I recently learned of (and acquired) some very interesting SEO software by a guy named Michael Marshall. My client Perry Marshall told me about him, and said “he’s a Doctor of SEO”.
Mike’s software is a suite of 3 different desktop applications that each do something different. (His site is just an IP address – quirky huh?)
Anywho, the magic of this software, ESPECIALLY in the face of Google’s new Panda/Penguin updates – is that it evaluates your niche, competitors and all of your onpage/offpage factors, telling you with scientific accuracy what your site needs to be more relevant to the keywords you want to rank for.
SEO Recon is the first application I tested, and it evaluated my site (using the MajesticSEO API) and compared it with all of the other sites that are ranking for my keywords, then told me what the percentages and ranges of both my onpage and offpage factors should be, based on all of the other sites that are ranking above me. This helped me to see where the site in question was OVER OPTIMIZED as or lacking crucial content, necessary to help it get better rankings.
This eliminates the guesswork in trying to figure out what your onpage/offpage factors should be, by telling you exactly where your site is relative to the other ranking sites in your niche (as opposed to using a static algorithm to judge this).
This is truly something highly beneficial and different that I will be using from now one on each and every site optimize.
The next application (called SEO SCOUT) and this application us a THEMATIC tool to help identify what keywords are missing from your page, based on the thematic profile you are trying to rank for. So where SEO RECON told me what my site was missing or had too much of, SEO SCOUT told me what keywords to add/remove to help bring it into better focus for my keywords.
Again, this is not your ordinary SEO software. In fact, I almost dismissed it thinking, “just what I need, more SEO software to learn!”. But after the last Google update, it’s more important than ever that sites be as “tuned” and relative as possible for the keywords we want to rank for – and Mike’s software is definitely an important tool to have in the “SEO Toolbox”- and I’m grateful that Perry turned me on to it.
The 3rd piece of software (SEO SNIPER) is more about identifying opportunities for keywords – and I have not had a chance to play with it yet (but I will).
The one caveat I must mention about Mike’s software is, it’s not “slick” or necessarily easy to use. It creates Word Docs and Spreadsheets that you must carefully merge together to see where your site is relative to everyone else’s, and can be intimidating at first. But that said, I don’t want to it be so easy that EVERYONE could use it – because I think it’s a super powerful tool for getting a competitive edge, and helping to see precisely what my sites need to succeed over the long haul in Google search.
~ Donovan Kovar
Sadly, Michael Marshall died in 2014 from a massive heart attack. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his wife and children.