If you deal with multiple clients it’s important to have a good SEO software. You’ve probably heard about web-based marketing tools like Raven Tools, SEOmoz Tools. You’ve also heard about stationary tools like WebCEO (now also has a web version) and Advanced Web Ranking (AWR) by Caphyon. AWR web ranking software as well as its sister link building tool are the two I’d like to talk about in this article.

Advanced Web Ranking

Why I chose to use this online marketing platform? I’ve used a number of competing products but found AWR the most capable in handling my client management needs. There’s no one perfect online marketing software suite but this one has the most features I need to deal with my client’s sites.

Great marketing is about telling great stories. Any story starts with source’s experience. Also, a story requires tools that enable the source to convey the story to the receiver.

Storify is a great social media tool that helps people tell their marketing stories. I’ve been following the development of this tool for some time now today noticed that Storify launched a plugin for WordPress. I wanted to quickly try it out. Here’s my first try at using Storify to collect social media info about on-page SEO.

Feel free to register and play with this marketing tool. I’m sure there are ways that writers, SEOs and social media players can use it.

There is a lot of SEO tools out there. Choosing the tool depends on a task and a project at hands. You can select SEO tools by task such as keyword research tools. But more often you’d need a tool that can quickly analyze a website for main SEO elements. There’s a number of those too. But this time I’d like to share my experience with Craawler.

A friend of mine, Robert Anderson has introduced me to a new social media browser. In simple terms it’s based on Google Chrome but has a few features that keep your social media profiles handy.

If you’re like me, then you like experimenting with new things. I’ve been using Chrome extensions since they day they were released. So, at the top level, all that RockMelt does is it makes your key social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter) more accessible. Here are the top four things this browser does:

Share easily

• Share a page you’re viewing on Facebook and Twitter with a click of a button. Prior to RockMelt I was using bit.ly Chrome extension to get a short URL. Then I would have to open Facebook or Twitter to post that URL.
• You can also update your status or send a tweet right from here. Equivalent functionality is available using HootSuite Chrome extension. Actually, HootSuite Chrome extension is way more flexible and resourceful.

Search faster

• Not sure what they meant by “search faster”. And even if it does, “slow search” was never an issue in Google Chrome.
• What’s interesting though is that RockMelt not only uses Google results but also searches inside your social media profile that you connected to this browser.

Connect with friends

• In RockMelt all your Facebook friends (that are currently online) are on the left sidebar that constantly updates with people leaving and coming in.
• A cool thing is that you can chat with any of them right from this bar. They also see you (if you’re visible) and can initiate a chat with you right here too.
• A not so cool thing is that it distracts a bit from your general browsing experience. Constant flicking when people come and go doesn’t help things.
• Good thing is that you can create a list of your favourite Friends and this list will always be up showing who’s in and who’s out.

Keep up on news

• This is like having Google Reader always by your side. You can line up your favourite sites into this right-hand sidebar. Icons will shine every time there’s an update.

Other comments are…

• Limited number of invitations: The tool is “by invite only” at this point. There’s only 3 invitations that you can send. I understand the need to control user growth and desire to create an elitist tool, but 3 is not too many, especially given that the first people that will use the browser will probably be marketers. I need more invites!
• Limited number of profiles you can manage: Yes, Facebook and Twitter are the most buzzing tools for social interaction these days, but there are others too. I hope that soon there will be more. HootSuite, for example, has access to Linkedin too.

Overall, it’s an interesting start-up product with clean execution of logical next step in evolution of browsers. RockMelt has touched on all key browser activities (Share, Search, Connect, and Read) and they’re definitely going in the right direction. I look forward to new additions to this browser!

Link building is important because the more sites link back to you the more authority your site has in the eyes of a search engines. It’s like “it’s better when people tell good things about you, than when you go and talk about yourself”.

Not all links are created equal. These are some of the key things that differentiate links:

• dofollow and nofollow links. In other words, links that transfer
• one way, two way and even three way. You should be interested in one way links.
• links from directories, social bookmarking sites, blog articles, blog comments, etc. The more diverse your links sources are the better.
• links from quality, trusted, authoritative websites. These links you need! Although it may take awhile to get a link from an authority website, but it’s definitely worth it. For example your article gets published in TechCrunch. Or your product is cited in New York Times.
• links from general resources and industry-specific resources

Without getting into too many details, there’s a few things to keep in mind when linkbuilding:

• Pay attention to both quantity and quality, having said that quality of links is always more important. It’s way better to have one link from New York Times and a hundreds thousands of links from questionable directories.
• Make sure links that you are getting are from relevant resources (for the most part).
• Anchor text is super important. Anchor is linked text. A good anchor for an SEO Service company is SEO Service. Also make sure to differentiate your anchors. For example, instead of using just SEO Service use multiple anchors like SEO company, SEO Service, SEO Reports, etc.
• Take a snapshot of your current link profile (sites that link back to you). There’s a section on how to do it in my previous post on taking SEO performance snapshots. Once you have that base number you can track your month-to-month easily.

There are tools available that will help you discover sites to link to, monitor your link building activity and manage your link building process. Below are only a few options for link building tools.

• Backlink watch (Free): helps you monitor who links back to you, what anchor text is used and if it’s a dofollow or nofollow link.
• Link Builder tool from Wordtracker (Paid): I have not used it but for some reason I trust these guys. This is supposed to be a multi-purpose tool to help you run your link building program.
• Linkscape and Open Site Explorer tools by SEOmoz (Free): these two are free link building tools from a reliable vendor.
• List of tools at Search Engine Land (Free and paid): this is a comprehensive list of solid tools by a solid publisher.

This list should be sufficient. You can, of course, search Google to find more link building tools but I recommend you get to work of actually link building and NOT looking for better tools and evaluating alternatives. Believe me, I spent countless hours looking at tools only to find out that the link building work was not happening.

I was talking to a friend of mine Ilya Sorokin just this past weekend about creating tools to analyze twitter feeds. Then, accidentally, came across an article presenting a list of tools that allow analysis to parse twitter for meaning. Here’s the article, I hope you find this of value: Tweeting By Numbers: 7 Ways to Become a Twitter Analyst

With such popularity of twitter and immense information concentration in one online tool, it’s hugely important for businesses to dig into the data to understand the brand conversations their potential customers are having. I personally want to know more about tools and analysis results, so please feel free to comment with your experiences analyzing twitter data.