The ultimate tool for a busy SEO professional
December 30, 2022
The ultimate tool for a busy SEO professional
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Conductor
We use Conductor to gain insight into SEO performance across our largest flagship websites. It also provides an efficient way to relay that information to management at a high level without getting too much in the weeds, a requirement when communicating with C-level employees or board members. It has made my life less stressful as the sole person responsible for SEO in a global organization.
- When I need to quickly determine what Google features our keywords are ranking for: Featured Snippets, Carousels, Rich Snippets, Sitelinks, PAA boxes, etc.
- The ability to create highly customizable dashboards that provide a one-page view of insights for the specific web properties you are tracking.
- A content guidance tool that is unmatched by any other product available in the market.
- Some of the automated tools designed for creating and grouping keywords can leave a lot to be desired. This is a hard thing to do across a lot of industries, but I would hope they can use AI to improve this.
- The customizable dashboards are great but setting them up can be a bit overwhelming due to the sheer number of choices available, and some of the options are hard to be aware of if you haven't been through some of their academy courses.
- The Live Edit feature in Content King has given me the ability to make changes on the fly without having to wait for developer time to make simple edits.
- I have been able to gain back hours of time that I previously spent on aggregating data across tools when preparing on-the-fly reports for management.
- Every morning my dashboard provides me with a new insight or answers a question I may not have even thought to ask. This has added to my workload, but it's also helped to become better at my job.
I can pull data from Search Console and Google Analytics directly into Conductor. This information has helped me discover what content is performing and what is underperforming. This will help tremendously as we build the content team and migrate some of our sites over the next year.
We have also experienced some DDOS attacks in the past. Using data from Google Analytics, the alert features within Conductor helped me be aware of these spikes in traffic within a much shorter window of time than was previously possible.
As the sole person responsible for SEO inside a global company, I have minimal bandwidth. Conductor has helped me prioritize the issues I should be working on now and the ones I can either move to a later date or ignore entirely.
We have also experienced some DDOS attacks in the past. Using data from Google Analytics, the alert features within Conductor helped me be aware of these spikes in traffic within a much shorter window of time than was previously possible.
As the sole person responsible for SEO inside a global company, I have minimal bandwidth. Conductor has helped me prioritize the issues I should be working on now and the ones I can either move to a later date or ignore entirely.
Currently, this is not a feature of the tool we are using, and I considered it when I weighed this tool against a competitor when choosing which we would adopt. I hope to expand the SEO team this year and take full advantage of the collaboration tools in the platform to best communicate across that team. We also plan to add the content team to Conductor and Content King and use it to create and share content briefs with that team.
This is probably the feature I have spent the least time exploring, but it holds so much potential. So far, I've only used it to find keywords and monthly search volume around specific topics quickly. The social mention features are a nice touch; we need to add this to the quiver of tools our social team has access to.
We switched to Conductor from BrightEdge because the team at BrightEdge didn't seem very helpful during our weekly calls, and the platform was tough to use. The features were not laid out in a very logical or user-friendly fashion, and it was often difficult to accomplish even simple tasks. For instance, creating dashboards could be a trying experience, and I would usually give up and use a different platform because it was easier.
Do you think Conductor delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Conductor's feature set?
Yes
Did Conductor live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Conductor go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Conductor again?
Yes
Conductor Feature Ratings
Using Conductor
4 - There are two managers, one SEO specialist, and a data analyst.
1 - That is predominantly the SEO Specialist. We did purchase support from Conductor to ease this burden for him because he has a lot on his plate.
- Tracking SEO performance
- Being aware of technical SEO issues so they can be prioritized and addressed
- Guidance in regards to content planning, creation, and optimization
- Providing data to justify the investment in SEO
- Helping me uncover new insights that I would have not thought of
- Discover long-tail keywords that could be very good featured snippet opportunities
- The social team could find the social mention data in Explorer useful when planning content.
- The Business Case Builder tool could provide some insight once we have a good amount of traffic data to model against.
Evaluating Conductor and Competitors
Yes - We used BrightEdge before the switch, but the support team there was ineffective, and the tool was hard to use. My boss asked me to evaluate a new tool to replace BrightEdge, and I ultimately settled on Conductor.
- Product Features
- Product Usability
The ease of use was the most crucial factor for me. This is the tool where I will spend the bulk of my time daily, and it has to be easy to use. I am one person running SEO for a global company; therefore, I have to be very efficient with my time and any tool I use. I have to grok it quickly, and without the need for extensive training to accomplish even the most simple tasks, early indications were that Conductor would fit that bill.
I don't think I would change anything, and to be honest, it has only gotten better the more I use the platform. I urge any company considering Conductor to dive deep during the review and ensure the feature set is adequate for your specific needs. It is not an inexpensive decision, but I am glad we chose Conductor.
Conductor Implementation
- Implemented in-house
Yes - We utilized single sign-on and API access, so it took a little time to implement all of these features among my teams. The SEO team started immediately, our data analyst API access was up and running within a few weeks, and working with IT to implement single sign-on took the longest.
- Waiting for data to accumulate in the platform. Since it's not backward looking, much of our traffic data with regards to tracked keywords is only available with the passage of time. This means in the beginning, there isn't a lot of insight to gain, and in a cyclical industry, like the pool industry, it will take almost a year to get a full sales cycle of data.
Conductor Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | None |
Yes, we have a dedicated support team inside Conductor. Again, because I am a one-person team, I don't have much time to troubleshoot platform issues for our tools; I need them to work. In my specific case having a group of people I could turn to for support was worth the added investment.
Yes - There was a bug in the menu, and it was resolved in less than 24 hours.
I was doing a content audit for one of our sites, and it happened to be on the same day we were having a training session. They changed the entire training format to walk me through performing that audit with the tool. They also recorded the session and provided me with links to additional articles so I could review them later if I needed to deepen my understanding.
Using Conductor
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Familiar | None |
- Seeing which keywords are performing at a glance is almost effortless
- Technical issues are easy to discover in Content King
- Comparing our performance against a competitor across all tracked keywords
- Discovering new content opportunities where you could capitalize on a competitor in the marketplace
- Adding keywords and grouping them can be tedious (or maybe it's just boring to me)
- Creating reports could sometimes be a little more intuitive