Quick review from an SEO specialist at a small to medium-sized agency
Updated March 03, 2024
Quick review from an SEO specialist at a small to medium-sized agency
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Overall Satisfaction with Conductor
Only the Earned Media/SEO department uses Conductor right now. We currently use it for ranking tracking and some reporting, although hoping to incorporate it more into our processes in the future.
- Strategy organization, specifically with keyword categories and content segments. Both of these really help you stay organized with different initiatives that you're working on to not only track and report on performance but to compare and even test initiatives.
- This is pretty specific, but rank trends and keyword pipelines. These views are both good for understanding impact of initiatives and reporting/communicating this with clients in way that makes them say "wow!"
- To piggy back on my last point...Overall, I think Conductor does a good job of prioritizing features and views that are exactly what marketers need to show business impact. You could just report rankings, but Conductor always seems focused on taking it a step further and giving you easier ways to communicate success with clients in terms and charts like clients actually understand and that speak better to their business goals.
- Potentially the incorporation of more metrics. I'm not necessarily sure how to do this without getting too cumbersome, but it would be great to be able to pull custom metrics from GA, or engagement metrics. Again, I'm not sure how to pull the engagement metrics that GA has, since they are sometimes not as meaningful as we'd like, but overall I think with the increased importance on engagement for SEO, having some sort of engagement section of the tool would be VERY valuable. Whether this is made up of simple engagement from GA, or connecting with Hot Jar or other heat map/engagement tools I'm not sure, but I think that would be very impactful.
- Bring annotations back! This was a very useful tool, but it went away. Especially if those annotations show up in Page Insights along the automatically-detected changes that go there.
- The "Page Recommendations" tool has gotten a lot better, but it's still not useful enough to want to use it. It gives fairly generic recommendations that may not apply based on the specific keyword strategy for that page. I may need to dig around more myself, but i have the feeling that it could be better, perhaps with a more tight connection to your own keyword categories or other planned strategies. Or maybe I just haven't tested it out enough.
- I haven't calculated ROI specifically, and I don't believe we currently use Conductor to its fullest potential, but I would say that if using Conductor to its fullest potential in the area of SEO strategy management, you would probably see positive ROI due to being able to be very efficient and focused with your strategy.
We've seen some data discrepancies in keyword search volume, especially during the transition away from Keyword Planner to Conductor's own proprietary data. This is pretty important, mainly because we use search volume and competition to prioritize areas of focus for strategy AND to communicate that with the client, so with incorrect data you risk making an inadvertently poor decision AND it's confusing to the client. Other than that, data seems consistent.
So far there hasn't been that much collaboration in terms of content. I haven't found a workflow that really brings a lot of value to content planning. I'm sure it's there but I just haven't used those features to the fullest potential yet, so maybe my answer isn't the best on this one.
I didn't really use this feature much.
I have used Semrush regularly, alongside Conductor and in place of Conductor. Semrush is more cost effective, but overly complicated and not as good with reporting. I think the biggest thing I miss when using Semrush is content segments actually. However, I do prefer Semrush's Keyword Magic too for keyword research.
Do you think Conductor delivers good value for the price?
No
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?
No
Conductor Feature Ratings
Using Conductor
3 - Sales, strategy, coordinator. So hitting all levels- from high-level overview to day-to-day, in-the-weeds set up and analysis.
3 - Simply experience and familiarity knowing where things are. No special skills required.
- Tracking results from specific SEO projects
- Pitching new business by creating results predictions
- Overall organic visibility
- Predicting project results/ROI
- Using the Research tools more frequently
Evaluating Conductor and Competitors
- Scalability
- Integration with Other Systems
I wasn't the decision maker, but I do know that the decision comes down to the ability to show the most value in our work with clients at scale (as an agency)
Wouldn't change anything.
Conductor Implementation
- Implemented in-house
Change management was minimal
- Losing historical data from previous tools
Conductor Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed Immediate help available Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | None |
No, we are familiar enough with Conductor not to need premium support.
Yes - Yes, reported many bugs. The team is very responsive but not always able to fix it (goes into Feature Request)
No exceptional time comes to mind - they are very responsive consistently across all issues, but i can't say there's ever been an "above and beyond" moment.
Using Conductor
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Well integrated Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Keyword Performance
- Content Performance / Content Segments
- Research tools