Every law firm search engine marketing consultant knows the value of monitoring both their client’s search engine position and those of their competitors. If you are currently handling your firm’s own search engine optimization, you need to have the right tools to properly monitor your progress. However, there are many rank tracking tools that don’t provide you with a complete picture of your progress.
Also, search analysis can be a tedious process. Organizing multiple data sets from several different sources, can become extremely time-consuming. We are experimented with several web-based, browser-based, and desktop solutions. Recently, we have been checking out Caphyon’s search engine ranking software, Advanced Web Ranking and link popularity Advanced Link Manager tools.
Advanced Web Ranking (AWR)
As you probably know, using a Keyword Research Tool will help you determine relevance, search volume and competition, for finding your niche market related keywords. One of the features we really enjoyed from Advanced Web Ranking was their ability to combine multiple keywords tools one place to make the keyword discovery process more efficient and effective.
We also appreciated AWR’s search engine-conscious features. The software is “smart” when it comes to issues typically related to automated querying of search engines. It imitates a user’s manual search behavior by querying page by page and pausing between two consecutive pages. For each engine, it will only do a single query at a time.
Another strong feature is AWR’s Rank Evolution graphical charts. These charts allow you to make essential customizations. You can chart progress over time and dig deep into your key performance indicators. The software makes long-term rank analysis much more efficient.
We’ve looked at several different options for full-service tools. While there are many other tools out there that we still use, for its function, we weren’t able to find any website ranking tools that we liked more than AWR. And we’re not alone. User’s at SEOmoz, and Search Engine Land have also found it effective.
Here are some other top features:
Here are some additional key features of AWR:
* Triggers can be set to automatically alert you to certain events that occur (e.g. a decrease in ranking on certain money keywords)
* It runs on Mac, Windows and Linux
* Advanced filtering can be set to get you information that is most relevant for your needs
* You can monitor keywords on a local basis limited to results for a certain city or region
* AWR can help you generate a list of keywords
* You can export the data to manipulate in external programs such as Excel
The feature list depends on which AWR license you purchase. There are four levels of license increasing in features from standard to server. Even the standard license comes with some of the most important tools. However, we’ve been working with enterprise. Our choice to use enterprise was primarily based on the trigger, project management, and keyword research features that are not available at the lower licenses.
The feature of AWR that caused us to choose it over a couple of our other considerations, was the support. AWR has an extensive user guide, knowledge base, and customer support. The software is also constantly updated. The AWR Blog is also a great resource for keeping up issues relevant to ranking. Caphyon also provides extened maintenance plans which cover access to any relevant support and software updates for your software license on 12 month cycles. The maintenance plan provides product updates, search engine updates, and technical support.
Advanced Link Manager (ALM)
Link analysis, measurement, and monitoring is really at the core of any law firm seo campaign. Links are the currency of the internet and figuring out how to garner more links to your site has to be on your very short list of priorities. However, it is also important to keep in mind that organizing and managing those links is an ongoing art. This is where Advanced Link Manager comes into play. Advanced Link Manager leverages the search engines to seek out potential link partners. It also searches potential partner sites to see which are linking to you.
With an enterprise license of ALM, you also get one of the newest features of the software. The analyze domain quality feature allows you to view the quality of one or multiple domains. This helps you determine which domains are worth getting links from and which are not. Information such as the number and quality of inbound links is critical to growing your site’s search engine visibility.
One of the most common drawbacks of most link manager solutions is exporting and organizing data. ALM can export all the data it gathers to a CSV or XML file. The feature allows you to create custom export templates and export the data at anytime. You can also schedule recurring updates and reports. This allows for data export at certain dates and times.
Triggers allows you to define an action template which will execute an action on the referrer URL that match the selected filters. For example, you want to remove wrong referrers from your project. A trigger can be used on the Filter section to remove these from your results.
If some of these features seem a little confusing, check out this walkthrough. It gives you an excellent break down of what types of tasks can be implemented using ALM. Who knows, the walkthrough may even give you some ideas for link analysis and management that you had not though of yet.
Out of the ten paid web ranking and link management tools that we reviewed, there is no question that AWR and ALM come out on top for efficiency and effectiveness. While I stand behind the opinions that I have expressed here, it doesn’t hurt that Caphyon offers a substantial license discount for articles reviewing the software, of which I plan to take full advantage.
Most law firms we talk to are starting to get a very basic understanding of SEO strategies. However, they still aren’t sure about which ones actually work and which ones don’t.
