Hardcore SEO and Social Power Tools – SMX Advanced 2012

Those following SMX Advanced along at home can check out #smx #14C on Twitter. There are going to be a lot of tools here. Many are explained in a sentence. It might be hard to convey the real value of them. Use this as a starting point.

Bruce is in the solution spotlight for this session and we all have him to thank for last night’s beverages. Salud!

Mike King @ipullrank is our first speaker. He’s got his preso available online: http://acq.co/toolspullrank3

Mike’s a programmer and an SEOmoz associate. Whatever biases you think come from that, he has them. He thinks you should build your own tools. He says its easy to learn how to code – take the classes from Code Academy and Audacity.

iAcquire is not a tool. It’s not a link network. It’s links from outreach. It used to be brute force outreach. Now it’s content-based outreach.

What tools do you use for on-page analysis?
Screaming Frog – can’t live without it. Crawl a whole site in minutes
Scraper for Chrome – export straight to Google Docs
HTTPFOX – see header codes
Page Speed Plugin – for Firefox and Chrome

Keywords tools?
Yahoo Clues – put in a keyword and see the people who search for it
Keyword Eye – visualization of keywords, their importance per URL
Soovle – suggests for Amazon, YouTube, etc.
Ubersuggest – suggests for Google
Scrapebox – use for quick keyword research
SEOGadget – AdWords API Excel plugin

Content ideas?
GoFish – put in a keyword and it pulls last 200 tweets and delivers keywords used along with it
SEOGadget Google Docs
Facebook Recommendation Demo – widget for your site gives suggestions based on already popular content
ImportXML for Google Docs

Link Tools?
Link Research Tools
Link Detective

Competitive Analysis?
Searchmetrics Essentials – the only game in town, in his opinion

Awesome things with analytics?
Keyword-level Demographics – search for the post on SEOmoz
Google Analytics Debugger

How can you find your target audience?
Facebook Ad Creator – is a segment worth targeting?
Facebook Insights
Doubleclick Ad Planner

Link building quick hits?
Brand Fans – download all the Twitter users, download link profile, do V lookups and find those following you but not linking to you

Visualize data?
Infogram
Piktochart
Dipity
Storybird

Other link data sources?
AHREFs
Blekko
Link Diagnosis

Rankings tools?
STAT – tracking keywords for different brands in different verticals. When algo updates come out he checks if sites have been hit.

Reaching influencers?
Followerwonk
Outreachr
Knowem
Mentionmap
IFTTT
Rapportive
Boomerang
Buzzstream
Zemanta
ManageWP – if you manage lots of blogs

The most important tool? Your brain. Don’t fall victim to tool gluttony. You’ll use 2 or 3 that work for you.

Merry Morud @merrymorud is next.

Organic social questions:
What are my goals?
What are my KPIs?
How big is my circle? Degrees of separation?
Where can we associate convos?
To what extent was content exposed?
Types of content got most exposure?
How did users engage rebroadcast? Like?
What demographics of your audience?

Facebook Insights: Reporting Gems
Finding what people are hiding – Lifetime Negative Feedback

Identify needs:
Page management
Manage multiple accounts
Social listening
eCommerce
Robust analytics
Reporting

Button and URL analytics
Bit.ly
ShareThis
Add This: assign welcome messages
they’re free, location demographics, identify influencers, other interests of users

Social and Open Graph Site Tool
Janrain: stores users demographic info, socially share activity, loyalty reward games

Google Social Interaction Analytics
Associate social conversions, last touch interactions, which networks are brining your traffic and money. Look at how long people are spending on site. Sort by visit duration and evaluate.

Social Monitoring Tools
Social Mention
TrackUr

Twitter Specific Tools
Track keywords:
The Archivist
Tweet Reach

Track profiles
TwitterCounter

Page Management Tools

Facebook Tools with Tab and Contest built in
CrowdFactory
WildFire
Shoutlet
PageModo
Vitrue – multilingual

Facebook management and analytics tools
Hootsuite
MediaFunnel
Buddy Media – posting intelligence, know what time is best to post
Awareness
Lithium
Sprout Social

Posting + Listening + Analytics Reporting Powerhouses
Sysomos
Radian6

SEO + PPC + Social + Analytics
Raven Tools

Rhea Drysdale @rhea is going to talk about tools in terms of personnel and processes. We were hired to think, she says. Running a tool is not sufficient, you have to do something with it. Tools + brains can = incredible.

Epic fail tool case study: all traffic to client domain is a very gradual upward slope. Unfortunately the organic traffic target keywords is a downward slope, coinciding with the new CMS. What went wrong? New CMS contract got chosen by executive team. Launched on real site rather than test site. IT had no training on the CMS. Poor communication between SEO and IT departments. Unplanned and extended code freezes. SEO agency was positioned as a vendor, not a consultant – they weren’t able to inform the purchase decision.

How’s it getting fixed?
Immediate SEO audit and ongoing analysis as more issues are discovered
In-person visit of client by agency, met IT
Bribed IT with donuts and work gets done
Agency positioned as consultant with more management of the SEO process and internal teams.
Halted development of new CMS on other properties

Actual cost of tool includes a switch cost. For this project the actual cost included:

The actual cost of the new CMS
Internal time
Agency time
Loss of sales due to drop in organic traffic
Agency SEO audit and consulting
Travel down to see the client
Internal team morale and productivity
Turnover
Missed opportunities

Criteria 1: Access

Is the tool accessibly by Windows and Mac users?
Is the tool/product of tool viewable in a variety of web browsers?

Criteria 2: Cost
Remember all the other stuff that happens

Criteria 3: Usability
What’s the training entail?
Does the tool have a robust and easy to use Help section?

Criteria 4:
Does the tool protect your personal data?
Does the tool protect data submitted through the tools? If data is shared, is it anonymous?
Does the tool allow you to retain sole IP rights to content you create?

Criteria 5: Resource Management

Criteria 6: Added Value
Can the tool be easily replicated with an internal resource or hired contractor for the same budget?
Does the tool provider customize the tool to meet our needs?

The Business Case: Tool Value – (True cost + Risks)

Handy spreadsheet of like EVERY tool, price, use, etc.
http://outspokemediacom/seo/link-building-strategies-spreadsheet/

Virginia Nussey is the director of content marketing at MobileMonkey. Prior to joining this startup in 2018, Virginia was the operations and content manager at Bruce Clay Inc., having joined the company in 2008 as a writer and blogger.

See Virginia's author page for links to connect on social media.