One of the most common questions we get asked is “what tools do you use for SEO”. Usually we start that answer with “well the tools we use are mostly enterprise and can be costly”!
Not really what people want to hear.
The cost of some of the tools we use – even at the lowest price levels are usually prohibitive for smaller organizations and businesses, but having access to some sort of SEO tool is not an option anymore – it is really a necessity.
Which is why we wanted to talk about SEO PowerSuite – which we think is the perfect option for nonprofits and small businesses who want to tackle their own SEO!
Disclaimer: This post does have referral links – so if you click on a link and purchase SEO PowerSuite we will receive a commission. At 2 Dogs Media we will never promote or recommend a service just to earn a referral – we only recommend services we have used ourselves or have clients who use it and love it. We will never promote or recommend anything we have not personally used or believe in! Puppy promise!
So, why do you need tools to do SEO?
Without the proper tools you will have a hard time knowing and understanding the inner workings of your website and how the search engines see you. Below are just a few of the most common items we assess with the tools that we use – but there are so many more things the tools can help with too!
- To get a general overview of your keyword rank
- To better understand your current backlinks and get ideas for new ones
- To be able to audit your website throughout the year to ensure it is technically in great shape
- Competitor analysis
These are a just a few things that a good SEO tool can help you with. While there are a few free ones that offer some insight into some of these areas, they are usually not a comprehensive look at how your website is doing in all of the key areas you should be reviewing frequently.
What does 2 Dogs Media use when doing SEO?
When we do SEO we use a LOT of tools. It is one of the reasons SEO can be a little costly too! Between the time investment and the cost of the tools to be able to grab the data we need – it all adds up.
We have subscriptions to a variety of services and use a few free tools including:
- SEMrush (our preferred keyword/phrase research tool)
- Ahrefs (backlinks backlinks backlinks)
- Screaming Frog (technical audits)
- Search Console – insight into click through rates and rank position
- Analytics – review traffic, website flow, time on site, pageviews and more
- SEO PowerSuite
Then there are MORE tools for content exploration (like BuzzSumo and ePictions), social metrics and it goes on and on.
What about the little guys with small budgets?
We get it – $99 a month for a backlink tool, $149 a month for a keyword tool (and these are the lowest SEO tool prices) – these are just too costly for most website owners to invest it.
That is why there is SEO PowerSuite!
I have been a user of SEO PowerSuite for MANY years! I started with them for the same reason others do – because the price was right. Until I had enough clients to justify the cost of the other options – SEO PowerSuite was my tool of choice and served me well.
But wait – all these years later and this set of tools STILL services me well!
I have seen the improvements in their software over the years and the passion they have for brining us exactly what we need when we need it.
Admittedly, when I first started with them it was a bit of a clunky tool that ran really slow and I never felt it returned all the data I really needed – but that has changed 1000x over, and it will now always be an important part of our arsenal of tools to help our clients improve their organic rank.
So, what is SEO PowerSuite exactly?
SEO PowerSuite is actually a package of SEO tools that you download to your computer (it is available for PC and Mac) – that gives you everything you need to improve your website!
It offers 4 unique tools in this package, listed in order of what we use the most:
Website Auditor
A must have tool that helps you find technical issues with your website! Helps you find pages that have crawl issues, redirect issues, broken links and so much more. You can view our Website Auditor review post to get more details and see a video of the tool!
It can also help you determine how well your content is optimized for the search engines and offers advice and tips on how to improve your content to rank better.
This is one of our main go to tools when we do client website audits.
Learn more about Website Auditor
This is an example of a report from the Website Auditor that we absolutely love! It allows us to easily see the hierarchy of a website at a glance to ensure that a website is well focused around keyword groups and related content. We will dig more into this in our Website Auditor review post where you can see all of the different information and capabilities of this tool.
SEO Spyglass
A backlink tool that can give you insight into all the backlinks your website has as well as if they are good or bad backlinks.
It pulls from a variety of different sources to get one of the largest backlink profiles, we have seen a huge improvement in this tool recently. While we still use Ahrefs for a primary pull of backlink data – SEO Spyglass is a second source that we then compare to the data from Ahrefs. These 2 tools combined give us a really great overview of how well your backlink program is going and how you can improve it.
You can also view the backlinks of competitors which can help you with procuring new backlinks!
Rank Tracker
Keyword tracking and research tool to help you see where you rank as well as find new keywords and phrases to bring new traffic.
You can se how competitive a keyword is, who currently ranks for it and track your progress with their easy to understand graphs and charts. While we want to state that there is no perfect rank tracking tool – we do find Rank Tracker to be pretty accurate in the data they deliver. It is a great tool to see where you are – and how much you improved in the search engines.
Link Assistant
We have no used this part of the tools as much since we have not really focused too much on any type of in-depth link-building campaign, but we are going to start trying!
It is a link outreach tool that can help you find opportunities for building backlinks. Type in a keyword and you have an array of options for researching opportunities on forums, blogs, guest posts, commenting and more to get backlinks to your website.
Learn more about Link Assistant
SEO Powersuite is definitely a top choice for solo-preneurs, nonprofit organizations or small businesses who need to have a better understanding of their website! While there are also large enterprise clients that are using this set of tools – we are only focusing on why we think it is great for the smaller guys out there like us!
We will be doing a mini-tutorial on each of these 4 tools in the coming weeks so we can share the tools we think our nonprofit community and business owners would use the most.
SEO PowerSuite – the bad!
As with every tool there are good and bad things about it. So we wanted to share both sides in this overview.
- Speed – The main issue with this tool is that it can be slow to pull the data. Because it is a downloaded software that runs on your computer, if you have a slow internet connection it may be cumbersome and take a while to get the data – especially if you have a big website. If you run a report – we suggest you run it when you do not need to do anything else on the computer. Also there are options that SEO PowerSuite suggest to ensure your processing is as fast as it can be.
- Learning curve – this tool has some amazing features – so there will be a learning curve to really get the most benefit from it. SEO PowerSuite has done an exceptional job with tutorials and they offer great support as well. But you do need to learn about how to properly use it to get the information you need. But it is worth it!
SEO PowerSuite – the good!
- Cost – this tool has a ONE TIME flat fee cost. You buy the software and it is yours. There is a small additional fee they implement called a “Search Algo Update” fee and you will need it to keep the software up to date. As you can imagine it is costly to keep the software updated and to pull the data from the sources they access to bring that data to you so they do need to recoup that cost. (This is why software like Ahrefs and SEMRush are so expensive and limit their data based on price levels). SEO PowerSuite does not limit data you can retrieve – the Algo update pricing can be seen here and ranges from a monthly fee of $29.95 and goes down if you bulk order for more months at a time.
- Accuracy – this toolset is one of the most accurate we use. We use Website Auditor and SEO Spyglass often and find the accuracy is spot on with other tools we have been using.
- Service – having been a part of the SEO PowerSuite family for years, I can attest to their level of support – whether through their website, on FB or Twitter – you will get answers fairly quickly.
- Training – they have an amazing set of blog posts to educate you on the various ways you can use their SEO toolset to help you grow your website. They are easy to read with great imagery and you can follow along really easy!
Is SEO PowerSuite Worth The Money?
In our opinion – ABSOLUTELY! When compared to the other tools out there, hands down it is a good value.
Let’s talk a bit about the cost and what you get!
There are 3 available license versions:
Free
The free versions is perfect to test things out! Download the entire SEO PowerSuite set and you will have the opportunity to run the program to see if it is right for you. There are of course limitations to what you can do – but you will be able to run enough tests to get some great information which should sell you on the value.
Professional License – $299
As of the time of this updated post (8/26/18) the price listed for the Professional SEO PowerSuite license is $299. This is a one-time fee that give you ownership of the tool to use on 1 computer. This is the perfect option for businesses and nonprofits that have smaller budgets for SEO and for small SEO agencies with just a few clients.
Enterprise License – $699
As of the time of this updated post (8/26/18) the price listed for the Enterprise SEO PowerSuite license is $699. This is a one-time fee that give you ownership of the tool to use on 1 computer. This is the perfect option for larger businesses, nonprofits or SEO agencies that have a larger client base and need to track more data.
The Algo Update Fee
While the software itself is a one-time fee, there is an “algo update fee” that is required.
This is one of those things that many people complain about – and we are baffled as to why.
SEO PowerSuite does clearly state on the order page that 6 months of algo updates are included with a purchase – so this is great! But after the 6 months your software will absolutely still run, but you may not get the most accurate data if you do not purchase an algo update subscription.
Why do you need this subscription?
Well, a lot of the more expensive tools like Ahref or SemRush charge a lot because of the costs associated with running API’s to pull the data from Google or Bing. SEO Powersuite has to do the same — the data it is delivering to you is NOT free and does cost them money. But we find it minimal compared to the other tools out there.
You can see the full algo subscription pricing here – but you can choose to pay for the algo subscription for all 4 tools or just 1. For example, we have never really used LinkAssistant to date so we did not pay for the subscription to keep that up to date.
If you decide you only want to use Rank Tracker – then you can JUST pay for that tool.
1 tool starts at $12.95 per month (it gets cheaper if you order in bulk) —-
All 4 tools start at $29.95 per month (but also goes down if you order in bulk).
This subscription also give you access to an online storage area so you can keep your projects in the cloud which is a safe way to keep your projects stored and easy to access every time you open the tool!
Have You Tried SEO PowerSuite?
If you have tried any one of the tools with this program let us know! Did you love it or hate it? Have you used it in creative ways? We want to hear from you!
Have Questions?
If you have questions about this tool – we will do our best to answer them so ask away! Seriously, this is a great deal – and at this price is a steal for what it offers!
THOUGHT? QUESTIONS?