Sorry for my non-existance lately, I'm back for good now!
I've been playing around with this tool - Web CEO Pro, for a while and I've seen Rand mention he was a little bit tired of it because it was expensive, but I'd like to say that for a couple hundred dollars a year (if you don't get into their monthly fees), it can do a pretty good job and can be automated easily. It has some nice tools and can also generate sharp looking reports that you can brand with your company name. Here are a few examples:
- A keyword generator tool which works fine
- An HTML validator with decent SEO tips
- Automated search engine submissions (although I wouldn't touch it - its like sending a nuclear waste flag to the search engines)
- Inbound link checker from more than 100+ search engines and a comparison to your competition (always good to know what your top30 competitors are doing link gathering wise)
- Link text analysis: you actually see what words are used for linking to your site and can ask some correction if needed to heavy sites who link to you
- Despite the reports take a while sometimes (better run it on a great machine), it allows you to get SERPs for multiple keywords from multiple search engines against multiple competitors.
You can even takeclasses from their specialists and get this:
By using this tool, you can learn who is climbing the SERPs, who's going down, and compare it to your own SEO efforts. You can also study what they did to get there when you see major changes during your scans - and make sure you react to their actions to void their competitive advantage while remaining creative with new great linkbaiting / high valued content ideas.
I think Rand is using the paid tools, but for anyone who want something that can give you nice reports for VPs and VCs and still generate some value for you, it can help you fairly well.
Anyone have a better/faster system to accomplish most of those tasks / tedious reports?
I really feel that someone could easily build a better version of what Web CEO offers, provide it for free, and earn a heck of a lot of links... Maybe we should do that...
Hey Rand - if you want to work together on this project, I might be interested. I do need some links... + it's true Web Ceo is kinda slow with huge systems!
ttys
If you do, and you do it well, I'll put it in my "Things You REALLY Want To Have" bit of my book.
It actually wouldn't be that hard since much of the software is useless like on page recommendations and search engine submissions.
hm... I am waiting impatiently for your soft, 'cause I really can't imagine how it is possible to get a team of developers, analysts and support for free and to create a better version than paid workers do :)
I've used WebCEO for 2 years now and at times I hate it and other times its better than swiss cheese. The monthly cost fir updates really ticked me off, so I have been looking around for something else.
Our web-based software (SoloSEO.com) has been great for those frustrated with WebCEO, we get a lot of clients that were looking for something better. It runs reports quickly and easily, and does a lot of other things you might like too (link building, competitor tracking, keyword finding and management, etc.).
Hi Soloseo,
I would love to learn more about SoloSEO. Do you have a comparison against products such as WebCEO and Wordtracker? Pros and Cons of each and how they stack up against your product?
Cheers!
Bill McGrathOrangeSprocketman!
www.orangesprocket.com
I have been using WebCEO for like 2 years and probably the first tool I bought for my SEO and SEM intiatives. The keyword tool si great - shows you the bids for overture and some very important stuff like PR, Competitions, traffic (i think this is from alexa) and number of links your competitor has based on the search engine. Nice report generation tool I agree.
The certification is a nice "incentive" and reinforces your knowledge on certain issues mostly on Onpage SEO.
HOWEVER... since they started charging for monthly updates. I lost interest... $100 may not be much back there in the US or in the UK but back here in the FAR EAST its a big sum of money.
I have endorsed WEBCEO to every company i do consultancy with as its a great product.
Upgrading from BASIC to PRO is also expensive considering that there are only like 2-3 features that seperates the basic and PRO.
I've used the full paid version of Web CEO for over 2 years now. My favorite is the linking sites analysis. This report (takes hours to run) is amazing. I entered 20 sites that rank well for keywords I'm targeting and then I run the report and it tells me every link to those sites and shows common links among those sites. You can then rank them and see what links all those sites have in common to help you find the important links to try get first. Think of it as HubFinder from SeoBook on steroids because you can run it against an unlimited number of urls. It really shows you a lot of information on links.
I also like the ranking tool because it makes nice reports. Ranking reports are pretty standard, but this one stores your past rankings, and has some nice customizable reports.
I use the scheduler to run monthly the links report and rankings just to keep up on the current stats, and with the scheduler I don't have to worry about forgetting to run the reports.
The keyword tool isn't bad, although the numbers seem to be exaggerated, but I use it to compare the relative popularities of keywords in wordtracker, overture, web ceo, and other tools. It's also a good place to store your keywords and then import them into wordtracker, overture etc...
The site auditor is good to find broken links and stuff, but Xenu does just as good a job.
I don't use the HTML editor, the submissions, PPC campaigns, and the site optimization tips just gives generic information that is either wrong (outdated) in some cases. They recommend a certain keyword density, which I ignore, and some of the other recommendations aren't really that great. I don't use the web analytics (there's also an additional fee) because I have ClickTracks, google analytics, and awstats.
Because I run my own server, I know immediately if my sites go down, so I don't need the monitoring service.
They do seem to be moving towards the full-service SEO project management tool, which I kind of dislike. They have a new journal tool that allows you to track your time spent on projects (I don't use that because I don't see a need for it), and they have a new client reporting center that allows you to upload client reports for them to view from Web CEO's servers (I don't use this either it's also an additional paid feature) and it's just as easy to e-mail or use your own existing extranet. I'd like to see more generic reporting tools that I can use and then make my own decisions based on the findings of those tools.
I like web ceo in general because it allows me to organize my sites well, and run those reports using the scheduler so I don't forget to run them. However, I only use a couple of the tools, but I think they're awesome.
I also ran through the Professional Web CEO university, and thought it was really well done. It really gives a lot of good information and gives a lot of good links to other resources. My only complaint is that the quizzes could have been done better, and the demos are really just tutorials on how to use Web CEO.
I'd endorse web ceo, but I would never say to use "just web ceo" that's a huge mistake with any tool. If you're using the same tool as everyone else then where's your advantage? I use some tools within Web CEO, but I have a ton of other tools that I also use or build, and that's really important to keep in mind. I think people expect web ceo and other paid tools to be their holy grail or bible to getting rankings. I can guarantee that there aren't any "white hat" tools that you can simply download, run, and start increasing rankings. Maybe there are some "black hat" ones. :)
The other thing to keep in mind is that rankings aren't everything. Overall site usability and accessibility issues are not something a program can determine, so you need to use your head to get that traffic to do what you want them to do once they reach your site.
exhaustive post, thank you for it. But one comment on and they have a new client reporting center that allows you to upload client reports for them to view from Web CEO's servers (I don't use this either it's also an additional paid feature) - as I know, now this service is absolutely free
I am also currently building out a tool for SEO's and Webmasters called ManageYourLinks.com to manage all of our link building campaigns. Take a look!
It looks like the webceo.com site is not coming up in Google organic for "webceo" and also the PageRank is 0.
Hi,
Google clearly mentions in its guidelines, not to use software which send automated queries. Webposition Gold is given as an example.
Kris
I've been using WebPosition Pro and have noticed that Google won't recognize an exact match of a phrase on one of my pages but does recognize a broach match for the same term (even though it should recognize the exact match).
I'm wondering if, because I submitted the page using WebPosition 4 Pro if it affected Google's ability/choice not to find the exact match of the phrase.
Does that make any sense?
So as a new kid on the block, if I can't automate my page submittals, what are the best practices for getting my pages indexed without hiring a tribe of Oompa Loompas?
thanks,
brian
I am a graduate of WEB CEO. I think the test's where very easy and I pretty much did not have to read any of the chapters because I knew the answers already. Someone could make that test better but I would suggest still doing it as a certificate thing. It makes for good link back. The web ceo program is very cool and I like most of it's functions except for its monitoring system could be a bit easier to integrate and something I noticed doing the testing is that some of its questions/answers are out of date and are simply wrong answers to specific questions.
Over all I think it is a good system and at least gives its members a level of knowledge that employers can rely on.
-Joe Whyte
OK... So nobody mentioned WebPosition. Is it crap? I've been using WebPosition for reporting organic rankings, which has worked fine for me. If there is something better out there, please let me know.
Is Web Ceo better than WebPosition?
Web positions gold is really good for presentation reports. I love utilizing both web ceo and wpg. I use web ceo for research and I use web position gold for its reports because they are very professional looking. The bad thing about web ceo is that the reports are not all together and are not seemless. With wpg, all reports come in a single web application.
I think a majority of SEO/SEM use a lot of programs because they all have their strong points.
I've been working with Web CEO for a few years now at both my company and for Storefront and while there are some nice things about it like having everything in one place, the automation of reports, the lessons, etc. there is a downfall that I ran into with having an SEO department or team working on several projects.
Web CEO installs primarily like a destop software within one profile not allowing shareability on a dedicated server while logged into your individual profile.
Example: let's say I login and run several processes and reports, save everthing, and logoff the server. The next person logs in and uses their profile...the information that I recently did for that client is not available for this person to view. Normally this wouldn't be a problem except in the case of security and profiles and shareability.
Pain in the butt!
I have used WebCEO for several years and find it extremely reliable and easy to use. The only feature I feel it misses out on is the ability to allow my analysts to run (not just view) reports remotely.
Message from their support:
I am afraid having colleagues have access to the same software copy and add changes and update the information is impossible with the current desktop Web CEO copy. The Web CEO Online product allowes multi-user work.
Considering trying out Link Assistant's Rank Tracker or WebCEO's online version. Any thoughts/recommendations?
I've used many a software including web ceo, seo elite, optilink and seo studio but i've just come across another software package called internet business promoter and i'm really impressed with it. The site compares your competitors againgst yours and gives the most detailed report i've ever seen, including keyword positioning in your body text, keyword density in your first sentence etc.. It advises you on what % of density you should be aiming for etc... I'd definately recommend this project but as most tools i keep seo elite and web ceo for some of their features.
Let me know if you to have experienced IBP
Hi, all Webceo is a very good software amd it was fine for promoting my website maxiseo.com over the net .. but why the ranking of web ceo website become 0 !!
I use regularly webceo but not the professional, only the free downloadable version. I am really satisfied with the functions.
I run ranking checkers and link analysis reports every morning, so God save Webceo;)
Have been using Web CEO for quite some time and found it to be extremely efficent. We especially like the new report viewer which allows end users to securely login to there reports once you upload them.
Brian
htttp://www.globeflash.com
Has anyone used SEOElite and have any commentary on it's usefulness?
I love simple. My favorite tracking tool is digitalpoint. It provides usable tracking for Google, MSN and Yahoo. It does only 1 thing but does this very well.
https://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords/?a...
I have begun to use webceo because: - its good at organising a whol load of sites in a cohesive way - it does scheduling of tasks, so when it needs to do a lot of ranking reports etc, it does it overnight - i like its link text anlaysis and competition analysis - and there are a bunch of other things gong for it that are preyy cool (ones i cant remember offhand) - I can export in a number of formats and it send out pretty looking spreadsheets whicih keeps clients happy
against: sloooooooowwwww when its running a lot of tasks in parallel a number of the tools are unnecessary (to me) like bid management, page optimisation, keyword finder
for your interest, I found this tool, badly presented but very good for managing keywords from overture on a desktop application:
thedowser - go to download.com and get it from there.
I'm suspicious of all paid SEO software.
But the best I've tried was IBP 9. Simple to use and it has very good and valuable reporting skills.
Web Position, Web CEO, SEO Studio, etc... not so good.
I've used WebCEO as a consultant, and in my job at Adams, for about 2 years (in total). Personally, I love it. Aside from anything else, it means that I keep everything in one place, and I *hate* clutter.
Aside from that, things like the keyword research tools, ranking checkers, incredible customer support, and flexibility, as far as I'm concerned, make it a great product.
Hi Peter,
Can you tell me if you've used other products such as WordTracker and your thoughts in comparison to WebCEO? We're beginning our foray into SEO mainly for small local clients as our first test bed and to get our feet wet.
What would you say are the features you like best about WebCEO? In the Keyword Research game WordTracker seems to come up as a better tool but WebCEO sounds more like an all inclusive solution.
Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Bill McGrathOrangeSprocketman!
www.orangesprocket.com
Hi Bill,Although I am not Peter, I will try to answer your question :)First of all I must say that it is hard to compare one tool with a set of 12 :) It like comparing a screwdriver with a full tool kit.
WordTracker is a great keyword tool, but Web CEO has much more tools to complete all stages of your SEO work. I am sure you will look for a tool to check ranking and links and create beautiful and clear reports for your client.
By the way, as you ask about the best features of WebCEO, I must say that it has a great solution for report sharing.
As you say about work for some small local clients, I think you may be interested in Web CEO report sharing system. It really saves time. I will not explain detaily how I use it and how it works, you can read about it at WebCEO website.
Good luck in your work,
Pellacia
Thanks for the feedback Pellacia it's much appreciated. It looks like we have a few solid tools to consider.
Take care,
Bill McGrathOrangeSprocketman!
www.orangesprocket.com
We're launching SoloSEO.com, an online SEO Project Management solution, in early December. We are providing integrated tools and reports for managing multiple sites/projects. SoloSEO will track your site's stats week after week, along with your competitors, and help you find and manage keywords, track pages of your site, and manage the link building process.
I used to use Web CEO a lot (and liked it), but it got slower and slower, and eventually wouldn't run at all. Now I use Advanced Web Ranking. I ONLY use the ranking tools though, so I can't really comment on other features.
We use WEB CEO at lot at work but mostly use it for the tasks that IPB can't perform. The interface is great & it looks slick, but I find it a bit slow for some things. Html output on the reporting is handy too :)
I am using full version of WebCEO -- I did not found anything extraordinary in it. Currently I use Optimization tool, keyword selecter and competition analysis tool. Will try the one jgoddard mentioned.
I tried the free version but it always froze up while running link reports which is the only really useful part of the software. And I have a pretty powerful computer.
Virante doesn't use it because we have an internal reporting system that covers a lot more.
IMHO, most of the SEO software out there misses or poorly handles the most important issues like duplicate content.
You have to write your own to really make it useful.
I don't use it simply because it doesn't run on OSX...
-A keyword generator tool which works fine
Keyword generator? What's that? You can research your keywords at WordTracker or KeywordDiscovery or NichebotClassic (all of them are free to an extent) and analyze them yourself.
-A html validator with decent SEO tips
https://validator.w3.org is good enough. And what tips do you need for SEO? Semantic markup?
-Automated search engine submissions
Absolutely unnecessary.
-Inbound link checker from more than 100+ search engines and a comparison to your competition
Now this one may be useful for competitive analysis, however, you can use SEO for Firefox to see the number of links and see the links yourself (from Yahoo, of course). Probably not as easily readable as Web CEO (hasn't seen it), but if you don't use the software, you know where to go.
Becides, analyzing competition instead of finding new ways to get customers (where you are more noticeable than one of the crowd) is not so wise from the marketing perspective. Doesn't mean that you can't run a linkdomain search on Yahoo once or twice, but I shouldn't buy software just to do that.
-Link text analysis
Google Webmaster Central allows you to see phrases people use to link to you and the text you have on your site. Though seeing which text is in the incoming links is helpful, it shouldn't be that useful. You'll be aware of some link texts, anyway.
Again, might help to know which words are used in links, pointing to one of your popular internal pages to optimize the page for the keyphrase. But will you doing it for the people or for the search engines?
I'd say that you can find better solutions, such as Trellian Competitive Intelligence, once you have exhausted all your promotional potential. Not to mention their keyword research tool (or the one from WordTracker).
Other than that, it looks pretty useless to me.
I grant you this is a plug, but it couldn't possibly be more on topic! I used to work for an SEO, and the reporting (on a large scale) was almost unmanageable with the software solutions available.
When I left the company some years ago, I got together with an ex-colleague and we designed a Search Engine Result monitoring service from scratch, specifically for SEOs, created to avoid all the pitfalls of the existing software on the market.
We don't do submission, purely reporting. Our service has been running for a couple of years now - it's called Interwebbing.
It allows monitoring of the SERPs of all the major engines, for multiple sites, with mirror domains, for hundreds of keyphrases.
The reports are generated on our servers, automatically, according to whatever schedule you set, so you can add a client to our server and then just leave it alone and go on holiday for ten years - the reports will keep on coming.
The basic reports themselves show the position gained by each phrase in each engine, the position attained by each of up to three competitor sites, and the fluctuation from previous weeks.
These reports are stored on our server, and you can choose to have them automatically emailed to destinations of your choice (such as your customer, for example!). Any such emails the system sends will appear to come from your email address, and the reports themselves hold your company branding - we are invisible.
In addition to the email option, you can allow or deny your customers access (on a per-client basis) to their own control panel, where they can view their report schedule, view old reports, and change any options you have not locked down. You have complete control over the level of access you allow to your customers. Again, this control panel area is branded entirely as yours.
The whole service is server-based, thus accessible from wherever. It's not tying up your computers, not using your bandwidth for queries, and it's not getting your IP blocked.
You have a control panel of your own from which you can add, edit and remove clients, and control every aspect of the service they receive. As well as always being able to see all the reports You also get a unique management overview, which lets you see which of your clients promotions are performing the best, and which need attention.
The reports are all very well, but if you need more in-depth information, we have it. You can view reports in grid format, listed by keyphrase, for starters. Then we have the executive reports control panel which lets you run detailed queries on the most recent SERPs data we hold for any client. You can view lists of positions filtered by performance level (top 1, top 20, etc), for any or all search engines, ordered by phrase or by engine. You can further choose to only list improving positions, declining positions or even phrases without any results at all.
If you are more the visual type, then you can view your data with the on-demand graphing feature, allowing you to show the positions over whatever date range you require, filtered by your choice of search engines, and zoomed in to any level from top 30 to top 10. Below every graph there is a table containing the same data, for clarity and so that you can copy/paste it into your own applications if you require. Remember that this facility, as with everything else, is something you can allow your customers to access if you wish.
There are lots of other little bits of information we provide. Google indexation levels, overall search engine coverage, report summaries and more. For the competitive types amongst you, we even provide a tool which will show you the list of your strongest competing sites for a given search phrase - live.
Oh, naturally, the standard reports (from which all this data has come) are available as .CSV downloads, so if you have some extremely specific requirements, you can take the data and import it into your own applications.
Of course, for some people, all this power will be overkill. It doesn't matter. The basic reports are the core of the service, and although there is no extra charge for all the other facilities, you don't have to use them if you don't need them!
The thing is, you don't need to be an SEO to use the service. Anyone with multiple sites to monitor will find life a whole lot easier if they use us.
https://www.interwebbing.com is our site (perpetually pending an update as new features are constantly being added).
Certainly worth a look.
NOw I'm sure that the best software is developed by people from www.link-asistant.com.
I tried SEO Elite, Axandra's ARELIS and IBP, SEO Studio, WebCEO, etc. They're all great and look cool, and they are good tools, plus their marketing is also really good. But most USEFULL and time-saving tools are definitely the ones from these www.link-assistant.com guys (though they are not overhyped yet as their competitors.)
Any other good SEO software except WEBCEO
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