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Raven Tools from the Tennessee company of the same name is Internet or search engine marketing optimization software consisting of popular tools targeted at SEO specialists who need research automation. To that end it contains the familiar set of website research and auditing, competitor monitoring, rank tracking, and also content investigation to see that material on the site is keyword-rich yet topically relevant. Social media and backlink checking tools facilitate outreach and drive traffic by way of getting cited by others. Like other more comprehensive solutions, Raven Tools also helps marketers manage PPC campaigns with analytics and reporting. The Raven Pro edition allows 4 users access to Ravel Tools for $99 per month, while Raven Agency provides a group of unlimited size shared access for $249 per month. Both editions support unlimited campaigning and access to Raven Tools' foundational data sources, as well as white label reporting, but Agency triples Link Manager storage from 50k to 150k links.https://dudodiprj2sv7.cloudfront.net/product-logos/KQ/1J/4TW7X5ND8Z0F.pngA Great All-around ToolRavenTools is used in some way for all of our clients. We most frequently use it to create monthly reports, but also utilize its audit tool to keep track of client website performance.,This is a great program for reporting to clients. There is easy integration for Adwords, Analytics, and Search Console. The keyword tracker feature allows us to monitor keyword rankings. The website audit tool helps us identify site issues in order to resolve them. We typically run this feature once a month for all of our clients.,The analytics in the tool and the Google Analytics dashboard have been known to be out of sync, but this doesn't happen very often. The reports occasionally have glitches, such as overlap of different modules. The keyword tracking tool does not provide easy tracking of rankings over time.,9,RavenTools helps us keep out clients in the loop, delivering concrete reporting that our clients can understand. Because of this, clients feel confident in our professional abilities and are much more likely to remain clients.,,Ahrefs Site Explorer, Hootsuite ProRavenTools - a Great Tool for the Digital Marketer Looking to Do It AllRavenTools is being used by our marketing department to provide support to our marketing, sales, and product management teams. As the digital media coordinator, it provides me the ability to track the performance of various digital media and campaigns all in one place. I also use the various tools to assist with web development and SEO planning. Additionally, I use the report creation tools to create performance reports for various teams within our marketing department. Previous to using RavenTools, our company did not have the ability to track digital media statistics. There was also no reporting system to share progress with various team members. The marketing department was struggling to get detailed insights. RavenTools has solved all of these problems.,Customer Service: Anytime I have had an issue or question regarding a RavenTools feature, their customer service team has been very responsive. You [may] expect a response within 24 hours. I do not recall a time I have had to wait more that 2 hours for assistance. Data Organization: One thing I truly appreciate about RavenTools is they present their data in a similar fashion to the original data platform. For example, RavenTools Google Analytics Data is organized in the same way you would find it on the Google Analytics website. The makes it extremely easy to find what you are looking for and allows easy use across multiple platforms. Easy Setup: Getting started in RavenTools is very simple. All you have to do is link up the accounts for your various brands. No extra coding is needed. The data will auto populate for you. Automation: Another great feature is the ability to set up automated reporting. Not only is it useful for those who need to receive the data, but it also serves as an action item for me. I can create a report template for each brand and set it up so I get an email whenever the scheduled report is ready. This reminds me to go in and check on any updates.,Downtime: There have been instances when I have needed time-sensitive reports and have discovered parts of the system are down. If you are using this software with multiple clients on a daily basis, you may run into some issues. I have experienced everything from reports failing to be updated in real time to not being able to reach the website. Limited Platform Integration: While RavenTools does offer a decent amount of data, they seem to be slow to add some platforms. For example, you can't connect your Instagram account and on their website they explicitly say "No plans to develop an integration anytime soon." - which is very unfortunate. Dashboard Organization: I guess this could be considered Personal Perfernce, but I think some tools could be better organized on the dashboard. After using RavenTools for 3 years, I still have to search around for certain tools. Let's say I want to do some keyword tracking. I can go to the "Campaign" tab and insert multiple keywords. A week later I want to research those same keywords. If I go under the "Research" tab, none of my keywords are there. I have to go back to the "Campaign" tab, click research, and then I am redirected to the "Research" tab where the information populates. You would think that the information would automatically remain under the "Research" tab, but nope. I would have to go through the "Campaign" tab and repeat the process again just to revisit the keyword information. Communication: I feel the communication to users has decreased over time. I appreciate a platform that makes changes to improve the user experience, but I don't feel I am informed of updates. I will go into the dashboard and notice that something has changed or moved unexpectedly. Now I have to go to Google and dig around to find what changed and how to use the new setup. I wish they would go back to creating updated video tutorials.,8,RavenTools allows our company to save time and time is money! We are able to review campaign results all from one place. While running a campaign, for example AdWords, I use RavenTools to check on daily performance. I can see what is or isn't working. This helps ensure we are using our money for the maximum ROI. After we have run a campaign RavenTools helps up navigate the success or failure. This is a great way to debrief and decide how to make the next campaign more profitable.,Hootsuite Free,Google Analytics, Hootsuite Free, Facebook for Business,9,Yes,At one point, Google Webmaster Tools changed their authentication process and there was a data failure on RavenTools end. At this time my account had multiple brands. There was a way to go through each individual account and reauthorize the account but that would have taken me a very long time. I reached out to customer service and worked directly with a representative to find a work around. Within the hour I was able to go to one screen and quickly reauthorize each account. It was nice to have someone work on my issue and find the perfect fit for my needs. He could have just told me the only way to do it was going into each account and performing the task one by one, but instead he took the time to find a work around.,Report Building using RavenTools is very simple and they continue to improve it! Adding your various accounts (Analytics, Social Media, AdWords, etc) is very easy to do. Finding and understanding data is easy. If you are use to using Google Analytics you will have no problem moving to RavenTools and finding the same data you are use to seeing.,Scheduling social media posts can be cumbersome. If you are accustomed to using Hootsuite or a similar service, RavenTools will come off as very basic. You are able to schedule a post with text and images but it is difficult to tag a profile or pick a location, etc. It does take some time to get used to the dashboard setup. In the beginning, you may become confused when clicking certain metrics. For example, the site auditor gives insights into certain issues with your website. You can click a link which explains why the issue is important or you can click a link that takes you to the live issue. Sometimes the text isn't clear to which link you are actually clicking.,Yes, but I don't use it,7The Essential Search Marketing ToolRavenTools is used everyday by our search marketing department. We've found it an invaluable tool for tracking outreach, contact information, opportunities, log in details, and other important information for specific sites on a client-level basis. In addition RavenTools connects with the Google Search Console, Google Adwords, Google Analytics, and uses Majestic SEO's backlink data in reports. My favorite tool for new clients is the site audit, which renders a simple but powerful report highlighting issues that need to be fixed like semantic data, visibility issues, and duplicate content or title tags. I highly recommend RavenTools for other SEOs and content marketing teams!,Organizes contact details, outreach, and log in information for websites. Reports: Audits, analytics, performance. Easy Integration via browser extensions and API key.,The chrome extension is very glitchy, please fix. I would like to be able to compare one client's links to another's and be given a list of sites that ones has a link from but not the other.,10,Increased efficiency Better link tracking Improved Organization,activecollab.com,4,4,SEO Project Management Link Building Content Marketing,Link Prospecting Organizing client data Outreach,Editorial Calendar Integration would be nice,10Easily Integrate Marketing Data with RavenToolsRavenTools is our primary reporting tool for measuring effectiveness of our digital marketing efforts. Although the reports are generated by the Engagement Department the reports are shared with clients as well as within the company to help the Account Executives understand how the online campaigns are driving traffic to the website and ultimately increasing the number of leads generated for our clients. We sometimes supplement these reports with reports directly out of Google Analytics but the visual nature of the reports generated by RavenTools makes it easy for non-analysts to understand the information.,The reporting module allows us to easily customize reports. We can add or remove modules depending on whether the reports are going to be internal or external. Raven allows us to aggregate all of our Analytics, AdWords and social accounts so that we can present a complete Integrated Marketing Report. Raven makes it easy to edit the variables in the reports such as comparisons between time periods, number of items presented in a table, and sort order.,Raven is not a 1-1 match to the modules in Google Analytics. There are still reports that we get from GA and combine with our RavenTools report. Raven does not retroactively pick up some social data. If you forget to set social tracking up on day one, you're in trouble.,9,RavenTools has absolutely improved the reporting we provide our clients. We used to be mashing together dissimilar Excel reports. Comparisons between time periods was difficult to present and graphs had to be created manually with lots of time spent formatting them correctly. RavenTools has improved the efficiency with which we put together our reports. This frees us up to do more high-level thinking about recommendations and up-sell opportunities which ultimately leads to more revenue.,,10,Change management was a major issue with the implementationQuick and EffectiveRavenTools was used by our Search Marketing department for keyword research, competitor research, areas of opportunity, and positioning monitoring. It was later abandoned as the search team began looking at different options and eventually moved to another product.,Cross-competitor research Rank tracking Keyword research,Overall learning curve could be improved I wouldn't mind seeing webinars or videos on tricks to get to most of the product Managing keywords was a little goofy with a long list,7,Increased efficiency Tunnel vision - puts so many tools in one place that other tools may be overlooked
  3. RavenTools Reviews
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RavenTools
48 Ratings
Score 7.7 out of 101
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RavenTools Reviews

RavenTools
48 Ratings
Score 7.7 out of 101
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Geoffrey Hoesch profile photo
April 25, 2018

RavenTools Review: "A Great All-around Tool"

Geoffrey Hoesch
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
RavenTools is used in some way for all of our clients. We most frequently use it to create monthly reports, but also utilize its audit tool to keep track of client website performance.
  • This is a great program for reporting to clients. There is easy integration for Adwords, Analytics, and Search Console.
  • The keyword tracker feature allows us to monitor keyword rankings.
  • The website audit tool helps us identify site issues in order to resolve them. We typically run this feature once a month for all of our clients.
  • The analytics in the tool and the Google Analytics dashboard have been known to be out of sync, but this doesn't happen very often.
  • The reports occasionally have glitches, such as overlap of different modules.
  • The keyword tracking tool does not provide easy tracking of rankings over time.
RavenTools is particularly useful for developing WYSIWYG reports for clients. These reports are fairly superficial, but typically all you'd need for clients. It may not be appropriate if you need to drill deep into Google Analytics in your reporting.
Read Geoffrey Hoesch's full review
Lakita Marshall profile photo
May 01, 2017

Review: "RavenTools - a Great Tool for the Digital Marketer Looking to Do It All"

Lakita Marshall
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
RavenTools is being used by our marketing department to provide support to our marketing, sales, and product management teams. As the digital media coordinator, it provides me the ability to track the performance of various digital media and campaigns all in one place. I also use the various tools to assist with web development and SEO planning. Additionally, I use the report creation tools to create performance reports for various teams within our marketing department.

Previous to using RavenTools, our company did not have the ability to track digital media statistics. There was also no reporting system to share progress with various team members. The marketing department was struggling to get detailed insights. RavenTools has solved all of these problems.
  • Customer Service: Anytime I have had an issue or question regarding a RavenTools feature, their customer service team has been very responsive. You [may] expect a response within 24 hours. I do not recall a time I have had to wait more that 2 hours for assistance.
  • Data Organization: One thing I truly appreciate about RavenTools is they present their data in a similar fashion to the original data platform. For example, RavenTools Google Analytics Data is organized in the same way you would find it on the Google Analytics website. The makes it extremely easy to find what you are looking for and allows easy use across multiple platforms.
  • Easy Setup: Getting started in RavenTools is very simple. All you have to do is link up the accounts for your various brands. No extra coding is needed. The data will auto populate for you.
  • Automation: Another great feature is the ability to set up automated reporting. Not only is it useful for those who need to receive the data, but it also serves as an action item for me. I can create a report template for each brand and set it up so I get an email whenever the scheduled report is ready. This reminds me to go in and check on any updates.
  • Downtime: There have been instances when I have needed time-sensitive reports and have discovered parts of the system are down. If you are using this software with multiple clients on a daily basis, you may run into some issues. I have experienced everything from reports failing to be updated in real time to not being able to reach the website.
  • Limited Platform Integration: While RavenTools does offer a decent amount of data, they seem to be slow to add some platforms. For example, you can't connect your Instagram account and on their website they explicitly say "No plans to develop an integration anytime soon." - which is very unfortunate.
  • Dashboard Organization: I guess this could be considered Personal Perfernce, but I think some tools could be better organized on the dashboard. After using RavenTools for 3 years, I still have to search around for certain tools. Let's say I want to do some keyword tracking. I can go to the "Campaign" tab and insert multiple keywords. A week later I want to research those same keywords. If I go under the "Research" tab, none of my keywords are there. I have to go back to the "Campaign" tab, click research, and then I am redirected to the "Research" tab where the information populates. You would think that the information would automatically remain under the "Research" tab, but nope. I would have to go through the "Campaign" tab and repeat the process again just to revisit the keyword information.
  • Communication: I feel the communication to users has decreased over time. I appreciate a platform that makes changes to improve the user experience, but I don't feel I am informed of updates. I will go into the dashboard and notice that something has changed or moved unexpectedly. Now I have to go to Google and dig around to find what changed and how to use the new setup. I wish they would go back to creating updated video tutorials.
If you are looking for a one-stop shop for MOST things related to digital marketing, RavenTools is a great solution. You will be able to monitor social media, Google tools, email campaigns, and much more from one spot. It really cuts down on time spent moving from account to account. If you are looking for clean and easy to read reports for clients, RavenTools is perfect for that as well. It provides tools and reports that can be used by internal and external teams alike.
Read Lakita Marshall's full review
Jennifer Long profile photo
September 04, 2015

RavenTools Review: "The Essential Search Marketing Tool"

Jennifer Long
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
RavenTools is used everyday by our search marketing department. We've found it an invaluable tool for tracking outreach, contact information, opportunities, log in details, and other important information for specific sites on a client-level basis. In addition RavenTools connects with the Google Search Console, Google Adwords, Google Analytics, and uses Majestic SEO's backlink data in reports. My favorite tool for new clients is the site audit, which renders a simple but powerful report highlighting issues that need to be fixed like semantic data, visibility issues, and duplicate content or title tags. I highly recommend RavenTools for other SEOs and content marketing teams!
  • Organizes contact details, outreach, and log in information for websites.
  • Reports: Audits, analytics, performance.
  • Easy Integration via browser extensions and API key.
  • The chrome extension is very glitchy, please fix.
  • I would like to be able to compare one client's links to another's and be given a list of sites that ones has a link from but not the other.
RavenTools is well suited for online marketers and content marketers. I don't think it is necessarily the best tool for paid search marketers because they do not need all of the link tracking and outreach tools in the software.
Read Jennifer Long's full review
Amy Odhner profile photo
July 08, 2015

"Easily Integrate Marketing Data with RavenTools"

Amy Odhner
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
RavenTools is our primary reporting tool for measuring effectiveness of our digital marketing efforts. Although the reports are generated by the Engagement Department the reports are shared with clients as well as within the company to help the Account Executives understand how the online campaigns are driving traffic to the website and ultimately increasing the number of leads generated for our clients. We sometimes supplement these reports with reports directly out of Google Analytics but the visual nature of the reports generated by RavenTools makes it easy for non-analysts to understand the information.
  • The reporting module allows us to easily customize reports. We can add or remove modules depending on whether the reports are going to be internal or external.
  • Raven allows us to aggregate all of our Analytics, AdWords and social accounts so that we can present a complete Integrated Marketing Report.
  • Raven makes it easy to edit the variables in the reports such as comparisons between time periods, number of items presented in a table, and sort order.
  • Raven is not a 1-1 match to the modules in Google Analytics. There are still reports that we get from GA and combine with our RavenTools report.
  • Raven does not retroactively pick up some social data. If you forget to set social tracking up on day one, you're in trouble.
I would definitely recommend RavenTools to a colleague. They are very open to feedback regarding additional features we would like to see. Additionally, they are great at providing webinars on how to best use their products. We have increased our utilization of RavenTools every time we have watched on of the webinars.

These reports are most useful to presenting data to non-analysts. A hard-cord analytics person might want to dig deeper into the data. RavenTools is best at providing a high-level overview of the information. With that said, I think Raven is an excellent reporting solution.
Read Amy Odhner's full review
Caleb Blatz profile photo
September 11, 2015

RavenTools Review: "Quick and Effective"

Caleb Blatz
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
RavenTools was used by our Search Marketing department for keyword research, competitor research, areas of opportunity, and positioning monitoring. It was later abandoned as the search team began looking at different options and eventually moved to another product.
  • Cross-competitor research
  • Rank tracking
  • Keyword research
  • Overall learning curve could be improved
  • I wouldn't mind seeing webinars or videos on tricks to get to most of the product
  • Managing keywords was a little goofy with a long list
I love how quick it is to get your site set up and integrated with the other tools you're already using and compile all that data in a single place. It makes new set up of new accounts very quick and easy.
Read Caleb Blatz's full review
Shawn Livengood profile photo
September 04, 2015

Review: "RavenTools for SEO tracking and reporting"

Shawn Livengood
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
RavenTools was used by my organization to monitor keyword ranking and traffic for search engine optimization projects. We used its reporting capabilities to provide white labeled SEO reports to show progress on search engine marketing projects. Reporting on keyword ranking and traffic can be problematic since Google's "not provided" keyword data update, and RavenTools offers an adequate solution to this issue.
  • SEO keyword rank tracking
  • White label reporting capabilities
  • Aggregating report data from multiple platforms (AdWords, Bing, SEO, etc.)
  • More detailed reporting from AdWords
  • Additional customization options for reports
  • Smarter SEO site auditing - it can review things using rigid criteria, but doesn't offer the kind of nuanced analysis that a trained SEO analyst can deliver.
RavenTools is better for report aggregation than it is for measuring SEO and PPC performance. Much of its capability can be replicated via automated reports in AdWords/Google Analytics, but if you want to save some time in setting that up, RavenTools might be useful for you and your organization.
Read Shawn Livengood's full review
Bret Williams profile photo
November 26, 2014

User Review: "RavenTools Remains our Favorite Tool"

Bret Williams
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
RavenTools is being used to continually analyze our SEO performance. We monitor ongoing progress with how well we are addressing SEO issues. We also use RavenTools to monitor our conversions from AdWords and organic traffic. RavenTools provides us a centralized place to monitor all online marketing activities. It also gives us reports to share with our team and management.
  • Site audit
  • Keyword research
  • Social media monitoring
  • There is no initial workflow. In order words, in setting up a new site, there is no checklist, really, of what all configurations and settings are needed. We would greatly appreciate having a set-up wizard to take us through the entire set-up process. We're continually finding new, cool areas that we have missed configuring.
  • The online help is, in some places, dated and needs to be updated.
RavenTools is not ideal for a beginner in the SEO/PPC space. Because of the lack of a set-up wizard, it's really more for people who already have a sense of what integrated services are available, such as Webmaster tools, AdWords, social media, etc. We're just now exploring the "Tasks" functionality, but it's not front and center, and for the longest time was ignored.
Read Bret Williams's full review
Laren Helms profile photo
July 01, 2014

Review: "RavenTools: The leftover casserole of SEO software"

Laren Helms
Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We currently use RavenTools solely within the marketing department to manage and track analytics across three different websites owned by Action Target. One website is dedicated to B2B lead generation while the other two are dedicated to online sales of consumable products. In the past, we've used RavenTools to track social media engagement, compare SEO health of our own sites to competitors', discover backlinks, create automated reports, and perform site audits.
  • RavenTools has teamed up with SEO services like Moz and Magestic SEO to provide detailed data about the SEO health of your own websites as well as how they compare to your competitors' websites. I can directly compare number of backlinks, page speed, domain authority, integration of Google Analytics, presence of robots.txt files, on-site social media engagement, and home page load time. This a great way to get an idea of how your site stacks up against others and what can be done to improve it.
  • RavenTools' automated reports are mostly great (I'll cover the negatives later). You can create reports with as much data as you would like and schedule them to arrive as often as you would like. I have SEO, social media, and site performance reports delivered to my team and me every Monday covering the last 10 days, and a broader quarterly report arrives in the inboxes of a few executives once a quarter.
  • RavenTools' graphs are often easier to read and decipher than graphs found in Google Analytics. Part of the reason is the graph height. Google Analytics graphs are fairly short, so it's difficult to see smaller variations in the data. Those variations are more pronounced within RavenTools using the data.
  • I've stopped using the automated reports. They still arrive in my inbox every Monday morning, but they're not providing the data I need. One, the great looking graphs that you see online are replaced with really bland graphics that often have scale issues (e.g., the vertical axis on the bounce rate graph goes up to 400% making it impossible to see any kind of variation). Two, you can't drill down the data you want reported. It won't report specific data like conversion rates for mobile and tablet users vs. desktop users. It only reports generic metrics which are rarely actionable and usually don't mean a thing. Three, there are often formatting issues within the report (not a huge issue, but it does look bad when I'm sending it to executives). Four, it's really difficult to make sweeping changes to different reports. If you decide there's a specific stat you want to include in the reports you've already created (not too specific, mind you, because that's not possible), it takes a long time and a lot of effort to make the changes.
  • The analytics portion of RavenTools leaves much to be desired. It's basically a reformatting of what you can find in Google Analytics, but without all of the flexibility. I would much rather see my web stats in GA where I can drill down the data and make better comparisons across acquisition, behavior, and conversions. RavenTools recently redesigned the analytics portion of its website to present the numerical data found underneath the line graph on top in a different way, but it mostly just turned it into a sea of red and green boxes that is difficult to read.
  • The SEO portion of RavenTools isn't very user friendly and doesn't adequately explain what certain metrics are and how they're calculated. For instance, under Campaign->Site Performance, it shows SEO metrics for your site compared to competitors' sites. Two of the metrics provided by Magestic SEO (Trust Flow and Citation Flow) have the exact same definition and are apparently calculated "by the number citations (sic) to a given URL, (sic) or domain." That tells me nothing. Also, there's no explanation for why Majestic SEO and Moz calculate backlinks so differently. When there's a difference of nearly 100% in those statistics, it make you wonder how accurate they are and what they're actually measuring.
  • There are content errors found throughout the RavenTools website. This doesn't necessarily affect the functionality (except when those errors prevent you from understanding what a certain metric is and how it's calculated), but it does reflect on the quality of the service in general. I tend to distrust websites that are full of textual errors, and it tells me that they don't put a lot of effort into the user experience (especially since some of the most glaringly obvious errors haven't been fixed in more than a year).
RavenTools attempts to amalgamate SEO, content management, social media, web analytics, e-commerce, PPC, and email marketing into one platform. I would suggest it only if you have one person doing all of those things (which you really shouldn't anyway). It doesn't really make sense for a team because there are far more robust tools available for each of those individual parts, and a free program like Google Analytics can cover the majority of those categories with added flexibility.
Read Laren Helms's full review
Steve Jones profile photo
June 17, 2014

RavenTools Review: "A Good Tool at a Great Price"

Steve Jones
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
RavenTools has been a valuable asset in our web development and marketing services endeavors mostly because it allows us to load tons of data from multiple sources into one platform. Once you set up a campaign for a website, you can start tracking the metrics that matter to you and your client as well as output custom reports with just a few clicks. These are the features we mostly rely on it RavenTools for:

  • Bing and Google Webmaster Tools data
  • Performance data on social media posts
  • Keyword rankings on Bing and Google
  • AdWords campaign performance
  • Google Anayltics data
  • Quick analysis of on-site optimization for potential and current clients
  • Easily combining the previously mentioned data into white-labeled reports for our clients that we can kick out manually or schedule to be automatically produced.
There are many other great features but these are the core features that we purchased it and use it for.
  • You can very easily take data from your social media campaigns, SEO and SEM campaigns, page optimization, website traffic, etc and combine it all into very neat custom reports.
  • Quick analysis of a website's on-site optimization that can not only help you prepare an SEO campaign or offer insights into why a current campaign isn't working, but also help your sales force close the deal with clients when they see the errors on their current website.
  • You can provide a great deal of transparency with your clients without much overhead on your end by setting them up with access or automatically kicking out PDF reports to them.
  • The data it gets from Webmaster Tools and Analytics is great and reporting on it is easy - however, when you're looking at the charts for keyword placement on screen the graphic can be hard to read and often I find myself just checking GWT and BWT separately for easier information if no report needs to be generated.
  • RavenTools comes with an iPhone app so you can check on your campaigns and clients when you're not at your desk, however, the app crashes quite a bit when you get to the Google Analytics portion of the screen.
I would say RavenTools is most appropriate if you find you are spending a lot of time logging into different services and generating different reports from each. It's been a big time saver for us because we can compile all that data into one report and even generate a cover page and table of contents. This suite has also been beneficial for our sales team in that they we can provide detailed reports on the problems with their website before we even close the deal with them.
Read Steve Jones's full review
Mathew Riexinger profile photo
June 24, 2014

RavenTools Review: "Quote the Raven"

Mathew Riexinger
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
RavenTools is being used to monitor the work that our SEO department has done to easily report to the client in an automated way each month. When covering numerous clients you always have to look for a way to manage your time efficiently, and effectively. Besides using the reporting module for each client, we also utilize the functionality of the PPC, Social Media, SEO, content and research functionality based on the clients goals they wish us to direct our attention to.

When researching for keywords, you want to make sure that the process in researching that you have created for yourself is time management friendly, effective, and a solid base to branch off of as you grow your SEO campaign. Creating content for numerous clients can be hectic, but with Raven Tools, it's a built in module that saves you from finding another software solution that will provide you quality content to use across your SEO and Social Media campaigns. As you can see, there are multiple departments within our company that use Raven Tools on a daily basis. The major thing I see Raven Tools addressing is cutting down on micro-tasking, which, if you're unfamiliar with the term, it's the small day to day tasks that can take up a large portion of your day, and add-up over the course of time to a lot of lost hours and days.
  • I believe RavenTools has a solid grasp on reporting to clients. With a wizard, templates and step by step help instructions for those who are new, this feature is a must use.
  • You can search a keyword to find out how competitive it is, as well as how easy or difficult it would be to rank for based on data you provide.
  • Social Media keyword monitoring is a great tool to use. Since social media websites are one of the most popular places to find your targeted audience, it's crucial you use a tool like this to do it correctly.
  • Though I'm not a big fan on the direction to paid advertisement participation, I cannot discredit RavenTools for my personal preferences. Their PPC module allows you to connect to your Adwords account and utilize the data with the insights and metrics which is great data to have if you find yourself going this route.
  • The one thing I think RavenTools can improve on is implementing Reputation Management functionality into it's application. Since Reputation Management is a crucial aspect companies are looking to have focused on and taken care of effectively, I believe that they can utilize their existing tools to get a great head start with this functionality. In my humble opinion they've had a great product over the course of seven years, and still do, however, keeping up with the marketing trends such as Reputation Management is a key factor in the longevity of their users.
Like any marketing software, it's not going to target every single type of business that's out there. One type of business that comes to mind that it wouldn't be the most effective to use with is actors/actresses, and other entertainment careers. The key questions to ask during the selection process I believe is the easiest, and most effective at the same time would be "What online areas of your business are you looking to improve on, and on a scale of 1-10 (1 - being not very much and 10 - being very much), how interested are you in each of the areas that you just stated?"
Read Mathew Riexinger's full review
Kyle Sherwood profile photo
June 21, 2014

RavenTools: "An honest review of a great product (in my opinion!)"

Kyle Sherwood
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
It's used by the SEM department for research and report creation. It's very useful and is one of the best tools I've seen to date for multiple SEM purposes. RavenTools incorporates task management, keyword research, keyword monitoring, report creation, and it has plugins for Google Analytics. All this for a very reasonable price, which is the major selling point. It's quick and responsive which is also very important.
  • Keyword research - all SEO's know how important this is. RavenTools provides a solid platform for in depth keyword research.
  • Backlink profile monitoring - The fact that it even has tools for this in addition to everything else is fantastic. Not only does it find up to I think 50,000 backlinks in the basic package, it does it relatively quickly and has options to export the data etc.
  • Plugins - It has plugins for analytics and social media which is huge. And they WORK! Other services I've tried had these options but they didn't work well at all, to the point they were useless *conductor searchlight* *cough*
  • Customer Service - At one point I knew names of customer service folks. They're friendly and very helpful. They also hold live webinars for new users that are actually very insightful and the ladies who ran them didn't put me to sleep. Good on them.
  • From what I saw, the reporting could be more customizable. It was pretty darn good, but if we're talking improvements, that's one area I noticed things could be better.
  • The UI was great, but it could use some tightening up. This is just if I'm being picky. It's fine as is but moving forward it'd be cool to see it evolve.
It is built for SEOs and anyone who is genuinely interested in how their site or their client's websites are being received by search engines and how they're performing in the SEO world. If you're not in need of detailed SEO data there are other free tools you can use to get a general idea.
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June 20, 2014

RavenTools Review: "Perspective From the Intern"

Kristy Lynn Papay
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
I used RavenTools when I was a media intern at the i.d.e.a. brand. The media director trained me on the product and how I could use it to improve our search media buys. I did not have much experience or knowledge of the industry when first starting my career and found RavenTools to be very educational and easy to use. The product is very straight forward and you do not need years of experience to be able to get something out of the technology. The i.d.e.a. brand was a start up and did not have a whole team of experienced media buyers, which is probably why my director chose RavenTools as an easy to use product with great insights.
  • Improve the search buy
  • Was able to integrate data from other sources seamlessly
  • Great visuals to provide quick and accurate insights
  • Easy to build dashboards
  • Being able to click a button to print out report. Sometimes the data didn't match exactly what we saw in other reports, so we couldn't rely so much on the day parting optimizations. This may be fixed now.
I just used the product for our search campaign. Optimizations and reporting to client.
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June 20, 2014

User Review: "RavenTools is great!"

Kim Tanner
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
I use RavenTools to track our social media pages in more detail than what is provided by the social media site. Facebook and LinkedIn provide stats, however RavenTools provides much more detailed stats. I love the keyword tool. It shows you what people are searching for, and which websites come up first with certain keywords, and how much they are paying for those keywords. I also love the competitor tool. I can track our competitor, their online presence and their keywords, to see how they are doing in terms of SEO. It compares their online presence to ours, which is great to see. Very helpful.
  • Competitor tracking and comparison
  • Social media stats in detail
  • Keyword reports and rankings
  • I can't think of anything at this time.
Having some understanding of SEO, keyword research and basic online presence analysis is helpful and required with this program.
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June 20, 2014

Review: "RavenTools allows you to do more than "wing it" in online marketing!"

Mary Brautigan
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We were an advertising and marketing agency utilizing RavenTools to monitor and report on SEO and online marketing initiatives, both successes and opportunities for a large client base.
  • Reporting - it was nice to be able to aggregate information from the various SEO and online marketing opportunities into one report. Not only that, but having the flexibility to add in information, minimal HTML, etc allowed us to expand on the reports with suggestions, additional information and ideas.
  • Link building opportunities - being able to research competitors in the market and find a variety of opportunities to build solid, advantageous links was invaluable.
  • Social monitoring allowed us to keep an eye on reputations and manage accordingly, without having to go out and chase down posts on the numerous social channels making it quick, easy and efficient.
  • Regarding pulling in information from PPC - being limited to Google created an issue when it came to reporting as we also ran campaigns through Adcenter. Being exclusive to Google information is a little shortsighted.
  • Not being able to pull more detailed and specific reports from Google Analytics was limiting as well. Only getting the dashboard and being able to segment by Paid vs non-paid was limiting when trying to drill down.
  • The HTML functionality was a little clunky and could be very frustrating for those who aren't really skilled with it but need the functionality. Making a more user-friendly WYSIWYG would go a long way as not all online marketers are programmers.
I think for a small or one person marketing team it is great as it helps make research more efficient. Also for agencies who are trying to manage multiple clients it provides efficiencies and the ability to have a cohesive reporting system that keeps the history and research information all in one place.
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May 14, 2014

"An In-House's Review of RavenTools"

Brian Cox
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
RavenTools was being used by myself (SEO) and our paid search manager to gain insights into the landscape and allow us to hone in on our targeting. We used it to track keywords, rankings, and find opportunity for us to build or reach and brand.

RavenTools was instrumental in setting up reporting that allowed us to focus our time and attention on other aspects such as strategy and implementation.
  • Rank Tracking
  • Automated Reporting
  • Competitive Analysis
  • Plan limitations - number of keywords and domains that you can track on the basic plan isn't the best.
  • Cost - slightly high for what you get.
  • Speed - always felt it was painfully slow running reports and jumping around within my RavenTools dashboard.
It depends what your business goals are and the needs you have. I am now using Moz, which partners with a couple other awesome tools - specifically Followerwonk, which is fantastic for gaining insights into your Twitter accounts. The suite of tools Moz offers is fantastic as well.

RavenTools works great if you are solely interested in your search presence. As mentioned, I loved the reporting, and would say that RavenTools reporting is definitely ahead of Moz right now. I've had a few issues with Moz custom reports over the past few weeks and have had to contact support a couple times.
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February 11, 2014

RavenTools Review: "Raven Tools"

Mark Phillip Solomon
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
RavenTools was the primary SEO tracking platform used by a previous company I was a part of. The entire SEO department was trained on the tool, and all SEO campaigns were managed through RavenTools. All SEO-related components were tracked, such as SERP positions on target keywords, link-building statuses, and historical performance and reporting.
  • RavenTools was a very effective tool in determining the performance of our tracked sites and their target keywords. I particularly liked the feature that allowed us to see the historical SERP performance of our sites and the custom reports they provided.
  • We utilized RavenTools to track the status of our link building efforts. The interface allowed many customizable fields to best help us track each of our separate links and allowed us to add additional information such as dates, status, link types, and important contact information.
  • Customizable reports generated from RavenTools were very useful for the small agency where I utilized the tools. Given our small staff, having an automatically generated report saved us countless hours in time that were better used in optimizing our SEO efforts.
  • While RavenTools was a very effective tool, some features were not fully recognizable and many first time users will miss many important tools or will find that the learning curve can be steep.
  • I've found that some other SEO campaign tracking tools have their data refreshed more often than RavenTools does.
RavenTools is a good tool for both small and large agencies with multiple clients. With the vast array of tools available, small agencies can utilize the reporting tools to help save precious time that can better be used for optimizing. Larger companies will appreciate the powerful link building tracking tool that easily allows the creation of a large database of links.
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February 23, 2016

RavenTools Review: "Good for Small to Mid Size Businesses, Reports Are Underwhelming"

Verified User
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
RavenTools is used in our marketing department as a tool for both our own business and our customers. We primarily use it for website audits for SEO purposes because it makes addressing issues with search easy to fix. We also use it to track who is linking back to our sites.
  • The interface is simple and user-friendly.
  • The reports are intuitive and easy to create.
  • Summary screens make quick-views each morning a breeze.
  • The reports are very amateurish. The graphs are too big and the size can't be changed. Even with the customization they offer (adding your logo) the reports are too basic looking to present to clients. They are also all in black and white, which is a huge issue for us. They're just not impressive enough to show clients.
  • The keyword ranking system is difficult to understand because they use a different method than some other search ranking monitoring services that are on the market. They aren't very good at explaining the discrepancies between their software and their competitors'.
  • Customizing the reports is too time consuming.
It is well suited for small businesses with easy to manage social platforms or those who are looking to improve search ranking. Their in-depth site audit tool is the primary reason we've been a customer for so long.

For big businesses with active social presence on several platforms or those who need to provide impressive reporting, this software would not be the best fit.
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January 26, 2016

Review: "RavenTools a good fit for modest SEO needs, but not the best solution for deep SEO needs"

Verified User
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
RavenTools is used by the digital marketing team to track SEO, keyword performance, and other digital metrics to supplement Google Analytics reporting on our various websites, primarily as an SEO keyword tracking and reporting platform. It isn't used by other departments outside of marketing, although they do receive portions of the reporting.
  • Reporting of keyword activity on our various sites
  • Helping plan new SEO strategies based on existing trends
  • Evaluating competitors' sites when planning SEO for new pages
  • It was difficult when the tool stopped providing keywords used for organic Google searches a few years ago.
  • When the product we repositioned as a digital marketing platform vs. an SEO platform, use of it as a standalone SEO package became more difficult
  • Many elements of the program overlap with other reporting and tools we already have from other vendors, and need to be supplemented with additional details before our reports are ready to share internally.
RavenTools is not as well suited for a pure SEO tracking platform as it was years ago, but for people with minimal SEO tracking needs it can still function appropriately. It wasn't as useful for our company for SEO so we eventually added Moz.
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September 11, 2015

RavenTools Review: "SEOh no you don't. Raven for Moz because... well I like it."

Verified User
Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
RavenTools was being used to manage the online presence of multiple clients looking for SEO optimization and PPC and SMM campaigns. I was the only individual involved in using the product, but the custom reports we were able to generate for clients and sales meetings were key to the company's closing of content strategy contracts.
  • Actionable Reporting - the data that was generated such that clients could pick up and understand the information presented to them.
  • SERP Tracking - compared to MOZtools, Raven's SERP tracking is a bit more difficult to handle. Having easy to use actionable dashboard charts are something that was sorely needed.
  • SEO Management - it may not be the bread and butter of the suite, but I feel like Moz does this better. It was why I switched over to Moz.
It is better suited to manage a paid search campaign rather than SERP tracking. Maybe I went in expecting something different, but once they lost their ability to do SERP tracking, even though it isn't something that determines the success of your campaign; it made it more difficult to speak to client's concerns because all they care about are SERP rankings.
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September 08, 2015

RavenTools Review: "I just love this product!"

Verified User
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
I am the Digital Marketing Specialist at DS Smith, Plastics Division. I manage 5 separate websites and RavenTools helps organize the keywords and the performance for each website. I also use this tool for the Social Media reporting tools.
  • Helps organize the keywords that you want to keep track of
  • The research tool helps save time and helps with decision making
  • The Social Media section is easy to use and the reporting is great
  • Generally, I love this tool, however I would add a section for Google Plus.
I was an intern for a business coaching company, and I used this tool. When I moved over to my new company, I loved this tool so much that I suggested we used it as well.
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December 18, 2014

Review: "RavenTools - Indispensable Product, Despite Glitches"

Verified User
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
RavenTools is used for reporting, tracking, and analyzing our client campaigns. Both Management and the SEO department use RavenTools for client work. As of yet, we have not encountered a more efficient way to organize and track the work that we do for our clients (link building, SEO, reporting).
  • RavenTools helps us organize links that we are building and pursuing for our clients.
  • Not only can we easily organize and segment links, but we can use RavenTools to communicate effectively with team members.
  • The site auditors are easy, simple to understand and explain, and provide valuable data from multiple sources.
  • The Raven Toolbar needs serious improvement. Ever since they launched the new RavenTools in the fall of 2013, the Google Chrome extension toolbar has been glitchy, difficult to use, and frustrating.
  • The tracking software can be glitchy and will sometimes record links as active/inactive incorrectly. This isn't always true, but it has happened a few times.
To my knowledge, there isn't a competitor that does what RavenTools does at the same level. Although there are some issues with RavenTools (mostly just technical problems that need to be ironed out), I would still highly recommend the tool to anyone in SEO and internet marketing. The organization, categorization, and reporting is absolutely fantastic, and I don't know what I would do without it.
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May 07, 2014

RavenTools Review: "Save the headache of comparing products, Raven is it"

Verified User
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
As a startup advisor, I've found nothing capable of aggregating the insight of moz to the extent that other tools are irrelevant. Raven accomplishes that, providing an all in one search intelligence service that I use on behalf of startups to provide market intel, search optimization direction, competitive analysis, and key word research.
  • Key word rank tracking
  • Competitive web site analysis
  • Site performance data
  • Google analytics integration
  • While the key word ranking tools are second to none, I'd still like to see a platform lead the market, providing business performance data from organic search rank, and not just position
  • Key word rank by location is missing and search results, today, being personalized. makes location very relevant to every business
I've used every other major platform available, and a number of unknown startups. Raven has its warts, but I don't think a review of alternatives is worth your time. There is no selection process: set up Raven.
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June 30, 2014

RavenTools Review: "Great for reporting, lacking in analysis"

Verified User
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
I currently work in-house at a large, publicly traded online marketplace. When I used RavenTools, I was at a very small (between 10-15 people) SEO agency. RavenTools was the primary link building tracking, social media monitoring, and reporting tool, as well as a secondary keyword tracking tool. As I generated most of the reporting I was the primary user of the tool, but most folks dipped into it now and then as necessary.
  • Reporting—this was by far the thing that RavenTools did best, in my estimation. The reports the tool created looked sharp and authoritative, and were very modular and customizable. This is no small thing when you work in an agency and need to provide reporting to clients.
  • Link tracking—this was sort of like a proto-Buzzstream, a CRM-esque tool that enabled users to identify link prospects, links acquired, and the like. A nice feature (pretty ubiquitous now, but still valuable) was tracking those links, so if they went away you could act on that.
  • Keyword research—RavenTools mashed up a few different sources of data—Keyword Planner (then the Keyword Tool), Wordtracker, and SEMRush—which provided a nice multifaceted range of data on keyword targets. This is valuable because none of these tools are individually entirely trustworthy, so it's good to get several options.
  • Social media monitoring—for our clients that needed this, this was a great tool. It was basically link tracking for Facebook, Twitter, and Google Alerts, but it pulled in the contextual post around the mention and you could assign sentiment to it.
  • Depth of toolset—This might have changed in the interim but the level of analysis the tools provided was very input/output—you input data in the tool, you get a report of the data you input. Monitoring was a nice layer, but you can't go wild with filters and entering a data wormhole like you can with seoClarity or BrightEdge.
  • "Useful" integrations—Raven was very much a tool built around reporting. When I say "useful," I don't mean to imply that the integrations were worthless—they just weren't things you could USE very well. They were more there to easily input into a report. The exception to this was the keyword research toolset.
  • Use as an enterprise tool—Agency life and in-house life are two very different things. This tool definitely satisfies the needs of the former more than the latter, especially for smaller agencies who are less integrated with their clients.
The 6 rating splits the difference between agency and in-house. Agency, I'd give it an 8, especially if you have a lot of low-touch clients—the type that pay you a couple thousand a month for monitoring, reporting, and occasional consultation. If your agency has a more integrated model with regard to its clients, and you're in on calls all the time with different stakeholders in the org and doing work for the client every day, you're definitely bumping up against the limits of what Raven can do for you. And if you're in-house, I'd give this a 4. I can't see what RavenTools would do for you unless your internal customer really likes slick reporting and doesn't demand much from you, or unless SEO is a very small part of your job—in which case you're probably better off paying someone else to pull RavenTools reports for you.
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RavenTools Scorecard Summary

Likelihood to Recommend (48)
7.7
Likelihood to Renew (15)
9.7
Usability (1)
7.0
Availability (1)
8.0
Support (1)
9.0

Feature Scorecard Summary

Keyword analysis (8)
6.9
Backlink management (9)
3.6
SERP ranking tracking (9)
3.6
Page grader (8)
8.3
Competitive analysis (8)
7.0
Site audit / diagnostics (9)
9.0
Site recommendations (8)
8.7
Task management (6)
5.7
Local SEO (5)
2.9
Social SEO (7)
6.9
Mobile SEO (6)
6.9
Global SEO (6)
8.9
Multi-domain support (8)
10.0
Integration with web analytics tools (9)
8.6

About RavenTools

Raven Tools from the Tennessee company of the same name is Internet or search engine marketing optimization software consisting of popular tools targeted at SEO specialists who need research automation. To that end it contains the familiar set of website research and auditing, competitor monitoring, rank tracking, and also content investigation to see that material on the site is keyword-rich yet topically relevant. Social media and backlink checking tools facilitate outreach and drive traffic by way of getting cited by others. Like other more comprehensive solutions, Raven Tools also helps marketers manage PPC campaigns with analytics and reporting.

The Raven Pro edition allows 4 users access to Ravel Tools for $99 per month, while Raven Agency provides a group of unlimited size shared access for $249 per month. Both editions support unlimited campaigning and access to Raven Tools' foundational data sources, as well as white label reporting, but Agency triples Link Manager storage from 50k to 150k links.

Categories:  Search Engine Marketing (SEM),  Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

RavenTools Integrations

RavenTools Competitors

RavenTools Technical Details

Operating Systems: Unspecified
Mobile Application:No