following the guidelines and seeing the results through an SEO program, is better than reading SEO blogs (which tend to be full of fluff these days).I’m in total agreement. Do it by hand before you start delegating tasks to automatons.What that means, however, is that people should learn up and do it themselves prior to purchasing your software. I have a feeling that if one person spent the time required to properly begin an SEO campaign with their own website then they’ll find your software unnecessary, which brings us back to your point that RankSense is for novice SEOs.Look, for a small business that does not see the benefit in outsourcing to an SEO or hiring one in-house, even reading Sphinn will be more beneficial to them than downloading RankSense. Claiming to focus on the small business that doesn’t know the basics assumes they’ll be able to interpret the data from your program and put it to good use.ChallengeI’ll take a random reader who knows next to nothing about Search Engine Optimization, and train them via Instant Messenger and Skype for one day. Not a full day - just 3-4 hours. If they’re the least bit savvy to begin with they’ll outrank someone with your software for a low competition keyword at the end of 90 days.Wager can be discussed privately.
@QutaeIn essence, the recurring fees guarantee that the tool will always be workingYou’re guaranteeing that RankSense will remain operational with "less bugs, and more maintenance time" than privately developed proprietary software? If a novice webmaster begins paying for the tool and becomes reliant upon it and you decide it’s no longer economically viable to continue service then they’re SOL.Recently, one of my proprietary tools ceased functioning. The protocol which it was based upon had changed, in a small way, but it rendered the tool unusable. It cost me exactly $75 to fix, after I spent about an hour on it myself.A far better method for "inexperienced SEO’s and business owners" is to do what a lot of people who read this comment are doing right now: read articles and learn. You stated that one of the major benefits of using RankSense is that it explains each step -- does RankSense offer a better explanation than spending an hour browsing some of the top SEO blogs?Not only is it more economically viable to invest one employee to learn the ins and outs of this industry, but you’re far better off for it in the long run. They’ll know more. A step above that is hiring a reputable SEO with a proven track record to manage your company’s sites. I believe that comparing the ROI would make a tool like RankSense totally irrelevant.
There are plenty of fundamental processes which not only can, but should, be automated; the less time you spend plugging data into a spreadsheet for a client, the more time you can spend fine-tuning their pages or creating unique content.That said, there are a lot of SEOs who don’t possess the programming chops to make their own functioning tools. Are "SEO in a can" applications like RankSense the answer? No, probably not.If I’m working on a project and I realize that I could save time (and, in effect, money) by using a script to manage a portion of my task then I’ll shell out a little cash and outsource to either a programmer I know or another outside developer.Working in-house and you don’t have a few developers in your network? Hit up someone in your IT department and offer it as a sidejob for some extra cash. You’ll end up with a tool specifically tailored to the task at hand, with no recurring fees.
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