Bruce Clay SEOToolSet: Opinions?

[Tim Colling]

I am looking at the Bruce Clay SEOToolSet product. Does anyone have any recommendations about whether or not to use it?

I have a limited budget (don't we all?) and so I'm cautious about spending money on tools unless others use and recommend them.

Thanks!

 

[Dustybones]

Hey Tim, what is your ultimate goal? What data are you looking to collect?

 

[Linda Buquet]

I have a lot of respect for Bruce Clay and assume their tools are very good.

However I NEVER hear them talked about for Local. So I'm with Justin and wonder what your goals are?

There are a lot of other tools more specific to local like BrightLocal and others, but again depending on what you are trying to accomplish.

 

[Tim Colling]

I'm looking for a tool box for analysis, tracking and reporting to clients, for SEO work both organic and local.

The BrightLocal tools were mentioned; yes, I have been using them.

Their Rank Checker report is very useful.

I have some issues with some of their other tools, though.

In their SEO Check-Up tool, the back link data is pulled from Moz, apparently. Moz's backlink data for small businesses (like my clients) is often inaccurate and, generally, under-counts the links (perhaps Moz is just slow to crawl and/or update their index.)

Their CitationTracker report is dissatisfactory, at least for my clients, at least with respect to some citations that are reported as missing when in fact they are not missing, and with respect to some that are reported to contain wrong NAP info, when in fact they just picked up the wrong company's citation and missed the correct one for the client.

That's my experience, others' may vary. I should point out that I AM a BrightLocal tools subscriber, because if only for the ranking report, they are worth it.

Anyway, I'm looking for a good overall, comprehensive tracking and client reporting tool. BrightLocal just isn't quite what I need. I tried RavenTools a couple of years ago and didn't like it, but perhaps they deserve a second chance(?)

So, that's why I am casting about for other tools to consider.

 

[Dustybones]

Thanks Tim, I pretty much use RAVEN tools for tracking onsite issues, G.A., GWT, Metrics for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn as well as backlink info, but its not my favorite part of the service. It also has a great reporting function. For the most part I use it for onsite scans.

For tracking I have grown to Love SERPwoo. Its a great way to see the over rankings in your industry and recently added Local Maps ranking. Its a great way to see overall fluctuations with a particular market within a city. I have added a screen shot of San Diego "Orthodontist San Diego".

Both these tools will run you just over $100 together. As you probably already know, not one tool is going to do it all, but I find these two pretty useful on a daily basis.

With you on Brightlocal citations. It can be frustrating fixing and adding missed citation results, but I do like to use them to cross check rankings and there service is great. One thing I learned about Brightlocal is you will get better results if you simplify the business name you are searching for. For example, instead of entering the official business name as "Snowden Orthodontics" Try scanning using just "Snowden" or "Edward Snowden". You will get different results even if you add alternative business names. I get better results with a simplified search. ok, got off on a tangent there.

 

[Tim Colling]

Wow, DustyBones, thank you so much for that VERY detailed reply. It's going to take me a little while to dig through all your advice and screen shots.

Thank you!

 

[Laustin1878]

DustyBones, very comprehensive reply. How would you compare SERPWoo to MozPro Tools?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hey Justin,

Could you do us a big favor? That screenshot is so blurry we can't read it.

Could you crop and just show this part so it's a little bigger and readable?

http://awesomescreenshot.com/0cf4xsys49

Thanks. I've been meaning to check out SERPWoo now that it does local but just have not had the time. (or carpal bandwidth.)

 

[Linda Buquet]

DustyBones, very comprehensive reply. How would you compare SERPWoo to MozPro Tools?

I'll let Justin answer too but SERPWoo is nothing like a traditional rank tracker you'd use for client rank tracking and reporting.

It's more of a SERP analyis too and competitive research tool to try to understand the algo and figure out who's ranking and why.

Am I close to right on that Justin? That's my impression.

 

[Dustybones]

I have only used Moz a few times. After testing several tools we felt other tools were a better fit as we specialize in Orthodontics and only had a certain budget. What I love about SERPwoo is its ability to see SERPS fluctuation as a whole. Its really interesting watching certain cities like Phoenix. Phoenix is in continual fluctuation. After a few months you can see when google has a hiccup or Algo change.

DustyBones, very comprehensive reply. How would you compare SERPWoo to MozPro Tools?

@ Linda...Let me fix that...I'm waiting for glasses to come in. My first pair.

 

[Dustybones]

Pretty much Linda. Its not perfect like all others, but it does help you understand your particular market. I tried to do a screenshot of the other area that shows actual organic ranking of your domain for any given number of keywords. It does help in reverse engineering. There is a video on the homepage that goes into detail. I brought this tool up because they are now showing Pack results. Also, Carter and his staff have done an outstanding job implementing ideas, fixing bugs right away and responded quickly to issues.

It's more of a SERP analyis too and competitive research tool to try to understand the algo and figure out who's ranking and why.

 

[JacobMaslow]

ahrefs is much better at crawling links than anything else out there. Moz misses a lot of the low value links. Moz is also updated every couple of weeks as opposed to near real time like ahrefs.

 

[Tim Colling]

ahrefs is much better at crawling links than anything else out there. Moz misses a lot of the low value links. Moz is also updated every couple of weeks as opposed to near real time like ahrefs.

I don't want to trigger a "religious war" about link trackers, but I'm interested in finding out why you prefer Ahrefs to Majestic. I have had both, on and off, for a long time, and just decided yesterday to drop Ahrefs. Did I make the wrong choice?

 

[Dustybones]

In general Tim, not one tool is going to do it all. When it comes to backlinks you have to use a variety of free and paid tools in order to get a clear understanding of your backlink profile. You probably already know this though.

I use Majestic mostly because of the number of links in there database, but use a number of others to build up a spreadsheet.

 

[Tim Colling]

In general Tim, not one tool is going to do it all. When it comes to backlinks you have to use a variety of free and paid tools in order to get a clear understanding of your backlink profile. You probably already know this though.

I use Majestic mostly because of the number of links in there database, but use a number of others to build up a spreadsheet.

Thank you. That's very helpful.

 

[JacobMaslow]

Ahrefs is updated on near real time. They also scan far more sites than others.


Aside from my personal experiences, tests confirm that ahrefs is far superior.


Update #3: Ahrefs vs Majestic SEO - The 1 Million Domain Showdown

 

[Eric Rohrback]

I really like SERPwoo because of the comparison tracker, but the downside is that it only goes to the top 20. Anything beyond that won't see the change graph. Still an awesome tool to try and reverse engineer what your competitors are doing.

I started using SEMrush more, since they're doing a better job of building out onsite audit scans, rank tracking, and other cool features in addition to the competitive analysis tool they're known for. I found an affiliate link for a free 30 day trial for the Pro plan, but after that it's about $70/mo.

AS for the the ahrefs/majestic debate. I use both. I think aHrefs has a better index, but Majestic's metrics (trust flow/citation flow) seem to be a better indication how a site is doing.

 

[JacobMaslow]

Eric,

Totally agree with you.

One advantage of scale is that you can use multiple tools to benefit from each. I was solely addressing which one has more links indexed. I was not referring to Ahref's domain metrics. Majestic is superior in that aspect.

Ahref's new content explorer is worthwhile and is similar to buzzsumo.

SEMrush gives you a lot of competitive analysis.

I really like SERPwoo because of the comparison tracker, but the downside is that it only goes to the top 20. Anything beyond that won't see the change graph. Still an awesome tool to try and reverse engineer what your competitors are doing.

I started using SEMrush more, since they're doing a better job of building out onsite audit scans, rank tracking, and other cool features in addition to the competitive analysis tool they're known for. I found an affiliate link for a free 30 day trial for the Pro plan, but after that it's about $70/mo.

AS for the the ahrefs/majestic debate. I use both. I think aHrefs has a better index, but Majestic's metrics (trust flow/citation flow) seem to be a better indication how a site is doing.