BrightEdge is an enterprise-level SEO (Search Engine Optimization) platform from the company of the same name in San Mateo, California. It includes customizable dashboards, reporting, forecasting, SEO recommendations, backlink management and competitive analysis. It covers local, global, mobile, social and content centric SEO.
Presently BrightEdge's platform supports the marketing efforts of many well-brands, like Nike, Microsoft, and Netflix.
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SpyFu
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
SpyFu is the eponymous SEO and PPC research platform from the company in Scottsdale, Arizona focused on "spying" on competitors, or basically using their behaviors to refine your own through keyword and content analysis, and backlink poaching. This positional search engine optimization and paid listings management platform touts the ability to lower costs and raise rankings via a Kombat-oriented approach... basically a cute way of saying "it makes comparisons" of how well your site does in niche…
BrightEdge has been around longer and you can be trained/certified within the scope of work plus very large companies trust BrightEdge. SEMRush does a lot of the same tasks but has a little less content.
The other competitor is probably Conductor and they have an impressive platform, however, it seems to me that it would take a lot of time to get up to speed with the product. BrightEdge and Conductor platform to run well would need a full time resource to retrieve the benefits …
SpyFu
Verified User
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Chose SpyFu
I would say that the above tools each offer their own unique skillset to be able to enhance what we find with SpyFu. For competitive analysis at a low cost point SpyFu really follows through on the promise of delivering actionable competitive insights with additional tools that …
BrightEdge has been a long-standing partner with us. I have had 10 years of experience with using their platform. It is a very large robust platform that allows us to find the information we need and quickly. Unfortunately with the company being so large, they are unable to make quick changes and customers suggested enhancements as quickly as other platforms.
If you have a Google ads PPC campaign and then I would say this is more or less essential if you want to know what your competitors are doing. You can get very useful data out of it even if you subscribe for one month. And the pricing is very reasonable. Even if you don't use Google ads, I would say this is still useful for your SEO/SMO team since it gives you a great idea of what keywords and traffic your competitors are working on.
The storybuilder feature isn't anything outstanding. I feel like I can get the same type of data and format from Google Data Studio.
I feel like the Hyperlocal feature is still very junior compared to other features. It provides you good insights, but you have to set all the data fields before you can get a picture as well as it doesn't really give you an idea of how you can improve.
The mobile SEO solution is a good concept, but it needs some tweaks to be better, especially when building out a mobile story builder. Some of the data isn't simple to read and the mobile keywords functions don't also account for voice searches.
I would renew, as I don't feel there is a product out there that would have the impact on our SEO efforts as effectively as BrightEdge. It provides the information I need and integrates with other tools like Google Webmaster Tools, to truly have the depth of information that makes their suggestions for SEO changes so valued.
Love this tool but would like insights from all 3 major search engines not just Google. I would also like deeper understanding of the placement for local businesses on Google Places/Maps. Insight into mobile search rankings and best landing pages per industry would also help :) Overall, SpyFu is a necessity for serious search marketers.
Easy-to-use and intuitive design make using the BrightEdge platform a joy. Yes, I have familiarity with it and know where to go but there are definitely not a ton of extraneous bells and whistles or unnecessary tools which is part of the brilliance of their UX. Sometimes I get hung up on where keywords and keyword groups are under settings but it is typically because I am moving too quickly, and not because they've moved it.
This is a area where the BrightEdge team really shines. Their commitment to training and product support is unmatched not only for SEO platforms, but life in general. I often find myself wishing my internet provide and similar would go to BrightEdge for training on support and attitude. I would rank them an 11 if I could.
SpyFu comes with a link to tutorial videos. I recommend you watch them. The software is capable of so much you really need to watch the videos and learn how to get the most out of it. When I have a question 90% of the time it's there. When it isn't, and I reach out to them, support is always quick and concise.
While relatively expensive, Brightedge really does offer the best quality product but just as importantly (if not more so) the level of client/agency support. We have biweekly training with the entire team to continually stay up to date on Brightedge's offerings and strategies. They also offer the ability to do ad hoc reporting using some of their tools that can help us win new business and recommend Brightedge to additional clients, expanding our business as well.
I was surprised to find I preferred Semrush when it comes to keyword research. SpyFu is great (and less expensive than Semrush), but I felt the data Semrush provided was vaster than SpyFu. I was able to get more competitors spending insights in Semrush than SpyFu. Overall, I liked the ability to use both in our keyword research for both paid and organic marketing.
We have only started with BE a few months ago and so I don't have any hard numbers from an ROI perspective, but i can say that what we spent on BE is a fraction of what we were spending with agencies and we are actually getting results by doing this ourselves. From that perspective we have seen a cost savings.
With focused SEO campaigns and projects we have been able to move the needle on our SEO rankings for specific products and services. This is going to have a great impact for us in 2019 as we have some specific product goals and campaigns for 2019 that we have been working to build up over the last couple months of 2018.
