Proprietary SEO software has been around for a long time. It’s used by companies of all sizes, and it’s designed to help them optimize their content and increase their rankings in search engines. This software is also known as “black hat SEO,” which means it uses techniques that are frowned upon by Google, such as keyword stuffing and link spamming.
But Google is getting better at catching these types of practices, so many companies are moving away from proprietary SEO software in favor of more natural strategies like white hat SEO. These methods don’t involve any manipulation of the search engine algorithms—they simply focus on producing high-quality content that will attract natural links from other sites.
We’ll be talking about both types of software today: what they are and how they work!
Proprietary Seo Software
A big company needs a complete tool that can perform research, execute tasks and maintain SEO strategy. These four applications provide centralized, all-in-one SEO management for today’s enterprise-level marketing departments. We’ve summarized their capabilities to help you narrow down on the best one for you.
1. seoClarity
seoClarity allows you to create customizable SEO dashboards that your entire marketing team can use. You can perform site audits and deep crawls to detect duplicate content and site errors.
For enterprises that segment business based on location, seoClarity offers a Local Clarity function enabling you to take advantage of local keywords. Use the Keyword Clarity tool to discover which of your domain pages can make the biggest SEO gains right now. Link Clarity will show you which pages need inbound links the most, and it will alert you to broken links and changes in page rank for connected domains.
Cost: $3,000-5,000+ per month (see pricing details)
2. Linkdex
Linkdex, as you’d guess from the name, offers outstanding link-building tools. In addition to seeing which domains link to your competitors and your pages, you can jot down notes for each link you’re cultivating to show your team where you are in the process. If you’ve emailed a publisher, gotten a rejection from a webmaster or tried to disavow a link, it’s all there.
In fact, one of the coolest Linkdex features, from a management perspective, is its task management capability. You can assign, check off and communicate about separate SEO tasks all within one convenient dashboard. You can also use Linkdex’s powerful tracking and forecasting tools to see which optimization changes will make the biggest difference. Then, you can fine-tune your analysis down to the zip code for local visibility.
Cost: $600-1,200 per month; price on application for enterprise-level (see pricing details)
3. BrightEdge
BrightEdge offers a unique proprietary metric called Share of Voice, which is an overall measure of your visibility based on your local carousel, videos, images, links, videos and e-commerce signals. This combination of factors helps you prioritize tasks as you tackle your SEO challenges, and it’s easier to use for teams with less SEO expertise.
Additionally, BrightEdge provides in-depth competitor analysis, giving you insights on the pages, page templates and inbound links that are driving their search rankings success. You can use BrightEdge’s discovery tools to see which keywords are winners for your competitors as well as opportunities that you’ve underutilized. By integrating your domain analytics and social data with your SEO information, BrightEdge helps you create a 360-degree view of your digital marketing strategy.
Cost: $4,000+ per month for enterprise level (contact BrightEdge for pricing details)
4. Conductor Searchlight
Conductor Searchlight leverages integrations with Adobe Omniture and Moz OpenSite Explorer to provide a complete daily snapshot of your search rankings. It also provides tools for analyzing which content is most in demand, enabling you to create and promote content that impact your rankings.
In addition, Conductor Searchlight can help you identify easy changes that will improve page rankings. For example, if a page is ranking well for a keyword, but that page isn’t your preferred landing page, Conductor Searchlight will suggest that you add an internal link to your preferred landing page, using your keyword as anchor text.
You’ll need a team with some SEO knowledge to use Conductor Searchlight; although it suggests tasks and offers great insights on what to fix, it doesn’t always help you choose your top priorities. If your team is knowledgeable about SEO, they’ll appreciate the in-depth analysis as well as the beautiful user interface.
Cost: $2,000+ per month (request pricing details)
5. SearchMetrics
Get ready to have your mind blown, because SearchMetrics can seemingly do it all. SEO and content research, check. SEO-optimized content briefs, check. Competitor research, check. Reporting, check. Broken into segments – Research Cloud, Content Experience, Search Experience, and Site Experience – this comprehensive tool helps you plan, execute, monitor, and report.
The user interface is supremely easy to use, and it’s also a great platform for collaborating with teams. Build content within the platform, tag others, and track workflows and projects without leaving the Suite. Go even further with API integrations and Consumer Insights.
Cost: $69+/mo (request pricing/demo)
6. MarketMuse
A content marketer’s dream – enter MarketMuse. From simple optimization checks to full-blown content strategy development, MarketMuse offers tiers to fit your budget and goals. Dubbed as an “AI Content Intelligence and Strategy Platform” it leverages mounds and mounds of data to inform you on content planning. Machine learning does heavy lifting that would take you hundreds of hours.
This tool can help you predict your content’s performance before it even goes live. It can even spit out optimized content briefs to aid your production workflow. Plus, it has a natural language generator that can even take the first stab at writing your content!
Cost: $79-1,499/mo (pricing details)
14 Tools for Specific Tasks
In addition to do-everything SEO platforms, your enterprise can use these lower-cost SEO tools to supplement or replace certain aspects of your software solution. These are also great if you don’t want to go “all in” on one of the previous four SEO platforms just yet.
7. Ahrefs (Inbound Links)
In addition to showing an accurate number of backlinks to your domain, Ahrefs provides detailed information including the page each link points to, the time when each link was last seen and social signals associated with each inbound link. You can see which pages receive the most inbound links, identify specific days on which you earned the most backlinks and identify broken links quickly.
Cost: $99-999 per month (see pricing details)
8. SEMRush (Keyword Research)
The paid version of SEMrush shows you the position for which a keyword ranks, estimates the amount of traffic it’s driving to your site, and provides the keyword’s search volume. Conduct competitor gap analysis, research topics, audit your SEO copywriting – and so much more. There’s a reason everyone in this business loves SEMRush!
Cost: SEMRush, $99-399+ (see pricing details)
9. Google Search Console (Keyword Research)
Search Console, formerly Google Webmaster Tools, offers great (and no-cost) behavioral insights, such as click-through rate (CTR), clicks, and impressions. GSC can also be integrated with reporting tools like Google Data Studio to bring up-to-date search metrics to your monthly snapshots.
Cost: Free!
10. Bing Webmaster Tools (Keyword Research)
We’ve found Bing Webmaster Tools to sometimes go even further than Google for keyword data. You’ll be surprised to see how much of your audience is actually using Bing. If you’re hitting a wall, or just can’t find a way to break the mold for your brand, tap into Bing’s keyword tool to find untapped opportunity.
Cost: Free!
11. Screaming Frog (Broken Links)
Screaming Frog is an oldie but a goodie that makes it simple to crawl your pages for broken links and canonical issues. You can also target sites to which you’d like to link, crawl their pages for broken link opportunities, and then contact the publisher to offer one of your URLs as a replacement.
Cost: $0-180 per year (see pricing details)
12. WebPageTest (Load Speed)
As machine learning makes search rankings more dependent on user behavior, page load speed is a factor you can’t afford to ignore. Paste your links into WebPageTest to see not only overall load time but also load times for specific page elements.
Cost: Free!
13. BrightLocal (Local Search)
For enterprises that depend heavily on geographical targeting, BrightLocal offers an all-in-one local dashboard. Track rankings on Google, Bing and Yahoo; monitor reviews; build citations; and audit Google My Business for each of your branch websites.
Cost: $29-79, higher for enterprise (see pricing details)
14. SparkToro (Audience Research)
If you follow our blog, you know we’re huge fans of SparkToro (check out this piece where we show just how useful it can be!). using keywords or topics – or even hashtags, social accounts, and websites – as a search term, SparkToro uncovers invaluable audience insights. find out which social accounts your audience follows, YouTube channels, podcasts, and more – wherever your audience hangs out online, you can use SparkToro to find them. Don’t approach any type of influencer marketing without a SparkToro account!
Cost: Free (10 searches/mo) or $50-300/mo (30-500 searches/mo) (see pricing details)
15. Website SEO Checker (Quick SEO Optimization Audit)
By Site Checker, this free Google Chrome extension can be deployed on any indexed page to almost instantly show you things like header tags, page size, status code, metadata, links (internal and external) and more, totaling more than 50 different parameters.
Cost: Free! (Chrome extension)
seo software meaning
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art and science of getting pages to rank higher in search engines such as Google. Because search is one of the main ways in which people discover content online, ranking higher in search engines can lead to an increase in traffic to a website.
In Google and other search engines, the results page often features paid ads at the top of the page, followed by the regular results or what search marketers call the “organic search results”. Traffic that comes via SEO is often referred to as “organic search traffic” to differentiate it from traffic that comes through paid search. Paid search is often referred to as search engine marketing (SEM) or pay-per-click (PPC).
The benefits of SEO
Search engine optimization is a key part of online marketing because search is one of the primary ways that users navigate the web.
Search results are presented in an ordered list, and the higher up on that list a site can get, the more traffic the site will tend to receive. For example, for a typical search query, the number one result will receive 40-60% of the total traffic for that query, with the number two and three results receiving significantly less traffic. Only 2-3% of searchers click beyond the first page of search results. Thus, even a small improvement in search engine rankings can result in a website receiving more traffic and potentially business.
Because of this, many businesses and website owners will try to manipulate the search results so that their site shows up higher on the search results page (SERP) than their competitors. This is where SEO comes in.
How SEO works
Search engines such as Google use an algorithm or set of rules to determine what pages to show for any given query. These algorithms have evolved to be extremely complex, and take into account hundreds or even thousands of different ranking factors to determine the rankings of their SERPs. However, there are three core metrics that search engines evaluate to determine the quality of a site and how it should rank:
- Links – Links from other websites play a key role in determining the ranking of a site in Google and other search engines. The reason being, a link can be seen as a vote of quality from other websites, since website owners are unlikely to link to other sites that are of poor quality. Sites that acquire links from many other sites gain authority (called “PageRank” in Google) in the eyes of search engines, especially if the sites that are linking to them are themselves authoritative.
- Content – In addition to looking at links, search engines also analyze the content of a webpage to determine if it would be relevant for any given search query. A large part of SEO is in creating content that is targeted towards the keywords that search engines’ users are searching for.
- Page structure – The third core component of SEO is page structure. Because webpages are written in HTML, how the HTML code is structured can impact a search engine’s ability to evaluate a page. Including relevant keywords in the title, URL, and headers of the page and making sure that a site is crawlable are actions that site owners can take to improve the SEO of their site.
The search engine optimization process involves optimizing each of these core components of search engine algorithms in order to rank higher in the search results.Get started and take your digital experiences to the next levelOptimizely is known for content, commerce and optimization with our Digital Experience Platform (DXP)Get started
Search engine optimization techniques
Understanding how search engines work is only the first step of the process in improving a site’s search rankings. Actually improving a site’s rank involves leveraging various SEO techniques to optimize the site for search:
- Keyword research – Keyword research is often the starting point for SEO and involves looking at what keywords a site is already ranking for, what keywords competitors rank for, and what other keywords potential customers are searching for. Identifying the terms that searchers use in Google search and other search engines provide direction on what existing content can be optimized and what new content can be created.
- Content marketing – Once potential keywords are identified, content marketing comes into play. This can be updating existing content or creating brand new pieces of content. Because Google and other search engines place a premium on high-quality content, it’s important to research what content is already out there and create a compelling piece of content that provides a positive user experience and has a chance of ranking higher in the search engine results. Good content also has a greater chance of being shared on social media and attracting links.
- Link building – Because links from external websites (called “backlinks” in SEO parlance) are one of the core ranking factors in Google and other major search engines, obtaining high-quality backlinks is one of the main levers that SEO has. This can involve promoting good content, reaching out to other websites and building relationships with webmasters, submitting websites to relevant web directories, and getting press to attract links from other websites.
- On-page optimization – In addition to off-page factors such as links, improving the actual structure of the page can have tremendous benefits for SEO, and is a factor that is entirely in the control of the webmaster. Common on-page optimization techniques include optimizing the URL of the page to incorporate keywords, updating the title tag of the page to use relevant search terms, and using the alt attribute to describe images. Updating a page’s meta tags (such as the meta description tag) can also be beneficial– these tags don’t have a direct impact on search rankings, but can increase click-through rate from the SERPs.
- Site architecture optimization – External links are not the only thing that matters for SEO, internal links (the links within one’s own website) play a large role in SEO as well. Thus a search engine optimizer can improve a site’s SEO by making sure key pages are being linked to and that relevant anchor text is being used in those links to help improve a page’s relevance for specific terms. Creating an XML sitemap can also be a good way for larger pages to help search engines discover and crawl all of the site’s pages.
- Semantic markup – Another SEO strategy that SEO experts utilize is optimizing a website’s semantic markup. Semantic markup (such as Schema.org) is used to describe the meaning behind the content on a page, such as helping to identify who the author of a piece of content is or the topic and type of content on a page. Using semantic markup can help with getting rich snippets displayed in the search results page, such as extra text, review stars and even images. Rich snippets in the SERPs doesn’t have an impact on search rankings, but can improve CTR from search, resulting in an increase in organic traffic.
Top SEO tools
As a fairly technical discipline, there are many tools and software that SEO relies on to help with optimizing websites. Below are some commonly used free and paid tools:
- Google Search Console – Google Search Console (formerly known as “Google Webmaster Tools”) is a free tool provided by Google, and is a standard tool in the SEO’s toolkit. GSC provides rankings and traffic reports for top keywords and pages, and can help identify and fix on-site technical issues.
- Google Ads Keyword Planner – Keyword Planner is another free tool provided by Google, as part of their Google Ads product. Even though it is designed for paid search, it can be a great tool to use for SEO since it provides keyword suggestions and keyword search volume, which can be helpful when doing keyword research.
- Backlink analysis tools – There are a number of link analysis tools out there, the two primary ones being AHREFs and Majestic. Backlink analysis tools allow users to analyze which websites are linking to their own website, or the websites of competitors, and can be used to find new links during link building.
- SEO platforms – There are many different SEO platforms that bring together many of the tools that SEO needs to optimize sites. Some of the most popular include Moz, BrightEdge, Searchmetrics and Linkdex. These platforms track keyword rankings, help with keyword research, identify on-page and off-page SEO opportunities, and many other tasks related to SEO.
- Social media – Most social media sites don’t have a direct impact on SEO, but they can be a good tool for networking with other webmasters and building relationships that can lead to link building and guest posting opportunities.
Optimizing search traffic: from clicks to conversions
Search engine optimization done properly can have the potential to dramatically increase the amount of traffic that a website receives, but all of that search traffic won’t help grow a business unless it converts into paying customers. This is where conversion rate optimization (CRO) comes in.
Conversion rate optimization involves using methods such as A/B testing to make changes to websites and measure the impact they have on a site’s conversion rate. Successful search marketers know that just getting traffic to a site is not enough, what the traffic does once it arrives on the site is just as important.
CRO was once a difficult and highly technical process, but thanks to software such as Optimizely, running tests to improve conversions on your site is as easy as inserting a single line of Javascript. Best of all, Optimizely’s visual editor allows you to make changes to a site without having to write a single line of code.
Conclusion
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