MA RK ET INTE LLI GE NCE REPORT : Enterprise SEO Tools ...€¦ · Enterprise SEO Tools 2013: A Buyer’s Guide. Recently named “the only leader” in SEO platforms*, Rio SEO is

A Digital Marketing Depot Research Report

M A R K E T I N T E L L I G E N C E R E P O R T :

Enterprise SEO Tools 2013: A Buyer’s Guide

Recently named “the only leader” in SEO platforms*,

Rio SEO is focused on providing best-of-breed tech-

nology solutions for earned and owned digital media

programs, specifically for SEO and social media marketing.

Rio SEO is among one of the largest independent

providers of SaaS-based SEO automation and analytic

solutions with patented technology.

For more information about Rio SEO

call 858.876.3010 or visit RioSEO.com

*Forrester Research, Inc., The Forrester Wave™: SEO Platforms, October 31, 2012 Report

http://rioseo.com

M A R K E T I N T E L L I G E N C E R E P O R T:


© 2013 Third Door Media, Inc. • http://digitalmarketingdepot.com 2 Email: [email protected]

Table of ContentsScope and Methodology ............................................................................................................................................................. 4

SEO Tools Market Overview ........................................................................................................................................................ 5

Table 1: Will You Spend More, Less or About the Same on SEO in 2012 compared to 2011? ...................................... 5

Table 2: Selected SEO Point Solutions ............................................................................................................................. 6

Table 3: Selected SEO Tool Investments and Acquisitions, 2010-2012 ........................................................................... 7

SEO Tools Market Trends ............................................................................................................................................................. 7

Trend #1: Enterprise SEO Solidifies its Role in Digital Marketing ....................................................................................... 7

Table 4: What is the most important objective your clients are trying to achieve through search engine optimization?......................................................................................................................................................... 8

Table 5: How would you rate your organization’s ability to evaluate the ROI of your SEO? ........................................... 8

Trend #2: Google’s Dominance Challenges SEOs to Rethink Metrics, Data Sources .......................................................... 9

Table 6: In the context of your search marketing efforts, how would you describe the impact of Google’s algorithm updates? ..................................................................................................................... 9

Table 7: Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors ............................................................................................................. 10

Trend #3: Quality Trumps Quantity as Content Re-emerges as King ................................................................................. 10

Trend #4: The Increasing Value of Mobile Optimization .................................................................................................... 11

Table 8: In the context of your search marketing efforts, how would you describe the impact of the following trends and technologies? ................................................................................................................................ 12

Enterprise SEO Tool Capabilities ............................................................................................................................................... 12

Keyword Research and Rank Analysis ................................................................................................................................ 12

Table 9: Selected Enterprise SEO Tool Capabilities ....................................................................................................... 13

Link Analysis and Acquisition .............................................................................................................................................. 14

Competitive Intelligence ..................................................................................................................................................... 14

International Search Tracking ............................................................................................................................................. 14

Site Health/Audits ............................................................................................................................................................... 14

ROI Forecasting/Predictive Analytics ................................................................................................................................. 14

Social Signal Tracking and Integration ................................................................................................................................ 14

APIs and Third Party Data Integration ................................................................................................................................ 15

Pricing/Annual Contracts .................................................................................................................................................... 15

Choosing an Enterprise SEO Solution ....................................................................................................................................... 15

The Benefits of Using Enterprise SEO Tools ....................................................................................................................... 15

Step One: Do You Need an Enterprise SEO Software Tool? ............................................................................................. 16

Step Two: Identify and Contact Appropriate Vendors ........................................................................................................ 16

Step Three: Scheduling the Demo ..................................................................................................................................... 17

Step Four: Check References, Negotiate a Contract ......................................................................................................... 18

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................................................. 18

Vendor Profiles ........................................................................................................................................................................... 19

Analytics SEO ...................................................................................................................................................................... 19

Blueprint .............................................................................................................................................................................. 22

BrightEdge .......................................................................................................................................................................... 24

Conductor ........................................................................................................................................................................... 27

Ginzametrics ........................................................................................................................................................................ 29

gShift Labs ........................................................................................................................................................................... 32

Linkdex ............................................................................................................................................................................... 35




RankAbove ......................................................................................................................................................................... 37

Raven Internet Marketing Tools .......................................................................................................................................... 39

Rio SEO ............................................................................................................................................................................... 42

Searchmetrics Inc. ............................................................................................................................................................... 45

seoClarity ............................................................................................................................................................................. 48

SEOlytics .............................................................................................................................................................................. 50

SyCara ................................................................................................................................................................................. 53

Resources ................................................................................................................................................................................... 56




Scope and MethodologyThis report examines the current market for enterprise SEO tools and the considerations involved in implementing SEO software. This report answers the following questions:

• What trends are driving the adoption of enterprise SEO software?• Who are the leading players in enterprise SEO software?• What capabilities does enterprise SEO software provide? • Does my company need SEO software? • How much does SEO software cost?

If you are considering licensing an SEO software tool, this report will help you decide whether or not you need to. The report has been updated since its original publication in July 2012 to include the latest industry statistics, developing market trends, and new vendor profiles and product updates. This report is not a recommendation of any SEO tool or company, and is not meant to be an endorsement of any particular product, service, or vendor.

For the purposes of this report, search engine optimization (SEO) is defined as the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial,” or “natural” listings on search engines. All major search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing have such results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. Payment isn’t involved, as it is with paid search ads.

The 14 vendors profiled in this report were selected based on their role as an industry leader in enterprise SEO software tools. We have not included companies that offer SEO software tools as part of agency services, such as agencies like Rosetta and iCrossing. “We also excluded SEO point solutions, such as Majestic SEO, which focus on one or two specific aspects of SEO, or don’t sell to the enterprise market, e.g. SEOmoz.

The report was prepared by conducting in-depth interviews with leading vendors and industry experts. Interviews took place in January and February 2013. These, in addition to third party research, form the basis for this report.

Consulting Editors:Marshall Simmonds: Founder, Define Media Group, Inc. (www.definemg.com)Eric Enge: Stone Temple Consulting (www.stonetemple.com)Stephan Spencer: Co-author, The Art of SEO; Founder, Netconcepts (www.stephanspencer.com)

Research/Writers: Nathania Johnson, Karen BurkaEditor: Claire Schoen, Digital Marketing Depot (http://digitalmarketingdepot.com)

www.definemg.com

www.stonetemple.com

www.stephanspencer.com

http://digitalmarketingdepot.com

http://brightedge.com




SEO Tools Market Overview SEO’s role as an effective mainstay of digital marketing continues to evolve, as companies spend more money trying to understand consumer search behavior and make sense of the data that can help turn visitors into customers.

More than half – 55% – of marketers surveyed by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) planned to increase their SEO budgets in 2012. Only 12% of marketers planned to spend less on SEO in 2012; 33% expected their budgets to remain the same as 2011 (see Table 1).

Table 1: Will You Spend More, Less or About the Same on SEO in 2012 compared to 2011?

Source: SEMPO, Econsultancy

The SEO tools market is a fragmented field with few end-to-end enterprise solutions and dozens of point solutions that provide pieces of the SEO puzzle, such as link analysis and acquisition, competitive intelligence, or keyword research and rankings (see Table 2). These point solutions play an important role in the market, as large brand marketers look for best-of-breed tools to work in conjunction with their enterprise solutions, and small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) seek affordable options to manage SEO tasks.

Will Spend More

Will Spend Less

Will Spend About the Same55%

12%

33%

Investment, Acquisitions Boost Market Maturity Investment capital and acquisitions have helped the market mature quickly. Vendors are using organic development and bolt-on acquisitions to solidify core functionality and expand their tools’ scope (see Table 3). In October 2012, for example, Conductor raised $20 million in Series C funding to fuel international expansion, staff growth, and product development. Earlier, in March 2012, BrightEdge attracted $12.6 million in Series C funding, while SyCara raised $2.1 million.

Vendors are using organic development and bolt-on acquisitions to solidify core functionality and expand their tools’ scope




Int’l. keyword research

Page management/proxy server

SERP rank tracking

Link analysis and acquisition

Page optimization

WebCertain

SearchDex Your Amigo

Advanced Web RankingAuthority LabsMicrosite Masters Rank RangerRank Tracker (SEOmoz)SERPs.comSerpScan.comSheer SEO

Ahrefs Google Webmaster ToolsLink Research Tools Majestic SEO Open Site Explorer (SEOmoz)Pitchbox

BloomReachLipperhey

www.webcertain.com

www.searchdex.comwww.youramigo.com

www.advancedwebranking.comwww.authoritylabs.comwww.micrositemasters.comwww.rankranger.comwww.seomoz.orgSERPs.comSerpScan.comwww.sheerseo.com

www.ahrefs.comwww.google.com/webmasters/toolswww.linkresearchtools.comwww.majesticseo.comwww.opensiteexplorer.orgwww.pitchbox.com

www.bloomreach.comwww.lipperhey.com

Source: Third Door Media

Site monitoring

Broken link checker

Log file analysis

Keyword research

Competitive intelligence

SEO Task

Loggly PingdomServer Density

Check My Links Screaming Frog SEO SpiderXenu Link Sleuth

Splunk Sawmill

Keyword DiscoverySEMrush

AdGoorooHitwiseThe Search Monitor

Tool

www.loggly.com www.pingdom.comwww.serverdensity.com

http://dmktgd.com/Zja8QMwww.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/http://xenus-link-sleuth.en.softonic.com/

www.splunk.comwww.sawmill.net

www.keyworddiscovery.comwww.semrush.com

www.adgooroo.comwww.experian.com/hitwise/www.thesearchmonitor.com

URL

Table 2: Selected SEO Point Solutions





Ginzametrics

Conductor

BrightEdge

SEO Acquisitions

Venture Capital and Private Equity Investments

SyCara

Covario/Rio SEO

Company

Company

$1.3MM$400,000

$20MM

$12.6MM

$6.5MM

$2.1MM

Meteor SolutionsTop Local SearchNetconcepts

Acquired

Funding

August 2011January 2011

October 2012

March 2012

March 2010

March 2012

November 2012May 2012January 2010

Date

Date

500 Startups, Venture51, and angel investors500 Startups (seed funding)

Investor Growth Capital, FirstMark Capital, Matrix Partners

Intel Capital, Battery Ventures, Altos Ventures & Illuminate Ventures Battery Ventures, Altos Ventures & Illuminate Ventures

Angel investors including the Arizona Technology Investors Forum (ATIF) and Desert Angels

Social audience measurementHyper-local search and mobileRetail/ecommerce SEO strategy services

Capabilities

Source(s)

Table 3: Selected SEO Tool Investments and Acquisitions, 2010-2012

Investment, Acquisitions Boost Market Maturity Investment capital and acquisitions have helped the market mature quickly. Vendors are using organic development and bolt-on acquisitions to solidify core functionality and expand their tools’ scope (see Table 3). In October 2012, for example, Conductor raised $20 million in Series C funding to fuel international expansion, staff growth, and product development. Earlier, in March 2012, BrightEdge attracted $12.6 million in Series C funding, while SyCara raised $2.1 million.

SEO Tools Market TrendsThe enterprise SEO tools market is being driven by a number of important trends, including:

1. Enterprise SEO solidifies its role in digital marketing strategies.2. Google’s dominance challenges SEOs to rethink key metrics and data sources. 3. Quality trumps quantity as content re-emerges as king. 4. The increasing value of mobile optimization.

The following sections discuss each of these trends in more depth.

Trend #1: Enterprise SEO Solidifies its Role in Digital Marketing

Streamlined marketing organizations and tighter budgets focused on ROI have led many enterprises to tightly integrate SEO into digital marketing programs that reflect more unified marketing strategies and tactics.

The practice of SEO is maturing and its standing within most enterprise organizations rising. As SEO budgets, headcount, and technology adoption grow, so is the demand by the C-suite that organic search show more ROI accountability. To meet these goals, organizations have had to improve their cross-functional staff communication in departments ranging from marketing and PR, to engineering, editorial, web development, and product management.




Nearly 90% of marketers surveyed by SEMPO for its State of Search Marketing Report 2012 said they felt “good” or “okay” about their organization’s ability to document ROI of their SEO activities

The role of SEO expanded from a top-of-funnel to a full-funnel marketing activity when measuring its impact on brand awareness, site traffic, and conversions became achievable (see Table 4). Questions such as: “How are specific keywords converting?” and “Is this the type of traffic or prospect we want or need?” can now be answered by integrating data previously gathered in disparate systems.

Marketers are becoming more confident demonstrating the ROI of their SEO. Nearly 90% of marketers surveyed by SEMPO for its State of Search Marketing Report 2012 said they felt “good” or “okay” about their organization’s ability to document the ROI of their SEO activities (see Table 5).

In response to their customers’ needs, more enterprise SEO tools feature sophisticated workflow and task management options that allow cooperation across departments. SEOs can share keyword research with content creation staff, which can incorporate top-performing keywords into web copy. Management can monitor whether corrections of on-page errors and broken links have been made, and review any resulting trends in traffic.

Social signals have also become a part of SEO tools. Brand-oriented metrics incorporating social shares and +1’s are increasingly being tracked and integrated into digital marketing results as marketers look for the correlations between social media and conversions.

To increase brand awarenessor enhance reputation

11%

5%

26%

26%

21%

34%

34%

38%

To sell products, services orcontent directly online

To drive traffic to website

To generate leads

2012

2011



Table 4: What is the most important objective your clients are trying to achieve through search engine optimization?

Table 5: How would you rate your organization’s ability to evaluate the ROI of your SEO?

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

45%44%

11%

Good Okay Poor

Thousands of Brands Trust One SEO Platform for Organic Search Success

www.conductor.com

© Conductor, Inc. 2012 All Rights Reserved.

Visit conductor.com/trust to learn more.

Organic search drives 5X more traffic than all social media sites combined. Are you investing in the right SEO platform to help you unlock your opportunity?

Talk with a Conductor representative about setting up your trial access today.

http://conductor.com




As digital marketing continues its evolution from an outbound, siloed channel to an inbound, integrated function, marketers and suppliers are adapting. Some companies with roots as SEO tools providers, such as Optify and Hubspot, have repositioned themselves as marketing automation platforms.

Trend #2: Google’s Dominance Challenges SEOs to Rethink Metrics, Data SourcesGoogle continues to innovate at unprecedented speed, and rapid changes to its search engine results page (SERP) algorithms have created challenges for search marketers and agencies alike. An overwhelming majority of search marketers – 87% – say Google’s algorithm changes over the past year to 18 months are “significant” or “highly significant,” according to SEMPO (see Table 6).


Table 6: In the context of your search marketing efforts, how would you describe the impact of Google’s algorithm updates?

Highly significant 39%

48%

13%

Significant

Not Significant

In 2012, Google’s algorithm updates included Penguin, Panda, and Exact Match Domain, as well as the launch of the Google News Meta Keywords tag, and Google+ for Local Business pages.

The complexity and volume of digital data available also has increased exponentially, leading Google to expand and re-prioritize the number of web-based “signals” or ranking factors that impact SERPs. These include millions of videos, images, and social media conversations and content. Google says there are over 200 signals, and the algorithms that weight each of them change many times each year. Table 7 summarizes some of the major factors that search marketers and agencies must focus on for SERP ranking success.

These types of changes have forced marketers and SEO tool vendors alike to rethink their SEO strategies, including their data sources for key metrics, link building tactics, and their use of structured vs. unstructured data.

With “keyword (not provided)” increasing to as much as 25% of organic searches, universal rank performance is becoming more important, allowing marketers to track how different content types perform on the SERPs.

Personalization of SERP results is also impacting marketers’ ability to measure keyword performance, as individual searchers see different results based on their web behavior.

The complexity and volume of digital data available also has increased exponentially, leading Google to expand and re-prioritize the number of web-based “signals” or ranking factors that impact SERPs. These include millions of videos, images, and social media conversations and content.




Source: Search Engine Land, Third Door Media

Table 7: Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors

Turning unstructured data such as social network reviews and conversations into structured data that search engines can more easily crawl has become crucial to SEO performance. Google’s WYSIWYG tool for identifying structured data allows site publishers that use the tool to make it easier for search engines to identify “structure-able” data on any website. Marketers are increasingly turning to Schema.org for HTML markup tags that structure site content in a way that is readable to search engines.

Buoyed by its continuing dominance of the search engine landscape – with market share ranging from 67% to 95%, depending on the data source – Google also became stricter in 2012 about enforcement of terms in its AdWords API access agreements, which contain an anti-scraping provision. Raven Tools became the first SEO vendor to stop displaying scraped data – and others are likely to follow, encouraging customers to rely less on rankings and more on campaign performance metrics that emphasize brand building, site traffic, and conversion.

Trend #3: Quality Trumps Quantity as Content Re-emerges as King

SERP ranking signals are increasingly moving from being “quantity” based, i.e., keyword rankings and number of links, toward being “quality” based. Quality is being determined by a number of factors, including author trust (as evidenced by the expansion of Google’s Rel=Author/AuthorRank program in 2012), as well as content authority, freshness, relevance, and depth.

As a result, content marketing is becoming an effective SEO strategy, increasingly generating higher search rankings and more organic traffic. White hat links are growing in importance, as both Google and Bing released disavow links tools in 2012, which allow sites to lessen the influence of black hat or broken site links on SERPs. Even with the disavow tool, Google does not rush to restore a site’s good status, waiting until it re-crawls and re-indexes the URLs being disavowed

http://searchengineland.com/seotable




before it takes positive action. It can be weeks or months between spider visits to deep or low quality pages.

Google’s Panda and Penguin updates are driving SEOs to focus on creating and marketing relevant, unique content that visitors want to read and link to. Google is increasingly considering on-page time as a ranking factor, viewing the metric as proof of user interest in page content. Adding frequent, fresh content generates additional opportunities to rank well, but only if that content enjoys the necessary search engine authority, from either direct offsite or internal links.

Social endorsements are becoming a key influence as search engines look for site content that is important to web visitors as evidenced by likes, tweets, and shares. For personalized search results, a strong correlation has emerged between social activity and high rankings, and sites that experience strong social sharing perform better in organic search results. Sites that people are socially connected to have a great chance of ranking well for those people. As for the use of social signals as a general signal, to boost un-personalized results, the search engines have been cagey about how much impact they have. However, social is a signal that is being closely watched.

Many of the enterprise SEO tools profiled in this report offer extensive social signal tracking, measurement, and integration of results into their analytics and dashboard reports through the following types of capabilities:

•Social signal tracking. Tracking and measuring social votes (i.e., likes, shares or retweets).•Social as link building. Generating higher volumes of social activity creates more links.•Social monitoring. Identifying social trends, and who (i.e., bloggers) or what sites are the key influencers on particular

keywords and topics.•Social campaign management. Identifying targets for social media campaigns around high-ranking keywords and

topics.

Trend #4: The Increasing Value of Mobile Optimization

More than half of U.S. consumers now have a smart phone, and decreasing prices and broader availability mean penetration will grow rapidly in 2013 and beyond. Already, 60% of consumers consult their smart phone on their way to, or inside of, a brick-and-mortar store, according to research firm Deloitte Digital. These numbers leave little doubt that the role of mobile devices in search and purchase decisions will only increase. The question that remains is how quickly digital marketers will follow through and develop mobile-specific content and formats.

Proponents of mobile optimization argue that search marketers need to address the issues unique to mobile to better capitalize on the huge mobile search audience. A 2012 Resolution Media survey found that 89% of sites that garner the most organic traffic from Google have either mobile URLs, dynamic serving, responsive web design, or a hybrid of all three. Google already develops separately for mobile search, tablet search, and desktop search.

While mobile search is growing, its share of overall search traffic is relatively small. Google’s current recommendation for mobile optimization is responsive web design, meaning there is no additional URL to build links to, and subsequently no additional link-building opportunities. SEO best practices apply equally to desktop, tablet, and mobile content, and for most SEOs, “mobile optimization” means “local optimization,” and focuses on content such as addresses, phone numbers, directions, store images, and calls to action.

A majority of search marketers are taking mobile optimization very seriously, with 88% of respondents to SEMPO’s State of Search Marketing Report 2012 saying that the mobile Internet was having a “significant” or “highly significant” impact on their search marketing efforts (see Table 8). As the search engines gather and analyze more data, results most likely will become increasingly customized by device type.

Social endorsements are becoming a key influence as search engines look for site content that is important to web visitors as evidenced by likes, tweets, and shares.




Enterprise SEO Tool CapabilitiesSEO software comes in many shapes and sizes, from rank-checking tools and keyword research toolsets to full-service solutions that manage keywords, links, competitive intelligence, international rankings, social signal integration, and workflow rights and roles. The majority of the SEO solutions profiled in this report offer the following core capabilities:

• Keyword research and rankings;• Link (also called backlink) analysis and acquisition;• Workflow and task management;• Competitive intelligence; and• International search tracking.

Enterprise-level solutions may also provide more extensive link and site analytics that include predictive scoring systems to identify the potential opportunities to improve brand websites or link authority. Vendors also begin to differentiate by offering more frequent data updates, or additional modules, such as local or mobile SEO, sometimes requiring additional investment. Other more advanced capabilities may include, but are not limited to:

• ROI forecasting and/or predictive analytics;• Key performance indicator (KPI) and management dashboards;• Social signal publishing and/or tracking;• Universal and/or blended search rankings;• API for third-party data integration; and• Scalability to manage thousands or millions of pages and keywords;

The following section discusses some of these capabilities and the key considerations involved in choosing an enterprise SEO solution (see Table 9).

Keyword Research and Rank Analysis

Keyword research – knowing what terms people used to find your website and using those terms in your copy – is a pillar of effective SEO. Virtually all enterprise SEO solutions provide keyword research tools that allow users to discover the ways that consumers may be searching for content. Where the tools differ is in how they source their keyword research and rankings, and how often they update the data.

Table 8: In the context of your search marketing efforts, how would you describe the impact of the following trends and technologies?


Rise of the mobile Internet

Google algorithm updates

Personalization

Behavioral targeting

0 20 40 60 80 100

13%

13%

26%

29%

41% 47%

48% 39%

49% 25%

44% 27%

Not significant

Significant

Highly significant

Put your feet up while our

SEO platform takes the strainOptimize how you Optimize™

Multiple sites to manage?

Try it for FREE TODAY!

www.analyticsseo.com/free

Photo Credit [CC] http://www.flickr.com/photos/anieto2k/5603681683/

+1 (917) 300 1036 [USA]

+44 (0) 208 977 4465 [UK]

[email protected]

http://analyticsseo.com/free




Table 9: Selected Enterprise SEO Tool Capabilities


1Data can be exported, not imported through the API2Link analysis only.3As Opportunity AssessmentsSocial Network Abbreviations: DE=Delicious; DI=Digg; FL=Flickr; FB=Facebook; G+=Google+; PN=Pinterest; RE=Reddit; ST=Stumbleupon; TE=Technorati; TW=Twitter; VI=Vimeo; WP=Wordpress; YT=YouTube

Analytics SEO

GinzaMetrics

BrightEdge

RankAbove

Rio SEO

SEOlytics

Conductor

Linkdex

Raven Tools

seoClarity

Searchmetrics

SyCara

Blueprint

gShift Labs

Vendor

4 4 41 8

4 4 4 8

4 Data licensed from Majestic

SEO

Proprietary data 90 countries FB, DE, G+, PN, TW

4 Combination of proprietary and licensed data

Combination of proprietary and licensed data

120 countries FB, G+, TW

4 4 4 4

4 4 4 4

4 43 41 4

4 8 4 8

4 Combination of proprietary and licensed data2

Proprietary data 111 countries FB, G+, TW

4

4

4

4

Licensed from Majestic SEO

Combination of proprietary and licensed data from Majestic

SEO

Proprietary data


Proprietary data

Available for any country

58 countries

30 countries

8

FB, G+, TW, YT

DE, DI, TE,

TW

4

4

4

4

4

4

8

8

4 8 4 8

4 4 4 4

4 4 4 4

4 4 4 8

4

4





45 countries

242 Country / Language

Combinations

FB, G+, LI, TW

FB, G+, LI, TW

4

4

4

4

Licensed from SEOmoz and Majestic SEO

4

Proprietary data

Data licensed from SEOmoz and Majestic

SEO

Licensed from Majestic SEO and SEOmoz

4

Proprietary data

8

8

43 countries

123 countries

33 countries

FB, FL, G+, RE, ST, TW, WP, VI, YT,

FB, G+, TW

FB, G+, PN, TW

FB, TW

4 4 8 8

4 8 4 4

8 8 Data drawn from Google Webmaster Tools API

Available for any country

8

4 Data licensed from Blekko

Proprietary data All with Google search and language

indexes

FB, G+, LI, TW, YT

Site Audits

ROI Forecasting

APIfor 3rd

Party DataIntegration

Annual Contract Required

Competitive Intelligence

Link Analysis & Acquisition

Keyword Research/Rank

Analysis

International Search

Tracking

Social Signal Tracking




Link Analysis and Acquisition

Links were the first significant “off the page” ranking factor used by search engines to improve SERP relevancy. And links continue to be the one of the most important external signals that can help a website rise in search engine rankings. The majority of enterprise SEO solutions provide link analysis (what sites are linking to yours?) and link-building recommendations (what sites should you solicit links from?) as part of their base product. Link quality is becoming more important, as both Google and Bing released disavow links tools in 2012, which allow sites to “disavow” or lessen the influence of black hat or broken site links on SERPs.

Competitive Intelligence

Competitive intelligence involves monitoring competitors’ keywords and other site metrics. Most enterprise SEO tools enable users to view side-by-side brand and competitors’ current and historical rankings. Competitive keywords and sites are usually included in any pricing counts or limits. A few vendors with tiered pricing plans specify the number of competitors tracked in each tier.

International Search Tracking

Market globalization means that more and more U.S.-based enterprises conduct business in multiple countries and languages, and have websites that do so, too. As a result, the vast majority of enterprise SEO solutions profiled in this report offer a range of international search capabilities that cross borders, languages, and alphabets, including supporting international data integrations with other systems, such as web analytics.

Site Health/Audits

With content quality and marketing becoming the lynchpin for many marketers’ SEO strategies, site health checks or audits have become a popular and important tool offered by enterprise SEO vendors. Site audits may offer optimization recommendations for keywords, page structures, and crawlability, prioritizing and assigning scores for such factors as HTML title tags, body tags, and meta tags. The goal for the customer is to create a site that is rich with authoritative content that is easy to reach, share, and link back to.

ROI Forecasting/Predictive Analytics

With C-suite executives demanding that organic search prove its bottom-line impact, ROI forecasting and predictive analytics are becoming critical tools for professional SEOs and agency executives. Enterprise SEO vendors have responded to this market need with analytics tools that project the potential ROI of planned keyword, link, and even social media campaigns, allowing customers to evaluate the level of KPIs such as incremental traffic or rank gains that merit a campaign investment or resources.

Social Signal Tracking and Integration

Social media activity has become an increasingly important ranking factor or signal in search engine algorithms and results. Many of the enterprise SEO solutions profiled in this report track, measure and integrate social signals into their analytics and dashboard reports. In particular, social endorsements are becoming a key influence as search engines look for site content that is important to web visitors as evidenced by metrics such as the number of “likes,” “tweets,” and shares. A strong correlation has emerged between social activity and high rankings, and sites that experience strong social sharing perform better in organic search results.

Market globalization means that more and more U.S.-based enterprises conduct business in multiple countries and languages, and have websites that do so, too.




APIs and Third Party Data Integration

A solution’s Application Programming Interface (API) is a source code-based specification that allows other software systems to communicate with it. The API is the key that can either lock or unlock the software for integration with other systems.

Data sharing, particularly in terms of identifying the relationship between keyword and link performance, social media, site traffic, and conversion, is critical to SEO success. As a result, integration with web analytics platforms such as Adobe SiteCatalyst, Webtrends, Coremetrics and Google Analytics, has become standard for the SEO vendors profiled in this report. Several vendors have opened their APIs to additional system integration, including social listening tools, as well as CRM and content management (CMS) systems in response to marketers’ needs for a more holistic approach to digital marketing.

Pricing/Annual Contracts

Virtually all enterprise SEO tools are provided on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) basis, i.e. the vendor makes the software available online and is responsible for all maintenance and system administration. Pricing models vary, and at the enterprise level, are often customized based on the number of users, sites, keyword rankings, and pages. Determining your overall cost can be more art than science and based upon your brand’s keyword, link building, international coverage, and other SEO activities.

Licensing an enterprise SEO tool can be a significant investment, particularly for ecommerce or retail marketers with hundreds of thousands of SKUs or product pages. Marketers typically spend tens of thousands of dollars each month in licensing fees, and pay for installation and staff training to maximize the value of the tool and its capabilities.

Choosing an Enterprise SEO SolutionThe Benefits of Using Enterprise SEO Tools

With hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, and even millions of pages, sites, social conversations, images, and keywords to manage and optimize, enterprise SEO has become increasingly complicated and time-consuming. Using an enterprise SEO software tool can increase efficiency and productivity while reducing the time and errors involved in managing organic search campaigns. More specifically, automating SEO through an enterprise toolset can provide the following benefits:

•Many tools, one interface. Enterprise SEO tools perform many tasks in one system as discussed in the preceding pages. Integration of tasks, reporting, and user permissions offers substantial benefits to enterprise-level SEO operations, compared to using single-function point solutions.

•More efficient management of global operations. Enterprise SEO tools have built-in diagnostics that can be invaluable on a global scale to identify site-wide issues across languages, countries or regions. These tools uncover macro and micro issues with pages, templates, and infrastructure.

•The ability to stay up-to-date with the search engines. SEO software vendors have dedicated teams and engineers to follow algorithm changes and their impact on ranking factors.

•Automated reporting to provide data in near real time. Many brands end up trying to put a lot of data in spreadsheets and manually update them. But that doesn’t provide a complete view of the data. Many enterprise SEO tools offer highly customized reporting capabilities that are widget- and wizard-driven to make reporting easy and fast.

Understanding your current marketing processes, knowing how to measure success, and being able to identify where you are looking for improvements, are all critical pieces of the SEO tool decision-making process. The following section outlines four steps to help your organization begin that process and choose the SEO tool that is the right fit for your business needs and goals.




Step One: Do You Need an Enterprise SEO Software Tool?

Deciding whether or not your company needs an enterprise-level SEO tool calls for the same evaluative steps involved in any software adoption, including a comprehensive self-assessment of your organization’s business needs, staff capabilities, management support, and financial resources. Use the following questions as a guideline to determine the answers.

1. Do we have the right human resources in place? Having the people to implement and use SEO tools is a prerequisite to success. If you have marketing staff, SEO tools will make them more efficient and effective.

2. Do we have C-level buy-in? Enterprise SEO software is a five- or six-figure investment annually. Agreeing to a definition of “success” with the executives at your company is critical to winning their long-term support.

3. Do we have the right technical resources? Successful enterprise SEO needs dedicated technical resources deployed to it.

4. Who will own enterprise SEO? Enterprise SEO is commonly placed into marketing, editorial, or IT depending on the nature of the business. Unfortunately, in large companies, it usually ends up with either whoever has the budget or whoever can best articulate the business case. In a best case scenario, it should be both.

5. Can we invest in staff training? It is vital to provide training to technical, design, content, and marketing teams, reinforcing it on a regular basis. A successful enterprise SEO implementation will find ways to inject the SEO knowledge into existing training programs and identify internal evangelists to broadly distribute the messages. Training needs to be comprehensive, consistent, and continuous.

6. Have we established KPIs and put a system in place for tracking, measuring, and reporting results? It’s important to know upfront what you want your SEO to achieve. Do you want to improve SERP rankings, or the time visitors spend on your site? Is conversion, whether a product purchase or white paper download, your key objective? Having goals will help you decide if you’re ready to put an enterprise tool to good use, as well as help you decide which tool will best meet your organizational needs.

7. Do we have realistic expectations? It is not uncommon for enterprise SEO efforts to take at least six months to generate tangible results. If SEO is a new initiative within the organization, there are cultural shifts and workflow processes that will need to be implemented and refined. Setting realistic timelines and goals will help build support at all levels of the enterprise.

Step Two: Identify and Contact Appropriate Vendors

Once you have determined that enterprise SEO software makes sense for your business, spend time researching individual vendors and their capabilities. Make a list of all the SEO capabilities you currently have, those that you would like to have, and those that you can’t live without. This last category is critical, and will help you avoid making a costly mistake.

For example, if social signal integration is crucial to your natural search process, this is one capability you will focus on during vendor interviews and demos. If you find that one vendor doesn’t offer this “must-have” capability, it’s not a fit.

Take your list of capabilities and then do some research. The “Resources” section at the back of this report includes a list of blogs, reports, and industry research that will help. (Many of the vendors profiled in this report also provide white papers and interactive tools that can help.)

Once you have determined that enterprise SEO software makes sense for your business, spend time researching individual vendors and their capabilities.




Once you’ve done the necessary research, narrow your list down to those vendors that meet your criteria. Submit your list of the SEO capabilities you’ve identified, and set a timeframe for them to reply. (Whether or not you choose to do this in a formal RFI/RFP process is an individual preference, however be sure to give the same list of capabilities to each vendor to facilitate comparison.) From the RFP responses, you should be able to narrow your list down to three or four tools that you’ll want to demo.

Step Three: Scheduling the Demo

Set up demos with your short list of vendors within a relatively short timeframe after receiving the RFP responses, to help make relevant comparisons. Make sure that all potential internal users are on the demo call, and pay attention to the following:

• How easy is the tool to use?• Does the vendor seem to understand our business and our marketing needs?• Are they showing us our “must-have” features?

Other questions to ask each vendor include:

1. How do you calculate your search volumes? Knowing how the system treats information types will impact how you ascribe value to certain keyword terms, make decisions about keyword and content choices, and affect the ROI of your search marketing efforts. Find out if the tool uses exact match, broad match, or phrase match, and where raw data is extracted from (i.e., analytics, log files or a proprietary tracking pixel).

2. Can this system track millions of searches, visits, site pages, etc? Knowing whether the solution is a true enterprise solution or a simple tool that may not scale for your business needs is crucial. Limits on the numbers of keyword rankings, pages or traffic tracked could impact your use of the system or significantly increase the cost.

3. Do you support international search? There are many nuances within international SEO that can mislead even the best SEOs. Find out if the numerator in the calculation of the platform’s average clicks per search or average search volume are normalized for global or local (in that market) search, and whether or not search ranks are calculated from within country or remotely. Misapplication of international data could impact the ROI of your search marketing efforts.

4. How robust and flexible are your reporting options? Different users have different reporting needs. Find out if reports can be customized and automatically delivered to different users and types of users. For example, high level KPIs for the CMO versus drill-down details for web development or IT. And, whether any and all data can be exported in CSV format.

5. What other meta-information does your system collect that may be made available to me via API? Being able to trace search traffic data from the front of the funnel all the way to sales data in a CRM or business intelligence system will help you to more accurately calculate ROI.

6. Is there a workflow built in that allows me to coordinate the work of my marketing, content, web development, social media, and PR teams across the organization? SEO does not operate in a silo. A true enterprise tool should provide built-in workflow management that includes task assignment, management, and monitoring of completion rates across groups.

7. What new features are you considering? What’s the long-term roadmap and launch dates? The SEO landscape is constantly changing with new features to further leverage digital assets rapidly coming out of Google and Bing. It’s important to understand the level of innovation and the ability to add and track emerging technologies. Rel=prev/next, Authorship, Schema.org are all examples of enhancements that should be on every vendor’s radar. Knowing a vendor’s new feature release date schedule and its ability to stick to committed timelines is also very important. This helps establish a long-term trust and relationship with the vendor that it will always be on the cutting edge of SEO.




Step Four: Check References, Negotiate a Contract

Before deciding on a particular vendor, take the time to speak with one or two customer references, preferably someone in a business similar to yours. The SEO vendor should be able to supply you with several references if you cannot identify ones yourself. Use this opportunity to ask any additional questions, and to find out more about any questions that weren’t answered during the demo. Make sure that the person you’ve been referred to is someone who is a primary user of the solution. Consider also asking these basic questions:

• Why did you move to an enterprise SEO tool?• Why did you select this tool over others?• Has this tool lived up to your expectations?• How long did the system take to implement?• Are you also using additional tools for crawling, page evaluations, competitive analysis, domain, and link data? • Were there any surprises that you wish you’d known about beforehand?• Where have you seen the most success? The biggest challenges?• How are you measuring your own success?• How easy was the set-up process and how long? Did the vendor help?• How responsive is customer service?• Has there been any down time?• What do you wish they did differently?• Would you recommend this tool?

Although not all vendors require an annual contract, many do. Once you’ve selected a vendor, be sure to get in writing a list of what technology and support are covered in the contract. Ask about what kinds of additional fees might come up. Are there charges for custom integrations, if so, how much? What is the hourly charge for engineering services, and is there a minimum? What partner organizations are available to install and integrate the tool? If we need to train a new hiremidyear, what will that cost? What is the “out” clause? Obtaining the answers up front – and having them in writing – will ensure fewer surprises or additional costs down the road.

ConclusionSEO has become a staple of digital marketing, but the market continues to evolve rapidly to meet the challenges posed by the search engines, social networks, and the mobile consumer. To be most effective, marketers must be agile, be plugged in to every aspect of the digital marketing organization, and have the support of C-suite executives.

An enterprise SEO tool can help you achieve these goals, by automating time-consuming tasks, and providing accountability that can prove the ROI of your SEO campaigns. Marketers have a wide range of choices when it comes to SEO tools, from point solutions that monitor broken links or SERP rankings, to page optimization tools, and full-service enterprise solutions that manage keywords, links, competitive intelligence, international rankings, social signal integration, and workflow rights and roles.

Understanding your current marketing processes, knowing how to measure success, and being able to identify where you are looking for improvements, are all critical pieces of the SEO tool decision-making process. Perform your due diligence when it comes to identifying, researching, and interviewing SEO tool vendors. A successful conclusion to this process can result in greater long-term ROI and ongoing business productivity. n




Vendor Profiles

Analytics SEO2800 Broadway Street, Suite 124Pearland, TX 77581(T) 917-300-1036www.analyticsseo.com

Company Overview

•Founded in 2009•Headquartered in London•21 employees•Raised $1 million in angel funding in

2012

Target Customer

•SEO agencies and enterprises managing multiple sites

Key Executives

Laurence O’Toole, CEOPenny Holt, Finance DirectorMark Bennett, CTODennis Hart, President, U.S. Operations

Key Customers

Crédit AgricoleDigitasHyundaiOxfamPC WorldRegusSantander Private Bank

Product Overview

•SaaS-based tool focused on multi-site management and white label reporting solutions•Data is updated on a daily basis

Analytics SEO is a SaaS-based solution focused on multi-site management and white label solutions for its agency and enterprise customers. Keywords suggestions are automatically generated across multiple search engines. The toolset tracks keyword ranking history, providing an overview of average monthly and weekly rankings. Segmentation is available to sort generic (non-branded) from branded keyword traffic. Analytics SEO also offers technical site auditing and on-site optimization insights.

Analytics SEO’s backlink tool analyzes link quality and acquisition, automatically finding new link possibilities, including education and government sites, and tracking new links. It includes free article, PR, and newswire services, as well as generic and niche directories.




Vendor Profiles

A competitive intelligence feature enables benchmarking to set SEO goals and budgets. Competitor sites are audited to discover ranking factors and backlinks. Users can analyze up to five competitor sites per domain; bulk competitive analysis is available upon request.

Analytic SEO’s productivity tools manage workflow, with multi-user access and permissions to allow users to delegate and collaborate on projects. SEO tasks are prioritized through scoring and color-coding, which are filtered by topic and status.

Metrics are displayed in filterable charts and tables, and data can be sorted within the tool itself. Reporting is available via PowerPoint, Excel, and PDF. Analytics SEO partners with Majestic SEO for backlink data and SEMrush for keyword volumes. Customers can integrate analytics data from Google Analytics or Omniture. Data is updated on a daily basis.

White label solutions support reporting and sales processes, and brandable Powerpoint, Excel, and PDF reports are available. SEO reporting widgets allow customers to display metrics on their websites, which in turn can be viewed by their clients. A white label site auditing tool is offered as a means of lead generation for seo agency customers. In 2012, over 20,000 leads were generated for Analytics SEO’s customers. Partners can develop additional white label solutions and new product and revenue streams with Analytics SEO’s API; current partners include yellow pages and hosting companies.

Social Signal Integration

•Social signal analysis focuses on content marketing and quality

• Integration with Majestic SEO helps identify quality links

Analytics SEO provides social media analysis in two ways: content marketing and link prospecting. With content marketing, the system conducts an analysis of a customer’s top performing organic landing pages to check for social shares. For link prospecting, Analytics SEO taps its integration with Majestic SEO to find quality links from sites and then checks the major social networks to see whether these sites have an engaged and active user base, and are worth contacting for outreach.




Vendor Profiles

Pricing and Service

•Free lifetime account is offered •No annual contract required

Analytics SEO offers several pricing plans, including a freemium option that includes one domain for three users, 50 keyword rank checks, 1,000 pages crawled, and 1,000 backlinks. Pricing for agencies, SMEs (small and mid-sized enterprises), and enterprises is as follows:

•SME: Begins at $169/month for five domains, five users, 500 keyword rank checks, 75,000 pages crawled, and 25,000 backlinks; and rises to $839/month for unlimited users, 50 domains, 7,500 keyword rank checks, one million pages crawled, and 500,000 backlinks. The higher-end pricing also offers advanced reporting, multi-site management, training and priority support.

•Agency: Pricing ranges from $499/month for unlimited users, 25 domains, 5,000 keyword rank checks, 500,000 pages crawled, and 250,000 backlinks, to $2,199/month for unlimited users, 125 domains, 25,000 keyword rank checks, 2.5 million pages crawled, and 2.5 million backlinks. The higher-end pricing also offers advanced reporting, multi-site management, training and priority support.

•Enterprise: Start at $4,199/ month and includes 20 large domains, unlimited users, 50,000 keyword rank checks, 20 million pages crawled, and one million backlinks.

Both month-to-month and annual subscriptions are offered. Customers who pre-pay for an annual contract receive a 17% discount. Customer support is provided through phone, email, and GoToMeeting. Free training is included for all accounts and onsite training is available for larger packages. Customers that exceed the package limits (keywords, pages crawled, and backlinks analysed) can upgrade to a larger package or pay-as-you-go for an increased allowance.

Company Strategy

•London-based company targeting U.S. for growth•2013 enhancements include greater data transparency, backlink analysis and social media capabilities

London-based Analytics SEO is targeting the U.S. market for growth. While the company doesn’t disclose its customer numbers, officials say that the solution analyzes over 35,000 sites daily. Enhancements for 2013 include building a categorizing feature for its backlink analysis tool, which would sort links according to factors such as type and relevance. Social media capabilities and mobile rankings also are on the company’s roadmap.

Greater transparency is also in the pipeline. Analytics SEO plans to publish a dashboard component showing internal performance stats, such as the percentage of tasks being run on time. This is part of a greater goal of improving service along with technology enhancements to give better SEO and content marketing recommendations.




Vendor Profiles

Blueprint4701 Admiral Way, #345Seattle, WA 98116(T) 650-260-5862http://www.ninebyblue.com/blueprint/

Company Overview

•Launched in October 2012 by Nine by Blue, which was founded in 2008

•9 Employees

Target Customer

•Mid-sized to enterprise companies and agencies

Key Executives

Vanessa Fox, Founder and CEOJeremy Wadsack, CTO

Key Customers

AllRecipesBankRateHigh Gear MediaIGNMicrosoft

Product Overview

•Focus on search analytics, with SEO insights offered through data visualization

•Data pulled from two sources: Google Webmaster Tools and a site’s server logs

Blueprint’s focus is search analytics, offering SEO insights through data visualization. Graphs are marked with primary colors, not surprising for a tool founded by a former Googler, Vanessa Fox. Charts use softer pastel colors to highlight important data sets. A central dashboard displays prioritized tasks as well as a technical checklist to improve site architecture. Blueprint currently utilizes two data sources to fuel the visualizations: Google Webmaster Tools and a site’s server logs.

Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) anonymous, aggregated data is analyzed for keyword queries, rankings, impressions, and clickthrough rates. Keyword categories are valued over individual keywords, in order to gain an overview of trends. Blueprint takes GWT’s query data and organizes it into categories, which is then used to create SEO recommendations and reports. The reports pinpoint the cause for a traffic increase or decrease, i.e., rankings changes, impressions changes (caused, for instance, by seasonal search volume variation), or changes in clickthrough rate from the search results (which may be a result of the loss of rich snippets or other display components).

Blueprint uses server log data to determine site crawlability, including how long it takes to crawl a site and what types of issues the search bots are running into when they perform crawls. Issues could include non-indexed URLs, redirect loops, server misconfigurations, and canonicalization mistakes. Those issues are turned into prioritized recommendations visualized with graphs and charts to assist in the technical optimization of a site. Blueprint will work with a customer’s IT




Vendor Profiles

department in order to access the server logs. The only data gathered from server logs is search engine bot entries. Blueprint does not store personally identifiable customer information.

Blueprint provides predictive analysis from the GWT and server log data, allowing brands to see the potential ROI of planned campaigns. For example, a company may be planning an SEO campaign to improve ranking for a set of keywords in a particular topic area. The predictive analysis would evaluate whether the additional traffic from an increase in ranking for that topic area would be worth the time and resources dedicated to the effort.


•Blueprint does not offer social signal integration at this time.

Pricing and Service

•Tiered pricing based on organic search traffic referrals•Average monthly spend ranges from $1,500 to $6,500/

month

Blueprint’s tiered pricing is based on organic search traffic referrals. Traffic is measured as an aggregation of all sites, subdomains, and subfolders, with an added fee for each. Customized bundling is also available.

Agencies are charged a base rate for aggregate traffic from all client sites, with an incremental fee associated with the total number of sites. Drawing multiple client sites into one account offers a savings over creating individual accounts for each client.

The average monthly spend ranges from $1,500 to $6,500 per month depending on traffic. Email and phone support is included. An annual contract is not required but a 25% discount is available with a six-month contract. Customers will receive new features at no additional cost.

Company Strategy

•New launch with many new features scheduled for release•Third party web analytics integration will include providers such as Google Analytics and Adobe SiteCatalyst

Less than a year since its October 2012 launch, Blueprint is releasing new features every couple of weeks, with many more on its roadmap. On deck are alerts and notifications, which will be displayed on the dashboard and are available to be automatically emailed as well. Third party web analytics integration will include major analytics providers such as Google Analytics and Adobe SiteCatalyst. In the Blueprint pipeline is URL-based data, which will be drawn from GWT’s top URLs data and analytics data. The company also plans to add data from Bing Webmaster Tools in the near future, and incorporate ROI forecasting into its predictive analysis capabilities.




Vendor Profiles

BrightEdge999 Baker Way, Suite 500San Mateo, CA 94404(T) 800-578-8023www.brightedge.com

Company Overview

•Founded in 2007•125-plus employees•4500 brands•600 direct brands •Additional offices New York and

London

Target Customer

•Enterprise marketers, digital agencies, SMB ecommerce companies

Key Executives

Jim Yu, founder and CEO Lemuel Park, founder and CTO Joshua Crossman, VP, Client Services and StrategyBarrett Foster, VP, SalesAlbert Gouyet, VP, OperationsBrad Mattick, VP, Marketing and ProductsSammy Yu, Chief ArchitectTom Ziola, VP, Business Development

Key Customers

AdobeCitrixHPMarriottMicrosoftPerformicsQuora

Product Overview

•SaaS-based S3 SEO platform offers patented competitive intelligence and reverse indexing•Blended Rank measures a variety of search rankings including rich media, social and geographic results, as well as

Google 7 results pages

BrightEdge’s SaaS-based S3 platform offers patented competitive intelligence and reverse indexing to provide comprehensive analytics reporting. The company touts elastic computing on big data to allow users to scale up or down with global coverage. BrightEdge tracks global and local search engine rankings across 141 cities and 111 countries, including China’s Baidu and Russia’s Yandex. Keywords can be tracked in either English or the local language. Customers




Vendor Profiles

can check their performance by keyword group and compare it to competitors. The solution uncovers new untracked competitors as well.

Customizable dashboards provide a comprehensive picture of SEO performance, from rankings to visits to conversions. Task management workflow is included, which tracks assignment, progress, and completion. Recognizing the blurring lines of local, universal, social and organic search results on the SERP, BrightEdge has built out a feature called Blended Rank, which measures true search rankings across rich media, social, and geographic results. BrightEdge includes competitive intelligence, keyword opportunities, and SEO recommendations for on and off page factors based on trending data. The correlation between social and SEO is examined through a patent- pending technology built with partners and customers Facebook and Twitter.

Page-level SEO recommendations are made for over 32 on and offpage factors including content, header tags, meta tags, social signals, backlinks, and keywords. BrightEdge partners with Majestic SEO’s link index for link management. Customers can learn about existing and historical backlink information including quantity, anchor text, URL, add date, category, and type. The system also provides recommendations for backlink opportunities and insight into competitor backlinks.

BrightEdge integrates with all major web analytics providers including Google Analytics, Adobe SiteCatalyst, Webtrends, and IBM Coremetrics. Setup is facilitated by the company’s BrightEdge Connect API. Customized reporting options include financial forecasting for SEO projects; keyword prioritization can be customized according to difficulty and resource variables.

Social Media Integration

•Counts both Facebook and Twitter as customers and partners•Social and SEO metrics can be compared side by side

BrightEdge counts both Facebook and Twitter as customers of its technology, and has partnered with both social networks to build products and provide case studies and best practices. A social site audit performs a site check on Facebook’s OpenGraph, offering optimization for a brand’s Facebook page performance. Twitter trends can be viewed directly within the S3 platform and used to time engagement and outreach.

Social signals such as “likes” and “tweets” are integrated into keyword rankings. Shared URLs, +1s on Google + and LinkedIn metrics are also tracked. Social and SEO metrics can be compared side by side, as can the social SEO performance of the top 10 ranking pages for a keyword.

Pricing and Service

•Customized pricing based on number of keywords and websites, as well as global and local coverage•Customer success organization helps manage implementation and report building




Vendor Profiles

BrightEdge’s pricing is customized and based on the volume of keywords, websites, and global/local coverage; there are additional fees for custom integrations. Accounts are billed monthly, and volume discounts are available.

BrightEdge has more than 35 customer success managers based out of the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, and London. The customer success team is comprised of SEO experts who work with customers on implementation, business objectives, and best practices, as well as building metrics and dashboard reports. In addition to training and implementation assistance, a quarterly, in-person executive business review is included to gauge results. Inbound service is available 24/7 through email and system-based routing tickets.

Company Strategy

•Recent innovations include page-centric SEO and CMS integration•Seen dozens of large brands upgrade from tools to S3 platform

BrightEdge’s own recent customer survey data indicates that SEO is increasingly about content marketing and a page-centric approach, rather than a purely keyword-driven one. As a result, BrightEdge allows customers to optimize pages for multiple keywords and also focuses on internal linking structure. BrightEdge is further supporting this change in approach with the release of its Page Manager module in September 2012, and the February 2013 release of Content Optimizer integration with Adobe CQ.




Vendor Profiles

Conductor230 Park Avenue South, 12th FloorNew York, NY 10003888.9CONDUCTwww.conductor.com

Company Overview

•Founded in January 2007•90 employees•3,000 customers•Raised $20 million in Series C funding in

October 2012 led by Investor Growth Capital, with FirstMark Capital and Matrix Partners also contributing

Target Customer

•Large agencies and enterprise-level marketers

• Internet Retailers

Key Executives

Seth Besmertnik, CEO Brian Bennett, VP, Channels & PartnersMaria Bradley, Director, Customer Success Seth Dotterer, VP, Marketing and ProductAndy Goldman, CFOEric Reisch, VP, Account Development & SalesJosh Rosenblum, Director of TechnologyAndrew Wilson, VP, Engineering & Co-founder

Key Customers

BestBuyBox IncFedExGeneral Electric (GE)Siemens

Product Overview

•Offers daily tracking across organic, universal and international search results•SEO Task Manager allows one-click sharing of metrics, annotations, and reports • International tracking covers forty-five countries

Conductor’s Searchlight offers daily tracking across organic, universal and international search results. The SEO Task Manager allows multiple teams to assign tasks and share metrics, annotations and reports. Forty-five global markets are supported.




Vendor Profiles

Searchlight tracks and measures keyword rankings, backlinks, and competitive intelligence. Keyword summaries show local and global rankings for both Google and Bing; historical data includes all HTML allowing customers to view page and rank changes over time for their own sites as well as competitors. Keyword ranking profiles can be segmented by product categories and color coded. Automated alerts signal issues that require immediate attention, and organic search forecasts guide customers in creating SEO goals, which the system prioritizes.

Users can view and compile data and insights through personalized dashboards and into customized reports. In addition to its proprietary data collection and processing, Conductor partners with SEMrush for keyword research and SEOmoz for link reporting. Searchlight offers third party software integrations with systems such as eCommerce and CRM, through its tool, The SEO Cloud. Searchlight integrates with all major analytics platforms including Google Analytics, Adobe SiteCatalyst, IBM’s Coremetrics, and Webtrends.


•Tracks social signals similar to how it tracks on-page factors, keywords, and backlinks•Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ tracked

Searchlight tracks social signals from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+, in much the same way it tracks on-page factors, keywords, and backlinks. The data collected informs recommendations for keyword opportunities, search rankings, and brand awareness. Competitive intelligence is performed for social media factors as well. Metrics are available for reporting, which can be shared and exported.

Pricing and Service

•Customized SaaS-based pricing based on keyword volume•Engagements often begin with a free trial period

Searchlight pricing is customized based on customer need, and begins at $2,000 per month. Potential customers can try out the software through a free 7-day trial. According to Conductor executives, the average customer spend is $50,000 annually.

Conductor’s customer success team provides support, training and advice. A customer community facilitates learning through an information-sharing network. The community also offers access to instructional documentation, case studies, and Conductor research.

Company Strategy

•Doubled its staff, increased revenue by 100%, and released more than 100 product features in 2012•Features can be requested in Conductor’s customer community

Fresh off a Series C funding round, which infused $20 million into the company, Conductor announced that it doubled its staff, increased revenue by 100%, and released more than 100 product features in 2012. Conductor’s customer community plays an active role in the company’s development roadmap through its feature requests. For the near future, Conductor is focusing on more features to support global expansion, big data, traffic opportunities, and enabling non-search departments within an organization to explore search as a means of optimizing ROI.




Vendor Profiles

Ginzametrics444 Castro Street, 12th Floor Mountain View, CA 94041(T) 888-469-2707www.ginzametrics.com

Company Overview

•Founded in May 2010 as a product of Ginzamarkets

•10 employees•Originally funded by Y Combinator; received $1.3

million in additional seed funding in August 2011 from 500 Startups, Venture51 and several angel investors

•Additional offices in Toyko and Poland

Target Customer

•Mid-market and enterprise-level ecommerce, in-house marketers, and agencies with SEO expertise

Key Executives

Ray Grieselhuber, CEO and Co-founderNick Allen, VP of Engineering and Co-founderErin Robbins O’Brien, Head of StrategyMasahiro Shimizu, Country Manager – Japan

Key Customers

DropboxGroupMOutriderPE.comRakutenSurveyMonkeyTBWA

Product Overview

•An automated SEO data management dashboard with global capabilities•Offers optimization recommendations for keywords and content targeting, page structure, and crawlability

Ginzametrics positions its tool as an automated SEO data management dashboard with global capabilities, and provides daily keywords rankings across three search engines in a site’s geographic market. The system supports over 55 countries, 19 of which were added in December 2012. A localized user interface supports five languages: English, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and Russian. Ginzametrics is the top selling enterprise SEO platform in the Japanese market.




Vendor Profiles

An implementation wizard guides users through the initial setup process in five minutes. Proprietary algorithms work in combination with a customer’s third party analytics provider to track and measure daily site rankings, traffic and conversions, and optimization opportunities. Ginzametrics integrates with major analytics providers including Google Analytics, Webtrends, Adobe SiteCatalyst, and Coremetrics as well as CRM solutions such as Salesforce.

Ginzametrics offers optimization recommendations for keywords and content targeting, page structure, and crawlability. Specifics include HTML title tag, body tags, errors, meta tags, headers and internal linking analysis. The system assigns numerical scores (0-100) to indicate performance in these areas and prioritizes accompanying suggestions.

Large keyword sets are managed through keyword grouping; internal search accommodates quick grouping of common terms. Available options include overlapping of keywords across multiple groups and keyword match rules. A CSV file import is provided to add keywords in bulk.

For its backlink features, Ginazmetrics partners with SEOmoz for data on over 600 billion links. Link strength and opportunities are scored using proprietary algorithms, which evaluate existing domain strength and identify new opportunities. Customers are notified of new link acquisitions or problems with existing links through automated alerts.

Ginzemetrics’ competitive intelligence feature offers insight into keyword, content, and backlink data to give customers an overview of important ranking factors. Competitors’ sites are also crawled to detect content strategies.

Customizable reports filter through date, granularity, search engine, keyword group, and conversion event types. The system charts daily SERP data with historical data to visualize trends and search engine algorithm updates. Analytic data such as organic visits and e-commerce revenue can also be graphed within Ginzametrics.

SEO agencies can manage multiple clients from a single dashboard, with billing and account level security settings available. Account summaries and keywords can be downloaded in Excel and CSV formats and saved to brandable PDF reports.




Vendor Profiles


•Launched social signals integration in September 2012•Compares social performance to organic search performance within the same dashboard

Ginzametrics launched its social signals integration in September 2012. Data including clicks, comments, and link sharing is collected from Facebook, Twitter and Google+ on a daily basis. Marketers can compare social performance to organic search performance within the same dashboard and include the analysis in KPI reports.

Pricing and Service

•Three SaaS-based plans•Two-week free trial

Ginzametrics offers the following three SaaS-based pricing plans targeting mid-market and enterprise-level organizations and agencies:

•Standard: $500/month for 10 sites, unlimited users, 500 keywords processed daily, and 5,000 pages.

•Professional: $1,000/month for 30 sites, unlimited users; 2,500 keywords processed daily, 20,000 pages, enterprise analytics, competitive intelligence, and branded PDF reports.

•Enterprise: Starts at $2,500/month and includes 100 sites, unlimited users, 10,000 keywords processed daily, enterprise analytics, competitive intelligence, branded PDF reports, and SEO strategy Q&A sessions.

Standard and Professional plans include phone support during business hours (9am to 5pm); Enterprise customers are serviced by dedicated account managers. A two-week trial is available. Accounts are billed annually.

Company Strategy

•New social media integration and task management capabilities•Plans to expand international support, universal search

Ginzametrics plans to expand its capabilities in tracking mobile, local and social signals. The company is seeing a shift in the SEO industry towards inbound marketing and content marketing. As a result, Ginzametrics is encouraging customers to focus on creating content that resonates and naturally accrues backlinks instead of developing content specifically for backlink optimization.




Vendor Profiles

gShift Labs85 Bayfield Street, Suite 202Barrie, ON L4M 3A7(T) 705-727-5650

U.S. Headquarters

181 Fremont StreetSan Francisco, California 94105(T) 866-743-5960www.gshiftlabs.com

Company Overview

•Founded in 2009•17 employees•Raised $2.1 million in two rounds of funding

since April 2010 from the Investment Accelerator Fund, MaRS, GrowthWorks, and FedDev IBI

•Offices in Ontario and San Francisco

Target Customer

•SEO agencies and in-house SEO teams

Key Executives

Krista LaRiviere, Co-founder & CEOChris Adams, Co-founder & CTO

Key Customers

GroupMBell CanadaGearyLSFThe SEO CompanyWSIFirst Digital

Product Overview

•SaaS-based tool built around proprietary technology •Daily data tracking for Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Yandex and YouTube

gShift Labs is a SaaS-based SEO tool built around proprietary technology called Web Presence Optimizer™. Data from Google, Yahoo!, Yandex, YouTube, and Bing is tracked on a daily basis, with product updates released up to three to four times per month.




Vendor Profiles

gShift’s international SEO offering provides rank data for any language across Google’s international search engines and Yandex. Data points can be segmented and include keyword rankings and competitive intelligence.

The tool provides content optimization recommendations through a systematic task tracking process. Content can be analyzed before or after publication. Prioritized suggestions are made to improve content for both websites and blogs. Tasks are plotted on gShift’s Web Presence Graph, which subsequently measures and visualizes any resulting ranking changes.

Keyword research is offered through a Wordstream partnership. gShift analyzes on-page content as well as other keyword phrases driving traffic to the page, in response to Google’s “Not Provided” keyword data. gShift also provides insight on the competitiveness of keyword phrases and which keywords are included in backlink anchor text.

Backlink velocity is the focus of gShift’s link building feature. It’s designed to help customers create new and quality links on a consistent basis. The tool also offers quality analysis and link recommendations. gShift’s competitive intelligence feature offers a visual comparison of a site and competitor in a side-by-side view. Metrics include the number of backlinks, number of indexed pages, frequency of search engine crawling, and top ranking keywords.

gShift integrates with Google Analytics, and provides an open API for additional data integration and reporting. The tool’s reporting module offers export and white label capabilities, scheduled reporting, and emailed reports.


•Monitors Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and YouTube•Social conversations mined for keyword opportunities

Due to social media’s disruption in search, gShift encourages customers to progress from pure SEO to a new strategy called Web Presence Optimization (WPO). The idea is that content should be optimized across a variety of channels to maximize audience reach.

gShift monitors Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and YouTube, and graphically plots social media trends. Conversations are mined for keyword opportunities. Social activity and backlink data can be viewed together in one chart, offering the ability to compare and contrast social and SEO efforts.

Pricing and Service

•Enterprise pricing starts at $2,400/month •SMB and agency pricing available starting at $99/month

gShift’s enterprise pricing starts at $2,400/month and includes 20,000 keywords as well as branded reports. The following pricing packages for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and agencies are also available based on the number of keyword rankings:

•Small Business: $99/month includes one web presence and up to 300 keyword rankings•Pro: $299/month targets in-house SEO teams and includes up to 1,500 keyword rankings•Agency: $499/month targets mid-sized SEO agencies and includes up to 3,000 keyword rankings•Agency Pro: $1,299/month targets large SEO agencies and includes up to 10,000 keyword rankings

All packages include:

• Unlimited accounts and administrators• Unlimited campaigns




Vendor Profiles

• Unlimited web pages• Social signals• Page-level rank data• Analytics integration• On-page SEO audit• Dedicated account manager• Unlimited competitor tracking• Backlink data• Keyword research

An annual contract is required. Coaching and managed services are premium priced. API use is also an additional cost, based on volume of keywords, account setup, and API access.

Company Strategy

•Encouraging shift from pure SEO to content marketing and social media•Planned enhancements to ROI modules, advanced reporting, and content marketing

gShift Labs sees the SEO industry trending toward content marketing and social media, viewing conversions as the primary goal as opposed to a narrower focus on rank. For gShift, social signals are becoming as vital as backlinks. Going forward, gShift is planning enhancements to its ROI modules, advanced reporting, keyword research, and content marketing features.




Vendor Profiles

Linkdex420 Lexington AvenueNew York, NY 10170(T) 646-403-8159www.linkdex.com

U.K. Headquarters

Linkdex Ltd77 Oxford StreetLondon, UK W1D 2ES(T) +44 (0)20 7659 2390

Company Overview

•Founded in 2009•Funding in October 2009 by

Amadeus Capital Partners

Target Customer

•Enterprise brands and search, social and PR agencies working across local, national and global markets

Key Executives

Steve Brown, CEOMatt Roberts, Linkdex Co-founder and VP ProductMartin Armstrong, CTOCollette Easton, VP Client ServiceMark Smith, VP Commercial

Key Customers

GroupMLBiExpediaMoneySupermarket.comOMD

RazorfishTUI

Product Overview

•SEO-centric software within a holistic marketing context•Supports over 40 countries, 135 languages, and five search engines

Linkdex offers SEO-centric software with a holistic marketing approach, making it suitable for content marketing, public relations, and social marketing teams as well as SEOs. The platform supports over 40 countries, 135 languages, and five search engines. Data is stored in two cloud-based mirrored data centers in Virginia and Oregon.




Vendor Profiles

Linkdex’s Content 360 product combines multichannel analytics data, ranking, social, and backlink data with a technical site crawl. The tool allows both content marketers and technical architects to discover actionable insights in the platform’s task management area.

Share of search and competitor data is reported for countries, cities, towns, and zip codes using geo-ranking results. A campaign management suite includes task and outreach management, permission levels, productivity tracking, discussions, tags, and file transfers.

The platform’s public relations-focused tools support the identification of authors and influencers, as well as social network and backlink analysis. Relationships developed through those efforts are collected into a contact database for future nurturing. Backlink data is initially provided by MajesticSEO, then re-crawled and evaluated for further analysis and insights.

Linkdex provides a customizable dashboard with more than 40 reporting widgets including link counts, multi-domain rankings, and universal results. Reports can be exported by PDF and can be white labeled with brand logos as well as customized headings and footers.

Social Media Integration

•Linkdex’s Social Circles uses Twitter to identify social trends and contacts•Topical author data is provided along with author social profiles•Social data is visualized as a network that is filterable by network influence and relationship strength to facilitate

key influencer identification

Linkdex’s Social Circles , defined as a network of influential people and domains, uses Twitter to identify social trends and contacts. Users input five to 10 Twitter handles; Linkdex then builds recommendations for additional contacts based upon that data.

Authorship data is provided for any market with social profiles being added to an author’s details. Social and authorship data then become integrated. Using network science, influencers are visualized in a network diagram with advanced filters, which include network influence and relationship strength.

Pricing and Service

•Pricing starts at $600/month and is based on data consumption

Linkdex pricing starts at $600/month and is based on the client’s data consumption. Sales and account teams are based in New York, and London with training and account management included and central to the Linkdex product offering.

Company Strategy

•26 Product updates annually•Plans to integrate more diverse data sources

Linkdex incorporates user feedback and targets 26 product updates annually. The company plans to integrate more diverse data sources into the platform to continue attracting a broad marketing audience, including users in the search, content, social, and public relations industries.




Vendor Profiles

RankAbove 91 Hahashmonaim St.Tel Aviv, Israel 6120101(T) 972 3 771 1300www.rankabove.com

U.S. Headquarters

345 7th Avenue, Suite 503NY, NY 10001(T) 646-863-6684

Company Overview

•Founded in April 2007•Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel •35 employees

Target Customer

•Enterprise-level marketers and IT professionals

Key Executives

Mayer Reich, CEO and Co-founderEli Feldblum, CTO/Co-founderDavid Corre, CFOMichael Barnett, VP, Client SuccessAddam Berger, CMO

Key Customers

1-800-FlowersBET

MTVOzone.ruPetcoNBTYWix

Product Overview

•SaaS-based software positioned as a global, multilingual SEO platform•Web analytics integration with Google Analytics, SiteCatalyst and Coremetrics

Tel Aviv-based RankAbove positions its SaaS-based software as a global, scalable, end-to-end SEO solution that can be localized in any language, including complex languages such as Arabic and Chinese. Continuous site crawls enable data and recommendations to be in real-time. Prioritization of recommendations is provided for all issues, and is based on severity of issue, number of pages affected, and relative importance of those pages affected. RankAbove features a 301




Vendor Profiles

redirect tool that assists with site rollovers (e.g. implementation of site redesigns or a site relaunch).Automatic keyword suggestions are based on site crawls, third party analytics, Google’s keyword tool, Google Instant, and competitive intelligence. RankAbove tracks millions of keywords in numerous languages across the major search engines, providing customer insight on keyword traffic and conversions.

RankAbove’s backlink analysis examines several elements of optimization including domain, anchor text, no follow, target page, and overall detection of ‘spammy’ links. Links are tracked to measure placement, timing, and accuracy. The system provides competitive intelligence and link discovery based on keywords and backlinks. RankAbove also finds and analyzes competitor backlinks to provide insight on how to improve linking strategy.

RankAbove’s on-page analysis tool detects up to 70 SEO issues per page and up to 20 site-wide structural issues per site. The engine classifies a website’s pages into buckets of identical templates so the user can choose to optimize in bulk as opposed to page by page. RankAbove identifies technical issues including canonicals, redirects, and server errors.

RankAbove offers project workflow, task assignment, permission hierarchies and multi-site management within a customizable dashboard system. Data collection and recommendations are generated using RankAbove’s proprietary technology in combination with third party data and analytics providers. RankAbove licenses backlink data from Majestic SEO and partners with Adobe and IBM to integrate Adobe SiteCatalyst and Coremetrics web analytics. RankAbove also integrates with Google Analytics. All data applications are hosted in the cloud.


• Integration of Facebook, Twitter and Google+ social signals in 2013•Twitter data collected from Topsy

RankAbove plans to release social signal integration for Facebook (including Facebook Insights), Twitter, and Google+ in 2013. RankAbove is also collecting data from Topsy, a real-time searchable index of Twitter data.

Pricing and Service

•Pricing starts at $5,000 per month• In-house analytics system tracks customer use

RankAbove’s pricing starts at $5,000 per month and is customized based upon the number of keywords and web pages in the system. There is also an API per-use charge. An annual contract is required.

Ongoing email and phone-based customer support is included in the pricing, as is on-site training. RankAbove tracks customer usage of the platform through an analytics system that gauges whether or not customers are using the system properly.

Company Strategy

•Proprietary technology to fuel product roadmap•Social signal integration to come in 2013

RankAbove will continue to rely on its proprietary technology to fuel its product roadmap. A scheduled 2013 update will include improvements to keyword management, on-page optimization, and backlink analysis. RankAbove is also planning to launch social signal integration and views its API offering as an important part of its growth.




Vendor Profiles

Raven Internet Marketing Tools1101 McGavock St., Suite 201Nashville, TN 37203www.raventools.com

Company Overview

•Founded in February 2007•Privately held•31 employees

Target Customer

•Mid-market and enterprise-level marketers and agencies

Key Executives

Patrick Keeble, President and CEOScott Holdren, Chief Technology OfficerJon Henshaw, Chief Product OfficerBrannan Atkinson, Chief Marketing Officer

Key Customers

GaiamMartha Stewart.comOutback SteakhousePBS

Product Overview

•SERP Tracker and SEMrush data integration discontinued•An overhaul of Research Central tool centralized keyword research, link building, domain analysis, and social

research•New SEO performance reports offer insights into organic traffic increases, target audiences, and conversions

Raven experienced significant changes in 2012. In November, a Google AdWords API audit forced the company into a tough decision to discontinue its SERP Tracker tool and SEMrush data integration. Raven officials say they remain dedicated to SEO, a statement supported by several updates and new features to their existing SEO toolset.

An overhaul of Raven’s Research Central tool centralized keyword research, link building, domain analysis, and social research into a single dashboard feature. With the update, users can input a domain or keyword into a single field and the tool will return a summary of site metrics. An update to the Quality Analyzer tool enables customization of numerical metric scoring. PDF report creation and Research Central data exports are also now available.

New SEO performance reports offer insights into organic traffic increases, target audiences, and conversions. The reports can be built in Raven’s Report Wizard, a feature that offers 30 reporting modules, branding, and customization.

Raven’s Link Manager also received a makeover in July 2012, with several updates since. New filter rules allow sorting by




Vendor Profiles

user, website type, and link type. Filter rules can be saved and shared for quick access. A summary bar gives an overview of linking campaigns including new links and overall link quantities. Linking reports received an update within Report Wizard, which allows users to organize report data according the new filter rules.

Raven’s content manager has deployed Scribe 4 from Copyblogger, which analyzes page content and makes recommendations for keywords, linking, length of copy, and readability. Numerical scores indicate performance both within a document and in comparison to the rest of a site.

Existing Raven tools already provide keyword discovery and management, backlink analysis and opportunities, competitive intelligence, and analytics. Raven also offers PPC tools and an internal customer relationship manager (CRM).

An iOS app allows customers to access a mobile version of Raven’s dashboard. Customers can view conversions, social mentions, and campaign status. Within the app, modules can be ordered, shown, or hidden, and date ranges can be adjusted. The app is free for active Raven customers.

Raven continues to provide numerous third party integrations, including 22 data partners. Keyword data is supplied by AdWords, backlink data through Majestic SEO, and backlink intelligence through SEOmoz. A BaseCamp integration is available for task management; email integrations include MailChimp and Campaign Monitor. Raven integrates with numerous Google tools including Google Analytics and Webmaster tools. Raven uses Amazon’s cloud-based Web Services for data application storage.


•Monitors and publishes to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter•Social Stream dashboard acts as a social inbox

Raven’s social tools track keyword mentions across Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Users can also publish to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Social actions such as likes, retweets, link sharing, and comments are measured. The data is collected in a single dashboard called Social Stream, which Raven likens to an inbox. From the dashboard, customers can view additional metrics regarding posts, author, and audience. Social task management and CRM can also take place within the Social Stream module. Raven integrates with UberVu for social data collection and analysis.

Additional social capabilities include tracking and measuring YouTube accounts, persona management, and blog content management. Raven integrates with Wordpress, Vimeo, Reddit, and others, and offers a WSIWYG editor to publish posts from within the tool as well as team permissions for blog posting.




Vendor Profiles

Pricing and Service

•Two pricing plans for SEOs and agencies•Free 30-day trial available•No annual contract required

Raven offers the following two pricing tiers targeting SEOs and SEO agencies:•Pro: $99/month includes four users, 50,000 managed links, 25,000 link checks, 20 social media monitoring terms, and 20

Scribe SEO content analyses. •Agency: $249/month includes unlimited users, 150,000 managed links, 100,000 link checks, 50 social media monitoring

terms, and 50 Scribe SEO content analyses.

Both plans include unlimited campaigns; branded reports; Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts; Google Analytics and AdWords accounts; and white labeling. Agencies can use their own domain for an additional $50 per month.

Raven also offers a free, 30-day trial, which includes the same features as a Pro account but with the following limitations: 10,000 managed links, 10 social media monitoring terms, and five Scribe analyses. All plans are month to month, with no annual contract required. Customers that pre-pay for 12 months in advance are rewarded with an additional free month.

Customer support is email- and social-media based and available during normal business hours (M-F, 8am to 6pm CDT). Support staff speaks both English and Spanish. Weekly webinars provide a walkthrough of Raven’s toolset. Raven University launched in February 2013 with free training courses ranging from SEO research to social media management to account administration. Raven has a support staff member dedicated to free trial customers.

Company Strategy

•Planning to launch its new site auditor in the first quarter 2013• Incorporating goals, benchmarks, and baseline comparisons for historical and potential data analysis

Raven will continue to launch new features and tools in 2013, with Site Auditor on tap for first quarter 2013. The automated tool will crawl sites to check for on-page, linking, and technical SEO factors. A proposal development feature aimed at agencies, is also planned, which will allow users to audit sites to determine the potential opportunity to gain new business from existing and prospective customers. For its social tools, Raven is planning to add a feature which will juxtapose social media accounts for campaign analysis. For example, Twitter can be compared to Facebook to examine audience, shared URLs, and social behaviors.

Looking further ahead, Raven will be incorporating goals, benchmarks, and baseline comparisons for historical and potential data analysis. Raven is also building out features that will assist managers who oversee SEO teams, including views of team performance designed to assist managers in evaluating internal production, such as which individual is securing the most backlinks, in addition to the existing abilities to evaluate client campaign performance.




Vendor Profiles

Rio SEO9255 Towne Center Drive, Suite 750San Diego, CA 92121(T) 858-397-1500http://www.rioseo.com/

Company Overview

•Created by Covario as a new division/brand in April 2012

•250 employees•50 customers•Acquired local SEO technology

provider Top Local Search in May 2012•Acquired Seattle-based social

marketing software provider Meteor Solutions in November 2012

•Other offices in Beijing, Chicago and London

Target Customers

• In-house search and digital marketers at mid-market and enterprise-level companies

•Search and social media practitioners at digital agencies

Key Executives

Russ Mann, CEO and FounderClaire Long, COO & CFOChris Reid, Senior Vice President and General ManagerPete Dudchenko, VP, Product ManagementPat Hall, VP, EngineeringBill Connard, VP, Local Search SolutionsBen Straley, VP, Social Technologies

Key Customers

Advanced Auto PartsCharming CharlieIBM

Jenny CraigPerformicsSports AuthorityT-Mobile




Vendor Profiles

Product Overview

•Covario spin-off focused on SEO and social media marketing automation, analytics, and activation tools•Encompasses more than 15 distinct modules that can be licensed separately or as a suite of enterprise SEO, local

search, or social marketing tools.

Created by Covario as a distinct division/brand in April 2012, Rio SEO provides SaaS-based tools built around SEO, content marketing, and social media modules designed to provide life-cycle automation. Each module can be licensed separately, and module bundles are also available. Modules are broken out into three categories: SEO Automation, Hyperlocal and Mobile Search, and Social Media.

SEO Automation Modules•Rio SEO Keyword Discovery Automation™ dispenses keyword suggestions for both organic search and social media

based on a customer’s content as well as competitor pages. The tool includes support for languages in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. Keyword lists may be exported.

•Rio SEO Search Analytics™ is the platform’s enterprise reporting dashboard (although each of the other individual modules provides some basic reports). Marketers can create reports based on KPI metrics in conjunction with third party analytics data. This auditing and reporting tool offers automated SERP recommendations, link opportunities, competitive intelligence, and site auditing. Rio SEO integrates with major Web analytic platforms, including Google Analytics, Adobe SiteCatalyst, and Webtrends.

•Rio SEO Change Tracker™ tracks on and off page changes on a weekly basis, providing insight into any resulting traffic fluctuations. This module offers email-based task assignment as well as integration with task management software.

•Rio SEO Website Optimizer™ is a CMS designed to auto-deploy SEO content and changes to large ecommerce sites. The module was designed specifically to help large sites automate the optimization process. A blend of original content and Rio SEO’s content optimization rules creates new pages that meet SEO best practices. Testing is offered to experiment with new content before going live.

•Rio SEO Mobile Site Builder™ is similar to the Website Optimizer module, but with a focus on building out mobile websites. Mobile versions of a customer’s native site are created and auto-deployed.

Hyperlocal and Mobile Search Modules•Rio SEO Location Finder & Landing Page Builder™ builds landing pages for each individual location of a business. Rio

SEO conceptualizes this as a digital storefront.•Rio SEO Mobile Finder & Landing Page Builder™ builds a mobile version of the digital storefront concept.•Rio SEO Local Search Optimizer™ automates the optimization process for mobile and local search. This module relies

on local SEO best practices and Schema.org markup tags. An analytics element tracks first page SERPs in organic and local map listings.

•Rio SEO Local Map Optimizer™ specifically focuses on optimization for local map listings. The module helps customers maintain consistent data across Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. Bulk uploads and manual feeds allow for local business information updates. International support is included.

•Rio SEO IYP Link Optimizer™ manages bulk feeds to local directories and social networks, such as Superpages.com, CitySearch, Foursquare, and Yelp. The module also assists with contact and data management to GPS navigation devices, as well as such information services as Acxiom, InfoUSA, and LocalEze.

Rio SEO’s organic search technology modules enable users to identify and implement recommended SEO changes on the fly. Customizable reporting tools track and measure such KPIs as traffic, revenue, and opportunities. A built-in algorithm looks at keyword-level variables and issues dashboard alerts to help users prioritize SEO problems, such as 404 page errors. Rio SEO partners with Majestic SEO for backlink data.

Every Rio SEO module can be set to variable user access levels. Agencies can export data in an Excel pivot-friendly format. The platform is cloud-based to provide additional storage capabilities for enterprise customers.




Vendor Profiles


•Acquisition of Meteor Solutions was foundation for the Rio SEO Social Marketing Suite•Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs included

Rio SEO’s acquisition of social marketing software provider Meteor Solutions was the foundation for the vendor’s Social Marketing Suite launched in January 2013. Three modules measure social signals from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs, and implement the data into incentive strategies and social advertising:

Rio SEO Social Analyze™ determines the visibility of a customer’s content marketing and distribution efforts. Metrics include word-of-mouth visitors, number of influencers, influencer demographics, referrals, top shared pages, and conversions, which are used to calculate social ROI.Rio SEO Social Activate™ enables marketers to deploy incentives and rewards for social sharing. Tools are available to reach desktop, tablet, and mobile smartphone audiences. Rio SEO Social Advertise™ uses Rio SEO’s technology to assist with identifying target audiences for social advertising. Users can place media buys and employ retargeting strategies.

Rio SEO is also focuses on tracking “dark social” metrics or techniques that are not normally measured, such as copying and pasting a URL into an email and instant messages.

Pricing and Service

•Pricing is customized based on modules selected and scope of deployment•Support ranges from on-site visits to self-serve elearning videos and manuals

Rio SEO’s pricing is customized and scalable according to customer need. For example, Website Optimizer pricing can be either a flat fee or performance based. Change Tracker and Social Analytics pricing are based on keyword volume and the popularity of the terms in the system. Modules are available individually or as bundles, and on either a monthly or annual basis.

Customer support included in the pricing ranges from a series of self-serve elearning videos, training manuals, and reference guides, to dedicated support staff that create custom training solutions, including webinars, onsite visits, and elearning curriculum for enterprise customers.

Company Strategy

•Aligning with the trend of SEO moving into inbound and content marketing•Company remains open to considering potential acquisitions to expand product line

Rio SEO has used acquisitions to achieve the goal of broadening its SEO services and technology to inbound and content marketing. The drive for this transition is local, holistic search. Rio SEO’s goal is to be engaged in the full lifecycle, which the company views as including traditional search, local search, social engagement, and earned relationships. The purchase of Top Local Search in June 2012 expanded Rio SEO’s hyperlocal offerings, while Meteor Solutions boosted its social technology suite. The company remains flexible in growing and expanding its product line through acquisition.




Vendor Profiles

Searchmetrics Inc.1115 Broadway, 12th FloorNew York, NY 10010(T) 866-411-9494www.searchmetrics.com

German Headquarters

Searchmetrics GmbHGreifswalder Straße 21210405 Berlin(T) +49 (0)30 3.22.95.35 - 0

Company Overview

•Founded in December 2007•90 employees•40,000 customers worldwide •Raised $11 million in three rounds of

funding since January 2010•Headquartered in Berlin with additional

offices in New York, London, and Paris

Target Customer

•Mid-market and enterprise-level marketers and agencies with a global customer base or plans to expand globally

Key Executives

Thomas Leo Schuster, CEOMarcus Tober, founder and CTODirk Wolf, CFOMatthias Bachor, VP of Marketing

Key Customers

Crate & BarrelCredit SuisseeBayMattelSiemensSymantecVirgin Media Business

Product Overview

•Global solution covering 123 countries•Driven by proprietary keyword, link and social media databases




Vendor Profiles

Searchmetrics Suite™ is a global, cloud-based solution that covers a multitude of search engines (including Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yandex, Baidu, Naver, and Seznam) in 123 countries. A proprietary database called Searchmetrics Essentials™ contains three modules -- SEO+SEM, Social, and Links -- that can be purchased individually or as bundled packages. The modules track keywords, backlinks, and social signals for both universal and local rankings. Data is updated weekly.

The system crawls up to 100,000 pages for a domain, subdomain, or directory. Competitive benchmarks are available for up to 10 domains. Searchmetrics prioritizes errors and recommendations, incorporating a customer’s KPIs as a factor. Suggestions include keyword and linking opportunities, technical improvements, and content enhancements. A wizard-based project management feature facilitates workflow.

Built-in predictive analytics help users forecast traffic potential and keyword ROI based on current keyword traffic and rankings. Tagged keywords can be segmented by branded and generic traffic. An SEO cost-analysis feature shows how much it would cost to achieve the same traffic with paid search. Searchmetrics integrates with Google Analytics and Adobe SiteCatalyst, and partners with LimeTree for internal international analytics.

Searchmetrics reports are customizable; the company is adding more report visualizations. With 120 agency partners worldwide, Searchmetrics also has active reseller programs. Agencies can white label reports and receive discounts and sales accounts to use the platform for campaign development.


• Includes Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest and social bookmarking sites

Searchmetrics Suite’s social media module includes five networks: Facebook, Twitter, Google+ LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Social actions such as likes, retweets, and link sharing are tracked, measured, and analyzed for growth. Users can track and view correlations between social engagement, interaction, and SEO impact for their own properties as well as competitors.

Pricing and Service

•Standard pricing plans for individual modules and module bundles available•Customized enterprise pricing requires annual contract




Searchmetrics Suite™ offers enterprise accounts at custom or built-to-order pricing. The package includes all three modules, SEO+SEM, Links, and Social for up to 10 projects. Included are 50,000 keyword rankings, 5,000 keyword queries, 100,000 backlink analyses, and 75 reports for unlimited users. The plan requires a 12- month contract, and includes two hours of phone support and six hours of initial training.

Standard pricing plans for individual modules and module bundles are also available:

•Searchmetrics Essentials™ SEO + SEM: starts at $99/month and includes precise domain analysis, competitor tracking, and industry sector reviews.

•Searchmetrics Essentials™ Links: starts at $99 a month and includes domain analysis, internal link analysis, and link strength assessment

•Searchmetrics Essentials™ Social: starts at $99 a month and includes social media visibility, country-independent for each domain, and real user behavior analysis

•Searchmetrics Essentials™ Plus: starts at $199/month and includes: SEO+SEM and Links modules, one project, one user, one search engine, 250 keyword queries, three benchmarks, 10,000 backlink analyses, and 10,000 keyword rankings.

•Searchmetrics Essentials™ Professional: starts at $399/month and includes all three modules, three projects, one user, two search engines, 10,000 keyword rankings, 1,000 keyword inquiries, 10 reports, three benchmarks, subdomains, and 10,000 backlinks

•Searchmetrics Suite™ Business: starts at $949/month and includes all three modules, five projects, 10 users, three search engines, 25,000 keyword rankings, 2,500 keyword inquiries, 50,000 backlinks, 25 reports, one hour of phone support and two hours of WebEx initial training.

With the exception of Searchmetrics Suite Business and Enterprise accounts, customers have the option of month-to-month or annual subscriptions. An annual subscription offers 12 months for the price of 10.

Company Strategy

•2013 goals including growing proprietary database, opening its API for more data integrations, and a narrower focus on enterprise SEO

•Plans to expand global reach for large, international customers

Searchmetrics is a leading European SEO vendor, which has been making inroads into the U.S. market thanks to $11 million in venture-backed capital. The company’s 2013 goals will focus on growing its proprietary database, opening its API for data integration, and targeting enterprise-level international customers with greater global reach.




Vendor Profiles

seoClarity2800 S. River Road, Suite 290, Des Plaines, IL 60018(T) 773-831-4500www.seoclarity.net

Company Overview

•Company founded in February 2004•47 employees

Target Customer

•Enterprise-level and mid-market marketers

Key Executives

Mitul Gandhi, Co-Founder & Chief ArchitectKalpesh Guard, Co-Founder & CEODoug Benson, Director of MarketingCurt Galusha, Director of Global Strategic PartnershipsCarlos Barragan, Director of SalesChris Sachs, Senior Manager of Operations

Key Customers

AutoTrader.comHome DepotZappos.comOrbitzIntuitHomeAway.com

Product Overview

•Customized SEO solution providing daily site crawls, technical audits, and customizable insights into SEO performance

•A.I. technology designed to learn from human SEO effort and help scale approved SEO practices across the enterprise.

seoClarity is a customized SEO solution that performs daily crawls and offers insights into many aspects of SEO – from keyword rankings, analytics, backlinks and social metrics to content optimization and deep competitive intelligence. Automated alerts notify users of detected issues and KPI performance in real-time. Global coverage across 43 countries is provided and includes support for English, Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic (left to right) languages.

In October 2012, seoClarity unveiled A.I., which stands for “actionable intelligence.” A.I. is technology designed to learn from human SEO efforts. It allows users to test their analysis rules across all SEO metrics, with the goal of developing automation that can scale SEO efforts.




Vendor Profiles

seoClarity launched Link Explorer, a new link-building enhancement to its SaaS-based solution, in February 2013. The tool helps enterprises build productive online relationships while staying in compliance with search engine guidelines. Powering LinkExplorer is a proprietary web crawl and site evaluation algorithm that weeds out low-quality blogs, thin sites, and other irrelevant pages.

Workflow Automation facilitates lifecycle task management. Planning, implementation, reporting, and analysis are managed through customizable dashboards. Widgets enable hierarchical information displays. Over 100 standard reports and analyses, as well as customized reports are available.

Plugins enable integration with third party data sources. seoClarity integrates with any CRM system and uses the data to inform conversion funnels and ROI. It also provides for CMS integration with enterprise CMS platforms that allow for an integrated content generation, distribution, and optimization workflow. Customers can use seoClarity’s open API and trusted partner status to integrate with Adobe Marketing Cloud (previously known as Omniture SiteCatalyst ), Coremetrics, Google Analytics, and Google Webmaster Tools. It also integrates with link reporting systems such as SEOmoz and Majestic SEO. Data is hosted on a hybrid cloud system that safeguards proprietary customer data in dedicated servers.


•Focuses on tracking correlations between social activity and SEO metrics, and identifying content opportunities•BuzzClarity feature leverages data directly from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Google+ and Pinterest.

seoClarity’s approach to social media focuses on tracking the correlation between social activity and SEO metrics. It also provides built-in functionality to allow monitoring social channels to help generate content ideas. The BuzzClarity feature leverages data directly from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Google+, and Pinterest, as well as other social sites, using patent-pending visualizations to help marketers determine cause and effect between the channels. The platform integrates with social media management tools, such as Radian6, allowing customers to monitor and measure the impact of social signals on SEO.

Pricing and Service

•Offers customized pricing based on a combination of URL, keyword, and domain quantities •No minimum spend required•Customers serviced through live chat, email, phone, and online knowledgebase

seoClarity offers customized pricing based on a combination of URL, keyword, and domain volume. Customer support is provided through dedicated client success managers who are available via a variety of communication channels. Live chat is available during normal business hours. The response time for email support averages 3-4 business hours. Phone support is requested through email. An online knowledgebase contains articles, walkthroughs, training videos, how-to’s and use case studies.

Company Strategy

•New features and updates are released every two weeks•Approach to enterprise SEO centers on scaling large campaigns

seoClarity releases new features and updates every two weeks. Customers are encouraged to provide feedback and to request new features and customizations. As a result, seoClarity officials say that 80% of the tool’s new features are driven by customer requests. The company’s approach to enterprise SEO centers on scaling large campaigns, which is facilitated by the software’s open API and integration with multiple third-party systems.




Vendor Profiles

SEOlyticsAm Neumarkt 302204Hamburg, Germany(T) +49 (0) 40 688 73 58 00www.seolytics.com

Company Overview

•Founded in 2009•20 employees•Leading European SEO solution

Target Customer

•Mid-market and enterprise-level marketers and agencies

Key Customers

ConradDeutsche Post DHLFleuropHolidaycheckHomeAwayidealoOTTO

Key Executives

Sören Bendig, CEO, Managing DirectorSven Kalow, COO, Managing DirectorDr. Utz Westermann, CTO

Product Overview

•A SaaS-based suite that supports SEO research, monitoring, backlink analyses, link building, and reporting•Daily data updates, international support, and universal search integration•Open API facilitates enterprise integration

SEOlytics targets SEO professionals with a combination of proprietary and third-party data, updated daily. The tool comprises the following modules, which support SEO research, SEO monitoring, in-depth backlink analyses, link building, and reporting:

•SEO Monitoring: Offers daily visibility into keyword performance and rankings for 30 countries and across three search engines: Google, Bing and Yandex. The module allows customers to create a user-specific SEO industry index for performance benchmarking and a calculation for SEO keyword performance forecasting.

•SEO Research: Utilizes an SEO research keyword database. Universal search rankings are fully integrated and the Knowledge Graph can be analyzed as well. Rankings can be segmented by subdomain, subdirectory or root URL. Customers can gain historic benchmarking insights for up to 10 domains.




Vendor Profiles

•Backlink Analyses: The backlink module supports integration with Majestic SEO (no extra subscription required). SEOlytics uses its fresh index as seed data and builds functionality on top. The backlink module offers extensive filter possibilities and analyzes link quality and historical growth.

•Link Building: Features a “Domainfinder” database to enable the user to research topic-relevant domains to target backlink opportunities.

•Paid Search: Provides competitive intelligence about search advertising campaigns. Product listing ads can be analyzed within the module as well.

SEOlytics integrates with Google Analytics, Webtrekk, SiteCatalyst, eTracker, and Piwik. The data is used for potential analysis, which forecasts traffic and SEO data. Data from SEOlytics can be used in Excel through an add-in. An open API is offered to integrate data within existing enterprise/agency platforms and supports CSV, XML, HTML, and JSON output formats.

SEOlytics features a series of reporting templates, which can be customized and white labeled by agencies. Search-and-filter options enable users to drill down into data quickly and create reports in PDF or Excel.


• Includes Twitter, Digg, Technorati, and Delicious•New social media dashboard in development

SEOlytics integrates social signals for Twitter, Digg, Technorati, and Delicious, allowing users to track brand mentions on each network. The company is developing a new social media dashboard, and prefers to integrate with existing social media management platforms to provide more in-depth social analysis.

Pricing and Service

•Enterprise and agency plans customized on an individual basis•Free starter version available

SEOlytics offers enterprise and agency plans that are customized on an individual basis according to a customer’s specific needs. Pricing is based on keywords and domain quantities. The following two standard pricing plans are also available:

•PRO: $99/ month includes daily SEO monitoring of two domains, daily rankings for 50 keywords, 500 links in Linkmonitor, competitive intelligence from SEO research, reports and exports, and email and phone support (1 hour maximum).

•ELITE: $339/ month includes daily SEO monitoring of five domains, daily rankings for 550 keywords, 2,000 links in Linkmonitor, unlimited competitive intelligence, and unlimited, branded reports and exports. The SEOlytics API access is included, as is email, phone and webinar support.

Customers that purchase an annual contract receive a 15% discount. No minimum spend is required. The company also offers a free “starter” version of its platform that includes unlimited domain and keyword analysis, international monitoring for one country, and daily rankings for 10 keywords. Onboarding begins with a training webinar; ongoing customer service is provided through online and phone support.




Vendor Profiles

Company Strategy

•European company targeting U.S. for growth•Focused on big data challenges around update frequency and data quality

SEOlytics is one of two European-based SEO vendors targeting the U.S. market for growth. Company executives believe the fast and ongoing changes to search engines algorithms are resulting in a high demand for quality data. Daily update intervals and a complete understanding of the SERPs, from full universal search to product listing ads, is necessary to build the foundation of a scalable SEO strategy. The company is focused on transparent data and customizable analysis features, which its executives believe are necessary to bring value to the professional user.




Vendor Profiles

SyCara6263 N Scottsdale Road, Suite 180Scottsdale, AZ 85250855-4SYCARA(T) 855-479-2272

www.SyCara.com

Company Overview

•Founded in October 2010•12 employees•Received $2.1 million in Series

A funding from angel investors including Arizona Technology Investors Forum (ATIF) and Desert Angels in March 2012

•Additional office in Los Angeles

Target Customer

•Enterprise and mid-market SEO marketers and agencies•Aggregators and franchise businesses with multiple physical locations

Key Executives

Dan Boberg, CEOThom Brodeur, PresidentJennifer Dorre, COO & Head of ProductPaul Laughlin, Head of EngineeringDonna Kent, VP, Marketing

Key Customers

Barneys NYEthologyiProspectLavidge Group

Product Overview

•Local rankings analyze organic and universal keyword rankings according to country, city, and zip code•A system-wide chart overlay capability allows users to compare any number of data sets

Looking to build a competitive edge in local search, SyCara provides local rankings that analyze organic and universal keywords by country, city, and zip code. SyCara leverages an extensive network to provide ranking results down to the zip code level. Universal ranking results include rich media, products, news, maps, and blogs. Competitive intelligence is performed across multiple search engines. International reporting covers six languages and 33 countries.

SyCara’s Search Volume Analyzer forecasts top-performing keywords, which can be viewed according to phrase, as well as exact or broad match definitions. The tool reports on top revenue generating keywords along user-determined time frames. Competitor rankings for up to 100 keywords are provided, with automated alerts sent when a keyword ranking




Vendor Profiles

changes. SyCara also reviews the sites of the top 10 competitors for a keyword, and makes and tracks recommendations to completion.

The tool analyzes on-page elements for page architecture and content. Backlink analysis occurs at the page, root domain, and subdomain level. Link management includes top pages, anchor text, external and internal links, domain referrals, historical trend analysis, and competitive intelligence. SyCara integrates with SEOmoz and Majestic SEO for backlink data.

Users can choose from pre-scheduled or on demand customized reports. Segmentation of branded and non-branded terms is available. SyCara offers a system-wide chart overlay, allowing users to compare any number of data sets. Charts can then be saved as trend reports.

SyCara offers a cloud-based, customizable dashboard utilizing task management workflow to manage SEO projects. Users can automate task assignments based on recommended SEO goals. Agencies can create individual, customized accounts for their clients, and utilize hierarchical access options.

SyCara combines its data with third party analytics data to provide an overall view of SEO performance. SyCara integrates with major analytics providers such as Google Analytics, Adobe SiteCatalyst and IBM Coremetrics. An open API facilitates additional integrations, including Salesforce.com, which is available upon request. Users can also arrange data transfers between the SyCara system and Excel, PDF, and additional formats.


• Integrates with Facebook and Twitter •Engagement metrics included

SyCara integrates with Facebook and Twitter, tracking social signals such as “likes,” “tweets,” followers, comments, and posts. SyCara also tracks social engagement metrics such as sharing URLs via email, which company officials say have been shown to have a significant impact on SEO. Social data can be used in SyCara’s chart overlay feature to measure the impact of a brand’s social efforts on its SEO campaigns.

Pricing and Service

•Enterprise pricing is customized based on the number keyword rankings•Standard pricing plans range from $69/month to $250/month•No annual contract required

Enterprise pricing is customized based on the number of keyword rankings. SyCara defines keyword rankings as any keyword multiplied by the number of search engines multiplied by the number of times data is refreshed. Calls are based on location per month.

SyCara also offers the following two standard pricing plans, each with Starter and Plus subplans:

•Basic: Provides search engine rankings•Starter: Priced at $69/month and includes five users, unlimited keyword groups, and 1,000 keyword rankings.•Plus: Priced at $175/month and includes 20 users, unlimited keyword groups, and 3,000 keyword rankings.

•Pro: Provides search engine rankings, traffic, social signals, and link data•Starter: Priced at $99/month and includes five users, unlimited keyword groups, 1,000 keyword rankings, white

labeled apps, Facebook and Twitter integration, a site audit and link data integrated with SEOmoz.•Plus: Priced at $250/month and includes 20 users, unlimited keyword group, 3,000 keyword rankings, white labeled

apps, Facebook and Twitter integration, a site audit and link data integrated with SEOmoz.




Vendor Profiles

Customers can purchase monthly reports on local map rankings for $19/month (Starter) or $35/month (Plus). All plans include rankings on up to three competitors, customer support, traffic data integrated with Google Analytics, and branded reports. Annual contracts are not required, but customers who pre-pay for 12 months receive two additional months free.

Company Strategy

•SyCara looking to serve SEO professionals with a focus on local search•Maps ranking data and location-based search engine introduced in 2012

SyCara’s growing focus is on local search, and the company is adding to its set of scalable, cutting edge local tools. New features in 2012 included maps ranking data, a location-based search engine, and additional city and state rollups. For 2013, SyCara is continuing to develop new local SEO tool capabilities.




Resources“5 Graphics that Recap the Most Important SERP Changes of 2012,” by Nathan Safran, Director of Research,Conductor. http://www.conductor.com/blog/2013/01/5-graphics-that-recap-the-most-important-serp-changes-in-2012/

“6 Predictions for 2013: Search Marketing & Big Data Analytics,” by Raj De Datta, Co-founder, BloomReach. http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2236472/6-Predictions-for-2013-Search-Marketing-Big-Data-Analytics

“10 Predictions for Inbound Marketing in 2013,” by Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOmoz. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-predictions-for-inbound-marketing-in-2013

“10 Truths of 2012 for Agencies and In-house SEO Teams,” by Krista LaRiviere, CEO, gShift Labs. http://www.gshiftlabs.com/ten-seo-truths-of-2012-for-agencies-and-in-house-seo-teams/

“A Year-end Checklist for Evaluating Your Enterprise SEO Program,” by Adam Sherk, VP, SEO and Social Media, Define Media Group. http://searchengineland.com/a-year-end-checklist-for-evaluating-your-enterprise-seo-program-141113

“Best Practices for Building Your 2013 Enterprise SEO Campaign,” by Jim Yu, Founder and CEO, BrightEdge. http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2230339/Best-Practices-for-Building-Your-2013-Enterprise-SEO-Campaign

“Google+ Closes Branded Page Gap As Major Corporations Spread Their Social Bets.”

http://www.brightedge.com/2012-07-31-google-closes-branded-page-gap-as-major-corporations-spread-their-social-bets

“Hot and Cold Trends Going into 2013,” by Nathan Safran, Director of Research, Conductor. http://searchengineland.com/hot-and-cold-trends-in-search-going-into-2013-141685

“How to Structure Your Organization for SEO Success,” by Eric Enge, President, Stone Temple Consulting, with Adobe’s Warren Lee. http://searchengineland.com/how-to-structure-your-organization-for-seo-success-118395

“Mobile Continues to Take Share from Desktop Search,” by Greg Sterling, Contributing Editor, Search Engine Land. http://searchengineland.com/analyst-mobile-continues-to-take-share-from-desktop-search-144875

“Mobile SEO Is Not A Myth: 8 Popular Claims Refuted,” by Bryson Meunier, Director of Content Solutions, Resolution Media.

http://searchengineland.com/mobile-seo-is-not-a-myth-8-popular-claims-refuted-141386

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http://www.conductor.com/blog/2013/01/5-graphics-that-recap-the-most-important-serp-changes-in-2012/

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2236472/6-Predictions-for-2013-Search-Marketing-Big-Data-Analytics

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-predictions-for-inbound-marketing-in-2013

http://www.gshiftlabs.com/ten-seo-truths-of-2012-for-agencies-and-in-house-seo-teams/

http://searchengineland.com/a-year-end-checklist-for-evaluating-your-enterprise-seo-program-141113

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2230339/Best-Practices-for-Building-Your-2013-Enterprise-SEO-Campaign

http://www.brightedge.com/2012-07-31-google-closes-branded-page-gap-as-major-corporations-spread-their-social-bets

http://searchengineland.com/hot-and-cold-trends-in-search-going-into-2013-141685

http://searchengineland.com/how-to-structure-your-organization-for-seo-success-118395

http://searchengineland.com/analyst-mobile-continues-to-take-share-from-desktop-search-144875

http://searchengineland.com/mobile-seo-is-not-a-myth-8-popular-claims-refuted-141386

http://digitalmarketingdepot.com/?utm_source=DMD&utm_medium=MIR&utm_campaign=MA2013

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MA RK ET INTE LLI GE NCE REPORT : Enterprise SEO Tools ...€¦ · Enterprise SEO Tools 2013: A Buyer’s Guide. Recently named “the only leader” in SEO platforms*, Rio SEO is